ORLY? I can drive you......back to the city

[Star*]

When we bought this house a very reclusive elderly lady lived in a mobile home across the street from us - way, way back off and there was the remnants of a brick house never finished or blown away by a tornado in front of us. IT.WAS. HEAVEN.

Peaceful, quiet - never heard a word, a sound.....country living. Ahhhhhh I could leave my windows open all day and hardly hear a noise, a peep, a mouse toot.

Three years ago, the lady passed away. Her daughter inherited the land and ever since? It's been construction central. She's from NJ and while she's a nice enough woman she told us she couldn't WAIT to get to the country for the PEACE AND QUIET. ????? I have my doubts.

She had her house constructed OVER THANKSGIVING and CHRISTMAS. Her workers drove in and out of the lot across the street all day and night, all hours of the day. On Christmas Day - DF finally went and told them - NO - GO HOME - this is nuts - no more noise. They left. It was nuts. WHO runs a concrete crusher all day from 6:00 AM on Christmas until 1:00 PM and a chain saw, and all of this on Christmas? Okay - fine - Thanksgiving too, ,Christmas Eve - we were considerate.

When they pulled her house in - a gigantic double wide? She had them put it 20 feet from the road! and DIRECTLY across from our front door. WTH? She has 5 secluded acres. Why? I don't get it.

Last month she cut down EVERY tree on her side of the road that has been shading our yard for 12 years. The radio is blaring music all day long - okay whatever - I keep my windows shut. She has company in an out of her driveway all dang day and night. Her company has made 'loud' comments about our dogs barking - I'm thinking - they've lived here 12 years - they are barking because they see intruders - you should be so lucky. We've been having breakins all over the place out here. Dummy. OMG. Then there was a comment made about me having that car in my yard - she never saw it moved? I've had a camper in the back yard for 12 years - and the point is? The brush pile is about 40' high - and and eyesore. I know I can see it now because -

Today she has men over there tearing down ALL the trees in her yard and the little brick house that has blocked the view for 12 years of that property....and now her front door and mine are directly across from each other and she has patio furniture and sits there - and says "HI NEIGHBOR -are your dogs always going to be in the front yard? They sure do bark a lot?"

I smiled and said "HI NEIGHBOR - They live here - and as long as they see strangers they're going to bark - kinda good I think with everyone getting broken into around here hope it makes you feel safer !"

I wanted to add but did NOT (lol) "I don't know how you hear their barking over that blaring gospel radio of yours do you ever turn it off or is that on for enhancement of PEACE AND QUIET OF THE COUNTRY you so desperately love like us? UGH.

I'm guessing when she has her first 110 degree 6 month long spell and a 400.00 electric bill in that doublewide? She'll be very sorry she cut down all those trees. I guess it can only help the sellability of my home however - looks better than what was over there - so maybe it's a blessing in disguise. I'll just have to remember to ONLY show our house on Sunday - when she's at Church. lol

 

[HaoZi]

Hmm... have you trained the dogs not to shy at the sound of gunfire yet? No? Maybe time to start training them. And you know, you have to train them to not react to it ANY time. Even 3 a.m. Because we know the BEST hunting dogs don't shy at gunfire.

 

[susiestar]

Get some gregorian chants, a long black dress or robe (or a long piece of black fabric you can tie around your shoulders), set up a fire pit type thing IN FRONT OF THE HOUSE, get some black candles, some herbs to burn (sage is nice but anything will work - just be super sure to NOT burn poison ivy, oak or sumac). LATE at night you go out in the dark and play YOUR chants LOUD while you dance and chant and wave the burning herbs around.

If you have the stones to go starkers, drop your drawers for just a couple of minutes when you are sure she is watching.

She will have a COW. Even if you don't go starkers she will freak. She will wonder what religion you are. Be SURE to include LOUD prayers for your fallen "brethren", the spirits of all the trees she cut down. If she ever gets the stones to confront you, let her know that you are Druid (Orthodox, Reformed - of course!) and it will take many many ceremonies to fully honor all of the life forces that she destroyed, to set right the terrible imbalance she caused by cutting down all of those trees - and that you will NOT stop or be quiet until such time as she stops forcing you to listen to her music all the time.

It can be a wonderful way to ensure a compromise. IF she is quiet, you are. She makes a terrible racket or impinges upon YOUR peace and quiet? You will return the favor with interest.

It is likely that she cannot fathom that anyone could object to her music. If the chants don't work, get some death metal and/or some other weird stuff.

BE SURE TO BUY A JUMBO SIZE PACK OF EAR PLUGS BEFORE YOU START THIS!!

The gun training is also an excellent idea. So is investing in trees as soon as you can. Check with the county extension office to see if there are free tree giveaways.

You might try going over with tea or whatever at some point when her music is bugging you. Be nice and ask her to please keep the music down because it irritates your DF and he is off of his medications so we don't want to "upset" him. I KNOW you could play that to the hilt. If that approach doesn't work, then go to the black robe and chanting ****.

She can fuss aLL she wants, but as long as you are on YOUR property (and she doesn't get a picture of you starkers) and are clothed when the cops get there, they can only ask you to turn the music off or down. As this could be considered part of your religion, well, the cops cannot MAKE you stop dancing and chanting no matter what time it is.

It hoovers when your private oasis suddenly becomes filled with people. I still remember when construction began around my parents house.

I am sure you can find a way to negotiate a truce and some quiet times. Or else you can put that beautiful mind of yours to work and come up with a way to frighten her so she won't even look in your home or property. DF has that look that is really tough - you have that brain and that style - put it to good use!

 

[HaoZi]

http://www.arborday.org/shopping/memberships/memberships.cfm?membership=trees

Membership - $10. 10 trees for your area with membership - free. Silenced neighbor - priceless.

Wonder how much for a flesh-colored body stocking so it looks like you're totally skyclad when you're well within the limits of the law?

 

[Hound dog]

Wow.

I have to say............I rather like Susie's suggestions.

Although if she's blaring religious music it might be better to counter with some big time heavy metal dark stuff............maybe have a biker party and have everyone "dress" for the occassion...........as part of the entertainment you could have shooting practice set up somewhere in the yard maybe where she could have a good view.

Then go over some time when she's playing the music and do the husband is off his medications bit. She might not be able to move out again fast enough.

Or heck, she might wind up right back in the city anyway. If she tore up all the trees and set her house that close to the road with all the land she has available she obviously doesn't have a clue about country living. ugh

So far we've been lucky with neighbors. Only 1 idiot in 7 yrs and that family didn't stick around long. He decided Rowdy was a "threat" to his children one day when Rowdy slipped out of the yard........tried to drag this dog who didn't know him from Adam to my house, thought it might not be a good idea when Rowdy nearly took his hand off, so followed him home and banged on the front door instead. He decided Rowdy was "vicious" because he'd snapped at him when idiot man tried to grab his collar while yelling at him. omg Me? I just stood on the front porch with a big smile and said yeah when you grab strange dogs they tend to react that way and told Rowdy to go get into the yard which he promptly obeyed. (cuz he was tuckered from his jaunt lol)

Our neighborhood is fairly quiet except for a huge deisel truck that likes to come all hours to the halfway house across the alley. It's so loud it vibrates the whole house. Not long ago same person had nerve to tell me to turn off my back light cuz it shined in his window...........he got an ear full and he didn't like it one bit.

 

[Hound dog]

Was thinking the biker party may be better cuz if she's like my Mom and you did the pagan thing she might set her sights to converting you and you'll never get rid of her.

 

[HaoZi]

That's when you get a bunch of friends in flesh-colored body stockings to stage a big group "celebration of fertility" in the front yard and try to convert her instead.

 

[susiestar]

I cannot claim to have fully created my suggestion. As a little girl in Catholic school (run by the church my parents were members of) my father got a bit peeved because they kept sending forms home that asked our religion. This was the seventies and ALL of the kids in my school were members. So he started writing Druid, Orthodox, Reformed on the forms. I cannot even TELL you how much the nuns liked that.

Then just before Jess was born we lived in a bad apartment complex (husband picked it - never again) and the guy below us was dealing drugs and ho's. But he and his girlfriend were "fundamentalist christians" - their words. My mother and I developed the fake pagan rituals. I wrote some nonsense using a latin textbook I found and we chanted.

The chants are OFTEN scarier than death metal or other more popular types of music. So FEW people have heard chants, esp done in latin or other languages, that they are often really scared of them. husband has a cd with gregorian chants said in latin and many people seem to think it is a way to summon the devil. LOL because this particular cd was created by a bunch of catholic monks who still only speak latin. It is just so very foreign.

We did paint some paper mache gourds from the craft store with black paint and put beads in them to make them noisy. They were a perfect touch.

A big part of this was done to terrify the neighbors who scared the daylights out of me. It worked - they never again said boo to us, made sure to NOT draw our attention, esp mine, and they slowed down a LOT of activity because apparently his clients and ho's were superstitious and thought that the devil would possess them if they upset me.

I LOVE having a creative mind and parents who nurtured it in that very Addams Family way, lol!

 

[Star*]

Um........

You are a skeeeeeeeeery bunch of ladies. Remind me NEVER to make ya'll angry. (drums fingers lightly wondering if there are voodoo dolls somewhere in this post)) lol

 

[susiestar]

We gave Wiz a toothpick holder that looks like a voodoo doll with a bunch of toothpicks stuck in it. He LOVES it!

 

[DammitJanet]

I dont get why you would have that much land and put the house that close unless you have to run your own water...then it makes some sense because let me tell you, running your own water line 5 or 6 acres back down a dirt field is not what I call fun! We had to do it when we put in the trailers at our land. We actually rented a trencher to start it but the danged thing died about halfway through the job and we rented it on a Saturday to return on that Monday and of course, the place was closed by the time it died and wasnt open on Sunday and we had to get the line buried so we ended up digging at least the last 500 feet by hand. Try convincing an 11 and 13 year old that this is all fun work!

 

[Star*]

NO - NO>.........OMG NO.......................)#(%$)(@$)_@#$)(^&(*&$(&@#)*+_ freakin voodo dolls and bad juhuhuhu........Ahhhhhhhhh (star runs screaming down the back road with clothes on) ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

OMG O.M.G. in heaven. OMG. )()(#$*)(*#$)@#%+9.........She is having a POOL built in the front yard. that is LESS than.....34 feet from my living room. WTF.

ROFLMAO

ANd now?
AND NOW?

Now I have to buy curtains and blinds -

AND WEAR CLOTHES to walk around my house in.

O$U$(%)#$%)#++#$)90@*#($(*#&(@#*&$
12 years I walk around free as a jay bird.........12 TWELVE.........(like the guy at wrestling matches.........TWWWWWWWWELVVVVVVVVVE YEARS)

And now I walked down MY hall this morning.....and THERE? Through my newly painted bedroom/office - through MY WINDOWS which normally I see NOTHING but my yard, and an old brick house - and TREES and brush - WHAT DO I SEE NOW------------ ON THE PORCH ACROSS THE STREET? I SEE HER AND HER MAN FRIEND????????? AND NOTHING.......means they can see ME TOO.

AHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh S#$)(*#)%(*#FHHHHHHHHHHHFHUUUUUUUUUU)(*^%)(*#$ IT.

Her clean up is costing me a LOT of my freedoms. AND CURTAINS. AND BLOODY FREAKIN' SUNLIGHT - (makes sign of cross and hisses)

 

[Star*]

That robe of Susie*'s sounding better, and better. - Out of sheer necessity of course. lol

 

[AnnieO]

Um. Shouldn't there be some kind of local ordinance about a pool in the FRONT yard?

Let me know, I'll buy a few flesh-colored body stockings and head on down. I think I can dig my pentacle out to wear, too. Though I have not seen it in several years. No matter, I can MAKE one. A BIG one.

Privacy screen - pretty one - you can have vines - ivy or roses - in front of your window. Worth the expense, and really not that expensive.

As for the music? Hee hee hee hee there's some really, really good stuff - blast her with TSO!!! Beethoven's Last Night has some dark stuff...

 

[Star*]

DF saw the robe with coffee and said

:What's up with that? Clothes and half and half? Looked at the dog and said "This is the beginning of a not happy Momma."

 

[HaoZi]

I'd be checking out the zoning laws, too. And water use regs, especially if you have a dry season. Wonder if I can get a flesh-tone body stocking that ALSO looks like it has tattoos all over it. Hmmm....
*looks around*
I have a few very nice ceremonial blades... Wonder if I still have that big "dragon skull" around somewhere. And I know I still have some fake blood left over from Halloween. Oh... where's that "Build A Corpse" book? I adore special effects!

 

[susiestar]

FIRST go call the zoning board. Not all areas are zoned for pools, eeven country residential. Then find the dept that has to issue PERMITS and start riding their tookus to check this out. They may be able to stop her or change her plans or at the least fine her a ton of money so she cannot afford the pool.

Then go find some bushy plants and get them started growing in front of your windows. Kudzu grows superfast, but if you choose this plant it on HER property. I know people who had to hire crews to clear kudzu out of their pools and homes because it is incredibly fast growing. I don't recommend it unless you want to work to keep your place dug out.

There are bushes that grow in front of the family room giant window at my parents. In all these years they have been trimmed but will never be removed. We can sit and watch the bees, hummingbirds, etc... as they flit about. It is honestly the most beautiful window covering I have ever seen.

Also look into those tube lights that go in the ceiling to letsunshine in. If you have to cover the windows you will hit depression overlack of sunlight fast. I think they are called solatubes or solartubes and they are in-fing-credible for depression caused by lack of sunlight. A very dear friend almost lost her husband to SAD related suicide and then put these things in. I don't think they are advertised for SAD but WOW the change in a short time was incredible.

On to curtains. Or shades. What a pain. If you go to the habitat for humanity restore you can usually find the thick wood type curtain rods OR you can find metal pipe about 1-2 inches around. Or even PVC. You can make the part that holds it to the wall with a piece of wood, a drill and a saw. Then you just need fabric. If you lived here I would take you to my favorite fabric shop - my mom's house. There used to be a clothing co here that made high end kids/women's clothes and the owners also operated a fabric outlet. they always had a TON of fabric at a buck or two a yard. My mother never bought anything in less than a five yard lenght.

To make your own curtains, you will need fabric that is long enough and is at least twice as wide as the window. Then you hem the top so htere is a pocket big enough for the rod to go through and hem the bottom if you want and hand them up. In one room of our house I hemmed the tops of different kinds of fabrics and put them up in a sort of random order. When I get tired I slide some off and put other fabrics up. Fabric glue and stitch witchery are incredibly fast and useful for this endeavor. Then all you need is the iron and a few minutes. Stitch witchery is sold 2 main ways - as a roll like ribbon or off of a bolt like fabric. If you don't mind cutting it into strips, it can be cheaper to get it off of the bolt like fabric. But the roll stuff is super easy and saves time. There are also a lot of good fabric glues.

For privacy you may want to go to the fabric store and buy liner that blocks out the sun. It is very common and you would just sew it to the other fabric as a backing.

There are a lot of other window treatments you can do. I have seen bamboo placemats strung together that looked awesome, other placemats, all sorts of things. I have an aunt who painted murals on her windows in one apartment and as a teen in her bedroom. Her bedroom was her parent's closet originally (that is what happens whne you have two boys and a girl in a two bedroom house atleast back then) and when I was a little girl she painted a giant picture of the rabbit from Bambi on the wall opposite her bed. She put a lot of other disney characters up there AND down the stairway to the basement. Gma let her use whatever paint she wanted so a LOT was done with oil and/or food coloring and even now cannot be painted over cause it shows through. If you want to paint a picture of some sort, I would use those acrylic craft paints that are about a buck or so in craft places (incl walmart). The apple barrel brand will work just fine but tends to need at least one coat more than the other brands that cost a bit more. I still use them often as they work for what I want to do usually.

When you are tired of whatever you paint on the windows, it can be painted over, scraped off with a widget thingy or you can get it wet and keep rubbing at it until it comes off the glass.

Have you ASKED this woman WHY all of her stuff must be so close that she can count you stretchmarks from her property? Or WTH she was thinking with workers working on Christmas etc...

She seems to have NO CLUE and maybe it is an Aspie type thing where she trully doesn't or cannot understand that this isn't okay. When we first had the vet move in next to my parents (land that had been over 30 acres of pasture forever up to that point), their one dog barked nonstop all night. K and L (the neighbors) never did ANYTHING about S barking (the dog). Everything set S off, even wind. K had set up their fences so that the dogs had a fenced in area that was separated from most of their yard by a privacy fence - but NOT separated from my parents by anything but chain link. After two weeks we were ALL sick of it. SO at 3 am (I knew they both had to go to work at 7am) my mother went to their front door with a big carafe of coffee, mugs, muffins, etc... and rang the bell. She KEPT ringing it until they (and their preK son) answered the door. Oh so sweetly my mother said she thought she would bring coffee and muffins to share as clearly they couldn't possibly be getting any sleep either given the non-stop barking of their dog.

She never said an unpleasant word, didn't give the evil eye, just acted like the fantasy neighborhood welcome wagon and like it was totally normal to go calling on your new neighbors at 3 am. It wasn't the last time S barked, but it WAS the last time it was allowed to go on all night. Turned out they put soundproofing in the master bedroom and were oblivious to the barking.

So maybe explaining - NOW that you would appreciate NOT having everything crammed so close to you property might at least help.

Just remember when you do your midnight rights that MOST people seem to find things said in Latin in an ceremonial way to be very very alarming. Even if you just say the farmer is in the woods (agricola est silva - NOT the right tenses and probably missed a couple of words but it is the sum total of the latin I retained from 2 yrs of high school study and from suffering through endless Latin masses as a child) - it is familiar but unfamiliar in a way that really bothers a lot of people. The few exceptions would be someone very fluent in Latin or someone who spent a lot of time in Cath church/school where latin was stressed (RARE).

 

[HaoZi]

I think she doesn't get it because she's a city girl out in the country. Totally different lifestyles. She should be invited to real redneck family reunion, moonshine, outlaw in-laws, dirty old man uncles, the whole nine yards.

I hung up curtains using dowel rods and those big hooks that you just screw into the walls, but it depends on how long you can the rods vs. the width of the window. They stay up better than actual curtain rods for some reason in my place. Of course, I also hung them from the ceiling in the living room to create a bedroom for Kiddo, since we only qualify for a one-bedroom apartment.

 

[susiestar]

H- THANKS!! I could see those things in my mind and couldnt get the right word out. They work really well in most places. You can get PVC in really long lengths and it makes a really cheap, easy curtain rod. If you need a longer length all you need is a connector piece and those are pretty easy to work with.

You could also gather up a ton of used/outdated cd's dvds' etc... and drill a little hole near the outer edge on one side and directly across from the other hole. Then use fishing line to string them up, tying a knot at each side. WHen you have however many you need they can be hung like those beaded curtains. If you hang them outside the glare may drive her nuts. They are very sparkly in the sunshine!

I did just see a really COOL wallpaper idea that I think could be a great window covering too. The homeowner used thos paint chips you get at the paint store to see the colors. He arranged them and used decoupage glue to cover his walls with them. You could take them and either put them on clear contact paper or even sew them into strips that you could use for a window treatment. Think of all the designs you could create!

 

[Star*]

.......(groans) I don't WANT flippin sunshine. I liked my house dark, dismal, and shaded. Now thanks to Lori Lumberjack? I have deathrays shooting in all over the place. (makes sign of cross and hisses again)

I checked out Pampas grass at Lowes. It grows rather quickly and widely and tall.ley. lol. I think it will do the trick.

I think there must be something wrong with me, DF is even laughing. I've driven past our house twice now on the way home looking at her yard. Missed the drive completely. He chuckles and says "this really is getting you isn't it?" and I say of course "Nooooooo why do you ask?" then chuckle with him. When I've asked why she had to put the door right in front of ours he comes back tongue in cheek with - It looks better on Halloween - kids can run right across the ditch to our place. KNOWING FULL WELL - ever since we hung that noose in the oak tree - no one has EVER come to our house on Halloween. Then I said -And what's with cutting down all the trees? Anti-arborealist. So he says - I bet they were diseased and she's going to plant all new little baby ones - you love planting trees, maybe you can help her - take her one of our new baby oaks as a house warming present! (then gives me a jazz-hands with a smile) I could just tweak his little face off. When I asked about the well and septic he gave me the master plumber version just like Janet - and I reminded him that her MOTHERS house did NOT face ours - we saw the back, and it was VERY FAR off the road not 40 feet from it. DUH. So he said - Maybe she's disabled, and can't walk far to get the mail? Mow the grass. Water the pool. And that's when I hit him with the frozen pizza.

Men.