The ongoing saga with the not-so-friendly neighbors.

One other pleasant and not-one-bit stressful experience when you decide to build a house is dealing with the total shitheads not-so-nice neighbors . Of course, as any other "normal" person, I do realize that the neighbors would not welcome us with open arms, champagne flutes and cute cupcakes when we would tell them that "yes, we are taking the old crib down and rebuilding something totally kick-ass style instead". I am not delusional. I have been exposed to construction in the past and I know it is not exactly that much fun.... But I do believe that some (most) people would be more willing than others to accept the idea. If you tell them exactly what you intend to do, how long it will take (roughly) and let them know that you will do your absolute best to minimize the problems/ inconvenience inherent to a construction site, they will tolerate it. They might not be thrilled with it but they might just say "that's ok, congrats and good luck".

First interaction with the neighbors (AKA as the shitheads) to the North of us (Neighbors to the North of us are: THE old lady, her two daughters #1 and #2 and the brother-in-law AKA #3 (and husband of #2). I hope that's clear enough...)).
- neighbor #1: "So when are you moving in?"
- us: "not for a while, we are planning extensive work around the house, well, actually, we are taking the house down".
- neighbor : "what, why, when, who, how???????"
Oh the 5Ws... But why are you taking the house down, it is beautiful (really???), it has belonged to our family for many many generations (like what 300 years???) and we don't want to see it go (oh, so why did you sell it in the first place?), and oh wait, you are building something modern?????, but how modern, oh modern, really???? (yeah, we are going to build a concrete box with no windows... *_*!). When are you going to start??? You know, Mrs Z. (THE old lady) who lives in the house is 150 years old and the construction will affect her well-being and wow, what are you guys thinking? You are such insensitive people... OK, so now we are the evil young couple trying to ruin the someone's life by building a house. Thank you for the positive feedback, really appreciated!!!
The following interaction with the neighbor #1 is via email and in essence, it is saying "they" are totally against the construction because THE old lady is fragile. Next step is for us to meet with neighbors #2 and #3 and, apparently, it's not going to be a piece of cake. I can't wait!!!


In dealing with your neighbors, just follow these steps:

STEP 1 (cut a hole in the box) : meet with #3 at his office.

First, #3 decides that he has to make us (me, hubby and super-nice builder) wait in his lobby for about 30 minutes because, you know, he is a busy man, has tons of shit to do and really can't be bothered being on time for a meeting he has scheduled himself. His time is more precious than ours, ok we get it. Once in the meeting room, again, it is all about the guilt, and although we are coming up with a million ideas on how to make this as tolerable as possible for the old lady, not one of our solutions is acceptable. The main problem is that the neighbors don't want to us to block the access to the lane way while we build our foundations (2 weeks) in essence, they are very (make that extremely) bitter about the whole thing. But the official excuse is that apparently Mrs Z. can only go out the back door because there are less steps (read one less step). Literally, that's what we are being told... Here are some bits and pieces of the conversation:

-super nice builder: "how about we build a covered passageway from the back to the front and you can wheel your mother-in-law to the front and get her in the car".
- #3 : "no, that's impossible."
- me: "I propose that we build an access from the front entrance, a ramp that will slope very slowly so you can take her out through the front entrance instead."
- #3 :"not, that's not possible either. Do you want her to fall down and kill herself?"
- me: " but of course, shithead, I wish death upon people... WTF is wrong with you???" (*_*) "Look, we are just trying to figure something out here".
- hubby: "How about we create a passage through the north of your property, your neighbor has offered to give you access through his own lane way so it is safe to pick up Mrs. Z".
- #3: "no, that solution will make a mess of our fence. Not possible" (fence which BTW, is already in the worst shape).

Wow, now, that sounds like a very productive meeting, I think we are getting somewhere... NOT. Complete waste of time! The highlight (or cherry on the cake) of the meeting comes when #3 requests that we cut the grass on our property... Are you joking right now? You can't be serious, you are giving me nothing and you are asking me for something in return??? What an interesting negotiating technique...


STEP 2 (put your junk in that box) : receive some nasty emails from your neighbors.

After this very successful meeting, several emails were exchanged. To make a long story short, the neighbors reiterated the fact that they would not give us permission to block the lane way and, after being informed of the building permit application, did their absolute BEST to fuck us up big time to slow down, even stall the project. Not only that but they started harassing our workers (who had started to clean up the inside of the house and prepare it for demolition) by:
- taking photos of the workers and their cars and license plates.
- asking them to NOT smoke outside on OUR property because it was disturbing Mrs. Z (who BTW, was inside her house).
- yell at our builder and ask him to move his truck from the lane way, truck which BTW belonged to someone who was servicing their house...
So, after receiving complaints from the builder and his crew, I decided to write #1 an email asking her to call me when her and the other numbers (#2 and #3) would have complaints, provided the complaints were not ridiculous and laughable, I also asked that they stop their awkward and disturbing behavior towards my builder and his workers.

I guess #1 forwarded my letter to #3 who sent me an incendiary answer that I started replying to and I then thought "what the hell, these people are crazy... why get drawn into this dispute?". The best is to keep calm and carry on. Just get the building permit and then figure things out, you'll have more leverage when you have that piece of paper.


STEP 3 (Make her open the box... that's the way you do it.): deal with it.

You now have a couple of choices :

- you can get even more adversarial and waste a huge amount of time going back and forth with nasty letters. I have considered this option, in fact, I have written one nasty letter to #3, it made me feel better as I was doing it but I think that this sensation would have been short lived. He would have answered something nastier and I would have been dragged into a spiral of negativity. I don't think it is healthy.
- You can also decide to just focus on your goal and avoid communication. The less you tell, the better it is. What's important is that the house gets built and it will, hopefully.