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Well, we are friendly on a distant sort of basis. He and his wife were stand-offish when we first moved here, but I was persistent and we wave back and forth and every so often, have a "catch up" conversation about family, trips, etc.
I think it is more or less a matter of expediency on my neighbor's part. He and his wife are my age, so not like they are elderly and therefore should have an allowance made for their tossing the tree limbs and blowing the leaves on my side of the line, lol.
I have said things in the past - such as - I can't believe how many limbs seem to fall out of my trees - I can't even see where they were once attached - it is weird. And then I cut all of the trees out of that strip except 3 (they were too close, several were volunteers - more or less from neglect from the previous owner who WAS elderly). So we all stood out there and discussed how much more appealing the area looked w/o all the cramped trees . . . and I very pointedly said - "that should take care of all the random limbs we seem to get around those trees after a storm." But nope.
I took a photo to show my son b/c honestly - it has become a joke. I got up to take the dog out (early) and saw this big limb squarely in neighbor's yard, took a photo w/ my iPhone, quietly went on about my business and by 10 am or so - when I ventured back out again . . . the limb had been dragged onto my property! lolololol
I can really relate to this neighbor story - I happen to have one just like yours. It's not tree limbs/branches but leaves - every fall it's the same thing. No time now to go into it but you need to get direct with these people. Doesn't sound like you'll be sacrificing a good friendship. I understand not wanting to be the crazy neighbor or an old beautch - but sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.
I took a photo to show my son b/c honestly - it has become a joke. I got up to take the dog out (early) and saw this big limb squarely in neighbor's yard, took a photo w/ my iPhone, quietly went on about my business and by 10 am or so - when I ventured back out again . . . the limb had been dragged onto my property! lolololol
I'm sure it goes without saying that you're a far kinder person than I am, lol. I would take this much more seriously and be less tactful, because it's like cleaning up your yard x 2 instead of once.
In my last house our street was graced by many oak trees, and across the street were only oak trees down an embankment. Every fall those awful brittle brown oak leaves would blow up from the embankment and across the street onto my 90-year old neighbor's property. She raked a lot of her own leaves. There was a sunken dirt pathway between our two houses and I could see her dumping her leaves into it, knowing that the way the wind usually blows they would not come back to her. She wasn't being mean, just kind of dumb. One day the wind went her way and sent the leaves all back onto her lawn. I went over and told her nicely that her little practice was working against both of us and so that stopped.
But...she also had the endearing habit of throwing branches to the edge of our property and I finally directly asked her to stop doing that, saying with a smile that at our age it was becoming too much and could she please stop. She did.
Good fences make good neighbors, said Robert Frost.
I can really relate to this neighbor story - I happen to have one just like yours. It's not tree limbs/branches but leaves - every fall it's the same thing. No time now to go into it but you need to get direct with these people. Doesn't sound like you'll be sacrificing a good friendship. I understand not wanting to be the crazy neighbor or an old beautch - but sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.
Well, at this stage, it ain't worth it. They had told us 5 or so years ago they would be selling their house, so we thought - oh well - end of the situations . . . but they didn't put the house on the market. I spoke with them last Fall and they are still talking about selling the house "soon."
We will be putting the house up for sale in the next few years. I am sure they are fully aware we know what they have been doing all these years . . . they just don't care. Their dogs (3 pitbulls, if you can believe it) bark incessantly (outside all day long) and for the first few years, we kept asking them to please do something to quieten the dogs, as hubby's office is right next to the furor. They never did; they never will.
I did come up with a solution to curb the dogs. Those dogs see me coming and they shut the heck up immediately and run. So at least we don't have the dog barking problem any longer.
Yeah - I would avoid a neighbor feud at all costs - just not worth it....laughing at it is definitely on the higher plane of reactions to an irritating situation. It might be really fun, just once, to drag their branch back into their yard after they have dragged into yours....a hidden camera would be interesting - oh I could get into this whole thing - it could be a hoot.
Yeah - I would avoid a neighbor feud at all costs - just not worth it....laughing at it is definitely on the higher plane of reactions to an irritating situation. It might be really fun, just once, to drag their branch back into their yard after they have dragged into yours....a hidden camera would be interesting - oh I could get into this whole thing - it could be a hoot.
Oh no. That's the sort of thing I would do. Example: one time I lived in an apartment building with a laundry room in the basement. We all kept our soap powder and other laundry materials down there. It seemed that my box of Cheer was always empty! I wouldn't be able to do my laundry without going and buying a new box!
So I got determined to discover who was using my soap powder. Result: I bought a box of blue Rit dye and poured it into a new box of Cheer. (which, if you remember, was BLUE.)
Results came in the next day when I could hear the loud mouthed idiot downstairs hollering about his bright blue underwear. They were in the wrong, I had some fun with it, and from then on they bought their own laundry soap.
Thank you. (Bowing). I guess I shouldn't tell you that the end result was that the obnoxious loud mouth soap powder stealing idiot retaliated by throwing a brick through our car windshield. Cost us some money there but I guess he REALLY didn't like his bright blue underwear.
[quote=anifani821;31511084]Well, at this stage, it ain't worth it. They had told us 5 or so years ago they would be selling their house, so we thought - oh well - end of the situations . . . but they didn't put the house on the market. I spoke with them last Fall and they are still talking about selling the house "soon."
We will be putting the house up for sale in the next few years. I am sure they are fully aware we know what they have been doing all these years . . . they just don't care. Their dogs (3 pitbulls, if you can believe it) bark incessantly (outside all day long) and for the first few years, we kept asking them to please do something to quieten the dogs, as hubby's office is right next to the furor. They never did; they never will.
I did come up with a solution to curb the dogs. Those dogs see me coming and they shut the heck up immediately and run. So at least we don't have the dog barking problem any longer.[/quote]
Inquiring minds want to know what you did
MY neighbor - the one that occasionally steals my Sunday paper - has taken great joy in letting his leaves pilé up until late Nov . The wind blows in my direction so by Nov 3/4 of his leaves are all over the neighborhood and especially my yard. They usually leave for FL late Sept and one year I was out raking and as they were leaving for the winter he stopped his car and said: "Don't work too hard (grin)" - I looked at his yard and it was loaded with leaves and he said "The wind will take care of mine (grin)" and he drove away. He knows what he's doing and he enjoys it - it's a major win for him. On a couple occasions his wife would make comments to the effect that some people will continue to be annoying just to test how long you'll take it. I didn't connect the dots at the time but did later. I think she was telling me that if I didn't confront him, he would continue. I also had the opinion that I would rather avoid a neighbor feud and was always so glad they were leaving that I rake most of them and then blow the rest up close to his house where they wouldn't blow back to mine.
Then ~ one year I was planning a trip to CO to visit an old boss. I had to delay the trip 1 week because my trees were still full of leaves and I didn't want to do what the jerk did. When I left my trees were bare and my yard was cleaned up. When I returned 1 1/2 weeks later, my yard was covered and there were leaves 2' high in front of my garage door. I was royally pissed. Not only was I tired from driving from Co but I had the first auto accident since I was 19. A semi was passing me, hit a deer and somehow threw it into my car. The poor deer bounced off my car back into the semi and then back into my car. This was 1 hr. from home. So, when I drove into my driveway and saw those leaves I saw red. I went in the garage - got the blower and started blowing all those leaves into his yard. He ran outside "What do you think you're doing!!?" "What you should have been doing and this is what you have to look forward to until you start cleaning up your yard". I stared him down - he ran in the house. I kept blowing until all those leaves were back where they belonged. Neighbor feud be dam+++
He now hires someone to come earlier than late Nov but it's still a problem. We have to bag leaves in these recyclable bags - not cheap. His son from Philly was there and while I was outside he stood there looking at me with this grin. I asked if he needed something and he said "I think my dad is afraid of you". We both laughed. That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long time.
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