Love thy neighbor...

Yeah, right. It's difficult to love your neighbors when you have neighbors like mine. Well, it's mostly one family that's annoying...

A couple of years ago, they planted 5 pine trees near our fence line. No problem - they want some privacy - so do we!! It was fine the first year. They weren't the loveliest pine trees around, but I could deal with it.

Here are the pine trees this year:

Not very nice, right? Well, let's take a closer look:

Yep, that's right. Not only are the trees dead, but they have massive weeds growing under, around, & up through them. I think perhaps they plan to use the trees as a base for topiaries. I can only hope, because that is definitely the lesser of all of the possible evils.

These people have hot tub parties and play the music so loud that we can hear it inside our house with all of the windows closed - at 2:00 am. Hey, I like to party with my cool neighbors (the ones who live in our cul-de-sac), but we don't disturb everyone else & we sure aren't blasting music at 2:00 in the morning.

If you look closely at the first picture, you can see that they have patched the siding on their back porch. Unfortunately, it's nowhere close to the color of the original siding. Yet another lovely thing we get to stare at if we sit on our deck. It annoys me more than it should - but I think that's because they do so many other annoying things.

A couple of winters ago, they decided to "seal up" their back porch. Now most people would have put plastic on the inside, but not them. They put it on the outside & held it in place with 2X4's. They didn't even bother to trim the excess plastic. It just flopped in the wind. That was really pretty to look at all winter. Thank goodness they haven't done it again. Yet. Oh, please, don't let them do it again.

They have two kids - a girl around 18 months and a boy around 4. The boy is a brat and the mom likes to scream at him a lot. (I'm going to call him Bratty Boy - because he's a bratty boy, and because his mom always uses his first & middle names when she screams at him.) You can hear this inside our house with the windows closed (God forbid you should be outside while she's yelling - yikes - it's deafening). 

They have a dog that they like to tie up outside - and he likes to bark. A lot. We have a dog, too (Riley) - but if he starts barking, he has to come inside. I don't let him bother the neighbors. I caught Bratty Boy standing on our fence one day, trying to poke Riley with a stick. Riley was slobbering, barking, & going crazy like a rabid beast, but that didn't stop BB - and Mom was nowhere to be seen. I had to go out and tell BB to stop bothering Riley - and that he should always leave Riley alone because he bites. :-)

The other day, I noticed Bratty Boy in his yard playing with one of his friends. BB was swinging a golf club. Yeah. Now that's the kind of toy to give to a kid like BB. I thought to myself - he's gonna hit that other kid in the head. Where was Mom? Nowhere to be seen, as usual. A couple of minutes later, I hear crying. When I looked out the window, the other kid was crying, & BB's mom was screaming at the top of her lungs. Again. Guess what happened? Luckily, the other kids seemed to be okay.

I wanna love my neighbors, but they sure do make it difficult!!! Argh!!!