When Keith Davis and David Ruth moved into their home in quiet Avondale, Pennsylvania, they were expecting to find a safe and peaceful place to raise their two sons. What they weren't expecting was to almost immediately get caught up in a tenuous legal dispute with their neighbors, climaxing in their garage being tagged with homophobic slurs.

The trouble began in early 2015 when Davis and Ruth received complaints about their recently-installed fence, which representatives from the neighborhood association said was too high. When the couple failed to make alterations to the fence, they were slapped with a lawsuit.

Though they were surprised by the extreme measure, Ruth told a local NBC affiliate that they were hesitant to make any snap judgments.

"We didn’t want to jump to that conclusion, but it definitely felt over the top," said Ruth. "How can you be this upset about a fence you can barely see? Something felt off."

Not long after the lawsuit was filed, the couple reported that vandals broke their security sensors and took to the fence with a hacksaw. The incidents went unchecked, leading the scared family to spend the entire summer of 2015 traveling as to avoid the hostile environment.

When they returned, tensions appeared to have cooled until one morning when Davis woke up to find the phrase, "Get out Fags" scrawled across their garage. In that moment, the couple knew that the strain they'd been feeling with their neighbors was never fueled by anger over the fence at all, but rather by homophobia.

Last month, Judge Jeffrey R. Sommer of Chester County agreed when he ruled in favor of Davis and Ruth in the legal dispute. Sommer said the couple would be allowed to keep their fence as it was evident the neighborhood committee selectively enforced rules based on convenience.

Sommer took his ruling a step further when he came down on the neighborhood association for their treatment of the gay couple.

"There is no doubt that once Mr. Davis’ sexual orientation was discovered, the tenor of the neighborhood interactions changed," the judge said. He went on to specifically condemn neighbor and plaintiff Ryan Carpenter, who witnesses said "would yell 'other things' which included homophobic slurs" at the couple's home.

Despite his ruling, many in the neighborhood claim that their problems with the couple have nothing to do with them being gay.

"Most of my neighbors who were involved or weren’t involved are just disgusted with the way this evolved into a homophobic thing," said Frank Charlton, a plaintiff in the suit who has been living in the development since 1999. "It is about a fence. It was about a fence."

"Nobody’s homophobic," Charlton continued. "No one is homophobic here. It’s simply and truly about a fence."

Though Davis and Ruth are relieved to have the legal drama behind them, they admit that the entire process has made them feel like outcasts in their neighborhood, adding that the ordeal cost them "not just financially, but emotionally."

The couple has since set up a GoFundMe campaign to help cover the nearly $80,000 they were forced to spend in legal fees.