Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, But No Fences Make Me Really Vindictive

"...And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go." - Robert Frost Mending Wall

As any good New Englander, I believe in a good fence.  A fence keeps my children and dogs in my yard and my neighbor's children and dogs out.  And the higher the better - I live close enough to the people around me to know I don't want them all up in my business every time I step out the back door in my bathrobe and slippers, hair sticking up in every direction, when I want to do something like let my dogs out to do their thing.

To some people this would sound anti-social, even downright surly, but I disagree.  I've always found, both in my own adult life and while growing up and observing my parents and grandparents, that a solid division of property keeps the peace.  There's little quibbling over who has to mow which piece of grass or which tree belongs to who.   Is it within the boundaries of my fence line?  Then it's mine.  Don't touch it and I will be more than happy to pay the same courtesy.  Simple. 

I've seen great neighborly relations break down over something as inane as blowing leaves in the fall.  Get yourself a fence, I say.  That'll keep most of the leaves in or out.  You know what you should rake and I know what I should rake and never the two (hundred bajillion leaves) shall meet.

When my husband and I moved to the house we currently live in six years ago we had a shared fence along the back of our property that met up with two other fences we owned.  When we redid the fences this year (old wooden ones that were not properly taken care of and were left to the bugs and the squirrels to destroy) we, stupidly I'll admit, assumed our neighbors, a seemingly nice and reasonable couple we might want to be more friendly with someday, would let us connect the new fences to the existing one.  The fence, as we found out, technically belonged to them, something the previous owners of this house didn't tell us about.  And while we were having new fences put up to surround our property and our pool, our neighbor was taking down the perfectly nice six foot chain link fence between our backyards.  For no reason other than he felt like it.

We asked if he would keep it up but he said No, why should he?

Why should he, indeed.

We couldn't force him, only appeal to his kind nature.  Yeah, apparently he was not that kind.

 

That lapse in our judgment ended up costing us a large sum of money to put up a longer section of fence that we hadn't budgeted for.  And a sizable portion of our backyard is now open to another neighbor's hoodlum kids with paint ball guns and ATVs kids because we simply could not afford to fence the entire property.  But more than that, it ended up costing us a decent relationship with the couple who took down the fence. 

And that meant war, to me anyway.

I dare you to find anyone more stubborn or vindictive than a New England woman with an ax to grind.  I have no desire to be friendly with them now.  If anything, they should probably watch out come fall because some extra leaves might end up on their side of the property line.  Hey, there's no fence there now.  Can I help it if the wind might blow that way?

I need to have some division between our properties but a fence is out of the question unless a large pile of cash falls in my lap.  Since that's not going to happen any time soon I'm thinking of planting picker bushes to put a nice visual division between our yard and theirs.  Have fun mowing your lawn then, buddy.

Heh.

Comments

[Kara]

You crack me up. I love that poem, too.

[Emma kw]

please tell me your pool has a fence around it? You don't want your new enemy falling in......

[flutter]

Chicky you kill me

[Miguelina]

You're living my current nightmare.

We're thinking about fencing our property but 1) we have no money and 2) don't want to deal with the neighbors.

[pgoodness]

ugh. we live in a neighborhood where fences were not allowed when we built our house, but last year, were told we could get them. we had to follow the "architecture committee" guidelines, but we could. never got approval, fall came, we gave up. emailed our homeowner association yahoo group a couple of weeks ago and opened a can of worms with a woman who lives on the opposite side of the subdivision as us.
and as of now, we get along great with our neighbors, but we want to keep our kids/dog in and other dogs out for safety.

[Christina]

You may remember that my hoodlum feral neighbors were difficult to deal with and were always in our yard. I was planning to plant large flower beds with lots of thorny roses and landscaping borders with pointy tops on them this spring. Thankfully, they were foreclosed on and are no longer here.

I hate people who can't respect boundaries. You stay in your yard, and I'll stay in mine, and we'll all be happy.

[kittenpie]

I'm a believer in fences, too - even with neighbours you love, there are times you just dont' want to socialize, but still would like to enjoy your own backyard. If we're feeling social, we can always talk over the fence or invite the neighbour over, y'know? We live close enough without being in each other's laps and dinner tables all the time.

[mandy g.]

My brother and his family just moved to a new subdivision that has a rule against fences. It's so that the "greenspace" which is everyone's backyards can stay unspoiled. My sister in law is not happy in the least. Needless to say, her lawn is filled with lots of stuff (kids toys, dog poop, etc) that is not her family's. My parent's house? A very civilized 20 foot hedge. A pain in the butt to trim, but a very nice sound barrier as well.

[pinks & blues girls]

We're lucky enough to absolutely LOVE our neighbors on one side of our house, but we've never even met the neighbors on the other side. They're Russian, and from what I've heard, don't speak much English, so I guess they keep to themselves. (My conspiracy theory? They're spies!) Anyway, the only time I have a problem with them is when they get ChemLawn sprayed on their grass every couple of weeks in the spring/summer/fall, and we get the wonderful smell of chemicals wafting through our windows. Niiiice. Problem being, if we can't communicate with them, it's hard to ask them to stop - or at least warn us so we can shut our windows.

Jane, Pinks & Blues

[Beth - Total Mom Haircut]

We're about to move in to our first house and this scares me a little bit. I have plans for a fence . . . God I hope our new neighbors don't suck.

[Mac and Cheese]

I had the fence issue with my last set of neighbours. I wanted to protect the world from my dogs, and they wanted a clean view of nature. As an added bonus, this neighbour happened to be my boss. We moved.

[Almost American]

I'd love a fence. I have the feeling we live in the middle of a football field with the lawns stretching out on either side of our property. Some people here were smart and planted hedges as soon as they moved in. I wanted a fence but when we had someone come over and give us an estimate I almost died of shock when they told us how many thousands of dollars it would cost! I quite understand why you can't afford to finish your fencing project!

We are lucky in that we have no neighbors behind us, other than a working sandpit which is the other side of a wide strip of trees. I would still like a fence or hedge though. A hedge might reduce the noise from the hounds next door! My DH is against it. His reasoning: right now the leaves blow into the neighbor's yard in the fall so we (i.e. he) have very little raking to do.

[Diana]

I vote for the picky bushes. Hell it'll be more fun than a fence, really. Watching the jerk try mowing around them getting all scratched up with the thorns, meanwhile you can sit back and enjoy a nice cold lemonade by the pool. Sounds like great Saturday entertainment to me. ;)

[Ms. Florida Transplant]

Oh that sucks. I can't imagine not having a fence seperating me from my neighbors. We each have a fence up...and with 2 layers between us we still can't stand each other!

[Lawyer Mama]

I vote for the nice, thorny bushes too! LOL!

I love my fences & thank god they were here when we moved in because they are DAMN expensive! WOW! We had no idea until we thought about putting a gate up into our driveway.

But we have to have the nice tall fence in the back so I can skinny dip in the pool. (-;

[Daisy]

We got a fabulous compliment from our neighbors: "If you'd lived here then, we never would've planted this hedge!" The hedge is the "fence" between our yards. Yes, we're very lucky.

[Redneck Mommy]

This is why I live in the sticks.

I hate people.

I'd kill someone if I were in your shoes.

Good luck, darlin'.

[Vicky]

the only thing that makes a New England woman more mean and crumudegeonly is when she has an axe to grind in the winter. I swear.

I totally related to this post. I can't even write about my poop neighbors anymore- they read my blog!

[Shannon]

You absolutely should plant bushes! That's a great idea. :)