I’m sure everyone has neighbors on the spectrum of Wonderful to Oh My God. I do, too. Sadly, my next -door neighbor doesn’t land on the good side. Thankfully, they have no idea who I really am as a person or that I write a blog, so I can rant all I want here! Tee Hee! But for neighbors of mine who do follow me, I know I’ll be speaking for all of us. Look at the list below and see if any of these items would irritate you…
- For the last seven years, they’ve had the store tags dangling from the branches of their trees from when they purchased and planted them. Until recently that is, when I went over there with a scissors and snipped them off and put the tags in their mailbox. Trespassing? Vandalism? Perhaps, but they’d broken me! I couldn’t take it anymore! Did they think it looked natural to have big, long price tags hanging on their trees? Did they think it was a rule like a mattress tag that by law couldn’t be removed? Is anyone still believing that?
- They installed two old-fashioned lampposts in their yard around their circular driveway—which is great. But then they put 20,000-watt lightbulbs in them which can be seen from space. You have to shield your eyes from the glow when you walk past at night.
- They installed “Don’t Pee on the Grass” signs, parallel to their house near the public sidewalk. I realize they intended this for the dogs, but after a few cocktails the other night, I tried recruiting some friends of mine to try out the grass. No takers. But come on. Dogs pee when they want to while walking. If it happens on the grass near your sidewalk, oh well! Get over it. Oddly, last summer, the signs disappeared. Scout’s honor, it wasn’t me! (I’m not a Scout but that’s neither here nor there. Ahem).
- They poured a new cement porch—super white, industrial, and sturdy and they regularly scrub it. I assume that’s true, because if I’ve observed this activity more than once, how often do they do it?
- They have fake flowers in pots on their bright white cement porch all winter long. Come on. Take them in during the winter, folks. It’s ridiculous.
- They have tons of rocks around their driveway which they hand wash in buckets and throw through gold digging pans during the summer. Is it me? Are you getting this?
- They called and asked for us to remove our trees because in the fall, some of the leaves fall on their yard. You do not want to know how that call went down. We later got a letter from them—super-official stamp and all—which ended with the complaint that I had “hung up on their face.” I swear to God that line made me do a happy dance. It’s a perfect line. I wanted to crochet it on a pillow.
- I caught them once at a public utility box which is on my property. They had pliers and were messing with the cable wires. I gave them the stink eye, but I have no idea what that was about.
- Forced to speak with them once about a new fence section we were replacing after the old one blew down in a storm, I rang their bell, but they wouldn’t open the door. Rather, they screamed down at me from an upstairs window through the screen for the entire conversation. Side note: They’d asked us to replace our perfectly fine wooden fence because it wasn’t attractive from their side.
- In the past, they didn’t mow regularly and short of getting some goats to give them a subtle hint, the city eventually intervened for all of us.
This list is getting long. But I have lots more. These were the tame ones. The police have been there many times. I’ll close before I ramp up to the uglier, litigious stuff. (See me whispering: “They hate dogs.”) I’ll say no more! (See me covering my mouth!)