The trouble with neighbors

"Good fences make good neighbors." Taken from the poem "Fences" by Robert Frost. (As a side note: Is it true that writers, by the very nature of their occupation--and I use the word both economically and metaphorically)--a breed apart, a breed most difficult to live with?) But that's an aside and better treated later.

My point is literal: good neighbors and not-so-good neighbors. Like Scarlett O'Hara, I consider land sacrosanct, If it's mine, ask before coming on it. Of course, if you're going to knock on my door, please do so without permission, but step back and don't present a threatening presence in my face when I open the door (although I always look out before opening). This is simple courtesy and an indicator of safety rules being followed in today's society.

My land juts down to the bayou--my house at the top of a 35 degree slope. My deck has steps that go down to what I call "Down Below." The man, two owners before me, built up this slope, leveled it off, and installed a swimming pool, meaning the top of my hill is flat. Imagine my surprise and deep dismay to open the gate to go "Down Below to work in my garden which is established along that incline only to discover a couple sitting just beyond my garden along the bayou fishing.

All I could think to say was: "I beg your pardon." The young man, maybe early college, turned and said, "Yes, m'am?" (That's how we talk and behave in the South towards people older than we are) No movement to move, no scurrying. Just "Yes, M'am?" as if he had every right to be there.

"Who are you and why are you in my yard?" I still maintained my composure.

"We're fishing. We always fish along the banks and have since we were little kids." He told me he was my neighbor's grandson. He explained that all the kids along the bayou had fished like buddies all these years. I wanted to say, well, not in the eight years I've lived here because I had never seen him up close. I maintain a casual, neighborly relation with the older man who lives next door. He is my mother's age. His wife died not long after I moved in. He and I used to chat the first couple of years, then he began having trouble walking and had to rely on one of that little walking devices. You know, you lean on its handles and its legs walk with you. It's basically a stabilizer. My mother now sometimes uses one.

Even though I saw the grandkids only from a distance, I could hear them every summer, all summer on the other side of the wooden fence, playing. laughing, and splashing in his swimming pool. I used to laugh with them at their antics, so basically I knew this young man. OK, I said, fish ahead.

I don't know who lighted up, but the smell of cigarette smoke disgusted me. Should I say something? I held my tongue, jumped up and went to the nearby nursery to purchase a few more plants. Lo and behold, let me repeat, lo and behold, when I returned, it wasn't just two of them--I bet there were a dozen people sitting in my back yard (Down Below) along the bank, fishing, and one even casting a net for crawfish. I thought, Oh my goodness! What the heck do I do now?

Luckily, the neighbor's son, with whom I have had many little chats, was there. A more even-keeled man you could not find. Someone asked, Do you want us to go? Well, yes, I did. I was about to do more digging and I didn't care for them to hear me grunt and groan as I worked--and yes, talk out loud to myself. I didn't say anything, but the son did, and they all dispersed. He stayed and we talked gardening and possums and raccoons and snakes for a while.

So far, the story ends well. If I go back down and find my garden all torn up, that will be another ending. But here's the kicker and the reason I maintained my cool: My older neighbor was the first person to move in a house on the street in this new subdivision way back 40 years ago. He had the developer change the initial property line. Imagine you're standing on the street right between the houses. Wouldn't you think that the line would go right between the two? Well, it does not. The neighbor in what I call a horrible act of selfishness had the developer slant that line to give him more of the bayou. His property line takes in a good third of what should be my back yard and, conversely, one-third of his front yard is "mine." You see what a hideous problem it is?

That owner who put in the swimming pool also built a pool house  as if the reasonable line were there. The entire back quarter of the pool house is on his legal property. And the dividing fence the previous owner of my house put up?--entirely on my neighbor's property!

My neighbor informed me of the property problems early on and has never said another word about any of it since then, but you may understand my reluctance to demand anything yesterday. Besides, pleasantness is always better and he has always been helpful to me!

If anyone reads this and has any suggestion about any legal way I can change the property line, I would be so happy to hear/read them!!