We live at the top of a private street that is a dirt road. The road leads downhill as there is a lake behind/below our house. Behind/below us, there are two houses on the right and two on the left. The house to the furthest left is owned by someone who lives outside of town. He rents the property to a couple who seem about middle-aged or a bit older, possibly. The next house is owned by people for whom we have a pet name, and not an affectionate but rather offensive name. The third house is owned by a young professional guy, whom we rarely see. The house furthest on the right is owned by a family with a child the same age as my daughter. They are not friends.
The "last house on the right" houses a dysfunctional family. The male head of household is not the father of the two boys. One boy now seems to go to work since graduating from high school. However, he was a known and convicted drug dealer at one point. His worst offense is driving his truck at a high rate of speed up and down the dirt road. His younger brother, the same age as Claudia, is a bit more troublesome as he is regularly dropped off sometime between midnight and four or five in the morning, and instead of driving him to his own driveway, his friends stop directly in front of our house with their music blaring and lights shining, open and close car doors several times and then turn around in our driveway, which causes our dogs to bark between those hours of the night. Once the car leaves, the boy regularly serenades us, at the top of his lungs, as he meanders drunken/drugged down the road to his house.
The other family, the one with the disparaging nickname, wreaks all kinds of havoc in our life and has since we moved here five years ago. It began with the trash. This family does not use trash bags. They "recycle" plastic bags from Target and other stores. These do not tie closed, of course, and so attract animals and birds that tear the contents of the bags apart and all over our lawn. Because of the private street, all trash goes at the corner, which happens to be our yard. This family also puts the trash out at night, so the animals have all night to get into the contents. Yes, there is a law in town that says trash is to be put out the morning of trash pick up. No, this family does not heed this law. They do not heed the other trash rules, such as using a purple trash bag after filling one trash bag. They place piles of torn up linoleum right on our lawn, which, of course, the trash people do not take. They let styrofoam meat packaging blow off their recycling bin across our lawn. The birds and animals pull apart the small non-trash plastic bags they use for trash and we find chicken bones, used menstrual products and all manner of bio-hazard trash in our yard spring, summer and fall. The trash department has repeatedly sent them letters about proper trash handling, to no avail.
This family did not license a dog they had, nor did they keep its vaccinations up to date, so when their vicious dog escaped from them and attacked our dog in our own yard one day, our dog was quarantined as a risk for rabies for several weeks. Their dog was vicious because it did not get out to get exercise and it was regularly tied out in the hot sun to a rotting camper-trailer in their yard. It was left without water in the sun. The tie was less than six feet long as it was a leash, not a real rope or chain, even. We felt badly about causing them trouble by calling the dog officer, but it was animal abuse as far as we were concerned.
So, rather than tie the dog out, the father in the family would come home from work and walk the dog up the street, to our yard, to let the dog crap and pee in our yard along the edge of the road/grass. Yes, there are dog doo-doo laws in our town. No, these people do not care. It was apparent that after getting a letter from us with the vet bill for our mangled Chihuahua, which they took six months to pay, that the father in the house felt we somehow deserved to be shit upon, literally.
The son, also not the biological child of the male head of household in their home, was two years ahead of Claudia in school. He started selling drugs three years ago right out in the open down the street. For two years, we reported the activity and license plates of the cars that came by full of high school kids, to the police. They did nothing. While it was not ideal having someone dealing drugs a hundred feet from our house, it would not have been so bad if the kids buying drugs did not come and go at all hours of the day and night, with loud music, slamming doors and speeding on the short, dirt road. We were concerned more about them running over one of our dogs or kids than about the drug dealing itself. Let's be realistic: it's everywhere. Thankfully, the son graduated and moved out, with the vicious dog.
The latest infraction with the winter weather we've had is that the ill-named neighbor now parks at the top of the street, perpendicular to the main road. They drive an old van. Thus, when you are trying to pull out of the street, it's like having a stockade fence to your right that meets the road onto which you're turning. I cannot believe it is legal to park like this. I consider the City of Worcester, where we used to live, and Cambridge or Boston as examples and think that the police would have already ticketed and towed the car without blinking an eye. We are told by the Town of Wrentham police that the car is legally parked where it is. The reason, the REAL reason these people park their van like this is because years before we even moved in, they stopped contributing to the cost of plowing that was shared by all five houses that needed to use the dirt, private street. Thus, the other three property owners down the hill, and the person who owns our house, were left picking up the tab if they wanted to get in or out in the winter. In past years, it was only difficult a few days, so the far left rental property people sort of dealt with the difficulty. The other two homeowners apparently bought four-wheel-drive cars/trucks so that they could get through the snow without having to have the road plowed. This year, however, with the cold temperatures and amounts of snow with each storm, the snow has not gone away.
The guy that owns the "last house on the left" has had to pay a plow to take care of the entire street as his tenants couldn't get oil delivered a few weeks ago as the truck refused to traverse the sketchy conditions of the hill with all the ice and deep snow ruts. Even with the road plowed, the middle-left people refuse to bring their van down the road to their own property.
It is difficult to determine what portion of the road is considered part of the town and where our property begins, since the van could otherwise be considered to be trespassing on space that our landlord owns. Then again, with the private street, there is no enforceable traffic law. Each house from down the hill has a clause in its deed, as does ours, that allows vehicles to pass in the "normal ways" in which vehicles might use a road. I do not believe this technically involves parking, but it would take a private tow to enforce and then the people might argue in small claims court that they had a "right" to park where they are parked.
It is difficult to see to leave the street with their van where it is. Personally, I'd be afraid my vehicle would be struck by traffic or plows as theirs is situated. However, they apparently do not care about their van so much. Not only that, but each time we look out our windows or door, we see their decrepit van as a dark, gray blotch on our view and a constant reminder of their laziness, their lack of personal responsibility and lack of care or common courtesy.
A friend and business associate of mine, Anne Marie Bennett, who owns www.KaleidoSoul.com, created a Soul Colors calendar that stands in a CD case on a desk top and includes a quote for each month on the calendar side, with journaling and collage-creating tips and ideas on the back. For September of this year, the quote she included is as follows: "I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet." This quote it attributed to Mahatma Gandhi.
I have been thinking about this quote quite a bit lately with this latest blight from the nastily-named neighbor from "down below." It's hard enough not to let the every day slights of people cutting you off in traffic or in line at the bank or grocery store get to you. It's difficult to "let it go" and "let it be." It's effortful to breathe deeply and close our eyes for a moment to refocus our attention on our own selves and lives. When someone races toward the register with their over-stuffed grocery cart while you walk to the line with your single small basket of three items and a gallon of milk, you stand behind them and realize that your reaction is what counts in your life. It is not their rudeness that means anything. After they leave the store, they won't even think about you at all. You might mutter over them all afternoon, ruining the ability to consider the slant of the sun at that time. So, you can say Gandhi's words in your head as you wait your turn and their credit card fails or they need a price check or argue extra minutes over the coupon that doesn't work that they present. It's all "over" in few enough minutes and you can walk out of the store feeling pretty good about yourself, not getting upset and then notice the color of the clouds in the sky.
It's a lot harder when the "person in line" is actually parking on what you think might be your lawn. It's harder when the person litters in your yard nine months out of the year. It's quite difficult when you can't see around the irresponsibly parked, me-first attitude their parking demonstrates to you as you inch out into the oncoming traffic lane to know whether it's safe to proceed. And, yet, I am reminded of another tenet of Buddhism and meditation that is tossed around, which is that the yogi is like a mountain around which weather passes. No matter how blustery, snowy or wind-whipped it may be, the mountain remains through it all. I consider Buddhists who are presently suffering torture by the Chinese army. Their beliefs are steadfast as the army might break them literally, yet they cannot break them figuratively. If I consider that for one second, I have to realize that the van is not parked inside my head and that only I can park it in my head or keep it a no parking zone.
What dirty feet attempt to make their way into your life/day? What vans try to park in front of your clear view? Is there some kind of doormat you lay out to keep the feet from entering? What do you use as a "no parking" sign to keep the van from your mind? Feel free to comment in answer to these questions or to email me privately.
Worst neighbors EVER!!!
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