Meeting our Neighbors

Well, we have met several of our neighbors since we moved in and everyone has been very cordial and "neighborly". However, it's funny that they have all warned us of our one "crazy neighbor" who calls the police on everyone and is a general pain in the ass.

On Monday night we got a chance to meet said neighbor. And the story goes something like this:

We had borrowed the minivan from my parents to rent a chipper on Saturday and a stump grinder on Sunday to do some last minute yard cleanup before winter. We chopped down a bunch of bushes and ugly juniper bushes to get ready for the siding guys to come and also because we just hated a few of them. So we spent 4 or 5 hours Saturday chipping them all up into mulch. Unfortunately on Sunday all the stump grinders had been rented out from both local Home Depots, so we were left to try to get it all done on Monday night. With winter coming and the days getting shorter, we didn't have much light to work with. I left work a little early and got the stump grinder home by 5:30 and went to work. Around 5:30 or 6:00, I see our said "crazy" neighbor peering out of her window through the blinds at me. As she noticed that I saw her, she turned all her lights off and then proceeded to continue to peer out the glass at me.

So, about 6:45 or so a flashlight starts shining over our fence. It's the police. Instead of coming outside and asking me to stop or simply being a decent person about it, she calls the police? Is this person pathological or just bored that she needs to create this kind of drama? So of course there is some kind of village ordinance that says you're not supposed to be operating loud equipment after 6 or 6:30 or whatever, but in the summer, 6:30 is early with 2 more hours of light to go! What the hell?

So I knew who had called the police and went over and talked to this woman to try to explain my situation that I had a borrowed van, rented equipment and about 20-30 minutes of work left at most and managed to convince her to let me finish. The real funny thing is this woman couldn't stop talking after telling me the noise was bothering her because she had a headache! WOW! Was feeling good enough to talk to me for 20 minutes! I think she's just lonely or bored, but if she's the kind of neighbor that just likes to be a thorn in your side for no reason, it could be a real adventure here, as many of you know I'm not one to take things like that or that kind of inappropriate behavior lying down...

There are some funny pics of us chipping the brush on my Flickr site, so have a look (click on the picture to take you there):