She did thank me for having the maple tree cut down. She said it made a mess for her yard guys. In reality, we had it removed because it was messy for us! But I’ll let her think it was for her benefit.
We moved into our current house in 1993. Since I bought it from my uncle, I already knew our neighbor. Let’s call him Crazy Carl.
Since CC and I are ex-cops, and he was a prison guard, our world-views were virtually identical on many topics. We weren’t best buds, but we chatted now and then, loaned tools to each other as needed, and we each mowed the entire grassy area between our driveways. 20 feet wide by about 50 yards from the top of our driveways to the street. Beyond that to the rear of the properties is my fence around our pool.
One day, maybe 5 or 6 years ago, while raking leaves in the back, a policeman came through my back garden gate and approached me. He had come to solve a neighbor dispute of some kind. Turns out CC had called them to complain that I (and my kids) were trespassing on his land, and he wanted it stopped. What? I told the officer I had no idea what CC was talking about, and let’s go talk to him.
When we went over, CC was standing in his driveway, and was clearly about to explode.
As soon as I asked what’s going on, he blew. “You know damn good and well. You ride that motorcycle across here, your kids play over here, you’ve always got your telescope over here and I’m goddammed tired of it.” He went on for another minute, before I was allowed to speak.
Motorcycles? That’s the white trash from the farm behind us. I have no reason to ride a street bike in his back yard, and never have.
Kids? Don’t be silly. I can’t get them to play in their own yard. They’re city mice, not country mice. They hate being out in the yard, unless they’re in the pool. Supervised.
Telescopes? You mean in 1995, when Hale-Bopp was in the northern sky? And I asked you if we could use your back yard? For a week? In 1995? And you said “sure, no problem.”?
Fun fact: CC doesn’t live next door. Sure, he owns it, but he lives with his GF 30 miles away. Comes to get mail and check the house for about 6 minutes once a week or so.
I could live in his boat in the carport and he would never know.
CC kept sputtering and was clearly mentally unbalanced, so I chatted with the cop. He said “I have to give you a criminal trespass warning, and if you ever go on his property again, you will be arrested.”
I was stunned. This makes as much sense as putting mayonnaise on french fries. But, I said “Fine, whatever. But what about mowing the grass here between the driveway?” CC butts in and says “Oh, you can still mow the whole strip.”
Like fuck I will.
So for 3 or 4 days, I’m talking to my wife trying to figure out what the hell has happened here. We’ve never had a cross word. We’ve always helped each other. We both despise Democrats 
We settled on it being a medication problem, combined with Alzheimer’s or something similar.
So now, here’s the weird part.
About the 4th day on, I’m leaving the house, and CC is mowing the front yard. As I drive past, I glance at him, and he gives me a big wave, like nothing has happened. Like he didn’t try to have me arrested. Like he didn’t want to cut my throat. Just being neighborly.
I don’t think he was being sarcastic, or asshole-ish. I got the sense that he thinks all is normal. It made me so mad I could spit.
He called out to me a couple of times in the next year or so when I was in my driveway.
I have no idea what he wanted, and I couldn’t care less. We haven’t spoken since then, and the kids were instructed to run inside if they ever saw him since I know he carries more guns that I do.
Hopefully, he’ll die soon, and I can buy the house from the estate. I’ll tear that shit down, and build a nice garage where I can store some of my toys…
I have owned my condo for a quarter century. Would not know the woman who owns the unit above mine if I tripped over her dead body.
The living brain donors she rents to, on the other hand…
How does one manage to find so many cast members fron “Danceing with Elephants”?
I’m thinking I should just tear the fence down, and then ask the neighbour if she likes apples.
My thoughts are:
- neighbours vary a lot
- try to avoid disputes (as this thread shows, they can last decades)
My current neighbours illustrate these points:
-
on one side they are decidedly iffy.
When I first moved in, I went into my back garden, saw them and said a friendly hello across the (low) fence. Literally the first words they spoke were “Your tree needs to be cut down! It’s taking our light!”
I said they were welcome to hire a tree surgeon to cut it down. (I was miffed by no ‘hello’. :smack:) No response.
After a few years, I cut the tree down anyway (by now it was getting old.)
After a few more years, they built an extension, which took some of my light. -
on the other, they are a delight.
It’s a family with three young kids. They make a bit of noise playing (but so did I when I was young.)
When their ball got kicked into my garden, the kids knocked on my door and asked very politely if they could retrieve it. I like good manners, so I threw it back (and do so regularly.)
When the hedge between our properties was getting overgrown, I offered to share the costs of trimming. (I didn’t know on whose property it was.) The husband replied “I’ve got a saw - I’ll do it for free!” And he did.
Finally they asked if I minded if they kept chickens (no cockerel, due to noise.) I said fine - and now I buy fresh eggs from them.
He fought the moss and the moss won.
Are you Werner Herzog?
I love your movies!
We called each other that before the documentary – which I have since obtained. 
You can say that again. I once had a house in LA and was away for a while. A water pipe in the house broke and sprayed water all over the kitchen for 2 weeks. The closest neighbor heard the water running day and night, but made no attempt to contact anyone about it, even the security service whose name was on the sign in the front yard.
I’ve got one of those, too! I live on a corner lot and an older woman and her 30ish son live to my right and kind of behind my house. So we don’t normally see each other coming and going. I have talked to the son probably a dozen times in 10 years. Every time he has introduced himself and then asked what my name is! It’s very strange.
Oh, God, I’m that neighbor!
I first met my new next-door neighbor when her dog got loose and ran into my yard. I greeted the dog and held it for her (a sweet doggie; she rolled onto her back and then peed on me in delight and terror). We chatted for a few minutes about what a trial half-grown pups can be, and she told me her name and that she’d just moved into the neighborhood.
About a week later, I noticed a moving van in the driveway of the house fairly late at night. I wanted to be sure that there wasn’t anything untoward going on, so I went on over to check, and when the woman came out, I introduced myself. She said, “Oh, yes, we met - remember my dog?” Turns out she’s renting the house from my old next-door neighbor, who moved away about a month earlier - I hadn’t noticed. :smack: She laughed and told me her name again.
Another week or so later, I was in the grocery store when a young woman said hello to me enthusiastically. Luckily, I’m a very friendly person*, so I greeted her back and made brief grocery-store small talk. It wasn’t until I was walking out to my car that I saw her get into the Jeep that’s often parked next door. My neighbor!
Go on, ask me her name. I dare you.
*I am this way because I simply cannot identify people in even slightly unfamiliar settings. I have to be very friendly just in case the “strangers” I’m running across are actually co-workers or neighbors or distant family members or something.
Wasn’t entirely clear from your OP - are you certain the fence is yours - and on your property? If so, and if you do not want/need it - by all means, tear it down. By itself the fence has essentially nothing to do with who owns what property.
IME one of the legal concepts people are the silliest about is adverse possession. The easiest way to prevent someone gaining title to your property is to give them permission. A simple registered letter solves all of your problems.
I read this thread with interest, as my wife and I are closing on a new home on Friday. I really hope to be known simply as that nice quiet older couple, who always smile and wave, and keep up their property nicely. I’ve had neighbors good and bad, and feel the risk of developing bad neighbors far outweighs any benefit from becoming friendly with any neighbors.
That was just a setup for ‘How do you like them apples?’. 
The previous previous (previous?) owner put up the fence. Obsessive Neighbour seems to think it’s mine. My position is that as long as there are trees along the property line, that part of the yard is useless to me; and she only comes to her property occasional weekends and doesn’t use her yard at all. (The line is along the unused side of her single-wide.) So why worry about it? It makes no difference unless one of us wants to sell our property. In any case, she claims that the trees have pushed the fence farther into her property over the years. The posts at either end have not moved. There is one part of the fence that could be straightened out, but it’s so dilapidated it would be a pain.
So what it comes down to is that she is a ‘My side, your side! My side, your side!’ kind of person. What’s hers is hers, and nobody’s going to take it from her. I know there’s a property line there, and neither of us are doing anything with it; so demarcation is not that important to me. But since she’s making such a big deal about it, I’d like to have a fence that we both agree on just to shut her up.
I am the same.
My buddy actually told me a similar neighbor story last week. Said last week he “met” his neighbor of 5 yrs. Apparently around 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, my buddy lit some wood in his chiminea on his backyard patio deck. His neighbor called out his window saying, “Hey (buddy’s firstname), could you point that in the other direction?”
According to my buddy, the neighbor was up watching TV, and apparently some smoke was going in the windows.
I told my buddy this sounded like the type of situation where both/neither he nor his neighbor were entirely right or wrong - not the answer he wanted.
Try getting a security clearance. “Give the name, address and phone number of three close neighbors.” Um…
Heh. One day when I got home from work, the apartment manager said she’d had a scare. Apparently a couple of federal officers had come by asking questions about me. Just a routine background investigation for my TS. 
That was one thing that bothered me when I got my present job. My neighbor on one side was a nutcase, and I was a tad concerned by the possibility that some investigator might give him an opportunty to say something nasty (true or not) about me.
My husband is the neighborly neighbor sort, so I’m sometimes forced to be much more sociable than I’d really prefer. It often is a good thing, because Tony sort of insists that I not be a complete hermit: I met several of our neighbors when we had a trespasser a couple of years ago, who obviously intended to rifle through our garage for any spare stuff that we might want to donate to him. (By chance, that was a night Tony was working, else the very loud and protective K9 would have awakened from his peaceful slumber to scare the saggy pants right off the little thug.) At any rate, all except three householders on our little 12-house, circa 1968 street were the original builders and occupants of these homes, so it’s mostly older folks. In good conscience, I had to go warn them to be careful about locking garages and tool sheds. I took baked goods to the folks across the street when their mother died, and a big box of household stuff (paper towels and coffee fixings and paper plates and all of the stuff you need when the house is suddenly overwhelmed with extra visitors,) to the 2 doors down neighbors when Mr. G died last month. Being a good neighbor can backfire (ask me about crazy Mrs. F, who decided I was her personal chauffeur and secretary for a few weeks when I innocently offered to drive her to the bank and pharmacy once,) but overall? Pretty good. When I was tied up with Tony at the hospital the past winter, Mr. and Mrs. P from next door brought food and kept a benign eye on the Big Kid and the Medium-Small Kid for me. Mrs. G’s son picked up milk and dog food when I needed it and couldn’t get away to get it.
We haven’t even moved to our new place yet, and my uber-sociable husband has already met the neighbor, worked out where we’d put the dog kennel so we won’t disturb him, and offered baked goods as a way to keep the peace in case the dog barks at inconvenient hours. I just hope that our new neighbor is half as lovely as our current ones…
Did you catch him?