Fences! Lots of fences

What makes a good neighbor?

Ha, neighbors… I’ll just tell a story.

I’ll start with a little context. It was my first house. The previous slumlords, errr… owners used it as a rental property. For twenty years,  it was a revolving door for ne’er-do-wells and small-time drug peddlers. In short, the house had a reputation and it needed a LOT of work.

After Hurricane Charlie, I hired a company to clean up the crap in the backyard. It was already pretty bad from the neglect.  There was all kind of junk embedded into the lawn that the grass had grown over. Plus, the storm had destroyed the shed and the chain link fence.

Some of my neighbors were already rubbing me the wrong way. They were weirdos. Everyone was curious about the lady that bought the drug house. An old guy stopped by at one time to “say hello.” He then tried inviting himself in so he could “look around.” Umm… no.

“Crazy,” before I dubbed her that, graced me with her presence too. She carried on a chipper little conversation at my door. The whole time, she made no effort to hide the fact that she was trying to look around me to get a glimpse of the house. Sigh.

Anyway, the company came to clear out the yard. They did a nice job. I don’t know exactly how they did it. I didn’t have to be there so I went to work, and came home to a nice clean back yard. Apparently, yet another neighbor had approached the workers, requesting to remove the tree house in my front yard. One of the renters had built a platform for their kid in a small scrub oak in the front yard. It was barely noticeable, but for whatever reason this guy had a bug up his butt about it. The workers politely blew him off.

“Sorry buddy, you didn’t hire us, and it’s not on our work order.“

I never did take that damn thing down after that just to spite him. Because I’m mature like that.

Anyway, that evening as I’m chilling out and getting ready for bed, there’s a knock at my door.

It’s Crazy.

The smell of cheap gin wafts through the door. She stands there, weaving. She tells me how the workers I hired cut down the ivy on her side of the fence. I didn’t really know what to tell her. I explained that I wasn’t here to see what they were doing. I offered to give her their card so she could call them herself. She didn’t really seem to care what I said. She just went on and on about how they had reached over her privacy fence, and cut her ivy down to eye level. She used a little chopping motion with her hand to illustrate this fact.

I finally had to call it quits. This lady was not to be consoled and I really didn’t know what else to tell her.

“Look, it’s getting late so…” and I started closing the door.

She then bursts out with:

“My father died two weeks ago!“

To which I replied, “Well I’m sure he’s very proud of you right now!” I slammed the door. Hey, I tried to be respectful. This is what comes out of my mouth when I’ve been pushed to the limit.

I followed up with the company the next day to ask about it. They said that they have every right to cut things in my “airspace.” If a neighbor’s tree is growing into another property, the branch can be cut. It can be pruned to the point where it hangs over. He assured me that his workers wouldn’t reach over a fence to mess with someone else’s vegetation. I didn’t have any reason to not believe him.

I never had any further run ins with her, thankfully. I think she made efforts to avoid me after that. Maybe she realized that she was out of hand, or found out what really happened to her vines. Who knows. It’s ivy. It’s not like that shit is hard to grow.

I now live in a nicer neighborhood very far from Florida. My neighbors are nice and I have a good relationship with them. We are friendly enough to keep an eye each other’s houses when we are gone. We stay out of each other’s business otherwise.

It’s all good.