WIBTA if I called the city on my neighbors for trashing their yard w/out talking to them first?

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The original was posted on /r/amitheasshole by /u/DifferenceNice3636 on 2023-07-27 15:41:01+00:00.

We moved to our current neighborhood a few years ago. Our next door neighbors had some issues with an overloaded driveway and a derelict vehicle, but it was just a quirk that we were totally willing to overlook. Our neighborhood is comfy, but far from high-end. It's also more important to us to maintain good relationships in our neighborhood than nitpick about our neighbors' properties.

Our neighbors are kind people. They are a young family with a little one and a second one on the way. We also learned that the husband has ADHD which leads him to taking on a lot of projects he doesn’t finish. He has acknowledged that his front yard doesn’t look great and says he is working on cleaning it up.

Over the past year the problem has gotten much worse. He has moved numerous things out of his garage a on to the driveway – tool boxes, appliances, non-working vehicles, a makeshift work bench, and other trash. He said he was rearranging things to make a man cave in his garage. It has encroached over the sidewalk and even into the street. It has been like this for a year. Due to the trash in his driveway, they park in the middle of our court and so do their guests. Although we can usually find a way to drive around them, they often block parts of our driveway.

We have considered being diplomatic and asking them to clean the situation up. While we don't believe it's fully our business what they do with their property, it's clear that, besides being unattractive to look at, it is also impacting our parking situation. However, we are concerned that because it has gotten so far out of hand, and he is often so scattered that he may not take it seriously and likely won’t clean up the yard.

WIBTA for not talking to him first and wanting to call the city anonymously? I feel like a citation from the city would help motivate him to clean it up for real. Yet I also don’t want to give this young family a bunch of fines when they are struggling. I feel like I'd be an asshole for not talking to him first, but if diplomacy fails, then there's no way we could get the city involved without them knowing it was us and ruining our relationship with him and potentially others in our court. I've also considered talking to other neighbors to see if we might be able to approach him together, but if they aren't on board, we could be outted if we ever try to take anonymous action.