Adventures in Homeownership

They say that your home is your castle, right? And to some extent it is but there are always invaders, er -- neighbors, to contend with. As I reach the one-month anniversary of owning my home, boy have I got some stories.

Did I ever mention that the seller's realtor was a complete nutcase? She is. Unfortunately, she's also a neighbor. Yep, lives right next door. For the most part she's been far less of a pest than I expected so I've been quite pleased that she's left us alone.

Of course, there was one early morning when my sweetie ventured outside at dawn, only to see our 70-something neighbor wearing a skimpy nightshirt sans panties & bending over! The poor guy saw everything. He was fairly traumatized, barely managing to mumble something about how he only wishes he could un-see that horrific sight & do I think Murphy's Oil Soap would clean his eyes?

The former owners had many tomato plants. Yesterday, I decided to try my hand at homemade salsa & to make a large batch of my famous marinara. Today, I set about collecting my harvest, but all of my veggies were gone. Just gone. Surely a multitude of woodland creatures enjoy the spoils of my garden but they can hardly be the culprits responsible for stripping every plant of every fruit & leaving shoeprints in the soft, fertile soil.

Crazy neighbor lady apparently believes that the veggies belong not to us but to the previous owners & since they will not return to lay claim, these now fall under her auspices by default. There have also been shoeprints under various windows, so thank heaven we changed the locks or Crazy would have likely just come on in.

My suspicions were just that until a recent morning when she took out her trash. My otherwise docile & friendly companion, Rocco the bossy dog, was dozing peacefully on the front porch when the mere sight of her at least 20 yards away sent him into an incredible rage. Having previously met Crazy, he had no such reaction at those times. What would possibly have changed his demeanor except that she skulks around our house when we're not there, peering into windows & stealing from our garden?

I trust my dog implicitly & unconditionally. I also let him pee on some of the tomato plants because hey, he likes to whiz there & we had plenty of them. I dug up the good plants & gave these to a friend. The pee plants are still in place & producing. So if Crazy Neighbor Lady wants to keep stealing tomatoes, bon appetit!