At our first apartment, I can't say we ever annoyed anyone, although we were annoyed plenty with our neighbors that parked their one piece of crap car across the only two parking spaces and stole our Sunday newspaper every weekend. At our second apartment, we lived on the second floor, above a woman that I nicknamed "The Troll Who Lives Under the Stairs" or just "Troll" for short.
Like most trolls, she was too thickheaded to realize that the staircase led to three additional apartments, not just ours. She was certain that all the foot traffic on the stairs was for our apartment only and therefore, despite the fact that I left every day at 7:00 AM and did not return until 9:00 PM (from my job at the prosecuting attorney's office and visiting my recently widowed father), in her feeble mind, we must be drug dealers and she reported this to the apartment managers who informed us of the accusation. She repeatedly made noise complaints against us, which was odd, because in those days, we were rarely home and never had guests over.
The capper t'was the night before Christmas, 1994. At 4:00 AM the troll arrived with such a clatter (at our door), that I arose to see what was the matter. There she was pounding at our door. I opened it against my better judgment to find her red faced and angry. She screamed for me to "Turn off your f***ing washing machine!" I informed politely that it was not on, to which she screamed, "LIAR!!!!" I invited the angry beast inside, to my clean, nicely decorated apartment with Christmas tree aglow. She stormed past me to the laundry closet, and then bellowed, "Where is that NOISE coming from?" I calmly replied, "Upstairs. You know there are two other apartments up there, right? Not every noise you claim to be from us comes from our apartment." She pushed past me and raced up the stairs.
I thought for sure after this encounter, the troll might be slightly apologetic or at least give me a head nod of acknowledgement when our paths invariably crossed. That never happened. She would only snarl in my general direction. We moved to our first house in the next few months.
Our first neighborhood was probably once filled with young families, but now it had gone to seed and was filled with elderly couples. They did not like us one bit. I thought it was odd when I would drive by and wave to our new neighbors only to be scowled at in return. I could not figure out how we could have offended them. It turns out though, it was not us. It was the former owner, and because we purchased the property before the signage went up, I suppose they thought we were kin.
The former owner decided he wanted to paint the house barn red, and while he was at it, he wanted to paint the fence too, and not just the part he could see. He wanted all sides painted barn red, including those that faced the neighbors' yards. So he took it upon himself to enter their backyards unannounced with a sprayer of red paint. As you can imagine, this did not go over well with the neighbors at all. We were guilty by association.
We never saw nor heard our neighbors at our second house, so really I can't say that we or they had any complaints. At our third home, we had nice enough neighbors, although I didn't much care for having a homeowner's association. It just seemed like it was a bunch of busybodies who reveled in telling people how to live under the threat of a lien against their property if they did not comply. (I was friendly with some of the board members, and this was my impression of their HOA activities.)
In our current neighborhood, we have had a bit anonymity. As a family, we do not enjoy large gatherings of people we don't know, so we have never been to any of the neighborhood community pool parties, or Easter egg hunts. Although I would love to have a friendly neighbor next door like we always had growing up, I'm okay with just the friendly wave or head nod. We have had a pretty peaceful existence here until last week.
Despite only being 6 years old, our wood fence is starting to show some wear and tear. My husband decided it was time to call a guy to get the necessary repairs done. He had a question about the required width of slats for the fences, and you know that this minutiae is just the sort of thing homeowner associations are very particular about. Since my husband is a man, he was not about to waste time searching the covenants and restrictions for the answer. He is a man. He has a question. He wants it answered tout de suite.
He posed his query to our neighborhood Facebook page where neighbors frequently post important questions like, where can I find the best cupcakes, and who knows a good plumber. The homeowner association president himself promptly responded to the thread with the specific section of the covenants and restrictions (CCR) that would have that information. Husband found the CCR online and read the pertinent section which did not address his question. It referred readers to a power point presentation that only revealed fence slats should be of a "standard" size. This was frustrating to him. He invested all this time trying to find an answer to a simple question. Obviously the president knew the answer as he cited the specific section number of the CCR. Couldn't he have just as easily responded that there was no specified width for fence slats? Husband then added to his thread saying, why couldn't you just directly answer a simple question. Mr. President took umbrage with that and made some sarcastic statement about teaching a man to fish.
Four days later, a neighbor we have never met nor heard of, responded to the thread. He ranted about how Mr. President does so much for our community and how people want him to spoon feed them answers because they are too lazy to look for their own answers. Husband responded with look, people ask all sorts of questions on here, we don't tell people to check Yelp for the best mechanic, urologist, or holiday light installer. He then asked the neighbor why he felt the need to pile on a four day old thread. This must have enraged the neighbor, as he then gave out his street address and challenged the husband "get off your lazy ass" and come down there, for what I presume would be a fight or duel. We later found out that this man is a medical doctor, not some redneck looking to raise hell on a Saturday night. Husband then decided it was best to just delete the thread and I have since started to refer to this neighbor as Dr. Hothead.
Meanwhile, prior to Dr. Hothead's response, another neighbor asked why there was construction going on near the neighborhood pool. Mr. President quickly answered that if the neighbor or anyone else wanted to know, they would need to attend the HOA board meeting on Monday.
Really? To quote a very wise woman, "Ain't nobody got time for that!" What is the deal with this guy's air of mystery about things? Why can't he directly answer a simple question? To me it seems a perfect example of a tiny bit of power going to one's head.
So instead of saying all of that in a comment, I responded in a way that I thought was kidding, in an albeit snarky way. I wrote that Mr. President's response was in keeping with his teach a man to fish philosophy. I ended it with a winking smiley face to show this was just a friendly jab. Mr. President did not take my comment lightly. His next response in the thread was to go off on me and accuse me of bashing him in my comment and then insinuated that I was lazy, a complainer, a non-voter, and non-participator in our community. I have never met the man before. I have never complained to him or any neighbor other than my own husband. I wrote another comment to the thread explaining that it was a friendly ribbing at most, and that I am sure he does work hard for our neighborhood, but some people, like myself, do not have the availability to attend board meetings nor the time to read board minutes.
I did not receive a response, and I am okay with that. Quite honestly, I have no use for homeowner associations. If I had my wish, I would live in a sprawling ranch style house on a plot of land, with a large vegetable garden, a chicken coop and a small herd of goats. I would have a small farm stand and sell eggs and artisan cheeses. I would have an above ground pool in the yard for the kids. All things which are against HOA rules, regulations, and restrictions. In my opinion, good fences really do make the best neighbors and hopefully we will get ours fixed soon.
