Speaking of neighbors.

I had written a post a little while back about the neighbors and where I live doing something of a Fesitvus post (a listing of grievances).

Honestly I try to get along with my neighbors but lord knows it’s trying a lot of the time. Again there’s the issue on the one side with the snow (which I’m positive has caused some long term damage) and on the other side again the people in the back who are obsessed with the driveway.

It’s the folks in the back who are the most recent problem...

Over the years, time and again they’ve come onto my lot and cut foliage down. That works for them but it really doesn’t work for me at all because aside from them, the middle house contains a slew of people coming and going at all hours of the day and night and the base for a commercial business (which I am sure is outside of zoning regulations). There are a lot of things going on around these parts like that and normally I really don’t care.

What people do on their own land is their business but that ends at the property line.

Never mind all my windows face this long driveway and even last night in the pitch black I’m in the bathroom hearing people walk up and down the driveway. There’s nothing like living in a house with all the maintenance and having less privacy than you would in a six story apartment building.

So, again, the neighbors in the back have the cutesy habit of cutting things down when they see I’m not home and it’s gotten to the point where I’m just installing a camera and taking them to court the next time it happens. I looked up the law in New York state and it’s treble damages (three times) it’s something people just aren’t allowed to do.

Yesterday I came home and again I see things cut after I specifically asked the neighbor not to do this.

I had a conversation recently with the neighbor, it’s a family with a couple and the wife’s parents and their kids. The wife’s mom really is a sweet women, she was the one who cut everything down last year and while I was wildly infuriated by it and incredibly angry I simply could not bring myself to be mean  to the woman. I know that she had had cancer and she was recovered from it but again she was one of the people taking this big industrial leaf blower and blowing things onto my lot until I made a stink about it.

When she cut down the greenery she wound up killing a whole host of plants and things that had been there for years not to mention this beautiful bush with enormous white flowers that would bloom every spring (a hydrangea). I wound up going out and buying her flowers and some wine because here was this woman who must be in her sixties out there killing herself for hours. I don’t ascribe sinister motivations to people and honestly as I said I couldn’t see yelling at her.

So, I let the neighbor know to please stop doing this again. I understand their concern, the speed on the street is just ridiculously high and the village doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it. I even wrote a letter to the mayor about this recently and this morning I got a text with a picture asking me to cut even more.

Now, at the same time this neighbor has taking to the habit of planting political campaign signs right at eye level at the terminus of their driveway too and they don't appear to think that’s as much a problem nor is the mailbox that they installed which sits up and also blocks their view up the street and issue as well. I pointed this out in response but it’s just another instance of someone wanting you to do something and not do anything themselves. A note about the political signs is that when the husband was in the process of planting them I happened to be looking out my window and seeing him planting them on my lot which I had to start banging on the window to get him to stop.

So they have their political signs and their mailbox and they don't seem to be going anywhere - strangely enough even though this in part contributes to their problem.

Oh, and as far as working on complaining to the village that’s too much bother as well for them.

So, while I want to get along with the people I live around it’s a bit of a two way street and if they aren’t interested in maintaining a good relationship with the people they live around I’m not going to rollover either.