If that’s so, then these folks need something about 40 feet tall and 3 feet thick.
Just imagine, you move into your new house and then your new neighbors […] put a HUGE God-awful eyesore trampoline and swing set only 8′ from your house. The slide platform towers over the 6′ privacy fence, facing directly into your new back yard.
Many days and evenings, their children scream and shriek only 8′ from your bedroom wall. The sound reflects off their 2 story home directly into your home. When they are in full screaming mode, the sound permeates your home, even on the opposite side of your house!
And things get less pleasant and polite from there.
Beware the power of torqued-off neighbors with a web site and, it seems, plenty of spare time to work on it …
(via J-Walk)
(Posted by CronDave)
Yes…
James and Candy had this problem with their neighbors. 4 years of ruuning battles latter, some of them involving police, they moved to oregon and are much happier.
It’s interesting to me how different areas of the country and even different places in the same town view fences differently. In my neighborhood in Michigan, fences were rare. I liked it, because it meant I saw more wildlife. Deer and other animals could travel more easily without having to deal with lots of fences, and I could see farther, so I could see the deer if they were in my neighbor’s yard, and sometimes even two yards down. The disadvantage was that I sometimes had other people’s dogs or kids roaming through my yard. Of course the lots were pretty big in my neighborhood, and we were pretty far out away from town proper. Closer in to town where the lots were smaller and the wildlife less frequent, fences were much more common. I’d say that the lack of fences in our neighborhood tended to make people more considerate of each other rather than less. After all, out of sight, out of mind, and a good tall fence certainly puts your neighbor out of sight.
The midwest certainly seems to be more of a “small split-rail fence to mark the property” sort of fence, rather than the “privacy fence” that is nearly universal on the West Coast. Denver has an interesting blend, as you move between neighborhoods.
I’m of mixed minds on it. I do like something a little more definitive than just open lawn and split rails (I like more yard than just grass, which is the other part of that tradition), but our own fences with our neighbors don’t, even at their height, produce much privacy, given our hillside.
In my neighborhood in Michigan, there weren’t even any split-rail fences. Every yard had a lot of lawn, with the result that the yards all blended nicely with one another (no sudden change from bluegrass to pea gravel for example). My neighbors and I knew where the lot lines were, and we each mowed just a bit over the lot line to guarantee that there wasn’t any strip of unmowed grass between the two houes.
Lots of lawn meant lots of lawn maintenance and fairly similar-looking yards. On the other hand, the lots were so big that making the majority into flowerbeds would have also required lots of maintenance (in fact I had fairly large flowerbeds, and I’m not sure which was more work, the lawn or the flowerbeds). All things considered, it was a good-looking neighborhood, and I didn’t feel any significant need for a fence. Less-considerate neighbors, houses that were closer together, or a pet might have changed my mind, but as things were, it worked out well.