We are "those" neighbors

Apparently we have become "those" neighbors. You know, the ones where everyone drives by wondering if the house is abandoned because the yard is so unkempt? OK, so it's not that bad, but with over 15 gardens and 38 trees (I don't know that those are the exact numbers- that is just what the next door neighbor told me - yeah, we are getting to that next), something is bound to go untamed when you have a newborn.



The yard is at least somewhat kept up because we've at least been paying someone to come cut the grass. However, there is a garden around our mailbox and up our driveway that may have gotten a little bit out of control. The funny thing was, I didn't even notice the 6 foot weeds until our wonderful neighbor pointed them out to us. Here is a little visual.









As I was walking to get the mail, the nice mid 80's couple next door was out doing their yard work. He came over and said "I don't want to offend you, but do you mind if I weed your garden?" How is one supposed to respond to that? I thought the proper thing would be to say thanks for the offer but I'll take care of it (probably the response he was looking for too). Then I thought, heck, I'm never going to get around to it, so why not. So I said "have at it." Then he commented that if he would have know it was ok he would have done it along time ago because now it's going to take a long long time. Well maybe you should have asked a long time ago and again, I did not ask you to do this.




Upon getting the full history of when and what owner's planted each tree (all 38 of them) in the yard, he went back to what he was going to "clean up." At first it just started with cutting out the weeds that were growing out of the green bushes. Then he asked if he could just take out all the green bushes (um...no- if you want to call the owner and ask him maybe you can).

Then he moved on to asking if he could trim the tree branches because when they take their walk they had to walk around into the street. I said sure because that annoyed me when I took my walks too. He couldn't stop there though, he had a better idea. Why doesn't he just remove the tree all together. Are you serious??? Did you just ask to cut down a tree in a yard neither of us own??

He kept talking and talking and would go back to "trimming" over and over again. So much that his wife said "enough with the trimming already." Then his wife commented on how great this other garden looked and and wanted to know what I did. Now really, if I don't have the time to upkeep the garden on one side, what makes you think I did anything over on this side??? And sorry, but I think this looks just as bad as the other one.

I honestly have no idea if he'll actually weed our garden, but if he does, I'll follow up with after pictures, or the court story when I come home one day and the tree is gone.