I admit, we’re not the ideal neighbors.  Our yard isn’t lush and immaculate, our bushes aren’t trimmed into lovely little topiaries, sometimes our vines climb over our fence and we’re not the sort to hang holiday appropriate decorations on our door.  However, we’re great if you like people who keep to themselves and won’t insert themselves into your business.  Feel like burying bodies in the backyard? We don’t care as long as it’s not midnight and you didn’t invite a band to perform in your backyard to celebrate the demise of your arch nemesis as you dig merrily away.  Want to spray paint your house electric purple, line the yard with gnomes and cheap plastic flamingos? Nice! I personally won’t call the HOA.

As most of you know, though, I hate one set of neighbors and I’m sure they’d be the first to point a fat finger in my direction and shout, “right back atcha”.  The problem really boils down to us not meeting their ideal neighbor standards.  Like the time we let our dog bark, because dogs bark and they had to scream over the fence that the police might be called or the time when our crepe myrtle had a wandering branch they had to lop off before it dangled over their yard or when our yard’s grass was too high on the side of our house that faced theirs, so they were compelled to mow it, or the time that there was a tendril of grass that went over our driveway and they were forced to call the HOA so a warning could be issued.  (I’m not exaggerating there – it was literally ONE tendril of grass.) On two occasions we even had our dog in our yard on a leash when their unleashed kick-me poodle charged over snarling and snapping.  I mean, what the heck were we thinking having Sam in the front?  That was a favorite moment – Sam was cowering behind my legs and the woman stomped over to seize her delightful little ball of snarling joy and demanded to know what Sam had done to provoke the dog from our porch.  I think it’s called “breathing” – sorry about that.

A few months ago we received an anonymous note stating a fence post was broken.  We own the fence that is shared and it’s our responsibility to fix it.  Unfortunately, we had some major things happening at the time and we have not been in a position to fix the fence.  That’s not a great excuse, but it explains why it didn’t look as lovely as it could.  On a plus side, it was still standing, but at about an 85⁰ angle instead of the more lovely 90⁰.  We were (and still are) waiting for financial things to straighten themselves out before we could look into attacking the fence.

I wasn’t aware of that note until Saturday when Jay said I needed to watch Sam in the backyard because our neighbors had busted down the fence.  What?  Other than the anonymous note, there was no further communication about the fence – no note on the door, no drop-by to inform us that they were about to tear down that section.  Granted we live so very far that it’s difficult to walk the whole 100 feet to the door, but still it would have been nice for the self-righteous bitch to meander over – maybe leave another anonymous “Hey Neighbor” note.

So, this entire weekend, I’ve had to endure seeing them sitting in our yard resetting posts and finally getting that one section of fence erected.  We would have helped or even chipped in for the costs, but no one told us it was happening.  Jay joked about calling the police and having them arrested for trespassing.  I was debating whether I could do hard time – thankfully, I’m too big of a sissy to hang with Big Bertha and I don’t trust they have an orange jumpsuit in my size.   Although, them leaving the discarded fence boards strewn about in our yard is pushing me over the edge.  How bad would the sentencing be for a first time offense when I’ve been an upstanding member of the community? (Mental note: must do more community work.)

You know, the first time I met the wife when she was gossiping about everyone on our street, she said that they were considering moving in six years (of course, the people behind her were driving down the property value of her house so they wouldn’t get an ideal price on their house).  Well, we’re moving into year six now.  Let’s all say a silent prayer that the housing market improves so they can escape their horrible neighbors.