Nosy Neighbor

 

                  

    I'm pretty sure we all have one...a nosy neighbor. My nosy neighbor is at our second home in a neighboring city. I consider it my sanctuary. It is a small cottage directly across from the beach - a humble abode with a million dollar view.  It has a nice front yard with lawn, roses, various plants and a few trees that frame our yard. It's a joy to garden there in spring and summer. All is pretty much perfect at my little Shangri-La, except for my neighbor to the left of us...

    There are no tall fences between our two properties. I have a white picket garden fence and a very narrow street between us. Facing my home is her kitchen window; which when she is not outside talking as loud as humanly possible to every passerby there is, she is at the kitchen window - watching every move me or anybody makes. She has a vegetable garden on her side yard that faces me. She tends to it a lot. I can hardly go outside without her bellowing out, "Hey Linda, haven't seen you for a while!" Her voice is SO loud too. Sometimes, I wait to go outside until she goes back into her house.

    Last year, this woman walked onto my property when I was not there and cut down my rose bush by two or three feet. She claims it was blocking her ocean view while she cooks. Are you kidding me! Of course, I complained to the HOA and she was told to not touch anything on my property again. I was so mad. I mean, who does she think she is? I jokingly said to my husband that she thinks she is the mayor of that little corner of our community. She put a sign in the street (with an underlying threatening tone) during Covid that everyone needs to have a mask on when walking down the street that divides our homes. (Almost done venting...) She would even yell at people from her front porch, who were out for their daily beach walk, that weren't wearing masks, "Hey, put a mask on!" 

   

    For the most part, I think she is harmless. She is just terribly, terribly annoying and has no boundaries. I'm a little concerned though...a tree that lines the left side of my property line, that blossoms beautiful purple flowers has suddenly died (?). A healthy tree for six years, has shriveled up and died. This is a tree she asked us to trim three years ago, and like good neighbors - we trimmed the top down, so she could have an ocean view while she is at her kitchen window. From her front porch, she has a 180 degree view of the ocean. 

    We've been doing some renovations to the house the past few months, so she'll be seeing a lot of me. And for the record, we are planting a bigger tree where my dead once purple blossoming tree is now.  When we bought the place, a quiet lovely couple lived there. Sadly, they moved and we got a new neighbor. 

    Thank you all for reading my rant of a blog. I wish her no harm, but I do wish she would keep her voice down and only use her gardening sheers on her property. As for my dead tree, with once beautiful purple blossoms...we are installing Ring cameras.