Why do Bad Neighbors Happen to Cheap People?

So, this has been bothering me for a while, and while I expect none of you to care, I just have to vent because I can't think of many other things to do about it. First, some background:
We moved to NWA from Armpit, Alabama. Literally. (Ryan read this and would like for me to be a bit more generous toward the old armpit by interjecting that we did enjoy some of our time there and made a handful of good friends whose company we very much enjoyed and with whom we still associate, so nothing personal). I won't elaborate too much because I'm so happy to be gone from there that I chose not to dwell, but I will take just a minute to describe a situation with one of my old neighbors. We''ll just call her "E." I have to say that though E probably looked at me as more of a resource than a neighbor or a friend, I found myself charmed by her most of the time. We moved into the opposite side of the duplex she was already living in, and we spent 3, uh, slightly less than blissful years there. Shortly after we moved in, we splurged on a new vacuum cleaner. She soon began to have a need to borrow it. At first, she would borrow, vacuum, and return. No problem. Except that she was prone to use the hose and attachments to clean out her guinea pig cage now and again. That disgusted me, but she seemed clueless, so I said nothing. I cleaned out the filter often just to be safe. Guinea pig poo is not what I really want circulating in my air. She soon tired of the guinea pig, got rid of it, and life was better. Once, about about a year before we moved out, she bought a brand spankin' new vacuum of her own. It was quite a nice one, and I thought for sure the sharing days were over. Just then mine broke, or at least I thought it did. Wait; did I forget to mention that at this point she had 2 cats, and she had taken to cleaning out their litter box with my vacuum? Silly me. Oh, and at one point there were about 9 kittens too. I HATE cats, so I was not thrilled with this, but I still had no idea what to say. Plus I had her conditioned to use me for a doormat by this point, so being frustrated was useless. So, a couple days before Christmas, my vacuum cleaner stopped working. I told Ryan I'd just borrow hers. He wouldn't hear of it, but we really didn't have the extra money to buy a new one right before Christmas, so I did end up borrowing hers once. I told her mine was broken, and she had the nerve to tell me, "It shouldn't be broken. You've only had it for 2 years!" I really wanted to reply that she should multiply by at least 2 since that vacuum had been serving 2 families for those 2 years, not to mention a herd of disgusting house pets. For all I know she might have cleaned out a septic tank with it at some point. Anyway, I use the vacuum, tell Ryan what she said, return it, and the next thing I know, mine is working again! Ryan decided that if I didn't want to go spend money on a new one, he was hellbent that we would not be borrowing hers. What he found when he dismantled the thing was an unbelievable tangle of cat hair, wet kitty litter, and dust. I thought he would kill her on the spot, but I didn't want to have to visit him in jail on Christmas, so I asked him to hold off. With the vacuum cleaned out and working properly again, we enjoyed a few weeks of sole custody. I couldn't believe it when she asked me to borrow mine again. In just a few weeks she bad broken this new vacuum cleaner. And guess what? She could easily fix it. All she needed to do was order a belt. To make a long story a little shorter, I'll just say that when we moved out a year later, we were still sharing the vacuum cleaner with her.
I only told you that story to tell you about my new neighbors. When we moved here, we decided we'd rent for a short while and save money. We signed a short lease on a brand new duplex in a nearly empty neighborhood. The rent was super cheap, which I liked, and the other side was occupied with the nicest couple. They had no kids, and they were so quiet that I often wondered if they might have been dead. We were accustomed to plenty of noise and drama, so living next to them was like a vacation. It wasn't to last. They moved out, and we got some new neighbors. They were gems, and they left after only a few months. The people who moved in after that are still here. We've shared walls with them since around March I think. They are fairly quiet most of the time, and we know almost nothing about them except that they are 2 grown sisters, and one of them has 2 daughters (one teenager and one 5 year old I think). I don't mind that. After 3 years of living beside E, I like to keep to myself. I'm not very neighborly, but I'm friendly enough when I need to be.
Shortly after they moved in, one of them came to ask a favor. She needed to use our phone. We assumed they hadn't had theirs turned on yet. Or that they were cell phone only people and the one with the phone was not home. Whatever. She stood right outside our front door, used the phone, and handed it back after a few minutes. This happened perodically, but never more than once every couple of weeks. Until recently. For the last month and half they have needed a phone with increasing frequency. It went from once every couple weeks, to every few days. I was shocked one day when the teenage daughter knocked on the door. I hadn't seen her in a few months, and apparently she'd been busy. She was about 13 months pregnant, so we sort of thought that was why they were using our phone all the time. Maybe she was a typical first timer, and she had lots of false alarms and would call her doctor all the time. As big as she was, we figured she'd pop any day, so we'd only need to put up with it until the baby came. She started coming for the phone daily then. And still the 2 adults would come borrow the phone occasionally. Once the teenager decided that standing in my front doorway was not convenient enough for her, so she asked if she could take it home with her. I said fine, because frankly, I didn't really want to air condition the entire yard, let flies in, or hear her talking on my phone. Well, that was a mistake. After that her visits came even more often, and she began to keep my phone for 2 hours at a time. Then we didn't hear from them for a few days. Sweet relief! She had that baby at last. No sooner did they have time to return from the hospital, and they were back at my door. It can be 8 in the morning, or 2 in the afternoon, or 9 at night. Knock, borrow, 2 hours, and back. Sometimes I think she forgets she's borrowed it, so I will call myself from a cell phone, thinking that if she hears it ringing she'll remember and bring it back. This has about a 60% success rate. Now we're up to twice a day sometimes, and I gotta tell you, I am no longer amused. I'm thinking that if you need to use the phone daily, it's time to GET ONE of your own. Just a thought.
So, I'm sitting here wondering why this kind of thing follows me wherever I go. I know from my E experience that the public phone service ain't going away unless I do something to stop it, but I seem to be incapable of making the letters "N" and "O" come out of my mouth at the same time. I should practice in front of a mirror maybe.
While I'd like to chalk this up to my being spineless, I've had to tackle another issue altogether. It's all good and fine to be frugal and save money, but it may be time to stop being so darned cheap. I may be bringing this on myself. As hard as this has been for me to admit, because I'm chronically cheap, I've realized something: you get what you pay for, and for the last few years, I've been paying for chicken-head neighbors. Anyone wanna help pack? I'll let you borrow the phone . . . or vacuum cleaner. Your choice!