The Think Tank

Feuding with the neighbors

by on Apr.22, 2010, under Main Page

For the last several weeks we have been engaged in a feud with our neighbors.  By and large we have always been very friendly with Shauna and, since they married a few years ago, Tom.  There have been some things that she, and now they, have done along the shared property line that have upset us – and apparently us them – but all and all we’ve always been pretty good friends.

That all changed a few weeks ago.  Tom and Shauna are totally pissed off now and have gone from not speaking to us at all, to very sarcastically saying things like “Thanks, Chris.  Thanks, Sue.  Love you guys.  Thanks for being such good neighbors!” whenever they see us.  The words themselves are not at all offensive, but believe me when I tell you that they can be uttered in very unfriendly ways.

For the life of me I can’t figure out why they are so upset, and since I’m none too eager to have another unpleasant conversation with them, I thought perhaps I would post the details on here and see if anyone else thinks that what we’ve done is out of line.

Click through for the story.

Here’s the story.

This recent bout of unpleasantness started with a disagreement over a small length of grass in our parking strip out front.  Ever since Tom and Shauna got married 4-5 years ago he has periodically driven on our grass where is abuts their driveway.  He drives a largish truck and unless he takes extra effort when he turns into the drive, he winds up with one whole tire on our grass.

Naturally, this sort of thing happens from time to time and we didn’t raise a fuss for a long while.  Over the last couple of years, particularly in the winter time when the ground is wet for long periods, the repeated abuse has killed the grass and worn a rut in the turf.  We’ve replanted the grass three times in the last couple of years, but every winter it is stripped and rutted again.

So a few weeks ago, in preparation of laying down new seed (again), we put some rebar in the ground on the edge of the grass to act as a barrier to keep him from driving on our grass.  We left about two feet sticking out above the ground and we sheathed it with PVC pipe so it would not be likely to scratch their cars.  We did not speak to them about this, as it didn’t seem like a big deal.

Two days later when Mom came home from running some errands the rebars were bent over flat against the ground, clearly having been driven over.  She tried to straighten them back up as much as she could, but was only marginally successful.  She left them there, bent and mishapen.

The next day Mom was outside and Tom asked, very angrily: “Can we do something about those bars?”

“Like what?” Mom asked.

“Like take them down.  I find them very offensive, and I’m not going to be happy at all if they scratch my car!”

“Well, Tom.  I’m not very happy that you keep driving on my lawn,” Mom said.

“How do you even know it was me?” he asked.

At that point I quit paying attention and went inside because I thought the whole thing was stupid.

Mom and he kept up for a while, Tom saying that he thought it was not very neighborly to put up those bars and that taking them down would “go a long way toward keeping the neighborhood friendly.”  Mom said that she was sorry he was offended by them, but that she was kind of tired of having to replant the grass all the time because he chose not to be careful when he drove into the driveway.  (Clearly he could get in and out of the driveway without driving on the grass, as he had come and gone several times over the last few days and only driven them over once).

He responded by pointing out that his side of the drive way was in the same condition and didn’t know why she was so upset about it.  Then he said that he didn’t drive on the grass very often, that it had been months since it had happened last, and that it wasn’t on purpose when it did happen.  Mom said it didn’t really matter if it was on purpose or not because the grass was still dead, that it happened frequently enough to prevent the grass from growing back, and he (or someone) had driven the bars over and bent them flat against the ground just a day or two before.

Tom snorted and said, “They don’t look bent to me.”

Somewhere along the line he said that the reason he was offended was because we didn’t speak with him before butting the bars up.  Eventually Mom agreed to take the bars down and replace them with something smaller that would not endanger his cars if he would try not to drive on the grass.  He was still pissed but agreed to be more careful.

A day or two later we purchased some six inch tall plastic edge guard and replaced the rebar with that.  We also laid down some left over sod from the Easter baskets in the most badly damaged section.   (Yes, we bought sod to have real grass in the Easter baskets). It offered the grass a little stability and would hopefully would serve as a reminder not to drive on it.

Two days later the piece closest to the street was bent over, clearly having been driven over.

That was about three weeks ago, and in that time neither of them have spoken to us at all.  We’ll say hello, and they ignore us.  We ask how its going, and they ignore us.

That all changed today.

Before I go one, I should probably give a little history about our previous arguments regarding the property line which runs along our side yard and their driveway.

Years and years ago, shortly after Shauna divorced her first husband, Jim, she asked that we remove one of four very old rose bushes in the back part of the yard because, she said, it interfered when she got in and out of her car.  We said that we would not remove the rose for several reasons: we liked it, it was on our property, and there was no fewer than 30 feet of driveway she could use which was not near the rose bush.

A few days later we came home and the rose bush had been cut off at the ground with a chain saw.  We asked Shauna if she knew anything about it, and she said yes.  She had cut it down.  We asked why she thought she could cut our rose bush out of our yard.

“Because I didn’t want it there,” she replied.

Several years after that she decided to build a fence to enclose her back yard, incorporating her back porch.  Technically about one inch of the fence is on our property, but we didn’t raise a fuss.  The rose bush not withstanding, she had always been a good neighbor and it wasn’t an imposition, even though it did filter out a lot of light available to our remaining rose bushes.  Naturally, she failed to ask us what we thought about building the fence.

A few years after that Loie got a lilac sapling as a present and we planed it in the side yard, approximately where the rose bush she cut down had once stood.  At that time, Shauna had been parking her car in the front part of her driveway where it was easiest to access her front door, a good ten feet away from the new lilac tree.

When Shauna saw the tree, she said that she didn’t want it there.  We asked why, and she said because it would interfere with her getting in and out of her car.  We said that seemed hard to believe, since she normally parked so far away from it.

That night when she came home from work, she pulled up abreast of the lilac tree and trampled it when she got out of her car.  When we saw it the next day, battered and broken, we asked her why she walked on our plant.

“Because I don’t want it there,” she replied.

She continued to park abreast of the lilac for several weeks, trampling on it each day until eventually the tree died.  After the tree was dead and removed what remained of it from the ground, Shauna went back to parking in the front part of her driveway.

Over the next ten or fifteen years Loie received several other lilac trees as gifts, because they were her favorite.  We planted them in several places around the yard, but never in the side yard.  A year or so before Loie died, we bought her a couple new lilacs trees because we had seen them at Hulda Klagers and she loved them so much.  The only place the would get enough sun to keep them blooming was the side yard.  Given the problems we had had in the past, we decided to put them large planters, keeping them off of the ground so they could not be trampled like the last one.

Tom and Shauna were not at all happy because, once again, they said it would interfere with getting in and out of their car.  Over the course of the whole summer a series of arguments broke out.  Eventually we moved two of them closer to the rose bushes and the other two we moved to the front bed.  It was a moderate peace, but no one was very happy about the situation.

Two summers ago they built a concrete wall along the the property line in the back yard, abreast of our patio.  On their side, the wall is very pretty: nicely finished with a distressed facade.  On our side: unfinished concrete block, with large drips and chunks of morter smeared around.  Along the bottom there is a 2-3 inch build up of concrete and mortor, from the workmen cleaning off the upper portions.  And in addition to that, when the workers cleaned up their side they did so by power washing all of the concrete dust and nasty water right onto our patio and deck.  It took several days to clean it all up.

Naturally, they did not ask our opinion before they had the wall built.

And that brings us to today.

Over the years all of the potted lilacs have become terribly root bound, and the two in the front yard no longer get enough light to even flower, thanks to the shadow from the big Locust tree.  Our other neighbor, Opal, was having her yard redone so Mom hired the gardener to plant four lilacs in the side yard.

Given all of the problems we’ve had, we were careful in how we decided to plant them.  Unlike the pots, which were right along the driveway, we planted them 16 inches in from the property line, which puts them slightly farther away from the driveway than the rose bushes.  And, since they now have two cars that park in the drive way, we spaced them four feet apart instead of six, so that none of the trees would be abreast of where they normally enter/exit their cars, landing in between instead.

When Shauna saw the gardener planting them this afternoon, she was pissed.  When she saw Mom earlier today she said, in a very nasty and condescending way, “Thanks, Sue.  You’re such a sweetheart.”  Then she went into her yard and slammed the gate.

This evening, after I got home from work and we were cleaning up the area, Tom and Shauna came out to get in their Honda (Which, as you can see from the photo is not at all impeded by the plants).

Tom muttered under his breath, “God, what a mess.”

Shauna was more direct.  Again being very condescending and unpleasant, she looked at me and said: “Thanks, Chris.  Thanks, Sue.  Love you guys,” and then she winked and made a kissing sound.

Taken aback and not sure how to react, I shrugged my shoulders and didn’t respond.  As they were pulling out, Tom beeped his horn and then stopped for a moment and they both waved at us.  Then they left.

So that’s the whole story, as near as I can remember it.  Do you guys think we’ve been out of line?

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3 Comments for this entry

  • Mo

    People suck. Tom and Shawna just prove that point. That they think the rest of humanity is less important than they is beyond egomania. Like the human race ia a strata and they reside at the top. With the breadcrumbs. Which is fitting. They are like stale bread, not good enough to eat, thrown in the cuisinart and forgotten in the cupboard until you need something to spruce up a subpar casserole. All humans are born with the capacity to be decent, to help their fellow inhabitants of this imperfect world. Tom and Shawna seem to be an srrogant waste of potential, and are only fit for tuna surprise. But that is just my humble opinion. Go Blazers!

  • Debbie

    I think I would have put up a nice BIG stone wall that looks great on my side and sucks on theirs. But, since you decided to plant lilac I would make sure not one little leaf went over the line onto their driveway. If they again stomp on the plants I would call the police and file charges for distruction of property.

  • Sue

    well, I don’t. But with all this fuss, I must admit, I have been having doubts. Or thoughts of doubts. I am bewildered by the fuss they are pitching.

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