I'm sorry, but when the 9 foot pole went up with the flamingos on it, shots should've been fired.

Bad neighbors can really make your life hell.
I am fortunate that I have two of the Best. Neighbors. Ever.

The birds on 9 ft. poles is a perfect response to a mighty tall spite fence.

The fence clearly calls for plague infested dog carcasses. Maybe a cow if you've got a big trebuchet lying around in the garage.

Don't know either of these guys, so I don't have a dog in this fight, but....

If I paid $250,000 for a house, I'd park a f'n cement truck in the middle of the lawn if I felt like it and to hell with anyone.

Just sayin'.

we are the wooooorld

How far we've fallen as a manly society, when pink flamingos and a fence are all that result from such a dispute, rather than murder, rape and pillage. Ahh, I pine for the "good old days" . . . when men were men, and hyper-emotional folks like Andrew Sullivan would be shamed into NOT writing about their sword-swallowing escapades on a nationally recognized blog. Hey! How'd that random AS Slam get in there? Carry on . . .

This story reminds me a lot of the prank wars that used to go on between my husband and his buddies when they were in college.

Except of course that prank wars are fun, and more mature than this petty neighbor crap.

Love the tall flamingos.

"I'm sorry officer, I was afraid of my life. They're nine freaking foot flamingos. I used my handy shotgun filled with HEAP only because I didn't have one of these handy."

Wethersfield, Simsbury, West Hartford...
The west side of the river has many towns with wacko property value zoning laws. On the east side, we pretty much have to deal with Glastonbury, and it really isn't that bad.

But a moderator from Hartford? Why aren't they looking for my Laffeyette stereo that was stolen in 1984? Moderate that.

"good walls make good neighbors" - robert frost

actually, i understand this guy. i just moved, out of my parents', into a house with some high school friends. our entire neighborhood seems to hate us. the guy across the street will stay up into the wee hours of the night just staring at our parties from his front porch. we got a police scanner shortly after moving in, so now we get to hear the reports before we get a little visit. but the calls to the landlord are getting to be a problem. i swear the only people on the street that like us at all are the high school kids next door who occasionally come over to borrow a cup of wiskey

For cryin' out loud. No blood. Not guts .Nothing but a few lousy flamingos. These conneticut guys know nothing about feuds. Where the heck are the shotguns, dead pets, broken windows and flat tires? Talk about wimpy neighbors. They don't need a mediator, they each need a testosterone implant. You know its guys like this that make it hard on lawyers. Generally feuds are worth a small fortune if you get the right client--i.e. one who is determined to get justice even if he has to spend his last dime. Heck, two good lawyers could have litigated this dispute and ended up with two nice houses for their fees. It's just so hard now days to find people who will stick up for their rights any more.

"Feche le boche" (phonetic).

--Monty Python and the Holy Grail

the guy across the street will stay up into the wee hours of the night just staring at our parties from his front porch.

You see where you may be contributing to the problem here?

I'm a single father with two teenaged boys who had the misfortune of moving in next door to two man-hating dykes from Hell. They sold and moved about three months ago, but... damn... they bitched about everything.

As a homeowner, Alekson's flamingos makes him my effin HERO! I got an old codger on my east that is frickin' nuts about how well I keep my lawn, and even HE would shoot this idiot who's complaining about weeping Willies being waggled.

And yet, Terrell Owens is STILL a bigger dick than the two of these yoyos put together.

Well, this calls for a link to the Stinky Meat Project.

Sorry, work trucks suck. When they park two in the driveway - so instead of a view, you see nothing but a WALL OF UGLY-ASS truck. Gad, I need to get shades. My neighbor's trucks line is driveway, and most often sit in FRONT of my house too. the front of my house is is "other" permanent spot. It bugs me, but it REALLY bugs my mom, since she never can park there.

Maybe its just me, but that Dow guy appears to be a total choad.

I know works trucks are ugly, but they should get some latitude as tools of the trade. Bitching about another guys pickup is about as weenie as it gets.

As part of any resolution, Dow should be required to stomp briskly upon a Flaming Bag O' Poop.

Game theory says that if you want to prevail in these sorts of conflicts you have let the first tat go without retaliating with a tit. Thus, it's a tit for two tats. This is a strategy for prevailing against multiple opponants. I don't know if this works for mano-o-mano death spirals like neighbors get themselves into.

I don't know how some lettering on the door suddenly transforms a nice van or truck into a foul eyesore.

I can totally appreciate how a fleet of vehicles next door would be annoying, especially if they take the spots in front of your own house.

Tom M, I am originally from Hartford, then lived East of the River for many years. Am currently West of the River and can tell you I liked the more relaxed attitude out East (up to a point).
Its weird out there tho. I think there are more rednecks in Tolland County, CT than there are in Kentucky.

The more I look at those flamingos on a stick, the more I know I got to have 'em.

flamingo on a stick is a delicacy in Portugal.

Yep, World Peace any minute now...

I used to live in a communinty where a dozen plastic flamingos "migrated" from lawn to lawn as a joke. Everyone thought it was amusing except one lady who tried to everyone fined because she felt it was an eyesore.

The neighbors all got together and put a flamingo on her lawn once a week and called the cops on her. She eventually calmed down and asked for forgiveness during a town hall meeting.

lauraw,
Grew up in South Windsor, after graduation from husky high, I lived in Hartford for approx. two years. I live further east now, Andover.

As a veteran 4-H er, I can tell you you are right about the rednecks, except for, say, Granby.

Nice post.

Tom M

Grew up in South Windsor, after graduation from husky high, I lived in Hartford for approx. two years.

Kick out the comma, throw in a dot. Capitalize the "a" and what da ya got?
Better writing!

In my previous neighborhood, there was one big fat lady who was a bona fide nutjob. She had lost a child in an accident years earlier, and wore black dresses and veils, every day, even when doing yard work.

Anyway, she lived on the only street that connected two different subdivisions. And she went on a crusade to close-off the street to through traffic. She would go to meetings and give the identical speech about how she had lost a child and that's why she was on this crusade. She claimed that 800 cars a day used the street, and that level of traffic was a death threat to children.

So, to indulge her, the homeowners association put out a traffic measuring device that activated each time a car drove over it. Unknown to her, they also placed a video camera in a house on the street. The camera caught her driving over the device, backing up, and driving it over again... fifty times in a row! (And the final count was under 300 cars per day).

Well, what is worse is when the lettering is on a nasty-old truck. And a huge-assed trailer. and the part the damn thing about 6 inches from my window. I don't even know when the sun is up in my livingroom.

pursuing even further

http://walker777mirari.blogspot.com/

The pink flamingos spinning on a pole interesting inst it quite a fun idea