@bitzz you didn't happen to be squirted with a water gun on Sept 1?
NO, but I've been in some real fun neighbourhood battles.
There was dog poo flung, battery cables mysterious cut on the car with the alarm going off all the time, mushroom spores liberally spread on a PERFECT lawn, trees trimmed so they had a flat side right on the property line.
When I lived in Mississauga my neighbour would call bylaw for any perceived slight... problem for her was: I was childhood friends with the son of the licensing manager in town, knew all the bylaw inspectors well (went to school with some of them and was on very good terms with them I used to own part of Blue and White Taxi and had to deal with bylaw all the time. I was well liked at Mississauga licensing). Her complaints never seemed to go anywhere....
But our neighbourhood battles were never one against all... we had to pick sides, everyone on the street was in on it, it usually ended up us old timers against the new comers... but not always
... except Mrs. Holowatenko (or something like that, salt of the earth nice lady, met her husband in Auschwitz)... NOBODY could defame Mrs. Holowatenko. You try we'll burn your house down. She was our sacred cow, the neighbourhood matriarch... anyone else was fair game.
But my next door neighbour on the south side, she was SPECIAL... for one: she tried to usurp Mrs. Holowatenko's position... that didn't go over too well. As far as i can tell my problems with her started when her husband retired, and he was bored and he would wander next door to my place to hang around... and drink... a LOT (then he'd get drunk and tell us tales of back in Croatia and how he and and his friends did unspeakable things to the muslims. It was very uncomfortable). When I told not to come back, he was in a home within a week, then he died. Well it seems she thought I was his friend and she HATED him, like despised his very existence. I wasn't the only one that thought that hatred then got directed at ME. COOL. So I put up with this crazy lady (and her idiot daughter... that was cutting the grass with a power mover, snagged something then reached in to pull it out.. yeah worse than you'd imagine... and the idiot's job was data entry, now with one lobster claw) next door for a few years ( yeah I would bait EVERY chance I got. Right after dad died, she spent a bunch of money on the front lawn, they worked on it for days, it was PERFECT. So I let my lawn go to seed, she calls bylaw, inspector comes out, she's watch out the window as me and the inspector are walking around my lawn with a tape measure in one hand
and a joint in the other inspecting my lawn).
So we got dumped in snow (2006?), 3 ft everywhere, big drifts... the widow next door is snowed in, there is adrift on her front porch half way up the door. So I went over there and dug her out, dug out the porch, cut a path over to the garage, and got the garage door to open so she could get to her snowblower. Every second I was on her property she was in the window watching me.
She was dumbstruck, other neighbours told me what I did really bothered her, like losing sleep bothered her.
It's been 18 years and she hasn't said a word to me, I go back to the old neighbourhood regularly
When I moved up here, 3 days after closing the house, I answer the door to bylaw: my lawn is too long... like give me a minute here, I'm living outta boxes. Copped a $245 "administration fee" for that one (They seem to use a different rulebook up here, no sense of humour at all)
When I was in Vancouver, one of our neighbours paved his lot and Astro turfed it, cuz he HATED seeing dandelions on his perfect lawn, so everyone on the street, EVERYONE, collected dandelions and put them on his lawn at night IN STYROFOAM CUPS. We did that for 4 or 5 years. He was a really nice guy, great neighbour, but boy did he hate dandelions. I tried to find dandelion wine to bring to one of his BBQs, but couldn't find any in Vancouver.
I'm a good neighbour, help out when I can, keep mostly to myself (I betcha I haven't said 25 words to my next neighbour of 7 1/2 years: Carole. I think 10 or 12 words was enough actually. Carole is going for lawn beautiful... and failing. She has a sign on her door that says" If I don't answer the door, pick weeds")... I just don't like to cut my grass, but I'm all in for a water pistol war (I understand hydraulics better than most, but I'm gonna try enlist my neighbour behind me that works for Rolls Royce boat propulsion. V8 powered water pistols anyone?)
I used to own a company called "The Lawn Doctor" which paid for a couple of years of school. I sold the company to Weed Man, and that was Weed Man's entry into the lower mainland market: my customer list. Used the money for a down on a house, paid $142,000, sold in '86 for $186,000 (thought I was stealing from the buyer), it is currently on the market (last I checked) for $2,450,000, and it looks like they haven't even cut the grass since I left, it's still the same wreck as when I lived there with 4 other students. SHAZBOT!!!
Lawns are bourgeois, Carole is bourgeois
