Mending Fences vs Walling Off

It is amazing what a lawsuit will do. Apparently that is the only means of communicating serious intent to a party who will not listen otherwise.


In a miraculous turnaround for a couple of poverty-stricken ragamuffins (whose poor-mouth stories are legion), a big pile of money has suddenly become available for a couple of sizeable projects. The week before Father's Day my neighbors announced they were moving the ice machine and enclosing it because it was noisy. (Believe me, this was a Hallelujah moment!)


Then on Father's Day, while I was gone all day, they replaced three eight-four foot sections of our boundary fence with a brand new seven-foot high wooden fence. The next day another eight-foot section was erected and the next section prepped for stringers and boards. I'm guessing they intend to redo the entire boundary fence as a seven-foot wall. Perhaps their rationale is "out of sight, out of mind." If so, they are still missing the point. The operative principle here is "OUT OF EARSHOT!"


Upon purchasing my property 28 months ago, I was aware it needed a whole lot of maintenance, some of which had been deferred for many, many years. I also quickly discovered its major defect - my neighbors had started an unpermitted business operation in 1987, which is a horrible nuisance, especially during the wee hours of the morning when normal people sleep. For over two years, leading up filing a nuisance lawsuit, I have been unable (or, motivationally paralyzed) to develop several beautification projects due to the ugly and incessant blanket of noise that radiates from their ancient commercial ice making machine just over the fence and into every corner of my house, my property (every single sq. ft./all 14,800 sq. ft.), and my conciousness.


Perhaps now, that will change. We'll see just how well "out of sight, out of earshot, out of mind" works in this situation.