You must live in a very neat and tidy neighborhood if that small amount of crap sets off the neighbors.
BUt otoh what is the big deal with just flattening the boxes pronto, I mean they are just cardboard, not something you have to lug around or push and shove. Just stomp them flat, that’s what I do before I take it down to the recycle center. Pet peeve is people who do not flatten boxes first and fill up the dumpster with empty boxes
I think an important point here, too, is that there are different standards for front yards than back yards. I have a mess in my back yard that I would never, ever leave in my front yard (flower pots left lying around, weeds not scrupulously pulled, etc.). If you want to leave your boxes lying around, I might suggest that you do so in your back yard.
Don’t let people live rent-free in your head. If you change your behavior, in either direction, because of this encounter, you’ve let her drive your life. Clean up your porch because it’s what you wanted and what you think is right and never let what she might or might not think determine your actions. That way lies madness.
Enjoy,
Steven
Next time, just say “Fuck you.”
Why don’t you go over there and do it for her? Why didn’t the neighbor? Why don’t any of you sanctimonious jerks who think some empty boxes on a porch is a tremendous deal do it? Is it possible that leaning over with enormous sticks up your butts makes it difficult?
You don’t meet your neighbors when they are out walking their dogs and shout at them about the state of their yards. That’s just so unbelievably rude I’m still stunned by it, and then I’m further stunned by the rudeness of the SDMB posters who come into this thread and say, “Oh well, you should have cleaned up your porch/yard.”
Maybe it’s that I’ve experienced our little subdivision being marooned for about 36 hours after Hurricane Gustav, with no way to physically get out of the area because of trees down. Then we had to look out for each other because we were the second-to-last area in town to get power back up, two full weeks out, and many if not most of the older folks didn’t have generators going. When the shit hits the fan, natural disaster-wise, folks, you’re glad for neighbors you like and can trust.
I’m going to mildy agree with Carol here, and state that there is no particular reason I can think of why a bunch of boxes should be sitting on the porch collecting bugs. May I, in fact, go collect those boxes for recycling without causing a ruckus? I’d be happy to, if I won’t get shot.
We have a neighbor down the street that has boxes on her front porch. And along the garage side of the house stretching from the front all the way to the back. Her back porch is loaded with boxes.
Full boxes. Large boxes (washer/dryer size), medium boxes, small boxes. Stack to the porch ceiling.
At times when we go walking and her living room curtains are open, we still boxes through the windows stacked high in there, too.
The exterior of the house is in immaculate condition. The lawn is carefully cut and tended. The gardens all around are beautiful. Trees, shrubs, flowers. The garden beds have rich, deep and spotless soils. Obviously a gardener who deeply cares and live-giving green thumbs.
We’ve seen the neighbor. An older, petite, Asian woman. Never looks as we walk by. Never responds to a polite “Hello” so any attempt to engage in idle chit chat never occurs.
Why would anyone care about a few boxes on their neighbour’s porch? Is there a practical reason?
Not necessarily commenting on Zsofia’s situation, but in general I think we all have a duty to our neighbours to keep our front yards etc. presentable. It really isn’t a matter of “mind your own business” because crap lying around impacts upon the appearance of the street as a whole. So (again, in general) a neighbour requesting a tidy-up of the front porch isn’t necessarily unreasonable.
IMHO, keeping empty boxes on your front porch isn’t exactly going to endear you to your neighbours. The neighbour was somewhat tactless, however.
I can see this (especially in light of the “broken window” theory of neighborhoods, where one messed-up thing can drag down how much people care about stuff, and things can snowball from there), but I’d be more worried about a couple other potential problems/concerns.
My first guess would be “if there is piled up trash/boxes outside the front door for a long period of time, does that mean it’s piling up inside?” At that point you start worrying about fire hazards and havens for vermin.
The other thing is that this might lead to ‘trespass’ by bolder people - either wanting the boxes for moving, or people who thought the property wasn’t always occupied and decided for whatever reason to get a better look, out of nosiness or to do something criminal. We live in a nice neighborhood but in a rental house, and the previous upstairs neighbor was a sister-in-law and her daughter. They were evicted for non-payment of rent, but because the landlord didn’t have a replacement tenant for months, and because we were still living downstairs, a lot of their stuff was left behind “temporarily” since they were slackers about moving it. For probably a week or so, they left a lot of stuff on the front porch (not to mention other places, like garage and basement), which we were not happy about. Then one day, we heard voices out there - it wasn’t the inlaws, it was a couple of teenage boys picking through the stuff! They must have assumed correctly that it was an eviction and incorrectly that it was abandoned, but didn’t realize part of the house was still legally occupied. The inlaws got an angry phone call after that to move their crap.
Christ on a cracker, haul your empty boxes to the trash and/or recycling the next garbage night. It’ll take 10 minutes, tops. Saying you have classes every night is a ridiculous rationalization for leaving boxes on your front porch for MONTHS.
Yes, the neighbor could have handled the matter more sensitively but she shouldn’t have had to handle it all.
Poor Captain! I’m sure he deserves better food than that.
I cannot imagine too many things that are less my neighbors’ business than what the inside of my house looks like.
Whether or not Zsofia is guilty of having a messy yard or porch is a non-issue. The state of her home does not matter, that woman was just plain rude and she could have approached Zsofia about it in a nice non-confrontational manner but she chose to be rude which is the worst way to try to get someone to do something.
I’m guilty of being a not so good neighbor with regards to upkeep on my home. I work full-time and I have health issues so sometimes I just don’t have the energy to do the yard work and maintenance that I should and I don’t have a lot of extra money to pay someone else to do it. The only help I get is occasionally my boyfriend will help, but then he expects extra sex and there goes my energy. Then there’s always that Murphy guy that makes sure something goes wrong when I plan a day or two to take care or the yard, like the mower breaks, the weedeater breaks, I get attacked by wasps, I hurt my back, or … This danged rainy summer weather that makes the grass grow six inches in a week and it’s almost impossible to keep up with because it’s always raining those rare times when you actually have the time to mow.
If a neighbor asked me nicely about my yard issues I would be apologetic and explain my situation and ask for some patience and compassion on their part. However if someone made rude comments like Zsofia’s neighbor I would not be apologetic at all and if I had been planning on doing some outside clean up that day I’d probably change my mind out of spite as well or I might decide that would be a good time to start that landscaping project which would first require me ripping up part of my yard and making it look even worse for a while.
There’s just something about someone rudely telling you to do something that you already planned on doing or were in the middle of doing that just makes most humans not want to do it anymore.
Oh, I’m not saying it is their business. I’m saying some people may well start thinking that way, though. Out-of-place things attract attention (check out the ‘mysteries of your neighborhood’ thread in IMHO), and that attention may get really obnoxious at times, as you know from Rude Lady Who Has No Filter on Her Mouth who confronted you. I’m just saying those are possible things to consider, that neighbors/passersby may worry it’s a developing rat trap, or that would-be robbers might cruise past and think they have an uninhabited house to tear the copper pipes out of, or whatever.
The house is lovely, the boxes are minimal and nobody’s business but yours.
Please don’t let this grumpy old woman derail your progress. You need to take back the power she tried to assert.
Try to find a way to laugh at her - make her less important. I picture her as MaLynn (sp?) from “Steel Magnolias”
“I’m not insane, I’ve just been in a very bad mood for the last 20 years . . .”
You have a really cute house. But yes, those boxes need to go, especially if they’ve been there for months.
Here’s how my neighbors handle this kind of thing. They don’t mention the mess, but once it’s cleaned up, they compliment me on the improvement. Or not the improvement, but they say something nice (“nice hanging baskets, I love that color”). Really I just moved all the mess–lots of boxes–into the garage, where it still is, but at least they can’t see it any more. Well, I only moved a year ago.
See, that’s how it’s done. Hell, I would have had no problem with “Good morning! Hi, puppy! Did you see that piece in the paper about the neighborhood? So, I’ve noticed you’ve got a lot of boxes out here - doing some spring cleaning? Man, I really need to work on my garage too!” In fact, it probably would have made me scurry to clean up.
The fact your on the good end of a transitional area to a crappy neighborhood probably helps make for the bitchy dog lady.
On the other end of the porch.