Wednesday, August 03, 2005

I have so much to blog about, and I've been too busy to do any of it, partly because of the neighbors.

My neighbors to the west are awful people. They appear to be a nice elderly couple, but like many minions of evil, appearances are deceiving. He is as mean as a snake, once threatened Gavin (peaceably mowing the lawn) with a golf club (he bullies other neighborhood kids as well), knows (and uses) every epithet in the book for no reason I can see, throws trash over my fence, and calls the city for the tiniest infraction -- he measures people's grass lengths, makes sure everyone's fences are far enough from the street, cars are not parked too far from the curb or (in a driveway) not too close to the street. He even called the city on the neighbor who didn't get a garage sale permit .His wife is probably a nice lady, but she has Alzheimer's and is paranoid; she likes to send registered letters to people about their tree limbs (which are still attached to the trees, but what if they fell off?). I try to ignore them, but since the golf club incident, there is a strip of grass between our houses which is No Man's Land. I'm kind of surprised he hasn't called the city yet...my excuse will be that it's "decorative".

The people who lived in my house before I bought it were very fond of ornamental shrubbery. Unfortunately, they bought the wrong kind, and despite my best efforts, the 10 bushes/trees/shrubs morphed into a sort of gigantic house-eating vegetative mass which towered over the house and crammed into the eaves and soffits. I've been trying to figure out how the heck I was going to afford a tree trimming service since I'm not really sure I want to find out if I can use a chainsaw without cutting off any body parts (I'm afraid the answer to that would be "no").

Little did I know that the neighbors to the east of me were angels in disguise. I was mowing my lawn Saturday, and the older gentleman and his wife (in their 70s) were out walking around the block and stopped to ask very gently if I needed help with my shrubs. I said that I could use all the help I could get and before I knew it, he and his wife were hauling over ladders and a chainsaw and all kinds of nippers and trimmers and clippers...and then Rog came over to help as well.

And we nipped and trimmed and clipped and sawed for DAYS until at last my house has been saved from ingestion by mutant greenery. The shrubs, now chainsawed into submission, cower beneath the eaves and tremble at the sight of the daily parade of walkers around our neighborhood.

Since the neighbors from Hell are west of me, and the neighbors from Heaven are east of me...that must mean I'm living in Limbo. Which explains a lot.

7 comments:

Leann said...

The evil neighbor is probably very lonely and in a subconcious way doing what he does is a way to get attention. Either that or he's a control freak...LOL

I agree with you about chain saws...would be BAD. I'm sooo glad you got the greenery under control. We won't have to send out a search party to free you from your house :-)

Missed your posts. Glad you are back.

Jodie said...

Leann, I go with the control freak theory. :)

Wyrfu said...

Yeah, we miss you when you're gone (no, wait a minute, I'm Gone...). It's always a pleasure to see that you've posted and you bring a smile to my face.

But don't even get me started on bad neighbors. For years I lived next door to the worst...

Anonymous said...

Living between heaven and hell, that certainly sounds interesting. We've been in our house for almost 18 years now and there have been a few interesting neighbours but never one that I would think would swing a golf club at one of us. It's gotta be fun getting the teen to cut the grass. "Gavin, sweety, can you get the lawnmower out? And don't forget the full on body armor."

Jodie said...

Gone, I'd love to hear your bad neighbor stories...and Keeef, I'm with you, loud music at 8am the next morning. Unless you have other neighbors who sleep in. Yes, Maureen, Gavin puts off the lawn mowing as long as possible, and if the Evil Neighbor comes outside while he's there, the lawnmower gets put away. So the grass is always longer on that side -- you think he'd get a clue. But maybe that's part of his problem.

overactive-imagination said...

Yeah, I know I'm late coming into this post but what the hell.

ALL of my neighbors are neighbors rom hell, except one. I liove in a "Country Club", why they call it that beats the hell out of me because there is no golf course or ANY type of facility that would make it a "country club". I think that's just their excuse to stick their noses in the air 50% of the time and in everyone elses business the rest of the time.
First, I am the neighborhood bumpkin because I am divorcing. ALL the people in my neighborhood are married other than me. Then I am also the neighborhood loser because on top of the divorce I am also a starving student, single mother and don't mow my lawn every third day like the rest of them.
I wish peole would learn to mind their own business. The last time one of the people from the Home Owners Association came to my house and complained about my grass not being mowed recently (it had been like 2 weeks) I told them that if it bothered them, they were more than welcome to mow it themselves, which made me even more less liked but who gives a rats ass?? LOL
Glad I'm not the only one with wormy neighbors.
Dawn

Jodie said...

Hehe Dawn...It does get better. Right after my divorce (in KS), I too was the only divorced person in my neighborhood, worked fulltime and went to school fulltime. I think I'm still tired from that (and I graduated in 2001). It does get better. :)