Good Neighbors

We have a book called The Berenstain Bears and the Eager Beavers. In this classic tale, the Berenstains get some new neighbors--a family of beavers. The Bear family is a real casual, fun-loving family who would rather play games than take care of things around the house. The Beavers, however, are hardworking and industrious,and they never "waste" time playing games. So they immediately embark on all these ambitious projects around their house to make it look nicer. I won't spoil the ending, but let's just say that eventually Junior Beaver turns out to be a natural at paddle ball.

Well, I am sure you can imagine what kind of family we are more like. We have a lot of kids, all of whom love being outside. And of course we have lots of outside toys for all those kids, the newest one being the very large trampoline. And we don't have any sort of "professional" landscaping.

Our next door neighbors are a very nice family of fellow believers. They have 2 daughters who are spaced a respectable 4 years apart so one of them is finishing her second year of college, and one is finishing her second year of high school. They are all quiet and very, very hardworking. The mom, "Rose", is very talented with flowers and landscaping, and their yard is a place of beauty and curb appeal.

Their yard got hit pretty hard with all the snow we had this part winter, so they lost some trees in the back. One tree in particular fell onto the deck of the house behind them. It was a large evergreen tree, so when they took it down, it really left a big hole in the yard, and now the house behind them is quite visible from their kitchen and family room. Also, their yard has had some issues with drainage over the years, with water rushing down through the back from up the street. So several weeks ago they started working on their back yard. And they worked like real troopers--out there all day, digging ditches for a drainage pipe with pickaxes, renting equipment, etc. They put in a sprinkler system and and a big pipe for drainage, and they tore up all their grass. They ended up resodding, and on the Saturday before we left for VA Beach, Rose planted a bunch of shrubs and flowers in the back corner of the yard, where it adjoins with ours.

That same Saturday Bob had been working out in our yard. Our yard always looks like it has 7 kids running through it, and this year we have tried hard to reseed parts of it to make it thicker. Bob also bought a few very small trees and planted them. He bought a pine tree for the front yard, over on the side where our yards adjoin, and was planning on planting it, but "David" told him he didn't want him to plant it. So Bob took it back and told the lady at Lowes, "My neighbor didn't approve." LOL!

Anyhow, David mentioned to Bob that we aren't supposed to keep our trash cans on the side of the house. This is true--it actually says that in our HOA covenants, stupid things. We're supposed to keep them "out of public view", but a lot of people in our neighborhood just keep them wherever is convenient--on the side, in the front in between the 2 garage doors, etc.--so we didn't really think much about it. I mean they are those rolling trash containers that everyone has. Who cares?! Well, evidently our neighbors do, and we hadn't realized exactly how deeply they care. So Bob decided to move our trash cans into the back yard, and not just in the back yard. He would move them all the way into the back yard, into the far corner, so that they were as far away from the front yard as possible, which is what he figured they wanted. So he did.

I was innocently cleaning out the big van in preparation for our trip when Rose came storming out of her house to me. She told me she had NEVER been as furious as she was now, and she didn't know WHAT Bob thought he was doing, but she had spent ALL DAY working to make a FOCAL POINT in her back yard, and now he MOVED. THOSE. TRASH. CANS. RIGHT where she could see them out her back windows!!!!! She went on for awhile more, but the gist of it all was that she tried really hard to make her house and yard a place of peace and serenity, and she couldn't do that with us around. Ack! I sat there and was very humble and contrite and calm, and assured her I would move the cans immediately. She was mollified and went back inside. I was shaking and felt so bad because it was very obvious that these things had been building up for quite awhile, and we had no idea.

We got back from the beach Thursday afternoon, and a few hours after we were home, Rose came over with a letter. In it she explained how they feel we fall short in the yard-upkeep area, and how they dislike our trampoline, which we never even got approval for from our architectural review board before we bought. Also, our kids are distracting for her while they are on it, and they want us to move it farther from their house. Also, she feels that although we say we want a good relationship with them, our actions fall short because we deliberately do things to antagonize them, like move the trash cans right to where they can see them even better.

So even though Bob and I were very tired and I had a huge headache, we stayed up composing a letter back to them. Obviously the first and most important thing is that Rose feels that we were doing things on purpose, when in fact we were cluelessly just bumbling along, thinking we were doing what they wanted, not realizing what their actual real beef was. She was putting motives on our actions that simply were not there at all! We addressed their other issues as well. We said that moving the trampoline would be difficult because we have such a small backyard, and it would involve cutting off several larger branches. We said we were willing to move it, but we wanted them to come over and help us figure out where, because we didn't want to move it and have them not be satisfied with it, since it appears the issue really is the existence of the trampoline. Also, it never even occurred to us to seek approval from the ARB, since it's not some big building thing, and other houses in the neighborhood have trampolines right out in the open.

I went over Friday afternoon with the letter, and Rose and I had a great conversation. I reiterated how we were absolutely not doing anything too deliberately provoke them, and we were so sorry that was how it had appeared. We talked about the trampoline, and she said they were getting used to it. I told her that the kids wouldn't be on it as often as they had been. For one thing, it was still new. For another thing, we had been doing the test review, and I was sending all the other kids outside while I was working with each individual child. The weather was so beautiful, and it worked out really well. I told her we homeschool year-around, and the kids really aren't outside before the afternoon. She said she couldn't ask us to not be on it in the morning, so she was a lot more reasonable about everything. I think having communication was really helpful, and we both felt better about the whole situation.

But I still have struggles. For one thing, I know we will disappoint them again. We simply can't keep our yard to their standards, and our kids love to play outside! The boys picked up a second hockey goal from the trash pile of a house up the street, so now we have 2 "rescued" goals on the side of the house where the trash cans used to sit. Is that any better to look at?! I'm sure not, although there are no covenants about that I don't think. But that doesn't mean Rose won't simmer with resentment over them for a few years.

The strange dichotomy for our area is that everyone has really large houses. Everyone. Our house is over 4000 sq. feet, with 6 bedrooms. It's wonderful for our big family! I don't know what everyone else does with all the space, LOL. But our yard is small--only 1/4 acre, and our house footprint is fairly large--and so it our garage. It's a 2 car garage, with a big post in the middle of it, and no extra room on any of the 3 sides. In Ohio we had a one story, 4 bedroom house with an ENORMOUS garage--3 cars, with all sorts of extra room! It was bigger than many apartments! So now we have 8 bikes, a wagon, several different strollers, hockey quipment, roller blades, soccer stuff, baseball stuff, Bob's tools, extra toilet paper and paper towels, a freezer, a refrigerater . . . in a small garage. We don't have room for our trash cans! (The garage is where Rose thinks we should keep our trash cans, since that is where they keep theirs.)

So now I just worry that our kids are being too loud, that we have too much stuff, even though it's all played with, that we are just a source of stress for other people. It's hard to just relax outside anymore. And it's hard to understand the different priorities. Obviously they value their yard and peace more than children. But they are Christians! Even if they decided not to have as many as we do, it would seem like they would still see the value of children! And our kids really aren't wild and loud, tearing up stuff and causing huge scenes. They just play outside like kids USED to play, before everything was scheduled and there was no informal play and childhood obesity was a huge problem. Except we don't have that problem here. Hmmmm.

I'm also struggling with exactly what is expected of us, as far as being good neighbors. How much of it is our responsibility to ensure people around us don't take offence at us and our big family, and how much of it is just us living normally and their needing to relax. It's a hard balance, especially with us being Christians and wanting to be a good testimony to Christ. We really don't want to cause confrontations and problems, but we also just want to live in the house the WE purchased, and enjoy our own yard! Three acres in the country has never before looked so tempting . . .