Please don't you be my neighbor

TG and I are okay neighbors.

We're all but invisible. We don't do anything obnoxious. We take decent care of our yard without being all uptight about it.

Our place is neat and clean.

And we mind our own business.

But it seems as though in this life, no good deed will go unpunished.

I wrote about my next-door neighbors (if you're standing in front of my house, look to your right and that's them, currently and inexplicably flying a banty-rooster flag), code name The Bothertons, once.

They've lived beside us for two years, having replaced the utterly lovable Suzanne and Jim, whose neighborliness I still miss.

It's time to work the Bothertons over again. Actually it's well and truly past time, but that's about to be both remedied and explained.

If you thrill to misanthropic maunderings of the subdivision kind, do keep reading.

Should you have a sensitivity to snark-casm directed at one's fellow man (and wife), do click out before there's a reaction.

Trust me; if you go with what's behind door number two, you will not be missed.

Still on board?

Let's weigh anchor.

In June of 2013 I walked outside early one morning -- like, the birdies were still doing scale-runs in warmup -- and in the dawn's early light my eyes beheld something that gave considerable pause.

As in, I stood for several seconds -- perhaps entire minutes -- with a slack jaw, staring.

Where was I staring? Over in the direction of the aforementioned neighbors' property.

Specifically, where it adjoins our property, the two suburban tracts bisected only by a standard-issue -- and completely necessary for my sanity -- privacy fence.

And why was Jenny the Pirate doing that? Staring, that is?

Because where only thin air and the glorious view of millions of leaves and branches (our neighbors' lot is larger than ours, and heavily wooded) had been a few days previous, there now stood the beginnings of a large-ish -- and most unwelcome -- building.

We'd been out of town for a few days, attending the funeral of my aunt.

Construction had begun in our absence. The walls were already up; if one thing led to another in a predictable way, the roof would be next.

The whole thing was wedged so tightly between two trees, it was unclear to me how it had even been possible to fit it in there.

And so close to my fence, I could have put my fingers between the boards and touched it. Inches.

The boorish nabes might as well have gone ahead and put their construction project in my back yard.

Irate, I went inside and woke TG to ask him if he'd seen the monstrosity.

He hadn't; it had been dark when we returned home from Atlanta the night before.

But TG revealed that Mr. Botherton had told him he would be "putting" a "small shed" beside the fence.

He'd even shown TG exactly where it would be.

However, Botherton had neglected to add, imply, indicate, or even allude to the fact that said shed would be basically the size, not of any normal shed, but of a one-car garage or even a small house.

After TG got up, he came outside to see the Bothertons' in-progress "shed."

As I recall, my beloved turned a whiter shade of pale. He didn't like the shed any more than I. But more importantly, he knew it would be awhile before he stopped hearing about it.

From me, that is.

Jenny charms the birds right out of the trees, has such a pleasant outlook, plays so beautifully with others.

Said no one ever.

Several days later, the shed was finished. And if possible, it was even bigger and unsightlier than I had imagined it would be.

Still fuming, I emailed the president of our HOA.

I hasten to add that I do not live in a hoity-toity type of neighborhood where a few people with nothing better to do police everyone else, reporting homeowners if a rose bush gets too tall or if a non-pedigreed dog tinkles on their mailbox.

The HOA to which I refer is basically toothless and I, a non-dues paying member, was fully aware. But I felt contacting its president was my first line of defense.

You know: channels.

And fine gentleman that he is, the prez was sympathetic -- said he totally felt my pain -- to my plight but powerless to do anything about it.

However. Wanting to help, he gave me a number to call, and a name to go with it.

His advice was that I start by determining whether our neighbor had obtained a building permit.

That was tantamount to throwing medium-rare steak at a starving carnivore. Digits trembling, I eagerly placed the call.

It was wonderful. The person to whom I spoke confirmed -- almost immediately, inspiring a frisson of hope -- that neither Botherton had bothered to get a permit to build so much as a birdhouse.

And the official promised that, within a few hours, someone from their office would be out to investigate. You know: We're from the Government and we're here to help.

Which indeed happened. But the news wasn't good. For me anyway. Well, for either of us, as it turned out.

Because although it was being built on a concrete slab, the shed didn't feature enough square footage to require a permit. Also relevant was the fact that Botherton insisted he would not be running electricity to his new eyesore.

"It's just for storage of some stuff that won't fit in the house," he promised the authorities.

That's funny because several times since then I've heard him operating power tools in there. Begging the question, does Mrs. Botherton know he's sawing her extra furniture in half?

But wait.

The official visit yielded an interesting -- if basically useless -- tidbit of information.

Botherton had built his shed too close to our fence.

By exactly two inches.

And he was facing both being fined for having done that, and with being obliged to appease us in some way, in order to obtain an easement.

I let TG go over there and hammer it out, because TG's middle name is Diplomacy.

Whereas mine is ... never mind.

You won't believe! The shed was built; it was on a slab and there were pilings anchoring it into the ground. Portable it most assuredly was not.

So this was Botherton's solution: remove the siding from the back. Making the shed two inches smaller.

Of course it's the back that we have to look at every time we glance out of the window or step onto our deck to visit our pool.

I think Botherton knew that nobody expected him to rip the siding off the back of his new shed.

The only other solution? We magnanimous Webers would need to sign a waiver giving him permission to use the two inches of dirt and air that technically were not his to use. 

 Short of an act of piracy -- or lobbing hand grenades over the fence -- I think it's fair to say I was out of options.

But wait.

Ahead of the day when a notary (summoned and paid by Botherton) came to secure our signatures on said waiver, I spent five or ten minutes preparing a document of my own.

It was a statement asserting that I was signing the waiver under protest. Meaning, I didn't want to but I was in effect being given no other choice.

In it, I correctly identified the shed as wholly unnecessary (next to the fence; they have lots of land and could have put it somewhere else) and an "aesthetic nuisance."

Which it is.

And I pointed out that its existence in that spot devalues my property.

Which it does.

Anyway, later some sort of baked offering appeared on our kitchen counter -- Mrs. Botherton had handed it off to TG in the yard, I think -- along with a note from our neighbors, explaining ad nauseam how long and hard they'd looked for a shed that struck just the right note of both attractiveness and functionality, and whining about how much it had cost.

Tacky, tacky, tacky. Don't talk about what things cost.

The language was stiff; clearly they were offended deeply by my calling their two-windowed baby an aesthetic nuisance.

But as a sop -- because they know putting that shed there was a bonehead move -- they invited us to "decorate" the back of their shed any way we wanted.

Really?

I'm considering taking bids from local artists to paint a larger-than-life depiction of Captain Jack Sparrow back there.

But do you know what the Bothertons didn't do, have never done to this very day?

They've never seen -- because they've never asked to, because they don't care -- what their shed looks like from our point of view. From our side of the fence.

They were spared the exclamations of morbid fascination when family members first caught sight of the beige blight of vinyl siding looming incongruently over our pool area.

Now? Today -- well, this summer?

The Bothertons have seen fit to erect a veritable forest of umbrellas and shelters in their back yard.

I'm serious. If you look over there (which I'm glad to say, you must make a concerted effort to do), it's one umbrella, shaded swing, and portable pavilion after another.

At least nine of them. I think that qualifies as a welter.

Like a poolside obstacle course that you don't go over, but under.

But the kicker? A red canvas shelter-type thing has been placed right next to the fence over by our pool pump.

And in that spot they're building something else.

The project was started but looks to have been suspended. There's a ladder, and lumber sticking up.

Maybe I'll change the Bothertons' code name to The Beavertons. Or, Mr. and Mrs. Botherton Beavers.

For beavers, more than any other creature, change their landscape.

But unlike the activities of our neighbors, it's usually for the better.

This has been my opinion, and at least partly satirical. Thank you for reading.

When we move to the (neighborless) country, I shall inform you immediately.

And that is all for now.

=0=0=0=

Happy Tuesday

Comments

[Sally]

OMGoodness. That absolutely stinks out loud!!
My only suggestion would be to have a very wild and loud party lasting into the wee hours. Just sayin'. :)

xoxo

[Anne]

Oh, man, Jenny!...I would decorate the heck out of it...I can see I shed-shaped trellis covered with the fastest and most hardy vine you can think of....WAIT! Kudzu! Then it will just overtake the shed completely one night, while the Bothertons are sleeping...if I were closer, I would paint Captain Jack for you...
Hugs,
Anne

[Donna M.]

Gosh, the only way to avoid annoyances like this is to buy a bunch of acreage and then put your house in the middle of the property. There are always going to be annoying neighbors whenever there are neighbors, sad to say. One solution to the garage eyesore is to build that section of your fence monumentally tall to block the view.

[irene]

Oh how annoying. Good neighbors are so hard to find. Maybe you could get Andrew to fly over a few times and dislodge some of those boards and they'd have to fix it. Our neighbors two door over are have a feud and one erected an ugly fence 8 feet tall all the way down to the road, UGLY! She then proceeded to paint it, unsuccessfully. She's a royal pain. Thanks for participating in Teaser Tuesday, and yes you posted you comment 3 times. I love hearing from you. And I too love Colin Dexter.

[Mari]

Aaagh! I will never understand some people. I would be most frustrated too, and some baked goods wouldn't be enough to appease me. That would probably make me more upset. I have a feeling it didn't do anything for you either.
We've had our own neighbor issues with the neighbors to the left of us. Their son used to pick on our kids on the bus, then started swearing at them over the fence in the back yard. By the time he was in Junior high he had gotten in trouble with the police for starting fires in mailboxes on our street, and he never made it out of high school because he was in jail. Their dog ran through our flowers all the time, and they thought Bob was a crabby guy for asking them to keep the dog in their own yard!
I think you better start some trees, vines.... anything to cover it up!

[Barb]

OMG - it looks like that huge tree is actually being supported by the shed - it's that close! What were they (not) thinking? I have no idea what you can do, Jenny. You'd have to plant a really big evergreen to obscure that shed. Unfortunately, we had a property line dispute with a city neighbor and had to hire a lawyer. It cost us some $$, and we're not the suing type. But, it worked! We only had to get the lawyer to write a letter - the other property owner backed down.

[Glenda]

Bummer!!!

[Donna (Texas)]

Anything you want to ut on it?? Well, see the photo you posted right below this post of the beach? See the sky? Get someone to paint that on it! I think it might work although Johnny Depp WOULD be cool!
I hate neighbors that you can "see"...Hahaaa
hughugs