Our Terrible Neighbors Were Angels in Disguise
Sometimes you need distance to see things in a different light
The day we moved in the neighbor walked over hunched in a huge coat, smoking a cigarette, unsmiling. It was pouring rain, temperatures just above freezing, and we thought he had come to help. We could not have been more wrong.
He wanted to take up the survey stakes. In a moment of duress, we agreed. He proceeded to create a smoky fire and burn them in his backyard.
This should have been our sign. This was just the beginning.
He objected to the line the professional surveyor found to be the true property line. He had bought his house without the cost of a survey, taking the seller’s word for where the line was. Turns out, it was 12 feet off. Not our fault, but in his mind, we were stealing his property.
I won’t go into all the scary things he did to intimidate us because of what he believed had happened, but over the next few years things were tense. We tried to stay on our side of the line and mind our own business.
With time, things thawed, and we developed a “friendship.” It was a gargantuan effort, and took a lot of humility to create something we could live with. The other way was not sustainable. Eventually, it got better. At one…
