Neighbors in our garden in the midst of project site

[unname]

I am in US and we are having a patio installed at our house. It's a process that takes several days - framing, pouring, stamping, polishing and sealing the concrete.

This morning they are pouring the concrete. 5-6 workers in our yard and it is a mess with wet grass, mud, concrete, tools and men working. I looked out 30 minutes ago and saw neighbors wandering around with their coffee, asking questions, standing smack in the middle of the project staging area, in front of tools and equipment, talking to the men.

I was floored! Who does this? I watched thought about it for 5 minutes or so, then told my husband and we agreed I should go speak with them. We are both WFH today and even we don't go out and stand in the middle of the project unless we have a quick question.

By the time I got out there they had walked out into the street, through a small gap in one of our hedges. I told them I was shocked to see people in our yard and to please knock before dong that again. I said "This is a real boundary issue for me."

He said "Well we will be back in an hour to watch them stamp the concrete."
I was just so surprised that they didn't immediately apologize, and continued to feel they had a right to be on our property without permission.

I said "Well no, I would rather you did not."

Would you mind having neighbors just entering your property without asking?

It’ll keep us entertained until Buck and Sandy return.

The Further Adventures of Buck and Sandy: where will they park their RV next?

Well, I have an update. A not good update. A weird and a bit scary update. Will post a recap later today; but the summary is, all sanity has left the building (the one they live in.)

I think you may have had a name change fail there @unname ?

Oh you are right. It's fine though. I just sometimes switch it up a bit. Nothing personally identifying under either name. I will switch back now so as to be less confusing!

All well and good but WHAT HAPPENED?! Buck and Sandy watchers need to know.

I was away for the past week, actually meeting long lost family in another country. My DH planned to work on our yard while I was away. He took 3 days off and rented equipment to aerate and reseed the entire lawn.

On Thursday he realized they had 3 cars parked on the side of the house near the tree lawn, which would make it impossible for him to access that part of the grass with this equipment. So he emailed and ask if they could move the cars. Mistake.

The response? "Do not worry. Your boundary is secure."

He replied and wrote something like, "Dear Sandy, while I appreciate a bit of acerbity from folks at times, this was not productive. I need to access that area for the work I am doing this week. Nothing more."

Sandy's response was a novella about how she has a cancer screening this week and one of her grandchildren is going through something horrific that I will not repeat. "Sorry to hear you are having such a terrible week also." and something like "I am not sure what you mean by acerbic. What? Who? Me?"

Honestly, I skimmed it once but it was just too disturbing to read deeply.

DH replied and pointed out her boundaries comment was obviously intended to elicit an angry reply and basically said he was hoping we could all just be neighborly with one another but see that is not possible.

OK, we all know this was a huge mistake from the first email, right? I can't blame him too much, though. Her last reply was amazing and awesome and pretty terrifying. All paraphrased lest the daily mail runs it and I get sued for copyright infringement or whatever. 😂

Dear Unname,
Does your husband know you are using his email? Your misspelling of the word "elicit" is what gave you away. A <person in DH's occupation> would know how to spell. You might want to look up these two words as illicit and elicit have different meanings.

Next she told me she did not understand my "deep animus" for her and that she had hoped we could be friends. Also that we should go to lunch, no dinner and has it out. She wants lobster and crème brûlée before she finds out they are removing her stomach or whatever.

I am sure there was more. I didn't even want to read as much as I did but DH was beside himself about the whole thing. I think Sandy would have been surprised to learn that was in Italy eating gelato while staring at the Duomo with a long lost Italian cousin rather than hacking into a highly protected corporate email system in order to exchange emails with her under my husband's name.

I really think there will be more to come from Buck, Sandy or both. And though I was also raised in the US South, I am both terrified and impressed with the level of passive-aggressiveness she has displayed. Does she really think it was me? Or was she trying to get my husband's goat by going after his spelling and his wife in one go? Or what?

Everyone always tells you that if you have any problems with your neighbours you should talk to them blah blah BUT in my experience they always turn into psychos the moment you do that!

And so Buck and Sandy are now on the rampage! A clever tactic Sandy used there about accusing you of bad spelling because she could be sure to insult whichever one of you it was.

I feel we've underestimated them. How will you get the work equipment in now? I'd be tempted to spray lines on the road and wheel clamp them.

You are so right! I just cannot believe the direction this has gone and wish I had not said anything in the first place. Instead I should have brought them lounge chairs and fanned them with a massive straw fan apparently.

They did move the cars before sending the “boundary is secure” email. Also threw in a dig about the patio guy being “Unname’s recommendation” and the reason they had to park their truck out front was he hadn’t come yet to pour a new pad for them.

I honestly just feel sad over the whole thing. I hope the cancer scare is BS.

Lol at spraying lines! Someone actually did that in my old neighborhood because parking was limited and people would take up too much space.

Well, this was some good reading @unname - I feel like I have just read about the illustrious streets of Cabot Cove... The powers of deduction of Sandy wrt the email lead me to believe she works in the Sheriff's office (god only knows how that man still has a job since Jessica Fletcher has to solve all the crimes!!)

The degree of escalation by Sandy is another level... I look forward to the next installment...

I feel like we need EastEnders closing music though... The Murder She Wrote tune may be too upbeat! 😂😂

Well HOOOOOLLLLLLYYYYYY God!

That's some escalation there. FFS....I have no words. I've had my flabber well and truly gasted!

They are batshitcrazy

I’d be pissed off if they wandered in while I was out there having lunch or sunbathing. Not too bothered about during a project to be honest.

They are completely nutty.

Have they got form for this? Does DCI Google offer any previous? The Sandy in my DP's village managed to drive her neighbours mad, to the point of police and a court appearance - at which point someone did a bit of digging and discovered that she'd done exactly the same thing in a similar village at the other end of the country...

I feel your pain. We have to warn any workers/tradespeople who come to our house to please ignore the nosy couple who live across the street who always try to talk to them and demand to know what it going on. It's so frustrating.
I would be furious if they went into my back yard.

Not the least bit surprised that things have escalated.

Completely to be expected IMO.

Strike one, walking into the middle of your property where a job is being done #CF

Strike two, sending her ridiculous email #batshit

Everything else is not the least surprising.

They are ghastly people and if you have an ounce of sense you will disengage completely.

You can't reason with stupid.

On a brighter note, your diagrams were really excellent.

I have inexplicably become quite pissy about diagrams on MN, and really enjoy when OP's put in some effort.

Well done you👏

Wow.

You're an American, can't you just stick up a sign saying 'trespassers will be shot' and pop down to your local Walmart for a gun?

Seriously though...As a Brit-who-don't-take-no-shit, my advice is to only communicate when there is a necessity and to then only communicate necessary information. Ignore all needling and insults. Any sob stories sagas may be acknowledged with "I'm sorry to hear that".

In return for you writing my emails of complaint in the future, I'd like to offer to draft your future replies to Neighbour Batshit 😉

I feel there no more a suitable ending than they end up under your patio op.
.

In retrospect I should have just quietly seethed.

Also, usually I am the one to give people miles of rope. My DH dislikes most people on sight and then warms up. He’s the type to complain first and then regret his tone later. I’m the one that says nothing and sometime later thinks I should have spoken up. He’s still a bit shocked that I went out that day. He was not as upset about it. “But” I said, “It’s our home! We can’t just let people wander around our property whenever they please.”

His first impression of Sandy was “Batshit. Avoid!”. Mine was “do they still make quaaludes?” Did I already say that the first time I met her was at a welcoming party that soup guy had for us? She was waaayyy out there that day. And Buck had just had knee surgery.

Also, is everyone getting that these people are not young? She’s prob 75 and he’s around 82. We are 50ish so, you know, we feel quite crappy for having a feud with our “elders”.

@billy1966 Thank you for the diagram appreciation. I do have an updated version that I will post later. (Yes, I’m completely nuts also. Lol!)

@Leafy3 Excellent advice which I will also give to DH next time I’m leaving him alone, with all of the the other various instructions, and “do not solely eat sandwiches and cereal!”

I will gladly write your letters of complaint and DH can help but you’ll have to spell check or else gird yourself for the ensuing mockery.

Does she know the difference between elicit and illicit?

She told “me” via the email to my husband to look them up and I think she said I might be surprised by the difference. She’s good; it still makes me angry thinking about it! DH laughed actually.

She loves to write and is quite good. Even had a small piece published once in the Washington post. She made a comment after she read something I’d written for a neighborhood thing “Oh, you said it better than I could, you don’t really need me.” So I think she was gleeful to give us a spelling lesson.

Oh just ignore the name switching. I had changed it to ask advice about my trip then never got around to it. Sorry.

Hahahahaaaaaa!

Oh dear OP, ‘Buck and Sandy jump the shark’ was probably inevitable.

Deep animus has had me wheeze laughing though.