Difficult customers

[byhammerandhand]

Remind me never to do work for my back-door neighbor!   We're watching all this unfold from our family room / office / sewing room / kitchen windows.l

He moved in less than a year ago from Southern California.   I think he wanted to bring it with him.   We arrived home one day to find a landscaper removing all the trees and bushes from the back edge of the property.  He didn't like vegetation.  His plan was to have an 8' tall brick wall built around his back yard (1/2 acre properties).  The city wouldn't let him.  And he wasn't sure he could afford it.  SoCal.   He did manage to convince another neighbor to let him tear down a rail fence separating their properties because it was in poor repair.

Next he had a lot of work done on the outside of the house -- cutting holes in walls for doors, re-siding the gables, etc.  Apparently, he had a lot of work done inside too as there were kitchen remodelers there for several weeks.

Then he decided he wanted a paver patio.   Took out all but one of the remaining trees and it's probably been fatally damaged.  Patio was installed by the contractor.   Then added a knee wall, then added lights, then added a walk-out area.   Then added a sidewalk next to the house, then a 10x20 pad near the front of his garage.   We affectionately call the landscapers "The Red Shirts" because they wear read T-shirt uniforms.   They are there for a few days, then we see them back on a weekly basis while he walks around with them waving his hands and needing something else done.   Either not done to his satisfaction or he's changed his mind.   They have been there at least one day every week for the last nine months.  (I only hope they are getting paid time and materials).

Then this spring, he decides he wants a "flat yard"   There is about a 1' drop in grade in 120' of his back yard.   About 30 truck loads of clay soil and rock. (this should satisfy his need for no vegetation :-)    Half a dozen trips with the excavator leveling it out and spreading more each week.   Yesterday, they start digging up his driveway for some unknown purpose.   Don't know what happened but he hovered over them all day long while 5 laborers watched one guy do some detail digging with a trowel.  He is typically hovering around whenever anyone is there doing work.   We went for an evening walk about when they left at 8 pm, he's out there with a shovel and by 8:45, the power company shows up for an outage.   Today,  an excavator is digging a trench from the back corner of his house to the back corner of his property.   Who knows why?    He told me earlier this year, his plan was to put in a 6' cedar fence all around the property.   I presume he's waiting until the yard is "flat"?

Oh, did I also mention that last summer his allergies acted up and he didn't like the cold winter, so he's thinking of going back to SoCal at least a number of months each year?

Please don't throw me into this briar patch!

(Thanks for letting me rant!)

[Mike]

Where are you hammer?   I grew up in socal in the 60s we had small small lots and the houses were 8or9 feet apart my dad did a 6' block wall and 3' out front with rod iron inserts it was common to have block walls.  I bet he leveled the lot so as to rsise the 6' fence inless as i suspose he now has a little hill  vradi g down to the neighbors.
Didnt have many trees either o e large osk in the backyard and one by the road and sidewalk.

[sofadoc]

I have a neighbor down the block who spent more than 20 grand to have 2 fully grown trees installed in his back yard.

Him and his wife spent the next several months digging up under the roots and rigging up an elaborate irrigation system. The trees died, so they demanded free replacements. They got them, and started the whole process all over again. The replacement trees died also.

When they first built the house, the man wanted it built with no windows because he said that aliens were trying to abduct him. He ended up with the bare minimum number of windows that would satisfy city building codes. Personally, I think he's growing his own weed, or cooking meth.

Aside from that house, the rest of my neighbors are all very normal. And while they are all very cordial when spoken to, I don't really consider any of them to be close friends. We exchange pleasantries when we see each other outside, but never have any neighborhood cookouts or get-togethers.

I guess that's just the way it is nowadays.

[bobbin]

What a dispiriting story, Hammer.!  It certainly sounds as though the moonscape is well underway. 

I grew up in a "neighborhood" ('50s subdivision west of Boston) and my parents selected our home because it still had some "wild" left in it.  The "rage" at that time was to manicure everything, but my parents preferred "woods" and we had ferns, skunk cabbage, trees, and a brook behind our home.  And all the cool fauna that went along with it... frogs, toads, salamanders, raccoons, skunks.  It was great!  To this day I scorn the "manicured" look.  I'll hazard a bet that your neighbor had a heavily fertilized and irrigated lawn in So. CA, too.  It sounds like "his speed". 

We're on 2.75 acres, house in the centre, and "woods" around 3 sides.  A very busy road is the other side, so the cool, "wild" perimeter offers privacy and fosters native plants and animals.  A lot of residents on the road have opted for the same approach, but there are still some that can't wait to lay waste to a lot.  (same ones who google ways to soothe a crying baby, ya think?)

[byhammerandhand]

I was out in my garden pulling a few weeds this afternoon and he called me over.

It seems the fence company put in 4 posts and nicked an underground power line after he told them the rough location (why he didn't call 811 is beyond me).   His power was flaky for a few days until he figured this out.   Now, the fence company says they are not responsible and it will cost $1000 for an electrician to fix it, not counting remove and replace the pavers. 

Setting up new forms today to pour a concrete driveway to replace the asphalt one.

He also said he can't get anyone to come out and do the grading.   They keep flaking out on him  (Maybe word has gotten out.)


For another story, neighbor on the other side has gone overboard with wildlife.  Definitely a personality disorder.   She "rehabilitates" birds and squirrels and people bring them from all over town.   She names them and talks to them like they understand.   She's out filling the feeders about 4 times a day and every evening walks across the street with a bucket of day-old bread ahd tosses it in the woodline.  At one time, she said she made peanut butter sandwiches every Thursday and took them down to "the bridge" to feed the raccoons there.   Last year, they drove to Georgia to buy 500 pounds of pecans for the squirrels in addition to walnuts and hazelnuts.  As a result, we have a plethora of deer, raccoons, chipmunks, possums, and birds (mostly attractive species such as pigeons, starlings, and bluejays).  I think the record is 14 squirrels in my back yard (1/4 acre) at one time.  Every once in a while, I'll walk out of the garage and have a bird try to land on my shoulder expecting to be fed.   She does not cook meals, but spends most of her days feeding animals, running worms through her blender.   


Maybe I need to move up the plan to sell my house?

[Mike]

were I live now was all developed from swamp canals dug and so any trees were all planted people are all friendly unlike any other place ive lived where you didn't know your neighbor 4 houses away across the bridge here its very plastic. perfect houses perfect lawns and nobody is outside , only residents you see outside are walking down the sidewalks never in there yards. and there boats never leave the dock. just decoration. and bobbin my lawn is mowed one a week and irrigated in the winter when it dosent rain if I could get my front lawn as good as my back ill be happy

[byhammerandhand]

I told my wife I'm going to start a new company:   Seigna List.   Angie's List provides consumers a chance to review and feedback on service providers.   This is a "reverse Angie's List" providing service providers to review and feedback on consumers.    "This person you don't want to work for."

[kodydog]

Quote from Hammer
"Then this spring, he decides he wants a "flat yard"   There is about a 1' drop in grade in 120' of his back yard."

Um, don't you want a little slope, Ya know, for drainage?

[Darren Henry]

I'd like to get rid of that at the house in Kenora---foot and a half-ish grade from 7th,through the neighbours,up against the side of my house. NOW; if it was going the other way--LOL.

[bobbin]

FIL was a landscape architect.  Yep, Kody., you sure do want "some pitch"! and the heavily manicured lawn scene wreaks havoc on watersheds, esp. in places like Florida and So. CA.  Big issue here in coastal Maine, too.  Wrecks the clam flats and the salt marshes.  

Bummer about the "lure 'em in" neighbor, Hammer., sounds as though you have more than your share of "drags" living around you.  We have a few "seasonal"/"neighbors of the month" (summer rentals) and one relatively new neighbor who insist on putting their trash out on Sunday (early afternoon) so they don't have to get up on Monday AM to do it.  Naturally, the "night shift" has a party with it.  And the helpmeet and I are the ones who clean it up.  A few well documented photographs as a follow up to a polite knock on their doors reminding them of the very clear town ordinance about trash collection got their attention.  The sole offender received a verbal reminder of the town's policy and the hope that we wouldn't have to call code enforcement to intervene on something so practical (cleanliness)... .  And then I gave them a bag of salad greens and another of broccoli and cauliflower.  

Been here 23 yrs. now and making the effort to meet and greet all the neighbors has proven very effective.  (grew up in very small town).

[JuneC]

What's he doing in your neck of the woods, Keith?  He'd fit right in down here.  No one likes the natural shrubbery of Florida so they tear it all out and put in designed lawns, hedges and shrubbery.  Most homes look like mini-hotels as far as the exterior goes.  Landscape designers and those who maintain lawns are probably some of the wealthiest blue-collar workers around.

June

[Mike]

Keith. I have a underground wire story.  
At my last house i was on a corner lot with a greenspace behind me so i only mhad one  house neckdoor close . And it was a rental witha messy guy had a old rv he painted harley orange and black. With a brush. So i wanted a fence on the one side for privacy for my pool. I got all the needed permit cor a stockade fence   And had the people needed to mark cor undergrounf itilities that were in the area. Not for non cemented post ithey had to be 3' deep. All was going well till at the back ot the property there was a ficus tree where the cence was going to dead end.
And i was using a power hole drill    Noe my mosey neighbor behind me walked over to talk and i was drilling o e of the last holes i though i hit a root and stopped and with nosey nellie i wanted to go deep enough if he wasnt there i sould have let it go with a a foot and a half deep well i did t and gave ot a go knce more getti g through that root.  
Well the next day i came home from work to find utilitie truck had driven in the creenway and had a big hole dug. I hadnt dug around any marked flags but the flag guys missed a spot. Well i think im ok but i cind i only had like 20 days cor the markers to be ok to dig. Well i cut through a fiberoptic cable. A d the phone co split the bill a d i pId about 800.

[byhammerandhand]

I have friends who retired and moved to near Orlando, FL.   They said most of their neighbors were always saying things like, "You can't get good pizza like in NYC,"   "You can't get a good bagel like in NYC,"   and "You can't get a good <....> like in NYC."

Here's a solution that would make everyone happy:  Go back to New Yawk.

For some reason, we've always had at least one "odd" neighbor, no matter where we've lived.   I told my wife before we buy another home, we're going to interview the neighbors before making an offer.

[SteveA]

Speaking from experience - it's a misnomer  - you can't get good pizza or a decent bagel in NYC - you have to go to da Bronx where I'm from.
SA

[byhammerandhand]

I thought the Bronx was New York City?

Bronx + Brooklyn + Manhattan + Staten Island + Queens    = New York City

Speaking from experience - it's a misnomer  - you can't get good pizza or a decent bagel in NYC - you have to go to da Bronx where I'm from.
SA