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Kitchen Table Kibitzing: A Room with a View [1]
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Date: 2022-07-07
I was puttering around the house doing odds and ends Tuesday and had pulled the dog inside where she barked every time a worker was visible in the floor-to-ceiling windows. There was a break in the obnoxious sounds from the yard equipment when I suddenly heard my next-door neighbor screaming and cursing in the street above the house, loud enough so that I could glean that he was irate about something the gardeners had done. I opened up my kitchen window and called up to him to find out exactly what the problem was. He continued screaming throughout our conversation, at one point disappearing to get a yardstick to demonstrate the properties’ boundaries. At that point, for the sake of quiet, I went outside and up to the street to try to calm him down.
x Going green this evening as a powerful derecho sweeps through Sioux Falls South Dakota with damaging winds and hail pic taken by Jaden #sdwx pic.twitter.com/DhW4yn8Dn5 — Brandon Houck (@HouckisPokisewx) July 6, 2022
I had thought the next-door neighbor would be thrilled that the front and side of the property were finally cleaned out. It should have been a cause for celebration. Just two months ago we had talked in the street about the problems I was having getting the owner to address the issue. At that point, he expressed concern about the fire danger caused by a tree overhanging the carport and said he might give the property manager a call as well.
The reason the neighbor went ballistic was because the gardeners had topped a hedge that runs between our yards. The hedge, it turns out, had finally reached a height where it blocked the light from my kitchen window into his bedroom window.
The gardeners trimmed about six inches.
x Have never seen something like that.
Green sky with combination of blue in Sioux falls SD#sdwx pic.twitter.com/aAq5G2K9Xb — Aafaque (@aafaque33) July 5, 2022
“I am so pissed, it will take three years to grow back,” he said of the box hedge.
He then threatened to sue the property management company because the hedge originates on his property. “Someone should have been on-site to oversee the work,” he claimed, “because the workers don’t know anything about property lines.”
At this point, the gardeners were sitting having lunch at the top of the steps alongside my house. My neighbor was screaming into his cell phone. Apparently, the person on the other end spoke Spanish and he passed over the phone to one of the gardeners, Latinos who spoke no English and had no clue what had precipitated this over-the-top response.
“It took three years for that hedge to grow tall enough to block your kitchen light,” he reiterated. “Now you are going to have to pull your shades down because mine is going to stay right where it is. I’m not going to pull it down anymore.
x West of Beaver Creek, MN a few moments ago. Amazing green hue as the storm approaches. Staying ahead for now. #mnwx #sdwx @NWSSiouxFalls pic.twitter.com/RigteC5Ccn — John Homenuk (@jhomenuk) July 5, 2022
“From now on, I’m just going to let my kids ...” He left the threat dangling, I guess not able to. come up with something his young kids could do fast enough to end his sentence. I tried to talk reasonably with him, to explain that I had not told the gardeners to cut the hedge but that I had honestly thought the hedge was on my property.
“I water that hedge, it’s mine,” he said. “I have an irrigation system feeding its roots.”
When he got his phone back, he called the property manager and started screaming at them about their negligence. He demanded they send someone over to observe what had been done.
“They were on my property,” he said. “I have grounds to sue and I just might because you need to do a better job overseeing the workers you commission.”
At this point, I gestured to him and said I was worried that his actions could make the property management company angry with me, after the numerous requests I had made to have yard work done. “I can’t be evicted,” I said. “I was just trying to clean things up. I thought you’d be happy.”
Quite shaken, I went back downstairs into my house. About five minutes later he knocked on my front door to tell me I shouldn’t worry about being evicted, that it was next to impossible to evict anyone in California. And that I hadn’t done anything wrong.
Wednesday morning I’m sitting over coffee when the dog starts barking in the backyard. A man with an electric saw is perched high in the branches in my bottom yard topping a huge oak tree. The neighbor hires someone every six months or so to cut the tree back to ensure his clear view of Richardson Bay. The oak is more on my property than his and he’s never stopped by to ask my permission for workers to come into my yard. I suppose because I also get the benefit of an expanded water view.
Tuesday night I pulled my curtains permanently shut across my kitchen window. I’m curious to see if it is going to take three years for the hedge to grow six inches so I can have natural light in my kitchen again.
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