My Neighbor Caught Me Messing Around with Her Dog's Poop

My house shares a yard with a couple of other units, and one of these neighbors recently got a new puppy. I think when she got the puppy she thought mainly of the cuteness and less about the responsibility because things haven't been going so well on that front. The dog is left in the yard barking and whining for hours at a time, and while I'm not wild about that, I'm even less in love with the shit all over the yard. Dogs poop, so I don't object to that, but I don't like that our shared yard is now a literal minefield of crap. Like, clean it up every so often!

I meant to address this issue with my neighbor like an adult, but before I got around to that, I had a friend over one day and she shouted, "WHY IS THERE DOG SHIT ALL OVER YOUR YARD?" Right after, I realized that the neighbor was standing at the adjacent and open window and must have heard the comment. That's not how I wanted her to hear that message, but I wasn't upset that it happened because at least she'd take the hint.

Except that the "hint" was ignored. A month worth's of poop amassed in the yard including several piles right outside my own front door. I decided my best course of action was just to just wait for the landlady to show up on the first of the month to pick up rent because she'd definitely say something about the mess.

On the 30th, however, my neighbor went around and picked up the poop. That meant she knew she was about to get and trouble, yet waited until the last moment to get rid of the problem. Of course, she didn't bother with the poop around my door, which would not be visible to my landlady.

So I devised a plan: I would move some of the remaining poop closer to the front so that the landlady would see it. It's silly, it's gross, and it's passive aggressive, but I genuinely thought it was a good plan.

I waited until 1:30 am so that I could do it secretly. With a couple of napkins, I scooped up dried out poop using both hands and made my way to the front yard. It was only as I was in the process of relocating the poop in a new spot on the ground that I realized that my neighbor was sitting silently in the dark on the porch. Panicked, I picked the poop back up and shoved it in my pocket and ran back into my house as my neighbor watched.

I can't be sure of what she saw or more importantly what she thinks she saw, but since the motion sensor light next to me had turned on, I have to assume she did see me doing something with her's dog poop. In retrospect, I should have put it in the trashcan rather than my pockets as if to indicate, "See, I have to pick up your dog's poop!" but I was caught off guard.

I don't even know whether it'd be better if my neighbors thought I was being conniving by recreating the poop mess or that I'm plain crazy and randomly playing with dog poop super late at night. Either way, I'm super embarrassed and feel like an idiot for not realizing this "good plan" was bound to backfire on me.