28 May 2008

Good fences make good neighbors, and all that.

This is a long one.

Our neighbor is crazy. And I'm not using that word in the colloquial sense, as when you sometimes describe a person as "crazy," when what you really mean is that the person is emotional, or passionate, or eccentric. No, our neighbor is crazy.

We have numerous stories to back this up, but one has been particularly enduring. Last summer, before the craziness had fully presented itself, she came to talk to us while we were working outside. She mentioned the pine trees that are on her property—but right up against our garden—and she asked if they blocked out our sun too much. They didn't block the sun much, but they did hang way over the garden and drop pine cones and crap all the time. She said she'd get her husband to cut them back so we didn't have to—but we could if we wanted to.

So, last October, I cut back the branches that were coming into the garden.

That was fine until one day in March when I went outside to feed the chickens and heard her screaming at our landlord, "This is all I have, Christopher! This. Is. ALL. I. HAAAAAAAVE!!" She was talking about the trees, of course, which she had just noticed. Needless to say, I got the hell out of there.

A few weeks later her husband cut back the trees even more than I did, and she came over while we were outside to shout, "Hey! You call that bein' a neighbor? 'Cause I call that NOT BEIN' a neighbor!" Oh, well then. Ever since, we've been privy to dirty looks and shouted conversations of, "Hey! When's that fence guy comin'?" Yesterday she stood on her porch in her pajamas and stared at me through a gap in the trees for ten minutes. It's been fun.

Today, though, the fence guys came. They were very nice and they loved our garden, but most importantly they put up a 7-foot tall privacy fence (which necessitated cutting back the trees even more, incidentally). Sadly, the fence obstructs our view of the old trampoline, the plastic tarp stuck up in a tree, the trash cans in the middle of the yard, and the neighbor sunbathing on the driveway. But that's the price we'll have to pay. For, you know, not bein' neighbors. At least we'll have the memories.

23 comments:

Katie said...

Lordy, sounds like a blast.

At least the situation is not permanent, right? There is a Future House Farm on the horizon sometime?

NW Nature Nut said...

Wow, what kind of meds is she on (or not on)!? Yikes, glad you got a fence!

Unknown said...

Yikes!
We've had/have neighbors like that. Aren't they a treat?!

Anonymous said...

Lordy Meg, I am glad to hear you got that fence up, it won't totally eradicate the nuisamce but it will go a long way. Bad neighbouors can make things miserable, glad I only have one and she keeps to herself, rather strange lady but no trouble thankfully!

Blessings:)

Anonymous said...

Finally, thankfully, a fence! It looks great.

As for your neighbor, makes me think of that classic Seinfeld line, "Shouldn't you be out on a ledge somewhere?"

Carla said...

Yow! Glad you got a fence!!

Anonymous said...

I guess Robert Frost was right, kind of. Enjoy the fence!

Mysti said...

I just started reading your blog and love it!

We have crazy neighbors too, and the best part of our rented house is the fence. I don't think I could live here without it. Needless to say, we'll still eventually move because of the crazy neighbors (after only being here for 6 months, we've had to call the cops)but the fence will help until that time comes.

Good luck! Document everything she does, and stay in contact with your landlord about everything. :)

tansy said...

psycho!

she'd better start planting more pine trees so that won't be all she has.

Christina said...

Oh man, it sounds like the sister of a former neighbor I had. I could tell you some stories there . . . I'm glad you've got the fence now.

Laughing Orca Ranch said...

It's too bad, crazy/bad neighbors force folks to put up fences to keep the peace.

Personally I don't like privacy fences, unless you really need privacy that is.
I'd rather have pretty evergreens for privacy.

Hope the fence works for keeping out the 'rif-raf' though.

But don't be surprised if you find a small hole or two that you see eyeballs peeking in at you sometimes. (It's happened to us before!)

Meg said...

Hi, all. Thanks for the support/commiseration with the crazy neighbors.

I think I didn't make clear in the post that the neighbors are actually the ones who got the fence. Apparently they dislike our house so much that it's worth 3 grand for them to put a fence up ... I think that further confirms their craziness.

Kelly said he wonders how much we have to piss them off for them to buy us solar panels.

Chile said...

I wondered over here from Garden Punks and I just want to say, that ain't nuthin! The stories I could tell...Long story short: within 1 block, we've got alcoholics, drug users and maybe dealers, scary people, hooker, and a home for the mentally disabled. Expand out another block, and ya get frequent domestic abuse, more alcoholics and drugs, frequent fireworks, psycho kid, loose pitbull, and the lady with homeless guys living in the crawl spaces of her house. Oh, and they roam the neighborhood on their bikes "liberating" loose items from yards.

The sad part is we're not in an area that should be a bad neighborhood. Now, tell me how to get the neighbor to pay for a higher fence again?

Outer Banks Mom said...

Ugh, we had some crack pot neighbors once. This lady used to ride her kids 4 wheeler all through her backyard until there were muddy tracks, screaming and acting like a nut but when our kitten (who mysteriously disappeared on day) would go in her yard, she called animal control on us because "the cat was upsetting our dog!" I say, yay fence!

Robbyn said...

Ok, now I'm laughing uncontrollably...LOL...the trees are All. She. Has???? LOLOL (ok, getting a grip here)

I've moved over 20 times in my life, and there are a few other crazy (for real!) neighbors out there. Three moves ago, there was a woman across the street who would take her trash out to her curb wearing only a tshirt and panties. She would take her time with the recycle bins and BEND OVER and wag her behind at all the neighbors. Hmmm...

And there was the older man backyard neighbor of my first husband, when we were dating, who would who come running to the chain link fence and shout Heyyyyy!!Heyyyy!!! and carry a measuring tape with him. He would shout "Your fence is one foot over my property line and unless you see that your landlord moves it, I'm suing you!" (He kept this up repeatedly, as long as anyone was in the backyard, ha!)

All I can say is CONGRATULATIONS on the fence, guys!! :)

Woody said...

wonder how her blog would read...lol

Anonymous said...

Thank God for the fence--and thank God it's an actually tasteful fence (given all the garbage in their yard, who'd'a thunk?!). Our (mercifully, former) neighbor used to date a guy with a purple van with a big cartoon of a mooning leprechaun prominently featured on all sides. And she'd scream the most vile obscentites in the middle of the yard at whoever she was dating at the moment, much to our edification as we tried to relax on the deck. Not to mention the time she had a screaming fit with one boyfriend--we think it *might* have been the father of her infant--then threw all his stuff, loudly, out on the road. (Why, oh, why is it illegal to buy large stocks of tranquilizer darts?!!!) Thank God for the new neighbors who are only intent on chopping down every tree on their property and chainsawing the magnificent 50-year-old trumpetvine out of the one tree they left standing....

Anonymous said...

Thank God for the fence--and thank God it's an actually tasteful fence (given all the garbage in their yard, who'd'a thunk?!). Our (mercifully, former) neighbor used to date a guy with a purple van with a big cartoon of a mooning leprechaun prominently featured on all sides. And she'd scream the most vile obscentites in the middle of the yard at whoever she was dating at the moment, much to our edification as we tried to relax on the deck. Not to mention the time she had a screaming fit with one boyfriend--we think it *might* have been the father of her infant--then threw all his stuff, loudly, out on the road. (Why, oh, why is it illegal to buy large stocks of tranquilizer darts?!!!) Thank God for the new neighbors who are only intent on chopping down every tree on their property and chainsawing the magnificent 50-year-old trumpetvine out of the one tree they left standing....

vegmonkey said...

Ha Ha, u go get em!

tansy said...

they bought the fence?! how kind of them. i wish we had neighbors like that!

Christy said...

I wish we could have privacy fences here! We can only have post and rail fences.

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