The Neighbors - History

We have awful neighbors.  Not all of them.  Just one.

The one - Right. Next. Door.

If I walked out my front door, turned left and walked 25 feet I would be on their property.

According to the other neighbors, these awful neighbors have had a problem with anyone that lived in this house. The house we live in.

Ironically - get ready for this - my husband's sister's ex-husband's sister (did you get all that - because I can't make this stuff up) used to live in this house. Our kids go to the same school. She works yard duty for Jake's kindergarten class. We trick-or-treat in her neighborhood. We chat all the time. We chatted yesterday and talked about having coffee one day.  She had the same problems with this awful neighbor.

In addition, this awful neighbor has sued the neighbors on the other side of their property due to some tree damage, which was warranted, but by no means did it need to escalate to the level it did. That particular neighbor - I had coffee and bread pudding with just this morning.

Our problems with this awful neighbor started about 5 years ago. It was a hectic day. Jake was 1.5 years old, I was working from home and we had just gotten Duke who had slipped out of the gate.  She approached me and began complaining about a broken sprinkler - coincidentally, come to think of it, the one broken right now as well... hmm.... that's strange.

Anyway, I was a bit stressed and I snapped at her. She got mad at me and huffed away. At some point after that incident I put a card on her doorstep apologizing for snapping at her. I wrote that I felt it was important we remain on good terms, you know, just in case of an emergency. She came over to discuss the card and told me, "I have my family to look after me. I don't need your help."  Okay, whatever I was just trying to be nice. After this discussion she continued to be awful and rude, but I still sent treats over for the holidays. At some point in the timeline when she was yelling at me about something or another she said "I don't want any of your stupid treats."

Fine. I was done and when I'm done with you, I am DONE.

So for the next five years I didn't so much as look in her direction. Even when the tree fell - by the grace of God it didn't affect their house one speck - there was no interaction with them.  When we redid our front-yard fence, all the negotiating of the common wall was done among the men and guys that installed the fence. I didn't even have to look at her.

I would see her in other people's driveways, keeping them from their daily schedules and bitching about whatever was up her butt that day. I would smile and carry on with my business without being interrupted or bothered by her.

It was like a dream.

Until now.