Neighbors - Ugh!

[Ricko]

Question for you home-owning tuba-netters...

Last June our over-educated, unemployed, doctor neighbors hit it big (got a job), moved and sold their house to a retired statistics professor. Our (relatively) new neighbor is a 70+ year old grandmotherly type (not a sweet one).

Our neighbor has decided she no longer needs to mow the grass in her back yard and is now calling it a 'natural meadow growing with wildflowers (clover)'. As of this weekend the grass is almost to the top of her fence.

Yesterday after church, our neighbor decided we needed to be confronted about her grass... she knocked on our door and requested a copy of the neighborhood rules showing where she was in violation of anything related to her 'natural meadow' (we have never discussed it with her). All she wants is to have a 'natural meadow' where her grandchildren can come and see nature flowing in the wind. I very carefully explained that we don't have an association with restrictions but our local code does have a restriction on how high your non-ornamental vegitation can be allowed to grow. To which she replied by calling it a garden.

I've always tried to be very respectful of my neighbors - I don't practice or give lessons late into the night, insist my guests park in my drive or in front of my house and I my yard is well kept. We don't have parties late and our dogs do their 'business' in our back yard.

What would you guys do?
- Call Codes?
- Ask again that she cut the yard, give it a week, then call codes?
- Practice the first chapter of Arban's on the back patio late into the night?
- Sell a horn and buy 92' of 8' tall privacy fence and drop it on top of the property line?

Ricko

[Chuck(G)]

It's been said that 'Good fences make good neighbors". it would follow that the better the fence, the better the neighbors.

At least she doesn't have a bunch of jalopies in various states of disassembly filling her yard. The county condemned one such place out here and ended up scraping the top foot of soil away and carting it to a hazmat landfill.

[windshieldbug]

Sounds like a fire hazard to me!

[lgb&dtuba]

Probaby rats in there, too.

[Rick Denney]

What would you guys do?
- Call Codes?
- Ask again that she cut the yard, give it a week, then call codes?
- Practice the first chapter of Arban's on the back patio late into the night?
- Sell a horn and buy 92' of 8' tall privacy fence and drop it on top of the property line?

I would do the first and the last. And I would ask her to pay for half of the fence. She probably won't, but it's a reasonable request.

I would NOT tell her that you called the City. It is not your job to be the City's enforcer. They have people who know how to do that, and those folks don't have to live there. Also, they are the ones to provide the grace period.

But also don't be one of these people who calls the City for every slight issue. I was once cited by the City of Dallas because I left a pile of tree trimmings by the roadside for an extra couple of days. I trimmed the trees when I could, and the City picked them up when they could, but the neighborhood busybody didn't like the four days that intervened. Had her house caught on fire, I might have waited a couple of days before calling the fire department. I was never put to the test.

Getting away from nosy neighbors on one side and neighborhood nazis on the other side was a prime motivation for moving to a rural setting. The neighbors are still nosy, but now if they want to see what we are doing, they have to stand where we can see them. They also have to trespass.

If she accuses you of calling the City, tell them you told the city staff that your neighbor was growing a natural prairie in her backyard, but you didn't think the plants she was using were native to the prairies where you lived, and you wanted them to come offer their guidance as to the correct plant species to use. (Joking aside, there are some grasses that naturally do not grow higher than 6 or 8 inches, depending on where you live.)

Then, never break any local rules. She'll be watching.

Rick "surprised by the reluctance of people area here to build or allow privacy fences, which were standard even in first-home Suburbia in Texas" Denney

[pulseczar]

Make her move to San Jose, Ca. It's actually a rule that you can't have an ugly front yard.

[davet]

I would do NOTHING. Her "meadow" or "garden" isn't driving through your yard, isn't making noise and keeping you up all night, heaving beer bottles and other assorted trash over your fence onto your property, shooting birds with bb guns, or arrows, or hurling ninja stars, picking your raspberries, lighting fireworks, or building huts to play in.

Heck, have her move in next door to me and displace one of my neighbors!!!! I wouldn't mind at all if my main problem in the neighborhood was looking at weeds!

If she knows it bothers you, whom do you think will be suspected this fall when it gets all dry and a grass fire accidentally breaks out?

[bort]

Doc's right, call city hall.

Just as the law has defined "non-ornamental vegitation," they must have also defined what a "garden" is and is not.

[LoyalTubist]

Living in a high rise apartment has a totally different set of problems. Most of my neighbors are Buddhists and the smell of incense is all over my house. (This comes with the country, so I can't really complain.)

I will say, though, the neighbors in a high rise are much more thoughtful than in private houses. It's much quieter here. There are no wild parties--a very strict rule in the building. (Never mind the bar down the street... Unlike California, the bars don't have to close down at 2 AM... There are still people drinking and whooping it up now at 7 AM!!!)

[SplatterTone]

Well ...

There's the passive approach:



And there's the somewhat more aggressive approach:

[SplatterTone]

I saw a nice fat copperhead

For the sadistically inclined: Snakes and weed eaters.
MWAAAAHAHAHAHAHA

[Rick Denney]

Mowing is important...just as is spraying Round-Up into the woods as far as possible and mostly staying OUT of the woods in the summertime.

You got that right. In the fringe of woods, you get pokeweed, Virginia creeper, kudzu (where you live, but not here...yet), and every variety of poison ivy every observed in nature. We have a sprayer with a 15-gallon tank that pulls behind the tractor, with about a 25-foot range. We stand back and let 'er rip. On Round Up Day, we spend at least $100 on the concentrate. Pokeweed requires double the recommended concentration.

But poison ivy is virtually indestructible. I just stay out of the woods in the summer--I'm allergic to the stuff.

Rick "who hasn't yet gotten his annual exposure" Denney

[lgb&dtuba]

But poison ivy is virtually indestructible. I just stay out of the woods in the summer--I'm allergic to the stuff.

Rick "who hasn't yet gotten his annual exposure" Denney

Ortho Brush-B-Gone has been the only thing that has worked for me on poisin ivy. I had to take out a particularly large vine of it a few years back. Involved cutting a foot gap in the vine, which was over an inch thick, and painting both exposed ends with full strength Brush-B-Gone several times. In fact, I duct taped a jar of it to the section going up the tree and let the vine drink it. Didn't kill it over night, but kill it it did.

As long as I catch it early, spraying Brush-B-Gone kills it effectively.

It just pops up randomly somewhere in the yard every couple of years. Guess birds drop the fertilized seeds or something.

No kudzu so far, though.

Jim

[Chuck(G)]

Wonder why none of the alternative energy flacks has proposed kudzu for a biofuel source? Leave the corn for likker...

Out here, in the PNW, the big weed problems are Himalayan blackberries, Scotch Broom, and poison oak.

After years of spraying blackberries with Garlon and Glyphosate (separately and in various mixtures) at various times of year, I became convinced that you can't kill the stuff by spraying--the roots are too tough. Over the past couple of years, I've been spending the winter with a shovel digging the buggers out and burning them. It's a lot of work, but it gets the job done. Same deal with PO--after you cut the vines that are as thick as your arm and 30' tall.

The other problem with spraying is that it kills off the grasses--and then you get big patches of Siberian thistle taking over.

The only permanent way to deal with Scotch Broom (now in full bloom) is to pull the whole plants up--and keep at it for a few years--the seeds can remain dormant for up to 60 years. The state tried a weevil as a biological control, but it wasn't hardy or hungry enough.

[lgb&dtuba]

Wonder why none of the alternative energy flacks has proposed kudzu for a biofuel source? Leave the corn for likker...

Just a matter of time. Meanwhile http://home.att.net/~ejlinton/jelly.html for kudzu recipes. Heed the warnings about harvesting where it's been sprayed to try to get rid of it.

And no, I haven't (nor will I) try any of those recipes. I can't even stand collards or kale.

Jim 'not a grazer' Wagner

[Chuck(G)]

Just a matter of time. Meanwhile http://home.att.net/~ejlinton/jelly.html for kudzu recipes. Heed the warnings about harvesting where it's been sprayed to try to get rid of it.

Those recipes actually look pretty interesting. Too bad we don't have the stuff this far north. But I could imagine deep-fried kudzu leaves stuffed with spicy ground nutria...

...From the same site:

The best fertilizer I have discovered for kudzu is 40 weight non detergent motor oil.

---------------
Thinking about the neighbor with the "meadow" yard...

You know, after that grass goes to seed, it'll go dormant and brown. Maybe a compromise could be reached with the neighbor to mow it then.

At least she's not dumping a bunch of herbicides/pesticides/fertilizer into the water table, so it's not all bad.

Just thinkin' here.

[lgb&dtuba]

Too bad we don't have the stuff this far north.

Yet.