Hey chook
Forgive me saying so but you are going about this the wrong way. Your neighbours are crazy, dangerous, vexatious and causing you great mental stress. They are being enabled by council, most of these complaints should never have come to your ears, they should have been rejected by council, council are harrassing you because they refuse to label these people as vexatious. Let council know THEY are the cause of your mental stress, your health problems, your fear of what terrible complaint will come next..then tell them you are thinking of taking an action against council for enabling and encouraging these people to keep up their harrasment and defamation of you and your family (and they do encourage them by taking every complaint seriosly), when the evidence shows every complaint has been proved false. Council will have the records of every visit to your property and the outcome. Any Laywer will tell you council need to pull their head in and stop harrassing you in the face of overwhelming evidence that a vexatious complaint is at work. Do not talk to council about the gumboots, to not try to deny any stupid complaints gumboots make, simply tell council you are comming after THEM!!. They will try to bring it back to the dispute between you and your neighbour, dont let them, tell them your not interested in that any more, your interest is in THEM and why they are encouraging these people to keep up a council sanctified harrasment of you and your family. Give it a go. A letter from a laywer to council will cost you a few hundred bucks but watch them run for cover when you are no longer part of a "neigbourhood dispute" but someone who is accussing them of being the "harrassers". I garrantee you a good outcome and when you get it you can thank me by letting me stay a weekend at the homestay!
cheers essie
PS do NOT let them draw you into converasation about the gumboots let them know you have bigger fish to fry..THEM