I'm Back!
Hello friends,
Well it certainly has been a minute since I’ve written. My apologies. I’ve received a number of email inquires and text messages, not to mention the constant group conversation: “What’s happening on Merman Way and Happy Street!?” And I, for one, am so thankful to have you all on this journey with me. I know we all are battling someone, somewhere about something, am I right? So, why have I been on hiatus? Well, the truth is I got pregnant. If you’ve ever been pregnant and suffered from terrible morning sickness, you’ll understand my absence. Oh brother was that brutal. For those of you that haven’t been pregnant or have been pregnant, but not had morning sickness, let me tell you, the “morning” description is a major misnomer and further, there are indeed varying degrees of the “sickness”. Mine was all day and worse in the evenings… it was a lot like the gastrointestinal flu you may experience in the winter if you live in a colder climate (looking at you Michigan.) Well, I don’t want to bore you or gross you out any further, so let’s get right to it. I’m back, and I owe you some stories…
When I left you last there was a colorful email exchange between our neighbors across the way – Nice Guy and Nice Girl - and the Disgruntled Neighbors that live behind them. In my post titled #Winning/Not Winning I shared a few provocative emails regarding some diseased, lamed, probably dead trees which were in desperate need of removal, treatment or replacement. And we left off with some serious fightin’ words from the Disgruntled Neighbors. Now, please pause here and reread #Winning/Not Winning or at least the final email as a refresher to the story – I’ll wait… Great, refreshed? Kind of antagonistic, and baiting if I do say so myself - and I do. If that email were addressed to me, the old me, the teenage or twenty year old me, I would have responded with an equally biting email. Fortunately it wasn’t… but, my very hilarious and now angered neighbor, Nice Guy, felt himself trapped and did write one of the emails the old me would have written…
Email from Nice Guy
Oh my.
I’m afraid our position may not have been clear, and my longly written letter perhaps confused things a bit.
So, I’ll simplify:
1. We don’t like the trees. Period. We’d rather have a nice view of the Mt. Gorgeous and the hillside.
2. We were looking into keeping the trees on our side as a courtesy to you. A courtesy that cost us $200 in consultant fees.
3. Because ALL the trees in the area have to be treated for lerp for the injections to work, and since 4-5 of the trunks are yours, and since you are the party who want to keep them, we were offering a compromise to keep the trees by dividing the maintenance, maintenance costs, and lerp treatments with us. If we have to do all the work and pay for everything ourselves, it’s easier to just cut ‘em and put in what we like.
Therefore; Option 1 is more affordable, more visually appealing for us (eventually), and will be less maintenance in the long run. You want to us to maintain trees we don’t want or have time to care for? Then you gotta do a little more than give us verbal approval in an email.
Now, let me address your privacy concerns again.
1. We don’t look at or into your house. Our patio set up has almost no line of view into your property when we entertain. Sure, we can see your house in the workout area, but again, we’re there for maybe an hour about 3x times a week and we have zero interest in your property.
2. The work done on our property has helped in bringing property values on both our streets up.
3. We don’t agree that the former illegal shed (with a window facing your property) and an old rickety fence was better view over the current full view of the sky, but to each his own we suppose.
4. You can put in whatever you like on your property (even all the way up to the midway point in the alleyway) to block whatever view, light, or homeless transient path you don’t want to see.
However, I find myself taking slight offense to the comment, "We'd love to hear your ideas about re-establishing the privacy between our two properties” yet followed with no offers of assistance or ideas of your own. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but are you saying you want approval over the choices we come up with on our side of our property? I sure hope I have that wrong.
Ok, so let’s just do this: divide the alleyway down the middle as the city has outlined, and we’ll do what we want on our side (up to the halfway point) and you can do what you want on your side. Easy enough, right?
And finally as a courtesy to you, here’s what we plan on doing on our side at this point (when we have the time to get to it of course):
1. We will be cutting down the trees that are located on our side only, leaving four trunks that cross into your half of the alleyway and your property. Those tress will be your full responsibility from here on forward.
2. We will leave the stumps and roots intact so that the remaining trees and the hillside are not impacted. But please remember what Don (the City Lumberjack) said about the trees on your side growing at an angle and how they will fall onto your property at some point.
3. Once our half the alleyway is clear, we will likely be planting something just a foot or so from the edge of deck to block our view of your house and your street block.
Thanks for your note.
Sorry we couldn’t work it out.
-Nice Guy and Nice Girl
Oh boy, thankfully our Nice Guy neighbor is smart and sent the email to Jason and I first with the following delightful message:
Since this could affect neighborhood watch stuff, I’m sending my response to the idiots to you guys first to see if you think I need to adjust anything.
Thoughts?
Sorry to add onto the neighborhood drama, but I’m hoping this will be the end of the conversation with them.
-Nice Guy
Well, we did have some adjustments, but not necessarily for the benefit of the Neighborhood Watch, but for the benefit of any anger induced litigious behavior from the Disgruntled Neighbors.
After several rounds of hilarious anecdotes back and forth where we made fun of the Disgruntled Neighbors amongst each other (as one may do in such a situation), we finally sat and wrote a draft to forward on to Nice Guy. He could alter it in any way he saw fit or could just sign his name and hit send. Now, there is a lot of similarity in the email we rewrote, because we wanted/needed to convey the message points. So, I’ve put our "new" information in purple below. Hopefully it minimizes confusion.
Email from Jason and I for Nice Guy approval and use:
Hi Disgruntled Neighbors,
I’m afraid our position may not have been clear, and my longly written letter perhaps confused things a bit.
In the interest of meeting in the middle, it is important that you know where we stand, so that it’s clear where the middle is.
1. We don’t really like the trees. We’d rather have a nice view of the Mt. Gorgeous hillside and nothing else. (Well, actually Nice Girl wants to add a hot tub but I’ve told her how crazy the maintenance is on those dumb things.)
2. We looked into keeping the trees on our side as a courtesy to you, because you had expressed such a fondness for them. We’ve already spent $200 on this assessment as part of our gesture of good faith.
3. The professional determination was made that ALL of the trees in the area have to be treated for lerp in order for the injections to work. Since 4 of the trunks are yours, and since you guys want to keep them, we were offering a compromise to keep the trees by dividing the physical maintenance, maintenance costs, and lerp treatments between us. However, if we are expected to do all the work and pay for everything ourselves, then we are going to invest in landscaping that better suits us. That is to say: more affordable, more visually appealing landscape that requires less maintenance for everyone in the long run.
We understand and sympathize with your concerns about your privacy. We can only assure you that we are not looking at your home or yard, but rather the beautiful view of the mountain. Only when standing at the railing can we see your backyard, otherwise (when seated) we can’t see anything over there. However, if you are still concerned about our vantage of your property, or dislike looking at ours, we urge you to take steps to create privacy on your own property (or even up to your half of the Paper Alleyway) by planting healthy trees or shrubs that you can maintain and control.
You can let us know if you would like to discuss a compromise that includes a division of costs and responsible ongoing maintenance of the existing trees between our properties. Otherwise, below will be our tentative plan going forward:
1. Cut down the trees located on our side of the alley, leaving four trunks that cross into your half of the alleyway and your property. Those trees will be exclusively your responsibility.
2. All stumps and roots will be left intact so that the remaining trunks and the hillside are not impacted. But please remember what Don (the City Lumberjack) said about the trees on your side growing at an angle and how they will eventually fall onto your property.
3. Once our half the alleyway is clear, we will likely be planting something just a foot or so from the edge of deck to frame our view of Mt. Gorgeous and block the view of your street.
Thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation, and we look forward to seeing you both at the next Neighborhood Watch meeting.
Nice Guy and Nice Girl
Nice Guy was generous with his compliments – “you guys should be politicians,” and made no adjustments to the email. We felt good, we felt like we were helping. Calmer heads were prevailing and the email was sent. Moments later the following email arrived to Nice Guy from Disgruntled Neighbors…
Hi Nice Guy and Nice Gerrrl-
Thank you for clarifying that the real reason you want to remove the trees is to improve your view of the hillside, that's been our suspicion all along.
We are retaining the professional services of a Certified Consulting Arborist to help us make a final determination on the current health of the trees, stability of the hillside and potential consequences of removing the trees on your side of the easement. This professional is different from a standard arborist and/or tree professional, in that they do not profit from the removal of trees, and their opinion is highly regarded in a court of law (should this matter need to be litigated). They can also assess potential loss of property value in matters such as this.
Operating under the belief that you can do whatever you want with your side of the city-owned easement, is a grey area. We have spoken with the Dept of Urban Forestry at length, about this matter, and we are now operating under their suggestions.
With regards to your statement, "(we) would like to discuss a compromise that includes a division of costs and responsible ongoing maintenance of the existing trees between our properties", we have maintained the easement and done appropriate trimming of the trees since we purchased our property, and will continue to do so. The lerps are not a serious threat to the health of the trees, and although they are a nuisance to your deck, they are not a nuisance to us in any manner.
To address the issue of our loss of privacy, we will gladly take your recommendation and plant something to replace the height, privacy, and shade that the current eucalyptus trees provide.
Best,
Disgruntled Neighbor
So there you have it friends, some people just want to fight. No matter how hard you try you cannot make everyone like you or see that in fact the sky is actually blue… not even if you’re George Clooney. At the moment there has been no further emails, or landscaping initiatives. That doesn’t mean this story is dead, just on, well, a hiatus. I will promptly get back to you as soon as I investigate where the situation stands!
Stay tuned… next week’s a doozy. The battle over The Street Parking!
