I Hate My Neighbors

My neighbor has crossed a line. It's called the property line I believe.

When I moved into my new place a little over eighteen months ago, I soon found out that the lady next door has too much time on her hands, as she came over to introduce herself, after I had been living there for a couple of months. She told me in great detail, the ages, genders and pet ownership status of all our neighbors. This included a run down on the hours worked by people in each house hold, very useful information if I was wanting to break into their houses. And, she told me all about how long I had been living there before I started parking my car in the garage instead of leaving it in the carport, neither carport of garage being visible from her house.

So, I have spent my days feeling very watched, and not free to do as I pleased in my own back yard, especially after the time she lectured me about how the tomatoes in my vegetable garden were diseased (actually a little wilted from the drought but otherwise just fine), a bit creepy as the vegetable garden is in the far back corner of my section and not visible from the street.

On top of this, half a dozen times now, I have come home to find my lawn mowed, privacy hedges pruned into ineffectiveness etc. This is not a friendly thing done by a nice neighbor, this is trespassing committed by a neighbor. The last time this happened, the person had come within the property line to gather up grass clippings which they then used to smother the artichoke seedlings in my garden, which all died. I have always suspected it was the husband of the spying on me woman, but could never prove it.

So on Saturday I came home, having been out for only a couple of hours, and my lawn had been mowed into the dirt (it'll be a long time before I have even grass coverage again). And, all the parsley in my herb garden pulled out, leaving a giant barren patch in the middle of my garden. The destruction was continued into the back yard where the main stem of my Italian parsley had been broken off and left on the ground. A bucket that had been sitting along the back fence had been carried across the property, up the hill and up turned on a post.

I was furious! So, well I didn't shout, but I wasn't quite either, swearing at the self important jerk who had killed my plants for no reason.

I went out again, to cool down where I wasn't able to see the distraction. Came home, and within minutes here came the number one suspect, strolling into my yard looking down his nose as my rosemary but otherwise puffing out his chest in satisfaction as he viewed the dust that had been my lawn.

He told me, as though he had done me a favor, that he had mowed my lawn. I asked him (very politely, no swearing, no aggressive body language, no shouting) why he had pulled out my parsley. It was "past it" he said. I asked if he had gone into my back yard as well, he denied it. But, honestly, the evidence said something different, and I find it hard to believe that two different people trespassed in order to kill parsley in the same morning.

So, I asked him, firmly, but polity not to come onto my property without my consent, I made it clear that to come onto my section when he knew I wasn't home was not acceptable behavior. He started carrying on about how if I looked after my place he wouldn't need to and how I should pay him for the work he had done, and how it hurt his knees. And I said that I would be happy to mow the lawn more often, but I required him not to come onto my property without my expressed consent. Because, lets be honest, he was in the wrong, he had no right to pull plants out, he lied about the extent of his trespass, and I had every right to take legal action against him for it. I was being very reasonable and polite in simply asking him not to come back.

He was furious and refused to agree to stay of my land.

I had to pay someone to come over the next day to tidy up his mess. And, as he and his spying wife went past, oh the look of satisfaction on their smug little faces. I guess they think I was submitting to their edict on the messiness of my garden and doing what they thought I should have done all along.

Clearly they need to be reminded of the laws regarding staying on their own side of the line, regardless of how they feel about plants grown for food instead of prettiness.

I also want to start keeping a couple of hens in my yard (I checked, and it is perfectly legal to keep hens in a residential property in my district), and now I have serious concerns about the safety of my birds while living next to this crazy couple.

So I'm moving.