Boundaries

As a homeowner my boundaries are established by legal property lines. I know where my property begins and ends. My backyard is defined by a chain link fence.

My driveway is cement and my neighbors’ is asphalt. Our driveways are combo, which means they run right next to each other with no border of grass or a fence. The definition of our individual driveways is marked by black and white.

The current tenants of the house next door are the latest in a long line of bizarre tenants who have lived in the house since we moved here in 2006.

First, there was Mary, who was the most “normal” of the bunch, a nurse with two daughters in college. She liked to have sex in the living room during the day with all the blinds open.

Then we had the young guns, a group of 20 somethings that grew from four to eight people, a newborn baby, and a pitbull which was beaten mercilessly. I called and another neighbor called the Humane Society about the dog.

The young guns came and went 24 hours a day, along with eight people there were all their cars, their friends, and other craziness. Mark, the landlord, did not renew their lease, and after a year the young guns were gone.

The alcoholics were the next group, 40 somethings, who did little more than drink 24/7. There were three of them, two brothers and one of the brother’s girlfriends. It didn’t last long, since alcohol does kind of erode brain power.

The brothers and the girlfriend had a fight. They went to jail and she moved out. Without her income, they couldn’t afford the rent, and they moved out shortly afterward leaving a good chunk of their possessions behind. Poor Mark had to haul all the crap away. There’s no way I could ever be a landlord, I have no patience for that kind of stuff.

Now we have this new group. It’s a woman, who is in her 30s, I think. There is a guy, who looks to be in his 30s as well. We’re not sure if they’re a couple or if it’s just a brother/sister type of situation. They never go anywhere together. Plus, there are three boys, ages from 15-10.

They’ve been there two months and for the most part, they are OK. But the driveway presents a challenge. The combo driveway is a single driveway for each of us until it reaches our garage, where it widens out to a double size. They have a double garage and I do, too.

She has a Ford Taurus, which barely runs, and he has a large conversion van. They don’t use the garage, as they piled a bunch of stuff in the middle of it, and that makes it unusable for parking.

I park my VW and the flower van in my garage and Joe parks his Buick Century outside on the driveway.

If her Ford Taurus is up by their garage and the conversion van is parked behind, and if Joe isn’t in my side of the driveway, she’ll pull around the conversion van to get out, utilizing my driveway, rather than moving the van. And vice versa.
When I came home from the furniture store yesterday (by the way, I ordered the sectional online), she was in her Taurus getting ready to leave. The conversion van was right behind her. I pulled in right next to the conversion van, effectively blocking her in.

She had one of her sons go into the house and get the keys to the conversion van and then moved it out into the street so she could get out. She looked really pissed.

But why would she be pissed? She was using my driveway to get in and out. If their driveway was just a single, she would have had to move the van anyway.

It’s petty, but technically she’s trespassing on my property. I have not given her permission to use my part of the driveway. If I have to leave, Joe just moves his car out into the street. We don’t use their driveway to shift our cars around. It doesn’t even occur to us to do that.

It’s a boundary thing.

They have a small dog that they walk outside. They don’t use the backyard or a tie out for the dog. Joe has been telling me that the boys cut across my front yard when they walk the dog.

Sure enough, when I was in the dining room this morning, and I saw a dark haired boy walk on my sidewalk across the front of the house, cut through my front yard, and then to the public sidewalk with the dog.

I opened the door and asked him not to cut across my yard anymore and use the public sidewalk. “OK,” he said.

There have been other problems with the boys. They leave shovels and trash on my side of the driveway. They play football and basketball and it’s only a matter of time before something gets damaged.

Hey, my grandsons lived here for over two years and I had my share of damage from them. Kids don’t cause damage on purpose, it’s just that they don’t know the repercussions of rough play and don’t realize that it can be expensive to fix stuff that they break.

I kind of wonder if these neighbors have ever lived in a house before. If they’ve lived mostly in apartments, there are more common areas and the boundaries aren’t quite as distinct. However, in this neighborhood, they’re surrounded by home owners and our boundaries are firm.

Another reason I wonder if they have ever lived in a house is because when we’ve actually had some snow to shovel, the boys use garden shovels instead of snow shovels. Garden shovels don’t do the job on snow, that’s for sure.

But their mother bought about five flat screen TVs this week (I’ve seen the boxes on the curb for recycling), so I know the priorities are watching TV and not shoveling snow.

I think it’s time I go over and talk to them about boundaries before spring.