So it’s FINALLY nice enough to open the windows at night, and let a nice, cool breeze in. Except…
…once again, the asshats that live next door have to ruin it all. You see, they have a little dutch oven they like to burn in the evenings. No big deal, right?
Only the moronic ass maggots use old, damp wood that smells like garbage burning and leave the chimney off, so the damn smoke blows right into our windows, stinking up the bedrooms, especially mine, since it’s on the side right by their yard.
Then their kids poke sticks into the flames and wave them around like sparklers. Not to mention, one of these days, they’re likely to end up setting fire to the grass, their house-and perhaps OURS.
And of course, most week nights, they’re out there, yakking away, not even caring about the neighbors around them who have to get up and go to work the next morning. The last time, I got so fed up, I screamed out the window, “Do you MIND? Some of us have to get up and go to work early!” Baby Sis was even more direct-she once yelled, “Shut the FUCK up! Some people have to get up early!”
Their delinquent to be little brats tromp through my mother’s flowers when their balls accidentally come into our yard, rather than going around through the alley. Then the little shits just stare at my mother like she’s speaking Wookiee when she asks them politely NOT to go through her myrtle.
Fucking little turdsmears. They’re not QUITE as bad as the ones we had before-but they’re pretty close.
Check your local laws on burning restrictions.
Lots of towns have laws that either make it illegal to burn, have set days and hours to burn, or require a permit.
Most towns just choose to not enforce these laws a strictly as they could. But if there are laws and you make a complaint the city has to shut them down.
I had a neighbor years ago who would burn leaves in big piles in his yard. Since I live in Florida and the dominant tree species in my neighborhood was the live oak, which drops leaves pretty much year round, I endured the acrid stench of leaf fires-year round.
Could the OP clarify her use of the term Dutch oven, please? I’m getting a sense of some sort of portable open-air firepit, but I’ve always thought of a Dutch oven as a cooking vessel.
I can get behind this pitting due to similar circumstances. We have a very hot bedroom (yeah, yeah), and we use a window fan to try to get it down to a sleepable condition. We also have neighbours who like to have fires, and their yard is right next to our bedroom. Their fires just smell like fires, not garbage, I’ll give them that, but unfortunately I hate the smell of woodsmoke (it makes me nauseated), so we’ll spend lovely summer nights sweltering in our sauna of a bedroom, trying to sleep.
They let their kids mess around in our yard, too, come to think of it. We don’t have kids; we’re supposed to be the yard that all the kids stay out of because they’re afraid of the cranky people that live there.
We did…however, the red tape is amazing. You have to call emergency, have the cops come out, catch them in the act, then, since they have quite a few friends on the local police force…it’s just not worth it. Trust me, we researched it.
Besides, all they have to do is pop the top back on when the police come, then take it back off after they leave.
Well, maybe it’s not a Dutch oven-it’s kind of a steel grated pot, very large, with a big metal chimney that goes over top-but they never put it on while they’re burning.
Maybe if they didn’t burn wet wood, and kept the stupid fucking chimney on, it wouldn’t be quite so bad. Or if they’d shut the fuck up at night. I have half a mind to go and have my friend burn a CD from his band (extreme heavy metal) and crank it under their window early in the morning before I go to work.
Most fire regulations deal with open flames or buring leaves/debris, etc. Someone using a “Chiminea” (I dont’ think that is spelled correctly) is probably not going to be considered in violation of a a local ordinance.
Thank you for the clarification, Guin. Are more diplomatic approaches to the problem out of the question? You know, go over, belatedly welcome them to the neighborhood, and present them with a gift of some seasoned firewood and fragrant wood chips (cedar, mesquite, hickory)? A gentle expression of concern that their choice of fuels might be adversely impacting their level of enjoyment from the device?
Our landlady was kind enough to move some real winners in the apartment next to ours. My wife has to be up to work early in the morning (4 am shifts), so bedtime comes around 9:30 pm. A couple of weeks ago, new neighbor is playing his stereo pretty loudly, but not crazy-loud. I knocked on his door, politely asked him to turn it down – or at least turn the subwoofer down – and he was gracious and apologetic. At 12:30 AM this past Saturday, he is BLASTING the music. We’re pounding on the walls, but he probably can’t hear it. One of the other neighbors must have had it as well, because they began to hammer on Big Noisy’s door, but then split before he opened it. Oh, my, and when he did open it –
“WHO THE HELL IS THAT? WHY DON’T YOU SHOW YOURSELF? YEAH, YOU BETTER NOT SHOW YOURSELF, 'COZ I’M GOING TO SHOOT YOU IN THE FACE, YOU F-ING P-SY! KEEP RUNNING, LITTLE GIRLY MAN! NOT EVEN MAN ENOUGH TO SHOW YOUR FACE!” etc etc etc.
That’s one usage. And if it were the one Guin had in mind when she wrote the OP, one might have expected her entire family to regard the neightors’ burning a Dutch oven every evening to be an entertaining spectacle on a par with that enjoyed nightly by the residents of the Jeffrey-Lynne housing subdivision in Anaheim.
