Lawn and order: nature strip standoff
‘It’s Good To Mow The Green Green Grass Of My and My Neighbour’s Homes’ of Albion, writes:
Dear Westie, My new neighbour and I share a nature strip. About 70% of it sits outside my place, 30% outside his. My old neighbour and I had an unwritten deal: whoever was mowing would mow the lot. I assumed the same deal would continue when the new guy moved in, so I continued to mow everything. The first time the new guy mowed, however, he only mowed his part and about the first 3 feet of my share, which equates to round 50% of the entire (not very big nature) strip. I assumed this was a rookie error, and so I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but no, the same thing happened the next time and every time since: I mow the lot, he mows half. What’s worse, he has now started tipping the grass clippings, from his mowing, around the base of the street tree, which sits on my half of the nature strip. I know I should just talk to him, but it seems such a petty matter to raise and I’m afraid he’ll think I’m mental if I do. At the same time, I am seized by such a rage that if I don’t do something I’m likely to do something, if you know what I mean. Help.
Oh, IGTMTGGGOMAMNH, I feel your pain. Yes, you should go and talk to your neighbour about this, but also, no you shouldn’t because, yes, he will make you feel like you’re mental. That’s his game. He’s one of those neighbours.
When you raise this with him, he’ll just say something absurdly passive aggressive like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry’, or ‘Oh, I didn’t realise you were mowing my part of the nature strip’. And you’ll be that neighbour from then on. And then, when he next talks to the other folk on your street, and he will, he sounds like that kind of guy, he’ll tell them about your conversation, and then to the rest of the street, you’ll become the weird guy at number 32 who used to be so nice. And then the neighbourhood kids will stop calling on Halloween, and yours will become that spooky house, and you’ll become Old Man Jenkins who used to run the amusement park on the hill till until the day of that terrible accident, and then the Scooby Doo gang will roll up in the Mystery Mobile and uncover your whole crooked scheme, and you’ll be hauled off to jail shouting, “and I would have gotten away with it to – if it weren’t for those pesky kids!”. Or you could just keep mowing and get on with it. I hope that helps.
From last edition
In last’s month’s Dear Westie, we ventured into the heady world of street parking, namely the street parking of caravans, and in particular the street parking of caravans outside other people’s houses. We readied ourselves for a flood of replies in respect to this and we got them, but we also got something we didn’t expect, that being, a window into the twisted mind of the common Dear Westie reader. ‘We’re all going on a summer holiday’ of Williamstown wanted to know if they could book the caravan over Easter. ‘Beachbum69 of ‘Altona meadows’ asked if the caravan had WIFI in all rooms, while ‘yummymummy of Werribee’ complained that the slots in the toaster in the caravan were too narrow meaning she had to flatten her kids fruit toast in order to fit it in and, horror of horrors, her kids don’t like their fruit toast flat and so she was giving us a bad review. Ye gods.
And imagine this …
Imagine you’re writing a piece about someone parking their caravan on the street outside someone else’s home. Imagine that, to illustrate the story, you source a stock image – from an international image bank – of a caravan parked out on the street outside someone’s home. Imagine your surprise when that image turns out to be of a caravan parked outside its rightful owner’s home in Melbourne’s inner west. Imagine if that fact is pointed out to you by that rightful home and caravan owner who also turns out to be a Dear Westie reader. Imagine how grateful we were to them for being so understanding, when we offered to apologise for any inconvenience or confusion caused and immediately pulled the picture.
