MY CRAZY NEIGHBORS

When we first moved into our house, we had no idea our neighbors were crazy. Then, one summer day, before we actually were moved in, we were painting the living room with the windows open. All of a sudden we heard roosters crowing. We froze and tried to follow the sound. It came from across the street. It turned out they had two roosters, at least 6 hens, two horses and two barky dogs. According to the town, they had every right to have noisy animals and we had to just live with it. Sometimes the chickens woke us up at 4:30 in the morning. It was just awful.

My next door neighbor was a single woman. We had no problems with her...just her damn dog. She had a big barky dog which apparently lived in the driveway behind a fence. It rarely got out, but it barked constantly and liked to bang into their metal shed, creating a sound akin to: "ROOF ROOF ROOF.....CRASSSHHH ROOF ROOF ROOF CRASSSSHHHH!" This went on throughout the day. One day I heard the dog barking and saw it was pouring rain outside. I went next door to tell the lady the dog was sitting out in the rain and she assured me, "Oh, don't worry, he's fine." I called the ASPCA to tell them this dog was left outside all day, in the sun, in the snow, in the rain, and the driveway was covered in piles of poop. They pretty much told me they couldn't do anything.

Then one day, someone else was next door. A Hispanic family. I gingerly approached them and asked, "Uh...do you live here now?" Indeed they did and had been there for a month. Who knew? We got along well with the new neighbors. Not really friends, but we'd wave and chat briefly outside. Their son cut our lawn. After about two years, another neighbor approached me about cutting my lawn. He told me the boy next door moved away. Again, our next-door neighbor snuck out on us.

The house has been empty now for two months. The guy came back today and told me he'd thought he sold it, but the guy who was gonna buy it had bank troubles at the last minute and the deal fell through. The family had left all their furniture in the house, planning on buying new furniture with the proceeds from the sell. Since it never happened, he's now paying two mortgages and has no furniture. Poor guy.

About a year ago, we stopped hearing the chickens from across the street. Neither of us wanted to acknowledge this to each other for fear of jinxing it. The subject was finally brought to the surface this week when we discovered something new to hate: a big, scary statue. The chicken-family now have a six-foot brown statue of a tormented naked man-like creature with gigantic hands. We think it's the work of the grown son. It's not horrible as far as art goes, but damn I don't want it on their lawn! To be fair, we can't see it from our house and it's far back on their property, but it's so damn disturbing and eye-catching! Click HERE to see a quick movie of the creature in question.