DEAR ABBY: I've had it up to here with my crabby next-door neighbor. She grows vegetables in her garden -- squash and pumpkins at this time of year. Our properties are separated by a wire fence.
A few days before Halloween last year, a friend brought her two grandsons, who are 4 and 6, for a visit. They were excited to find a pumpkin in my yard that weighed about 10 pounds and managed to get it into my house because they wanted to make a jack-o'-lantern. No sooner did I reach for the phone to tell my neighbor what they had done than she came banging at my door accusing the boys of theft! To make peace, I handed the pumpkin to her with my apologies.
This morning I noticed two pumpkins have tendrils that have crept through the fence and are now growing on my property. More than one person has told me, "They're on your property, so they belong to you." Another has said that if my tree grows over her property, she has the right to trim the branches. Ergo: I get to keep the pumpkins. I think a fair solution is to keep one pumpkin and give her the other. But "Crabby Cathy" might have other ideas. Before this gets ugly again, what do you say? -- PUMPKIN PILFERER IN PETALUMA, CALIF.
DEAR P.P.: Your "crabby" neighbor was correct. Your friend's grandsons did help themselves to her pumpkin, and it was wrong. You and your friend should both have apologized to the woman when you realized they had purloined the pumpkin, returned it and taken the kids to the store to buy one they could cut up. If you pull the trick you're planning, it won't necessarily be a treat. You may escalate an already unpleasant situation beyond pumpkin season, and I don't recommend it.
The answer as to who the fruit belongs to varies by state. However, Abby blew this answer b/c the woman was planning to call and tell the woman and got screamed at before she could. Since it was two little boys, the neighbor should have been much more pleasant and understanding about it and tried to have a chat rather than throwing a fit.
And here's the rub, although the pumpkin might have belonged to the neighbor, she would not have had the legal right to go on the neighbor's property to retrieve it.
Personally, with such a hag as a neighbor, I'd take the pumpkins and if the neighbor complained, tell her to control her plants better next year.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
Because I’m feeling crabby, I’d spray the leaves on my side of the property line with weed kill. If the weed kill migrates to the roots and kills the whole plant, so be it.
If the pumpkin tendril that has crept through produces fruit then woo hooo! It's hers! If she wants it, that is. Personally, I think I'd be out with my RoundUp.
Because I’m feeling crabby, I’d spray the leaves on my side of the property line with weed kill. If the weed kill migrates to the roots and kills the whole plant, so be it.
No. Can't advise this. If she ends up killing the plants on the neighbor's side, she'd be liable for it.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
Is it really a big deal that some pumpkin tendrils are on your side? I'm not a gardener by any means so I don't know the nuances of bad gardening etiquette.
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Was it a bad day?
Or was it a bad five minutes that you milked all day?
They share, we share, and everyone is happy. Easy peasy.
One neighbor has bushes that grow fast enough, they scrap against our garage. They always trim or let me to do it if they can't get to it right away.
The other neighbor trimmed his tree, which was about to reach our roof, after nicely asking him. We also asked if we could do it for him. He had it done two days later.
What is the big deal anyway? Do people have such wretched lives that they have to make others miserable?
It isn't that hard to be kind.
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I drink coffee so I don't kill you.
I quilt so I don't kill you.
Do you see a theme?
Faith isn't something that keeps bad things from happening. Faith is what helps us get through bad things when they do happen.
In a condo it is misery. I have been tortured all day. Then? My little friend? If Daddy has her he scoots her in my house and doesn't come back. Poor, GG. His dinner sat cold. But we don't want to banish the poor thing. Then we debated feeding her. Ugh.
In a condo it is misery. I have been tortured all day. Then? My little friend? If Daddy has her he scoots her in my house and doesn't come back. Poor, GG. His dinner sat cold. But we don't want to banish the poor thing. Then we debated feeding her. Ugh.
Are you talking about a father abandoning his child? OM GOSH!
__________________
I drink coffee so I don't kill you.
I quilt so I don't kill you.
Do you see a theme?
Faith isn't something that keeps bad things from happening. Faith is what helps us get through bad things when they do happen.
Everynight. The kid loves GG but a quick hello and keep moving. No, Dad parks her with us. She sits and GG and her (Boo, she looks just like her) sit and watch cartoons. He buys her juice boxes, lollipops, Goldfish. She just camps with GG. It is cute for about 10 minutes. Then I am done.
Everynight. The kid loves GG but a quick hello and keep moving. No, Dad parks her with us. She sits and GG and her (Boo, she looks just like her) sit and watch cartoons. He buys her juice boxes, lollipops, Goldfish. She just camps with GG. It is cute for about 10 minutes. Then I am done.
The poor child's father needs to be beaten with a stick. Is he lazy or what?
__________________
I drink coffee so I don't kill you.
I quilt so I don't kill you.
Do you see a theme?
Faith isn't something that keeps bad things from happening. Faith is what helps us get through bad things when they do happen.
The pumpkin was on the OP's lawn,
even though the root was in Crabby
Cathy's yard. Cathy had no business
banging on OP's door and demanding
the pumpkin back. The plant, of its own
volition, wandered onto OP's property,
and the two youngsters were perfectly
in the right to pick it - after all, it was in
OP's yard, not Crabby Cathy's.
If you don't want to harvest any wayward
produce, use a hoe and sever any tendrils
that encroach into your yard.
Your post reminds me of what great
neighbors I have!
Everynight. The kid loves GG but a quick hello and keep moving. No, Dad parks her with us. She sits and GG and her (Boo, she looks just like her) sit and watch cartoons. He buys her juice boxes, lollipops, Goldfish. She just camps with GG. It is cute for about 10 minutes. Then I am done.
The poor child's father needs to be beaten with a stick. Is he lazy or what?
They are lazy and overwhelmed. I swear GG wants to start feeding her. A bowl of lentils for supper? I see him make containers up and pass them on. She was there an hour last night.
