Dear Blake,
A year ago, my husband and I bought our first home together. We love it and are excited to improve the house and the property.
One of our neighbors is an elderly woman who had previously assumed that part of our property belonged to her. Without conducting a survey, she planted several trees on what is, in fact, our land, and they have grown to block our views. She also erected an unpermitted fence that crosses onto our property. We have since pruned and/or removed a few of the trees.
This neighbor constantly engages us in protracted “discussions” in which she admonishes us for not having consulted her before making changes to our landscape. We have shown her the property maps, and she is coming to understand the boundaries. Still, every time she sees one of us outdoors, she chastises us, offers endless unsolicited “advice” and insists we include her in all decision-making regarding our yard. We now actively avoid her.
We would love nothing more than to be left in peace and for our interactions to be friendly, infrequent and brief. How do we get her to back off?
Signed, Erica
From Concord, New Hampshire
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Dear Erica,
It sounds to me like you moved next door to a woman who is territorial and set her ways. The only thing I can suggest for you to do is to emotional push her to the brink of madness. If you and your husband ever see her about to enter her home, follow her in while wearing bathrobes and carrying towels, and head straight for her bathroom. Each of you should bathe and/or shower for at least an hour, while the other goes into the kitchen and dines while waiting them turn. Or, if she erected a wooden fence, tear off a few pieces at a time and give it to some local hobos that can use it for firewood to keep warm or to cook some of their awful stew. She wants to be included in all of your decision making regarding your yard? Then tell her that you want to know how deep you should dig a hole in your backyard, to hide the body of a pestering old lady that you plan on strangling in the very near future. And my final suggestion is this. Drop her off at a nursing home, that has the reputation of having caregivers who are as hostile as the staff in the movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. And if that isn’t mean enough for you, find a staff that is comparable to the prison guards in “The Shawshank Redemption”. I hope this helps.
Blake