Line In the Sand....um..grass!
...or How Petty Can I Be?
Perhaps the summer has been too long and hot or it could be that I've been working near or from home the past couple of months.......but....my new neighbor is getting next too me.
We've been in these modest digs for 6 years now which makes us some of the "old timers" of this zero lot-line neighborhood. The guy on one side is an original too and we get along. Sometimes when he's out on vacation, I've been known to edge and mow his yard. He's the sort of guy that will sometimes run the weed eater around the side of his house adjacent to my property.
The home on our other side has suffered a troubled past. It's been on the market twice and the latest resident has signed a lease-purchase agreement with the second owner. That means it will probably be vacant within a year.
Maybe I'm being a little petty here - well yes, very petty - but our new neighbor is the kind that simply will not edge around his own home much less along side our house which is technically on his dirt. There are two foot high weeds growing up around his deck and between the houses. Increasingly so, he has moved his mowing space further and further away from the property line which throws the responsibility of mowing around the cluster of meter boxes and street light pole to me. All summer long, I edged around those boxes, kept it clear for meter readers and went the extra mile treating fire ants in his front yard.
Call it what you like but I see it as him drawing a line in the sand...well...maybe the St Augustine, expecting me to continue doing what he should be doing. So, not to be outdone, when I mowed this past time, I left a 6 inch strip between where he stopped and where I stopped. Next time around, I will move it another foot back toward the line until I've re-established the true property line in the grass. Oddly enough, it's not stealing anything tangible but it is stealing my time and violating unwritten patterns of responsibility for hopeful property owners. My time, equipment and sweat is just as valuable as a man at least 20 years my junior.
Perhaps the summer has been too long and hot or it could be that I've been working near or from home the past couple of months.......but....my new neighbor is getting next too me.
We've been in these modest digs for 6 years now which makes us some of the "old timers" of this zero lot-line neighborhood. The guy on one side is an original too and we get along. Sometimes when he's out on vacation, I've been known to edge and mow his yard. He's the sort of guy that will sometimes run the weed eater around the side of his house adjacent to my property.
The home on our other side has suffered a troubled past. It's been on the market twice and the latest resident has signed a lease-purchase agreement with the second owner. That means it will probably be vacant within a year.
Maybe I'm being a little petty here - well yes, very petty - but our new neighbor is the kind that simply will not edge around his own home much less along side our house which is technically on his dirt. There are two foot high weeds growing up around his deck and between the houses. Increasingly so, he has moved his mowing space further and further away from the property line which throws the responsibility of mowing around the cluster of meter boxes and street light pole to me. All summer long, I edged around those boxes, kept it clear for meter readers and went the extra mile treating fire ants in his front yard.
Call it what you like but I see it as him drawing a line in the sand...well...maybe the St Augustine, expecting me to continue doing what he should be doing. So, not to be outdone, when I mowed this past time, I left a 6 inch strip between where he stopped and where I stopped. Next time around, I will move it another foot back toward the line until I've re-established the true property line in the grass. Oddly enough, it's not stealing anything tangible but it is stealing my time and violating unwritten patterns of responsibility for hopeful property owners. My time, equipment and sweat is just as valuable as a man at least 20 years my junior.
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