09 November 2012

Character of the Day, My Crazy Neighbors


Today I read a Facebook status of an ole high school friend. It was something along the lines of being grateful that she has wonderful neighbors. This got me thinking about my own neighbors whom I’ve had the displeasure to endure for several years. I started writing a comment, which turned into an epic rant, and so I decided rather than clutter her beautiful status with my obvious discourse, I would instead create this post on my blog.

Many years ago, when our neighbors moved in, there was the occasional chitchat across our respective lawns when leaving for work, arriving home from work, and checking the mail. That all changed when we put up our privacy fence.

The privacy fence is a required structure by the City of Tallahassee for any resident owner of a pool. Of course, we are law-abiding citizens and since we were having a pool installed, we erected the 6-foot standard privacy fence. That’s when things turned ugly.

It was as if the neighbors felt jaded, the privacy fence being our statement of drawing boundaries. Why does this happen? I don’t know, but it does. It doesn’t matter. Now we experience the full onslaught of Boundary Wars. I should pitch a reality show on this one.

First, there was the surveyor. I guess they wanted to ensure we hadn’t erected a portion of the fence on their property. We acknowledge and shrug it off. However, that wasn’t enough for them. A conciliatory nod and we figure things will be fine. Nope.

The next thing we realize, our neighbors are mowing their lawn twice as often as they used to, almost three times per week. The husband, like clockwork, moves back and forth across their lawn, a look of disdain upon his face, laboriously pushing the mower in order to get a quarter inch trim on their grass. One thing I notice is the caution he takes when pushing the mower down the property line, which separates our lawn from theirs.

How peculiar! Why were they so worried about getting it perfectly cut, right on the property line? After all, there was no fence in the front. We decide it’s just a quirk and when our grass is ready to mow, we mow our lawn up to the point where they distinctly, and with much effort, marked their property. It gets worse.

At some point, Tim was rolling up our garden hose and when it got a kink in it, he yanked and twirled it and about two feet of the hose plopped over onto our neighbor's lawn. You'd have thought we cast a spell of fireball explosion on their property from the looks on their faces.

A week later, we arrived home from work and the crew chief for the group we hired to rebuild our back deck approached my husband and profusely apologized for having stepped in our neighbor’s yard. After he explained the frenzy with which the female of the house, our illustrious neighbor, spiraled into when he’d attempted to carry a load of 2 x 4s into our backyard, I realized we were dealing with more than just bruised egos here.

The crew chief explained that an hour later she came out with sandwiches and iced tea for all of them and apologized for her outburst. She used this poor guy as a sounding board and went on about how me and my husband are inconsiderate, evil beings. This woman is badmouthing us to the people we hired to work on our home. WTF??!

Similar incidents have happened since, with the man we hired to paint our home, and with the lawn maintenance guy who parks his equipment trailer on the curbside. The best way to deal with this issue is to ignore our neighbors and their behavior.

They’re not hurting us, but it’s so obvious they are in some sort of distress about boundaries. I don’t want to approach either one because I believe it would only make things worse. Instead, I just tell people who visit us that our neighbors are a bit finicky about their lawn so please steer clear!

This picture tells me they are still hung up on boundaries. You can’t make this stuff up. This is why I write fiction. Because therein lies the truth!

What quirkiness do you deal with in your daily life? I'd love to hear from you. It would make me feel better about this dilemma.



31 comments:

  1. Diane, I think Robert Frost had the right idea when he wrote, "Good fences make good neighbors." :)

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    1. Well then, Kelly, I must have built a bad fence! lol

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  2. I love parking in front of their house on the curbside. They never say a word but always have a look of disapproval. I wish they would say something. I noticed you left out the retention pond gates. That would have made an excellent addition to your story. :)

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    1. They just keep getting worse year after year.

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  3. I'm learning life is an adventure. I look at stories like these as brilliant fodder for a story.

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    1. From where do you think I conjured up my latest villain? :D

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  4. Poor you Diane. This is why we live in a place with a homeowner's association and they do all the fighting for us. LOL

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    1. Lol, Eve! Um, this neighbor of mine is on the board of our HOA. :)

      We don't go to the meetings either. Too much drama.

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  5. I'm glad our neighbors are easy going all around.

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    1. I don't know what happened, but when Tim was in the Marine Corps and we had to move every three years, we always have great neighbors. Now that we are able to stay in one place, this happens to us.

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  6. Gosh, people are crazy! And so petty.
    I live in a townhouse. No yard. But I do share parking with the people in my section. One of my neighbors (they've moved now, YAY! Lol!) used to always let their guests park in the spaces in front of my condo. According to the HOA, residents shouldn't allow their guests to take parking away from other residents. There is guest parking on the sides and in between buildings.

    They were never too nice to begin with, but the first several months I lived there they would at least acknowledge my presence with a phony nod, hello, or smile. One night after enduring a couple of months of their guests parking not only in front of my condo, but oftentimes, in front of my own front door, I asked them nicely to have their guest move their car and to ask their guests to please park in the guest parking spaces from now on. They didn't listen so I called the HOA and the HOA sent out a friendly letter. Well, after that, they would make a point to ignore me, sometimes waiting until they knew I could see them so they could turn their noses up at me. It's like, "What are we, five? I was so nice about it!" But the parking situation did get a heck of a lot better. They won't be missed.

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  7. Our old neighbors tried to steal our cat when we moved up North. Eeek. They hid in their house and wouldn't answer any of our calls. When we finally confronted them, they told us he wasn't going to make it in NY and that we couldn't have him back (Don't worry we rescued him!).

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    1. Omg, I hate people like that. Someone tried to keep our English Bulldog a few months ago.

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  8. wow, they are all 31 flavors of crazy! That's too bad they would jump to conclusions instead of just coming over and tactfully asking about the fence, then they would know you had to by law. makes you want to find some dandelion seeds and blow them their way ;)

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    1. Sharon that is truly evil...but I like it. I like it a lot! :)

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  9. If I were you, I'd get an army of pink flamingos for the front yard and considering adding a couple more feet to the fence. You might also try painting the side of the fence that faces your neighbors a truly hideous color. :)

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    1. I'd thought about hiring teenagers to create some nice graffiti for us, but my husband thought better of it. He's the bigger adult than I am. :)

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  10. My neighbors had tiny yapping obnoxious dogs that they let run all over the neighborhood. One day as I was looking at and waving to these neighbors one of their dogs darted in front of my van and I ran it over. Well that made me the bad guy even though I told them how sorry I was. They hated me until they moved out.

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    1. I hit someone's rabbit once. Worst feeling in the world!

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  11. Oh, No! An engaging read, Diane. How thoughtful of you to spar the cheerfulness/good fortunate of your classmate, and simply write a post here instead. Neighbors can be a challenge all over the world. Thanks for sharing about a sensitive subject matter. Cheers to you and Tim for following the law--sorry your actions to be civic minded cost you guys an annoying mis-understandable.

    Stopped by in anticipation of your November AW piece...will check back soon.

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    1. Oh no! Forgot about the November hop. I better get moving!

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  12. mis-understanding is what I meant to write...thank goodness Miss Clarke, a former grade school teacher, doesn't read here, otherwise, it's to the blackboard(did I just date myself)to write the correct spelling 10x

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  13. People with a huge chip on their shoulder... and there's not a lot you can do about that.

    My parents had a neighbour out in the countryside that let some animals they'd buy for fattening up run free all day (this in an area with wolves and bears). There was no fence, so the pig, the turkeys, and the chickens would be wandering all over their property, the place beyond that, and my parents' property. You could hear them all coming by the gobbles.

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    1. I have some friends who also have that same problem as your parents did and they don't have a home owners association organization to combat that sort of thing. Chickens just cross into their yard all the time.

      My condolences to your parents, William!

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  14. My neighbors work long, irregular shifts, so they have a housesitter friend who helps them out. Strangely enough, it is the housesitter who is the property nazi, not the owners. I had the same issues that you did, first with our backyard fence, which did not even approach their property lines (the back of their lot backs up into the side of my lot). Then she yelled at the contractors that were building my patio. They never crossed into the neighbors property, as it turned out. She hasn't been around lately, thank goodness! So for what it is worth, you are not alone in dealing with property line OCD people.

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    1. Your neighbors hired the house sitter to spy on you! Mwahahhahaha. :D

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  15. Get yourself a nice set of noise-canceling headphones, open the windows, and play Music Box Dancer by Frank Mills several dozen times some Sunday afternoon.

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    1. LOL, Chris.

      Actually, I'm feeling a bit evil these days. I found myself gloriously pleased when the neighbors on the other side of the assholes brought home a rescue dog who barks...a lot. :D

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  16. Two feet of hose accidentally falling over the boundary and into their yard!! They need neighbors like mine that drive through my yard purposely to get to their back yard. Oh, not to mention him coming over to ask me to move my boat out of his way so that he can drive in my yard to get to his back yard.

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    1. This is the same neighbor who kept throwing dog shit onto our driveway because they thought our dogs were crapping in their yard. Forget the fact that we walk our dogs in our own yard ON LEASHES and pick up their poop.

      When we put up the surveillance cameras, suddenly they stopped littering our driveway and boat with dog crap that other neighborhood dogs left in their yard. :)

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