I'm trying to decide how to handle an apartment neighbor situation. We live in a two-floor house, on the bottom floor, and we have another tenant living above us. We haven't had any real issues with her (nor she with us, I hope!) but she definitely has some interesting quirks that, while slightly annoying, are ignore-able.

One thing is that she seems to have a sense of seniority/ownership about the house, I'm guessing because she has lived here for years and we've only been here since June. We have a (free) washer/dryer in the basement and when we moved in she basically told us we could only use it on Sundays and Mondays because the rest of the days were "her" laundry days. A little strange, but whatever, we don't have that much laundry and we're flexible. Then she told us we couldn't keep ANYTHING in the communal front entryway/foyer, not even a shoe mat, because she doesn't like clutter and she might trip over it. Mmm, fine, I guess? The landlord, when we moved in, told us not to worry about doing any yard work, because she takes care of it in exchange for a break in the rent — well, come to find out, she gives her boyfriend's kid a couple bucks to mow, while she gets a pretty decent reduction in rent. That one sort of bugs me the most, because I would happily mow and rake myself for reduced rent!! But I get it, she's been here a while, she's set in her ways.

Anyway, recently my dog has started developing sores/wounds on her paw pads. At first I thought it was part of a recent illness she had, until I noticed it was happening every time she went outside. We have a porch that leads to a few steps and then a shared, fenced-in yard. The porch is for our use only, though. After noticing the paw sores I went out to investigate and found huge amounts of rock salt all over our porch and cement steps. Basically almost piles of it. Our landlord hasn't been over and there was a bag of rock salt on the upstairs tenant's stairs, so I can only imagine she put it out.

I can see that it might be a nice gesture on her part, but a.) she doesn't use our porch or steps and b.) it hasn't even been snowy/icy!!! It's just starting to get on my nerves that she takes it upon herself to do all these things to communal areas, but "forbids" us to touch the communal areas because it would bother her.

I need to tell her not to put rock salt out on our steps and I'm not sure if I should just go up and knock on her door and do it face-to-face (I'm so awkward...) or write a note thanking her but asking her not to do it again. I'm worried that might sound passive-aggressive.

What do you think? To her face? Note? Neither? Something else?