For Those Of You Who Do Not Live In A Community With A Homeowner's Association, Do You Have Neighbors Who Try To Contol

[Calcas]

actually i am not living there anymore since i got divorced but we lived in a house in a nice neighborhood. everyone was for the most part very friendly and cordial. that is until...Mary moved in to the house next door to me!!!   this is a single woman who was then in her late 30's. the neighborhood consisted pretty propotionately of families, retirees and a couple of empty nesters. one day, i'm driving down the block, and i knew that the house next door had been sold to a single woman, when i see Mary's car in the driveway of the house. i immediately recognized from her vanity plates. you see, i had known Mary since she was a liitle girl. her cousin lived next door to me when i was growing up. later after the cousin's family moved out, Mary's family bought the house and she was my next door neighbor then! Mary had always been a brat and a bully. i never liked her then and still don't now.     her family's home had aways been the kind of house where children were seen and not heard and the living room furniture was covered in plastic. we were not to even breath near the living room. i remember hanging over the railing of the grand staircase off of the front hall looking down at it. even that was daring. the kids could go into the back door to the kitchen, the basement(which was not finished) or the great room upstairs...rarely. everything was cleaned and polished to perfection.     so, that said, you can imagine that Mary demanded a little perfection in her life. here are just a few things she did upon moving into the neighborhood.     * the neighbors(two of them) had boats. one stored her boat in her backyard. the other had theirs in their side driveway. meanwhile, they had been doing this for like 25 years. no...Mary called the authorities and had them busted and they had to remove their boats. one day i was stnding out on the street in front of my house by my yard and one of the boat owners comes barrelling around the corner in her old time station wagon and almost mows me over. she stops her car, leans out the window and yells - Are you Mary?!!! well, this woman did have a little drinking problem and i was glad to report that no, i was not Mary!!! that unleashed a tirade about her - who does she think she is? we've lived here for 25 yrs. no one has ever complained about our boat before and on and on.     * my gardener blew some leaves over onto her property line. nevermind that Mary had a big ginko tree that hung over our property and deposited the bulk of it's leaves into our yard. who cares? besides...ginko leaves are cool. so Mary had some guy come out and mark our property line where it wasn't visible. we all ahd big trees, it was fall, what is the big deal? oh no, Mary wouldn't stand for it.     there was no neighborhood association or anything like that. unless someone did something really outrageous, no one had a problem with it but with Mary in the neighborhood it was like having the gestapo on the prowl.     i think everyone has a right to do whatever they want with their property within reason and if someone wants to paint their house bright pink, that's their problem but i don't think there's anything you can do about it. now if they want to something harmful on their property, that's another story. painting their house a different, wild color, painting a mural on the side of it, whatever...that's their business. i may not love it but it's their house to do with what they want. actually, i take that back...if they paint porn on the side of it then i would have to try to do something about it. that's probably illegal anyway! lol     i hope that answers your question!