Tacky Neighbor "Decorations" ie crap

Oh God linkat. I love your threads.

Honestly? The immoral side of me says "pretend someone stole in it the middle of the night" That goes under the heading of accidently breaking it.

My neighbors are nice people. They aren't tacky. However, some of the stuff they do surprises me.

I'm surprised because "Johns" father, who we've become good friends with, had been a farmer for over 20 years, all during Johns childhood. Yet John appears to be clueless about anything growing out of the ground.

They have this beautiful big pecan tree in their front yard. Our concrete patio starts maybe 30 feet from it. One day, I see him planting a fricking TREE in the ground, about 2 feet from where the concrete starts, directly UNDER our power line going to the house.

"Hey John, watcha doin?"

He said he was planting, I don't know, a maple or elm or some damn thing. Something big. Something that would never grow in competition with this decades old pecan, and if it did, would buckle my concrete.
In any case, it was the scrawniest example of a tree I ever saw, plus, he was planting it at the wrong time of year.

I'm not sure if I even saw him water it ever, like you stick it in the ground, and that's that.

It wasn't enough for me to know it was dying of neglect. I had to do something.

"Think Chai, THINK. It has to look like an accident..."

to be continued......

I sometimes work with a house stager and I think your best hope is he will voluntarily remove the junk. Most people will when asked nicely in a non-insulting way. You could also volunteer to "clean" the area for him and tell him it's because you are going to be selling and want to keep the area looking uncluttered (people do get this for the most part).
It could be worse:

Please continue….

These people are far from nice. They are tacky inside and out and dumb. They throw cigarette butts off their deck above us. Allow their dog to run through other neighbors flower beds (of course he is supposed to be leashed, but they never do). At one time, they had their young adult daughter and troublesome boyfriend (and of course he had an illegitimate daughter) – what else would you expect all living in the same condo and with another guy that rents a room from them. They allow their dog to pee right in the front so it has destroys the grass. They live above us and do a lot of plain selfish or stupid things. Like vacuuming at 11:00 at night and moving furniture by dragging it across their hardwood floors late at night. You ever think of lifting?

We have spoken to them before, but they look at you blankly – like at 11:00 at night once – when the woman was at home and her two adult daughters were visiting and they were chasing the dog around (he is a lab so no small dog). After 15 minutes of that – I went up and knocked. I asked – could you not run around and bang around above us like that? Oh, looking at me blankly like that is normal behavior for adults knowing you have a family of four with small children that need to get up for school the next morning below you. We were only doing it for a minute. My reply, but its 11:00 at night. Oh, ok.

Dumb as can be.

And then she says – why doesn’t anyone like me?

If they were normal or nice and just clueless or civil, I’d discuss this with them. However, we are not supposed to talk to them now – due to legal reasons.

And that’s just the beginning.

Can you tell I don’t like them?

I'm not supposed to talk to them on advice of my lawyer.

Not that it would help - they are dumb.

It looks like a garage sale for the blind.

BB

I tried to find those tacky bees on google so you could appreciate the decorations as well. But they are so tacky you cannot find them - they probably got them at the dollar store or Ocean State Job Lot.

I just hope your prospective buyers don't run into them at open houses! Yikes.


And chai, yes, continue. Did you say any of those things to your neighbour? About the roots eventually uplifting your concrete, etc?

Well I think they dislike us just as much - so hopefully they will be nice to get us out of there.

I'd wait till your place was about to be shown and just move the ticky-tack.
I'd put it someplace they could find it, but where it would be out of sight.
No note. No explanation. In front today, in back tomorrow.

Agreed

Cycloptichorn

My neighbors to the rear replaced the stockade fence with a black chain
link fence (welcome to stalag 13). They started putting white "privacy"
slats in but stopped before they got to my yard. That was almost a year
ago. You'd think they'd really want to finish because they have a pool.

So now I am building some lattice frames to put up in that area and I'll
plant some climbing ivy.

Rent a beaver ?

I will probably send a note to the management company. I hestitated because the maintenance guy said he would take care of it (and he is a good guy) - don't want to make waves with him. Maybe right before I go on vacation (end of week) if the crap isn't gone. They will send these boneheads a quick email (which they frequently do because they are always doing stuff they are not supposed to) - again a long list and not just us complaining.

If it is still there prior to us showing - I will move it without a note onto their property.

No, I didn't.

John is seriously a very nice guy. There's just some things about being a good neighbor he just doesn't get. Fortunately, he and his wife are both very neat and orderly, but it's kind of like everything he does is like a clockwork. Mechanical and with no joi de vivre. Ummm...an example. There's 4 houses in a row, Bill's, ours, Johns and Tom. Whenever Tom, Bill or Wally have to get out the lawn mower (we don't have a lawn, but there's that grass that grows between the sidewalk and the curb) They just continue on and mow the curb grass in front of all 4 houses. Takes an extra 3 minutes, and keeps everything looking nice. Before John built that house, the former owner, Andrew had a little cottage on the property. He only had a manual push mower. So when Wally mowed our then lawn, he would just do Andrews front yard too, didn't even think about it.

When John goes out there, he mows his little patch of grass by the curb, and that's it. He's not being ugly, I can tell it just doesn't occur to him. When he was building the house, John went to Toms house, next door, and just matter of factly told them "You have to get a variance for your driveway". When Tom said "Uh, no, actually You're the one who has to get it" John just looked blank, like that possibility had never occured to him. There was some other thing with Tom's house later. When John was digging out a basement (Yes, a Basement in Central Texas ) it cut into the roots of a big live oak, and he had no clue how to compensate if the tree died. He thought could go to HD and buy them a $25 tree. Yikes. Fortunately the tree survived, and I know they would have worked something out. It's like he doesn't see past what is happening in front of him, with a very limited future timeline. He's a computer programmer/game writer guy. I don't think his brain works in any kind of abstract fashion.

It just wouldn't have been worth it to bring up the fact that an 8 year old could have figured out that was an impossible place for a tree to grow, even taking my patio out of the equation. It's hard to tell a grown man, intelligent in many ways, something so obvious.

and gads, I love some of your answers. Waiting with bated breath. .

Linkat, me, I'd notify the board as non sarcastically as possible but clear enough to catch their regard. Snot that I am, that tack-o-philic stuff would put me off as a buyer, since I'd have to plan not just on moving but work up my vaporizing skills.

I'm pretty happy that I'm lucky with my neighbors.

linkat - go take a picture of the bees!

That's so Chai can start her viral video with pizzazz..

We were just up until a few years ago when these yahoos moved in and we've lived here almost 13 years. Everyone else we got along with fine. These guys are plain idiots that either are clueless or don't care about others or some combination of them.

Yeah I'll do that - that will also get them paronoid. I like to take my cell phone when they are out and about - because they are always doing something against condo rules - and we have so few rules - one of the reasons I like this association.

They assume people have common sense. Unfortunately these people don't have any.

Anyone as I was saying - I often times pretend I'm taking pictures with my phone whenever they go about walking their dog without his leash, and of their garage when they have the door open - because they don't park any of their cars in there (which is a rule - must park one car in there and not use as storage - for the obvious reason that we have enough parking).

So whenever I come out - suddenly they put the leash on the dog and stuff like that - it is quite fun.