THE STUPID NEIGHBOUR BLOG

Frannie writes:

We've been in a small quiet town about 35 min. outside of Boston for a little over 13 years. Our neighbors on one side are like an extra set of grandparents to our three kids. The people across the street keep to themselves for the most part but when we do meet up they are always really nice. However, the neighbor abutting our property on the other side has been anything but pleasant since we moved in, except for her "fake" politeness.

When we arrived our oldest was 3. He would throw his ball around the yard and sometimes it would accidentally land in her yard. He would get his ball and she would say to him from her window "you need to keep that in your yard". He was 3! When he was 5 and he was playing with his younger brother, even though I had warned them, the ball accidentally went into her yard and she opened her window and told them if they did it again she was going to call me. One sunny afternoon our kids come to the door yelling "the big man said it was OK for us to play with his girls". We went outside and found this woman's son and grandchildren in our yard. Her son was nice enough and so were the girls, but we were floored. She put on her "fake" politeness talking about how cute children are. I'm sure for her son's benefit, considering anyone hardly visits her.

A year later she started yelling at my kids who were playing behind our shed which is near the property line. She accused them of killing her grass. There was no grass there to begin with. My husband had them rake up the area and we had to ban them from playing there. When our oldest was 12 he decided he wanted to mow the lawn for allowance. We supervised and while he was out mowing he stopped to pick up a stick and she yells over that he was too young to be mowing, that was his father's job.

We eventually had a third child and decided we needed to put an addition on our home. We didn't need a variance, but the project set her off anyway. She was constantly making comments about how the construction and that the house was now too big. She started a bunch of renovation activity at her own home and then planted a series of arborvitaes along the property line. We were thrilled, and we prayed that they would grow. Unfortunately, many didn't survive the first two winters, due to the heavy snow and deer. She would water them religiously but to no avail, and most of them died.

One afternoon during a rain storm a branch from a pine tree that sits on the property line fell on one of her dear arborvitaes. A small branch was snapped off. We saw the whole thing and decided not to say anything. She came out later and called me over to ask if I could take a picture of it with MY camera and if I would submit a claim to MY homeowners insurance.

The final straw came last spring when my husband who had been gone for a week on a business trip was playing outside with our kids and she accused him of driving a piece of equipment on her property a couple of days prior and that she had the tire marks to prove it. She ignored him when he said he hadn't home, she just kept accusing him. By now she had awakened the beast from within and I came out and strung together a thread of profanities that would have made Howard Stern blush. Bad example for my kids, I know. But she hasn't bothered us since.

So flash forward to the present, we have now built a privacy screen on our deck, planted bushes on our side and removed the swing set. But here's the funny thing, for a woman who wants nothing to do with us, she rakes incessantly on the property line where dead arborvitaes stand as a testament to her stupidity. She constantly spies on us while we are in the backyard working or socializing with guests. Spying is a bad word, it makes it seem like she's sneaking a peek, but she blatantly stares with rake in hand. It's bad enough that she'll rake near our shed when my husband is inside with a friend or family member and listen to their conversation. She also watches me have drinks on the porch with my friends and family and stares at my mother-in-law while she's spending time with her grandchildren. So if she can't stand us, why does she find us so fascinating?

I think she is lonely and her arborvitaes were her only friends - Ca1v1n