nosy, crabby neighbors

i don't know what it is, but we haven't had the best of luck with neighbors.

at our last house we had the best neighbors across the street but our next door neighbor was a jerk.  luckily his wife, kids and mom were nice so it was something we could deal with.  he was a "wigger" and thought he was too cool to be kind and say "hello".  oh yeah and there was that one time when he got extremely drunk at our house that he almost fell down the stairs, stumbled his way home, and then his wife had to call the cops on him cause he was beating on her.  there was that too.

when we bought our lot, i had a feeling we would have trouble with the neighbors for a couple of reasons.

1.  the lots had gone into foreclosure.  it would tick them off that we only paid half the price of what they paid for their lot.

2.  they were older and we were younger.  not trying to be ageist but they are our parents age so they weren't going to like us kids coming in and taking over the neighborhood.

3.  they have lived here for 10ish years with only each other as neighbors.

4.  all of the construction noise and traffic that we would be causing.

5.  she had a flamingo in her yard.

ok so #5 might not be a good reason for you, but for us it was a bad sign.  Mark's mom has a "witchy-poo" neighbor and her yard is COVERED in flamingos.  she is a complete and total bitch and has like 50 flamingos in her yard.  to us, a flamingo could mean a very bad thing.

when we started building the house, our mound system was put in first.  since the lots have been here a long time the grass is pretty overgrown.  the guy that installed the mound took his mower and cut himself a path to get to the area he needed to get to for the mound.  right after he did this, the lady walked outside with a rake in hand, and started raking the grass back into our yard.  like really?!  are you for real?  i was hoping it was just to show the workers they couldn't do stuff like that, and wasn't an indication of how she would treat us.

next, maybe a month after the grass incident, i was leaving the neighborhood and almost hit her dog with my car.  the damn thing ran right out in front of me.  i, being the dog mom that i am, got out of my car to make sure the dog was ok and then took the dog back into it's yard safely.  there was a lot of construction traffic and i didn't want it to get hit by a truck or something.  i get into their yard and realize she is already in the front yard. so i say "hello" and continue to tell her that the dog ran out in the road and i was worried about it getting hit.  she turns to look at me and very coldly says "ok".  that's it!  not a thank you or nice to meet you, or thanks for not hitting my dog.  nothing.

then, same thing again with the yard.  it's been super windy and stuff has been flying everywhere and i caught her again throwing stuff back in our yard.

let's just say we avoid her as much as we can.

now the neighbors on the other side of us, we haven't really talked to.  i don't ever really see them in their yard or anything so we haven't really had a chance to say hello.  there was one time when i was out with the dogs and this lady was in her backyard and i tried to yell "hi" to her but i figured she must not have heard me.  or so i thought...

2 weekends ago, her husband came over while i was out with the dogs.  he said that a few tennis balls had landed in his yard so he brought them back and introduced himself.  i told him that i thought Mark's uncle knew his wife, and he informed me that they did know each other.  he seemed really kind and friendly and i was glad that he had come over to chat.

that same day, my husband and his friends decided to be idiots and do something really stupid and loud outside.  i got really upset with them because i didn't want to deal with crabby neighbors.  Mark eventually realized why i was so upset and said it wouldn't happen again.

this last weekend, Mark decided to finish burning up some of the wood that was in the front yard left over from building.  for some reason he burned it on the side of the house, rather than in the back and i told him i thought it was a bad idea, but i was glad he was finally getting rid of it.

next thing you know there is a cop pounding on the front door.  he said that he had gotten a complaint about the fire.  after talking to my husband, he informed him that we shouldn't be burning building material, and to put the fire out, but everything was fine.  while the cop was here, the neighbor next door was outside "cleaning his windows", aka snooping.

Mark went straight next door to apologize.  not only did he apologize for the fire, he also made sure to apologize for being loud.  she kind blew it off and he thought that she seemed a little cold but that everything was ok.  she also said she hadn't called the cops.

now today...  Mark gets an email from his uncle which was forwarded from the crabby lady next door.  she claimed she was writing to inform him of Mark's "reckless" behavior, and hoping that he will straighten things out so that she doesn't have to seek other ways of getting things taken care of, aka police.  not only did she complain about the things he had already apologized for, she also threw in a few other things.  things that are, first of all, none of her business.  but second of all, if she had just mentioned it to Mark when he was over apologizing, he could have told her we had gotten permission to do those other things.

i just can't believe she would run and "tell on him" to his uncle.  like for real lady?!  aren't you a grown ass woman that can walk your ass over here and talk to my husband like an adult??

i am so sad because i didn't want to have to deal with crabby neighbors.  i was hoping we would all just be happy and get along.  we had dreams of the whole neighborhood getting together and hanging out.  unfortunately that will not be happening.  such a bummer.