What goes around comes around

Are you a bad neighbor??

I have what I call the Neighbor From Hell. We moved into our two houses the same weekend 20 years ago, under the same county program to help first homeowners. For 20 years, NFH has risen at sunrise every weekend to run every power toy he owns: leaf blower, lawn mower, weed whacker, chain saw. This will start at 6:00 in the morning and by the time I have been thoroughly annoyed and wide awake and have slammed the window shut (after debating which is worse, the oppressive heat in an unairconditioned house or the obnoxious clatter and clamor from ten feet away), NFH will put all his power toys back in the garage and slink into the house, never to be seen for the rest of the day. I've thought of calling the police – but as soon as I lift up the phone – you got it – he's gone.

NFH also tosses limbs from my trees that land in his yard, back into my yard. He stands on the roof of his garage and pushes leaves off the roof over into my yard. He trims branches from my trees hanging over his yard and tosses them into my yard – and not just by the property line. NOOOOO, he heaves them to the middle of my yard. If I would approach him, he would slither back into his cave and hide.

Finally, he did the unthinkable – he hacked down my wild rose bush that grew along my driveway, on my property, but next to his patio. He hacked what was a ten-foot tall beautiful wild rose bush to the ground with just a two-inch stub showing. He did this three times over the spring.

The poor thing would try to recover, grow a few inches, and WHACK, down to the ground. And try again and WHACK, down to the ground.

This guy is a piece of work. Finally, I threatened to take him to small claims court this last spring, after his millionth desecration of my wild rose bush. I had to mail a notice to him since I could never catch him outside, nor would he answer his door.

Wonder of wonders, he responded by immediately putting up a fence.

I danced a jig.

About four weeks ago he put up a For Sale sign in front of his house.

I danced another jig out on the sidewalk. Things are looking GOOD!

Then, last week I was raking leaves and uncovered my rose bush, hacked AGAIN within the last week. I cursed, flailed my rake, cursed some more, said really bad words, and finally muttered, "I wish you would just DIE."

So, this weekend, his obituary was in the Sunday paper. Don't get excited – I don't have awesome powers. He died two days before I wished it upon him.

There's a moral here. Don't mess with thy neighbor – especially if she is menopausal.

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