Today is essentially going to be a rant post so if you are not interested, look away!

Anyways, yesterday, I had the cops knock on my door. They asked for my husband, Andrew. He wasn’t home so they told me that we had received a complaint about our snow removal.

A COMPLAINT ABOUT OUR SNOW REMOVAL.

When I found out it came from our neighbour to the left of us, I wasn’t at all surprised. We had had a falling out with her YEARS ago, and despite a brief verbal argument in the December of 2017, have avoided her since.

We used to be close to her, drink with her, go out with her, and helped her out on occasion too. However, she chose not to be friends with us after I had a mental breakdown and called Andrew (who was having a drink with her at the time). She heard me call her a bitch (which is due to the fact that she constantly tried to hoard people), but it wasn’t truly personal, I was spiraling.

She told Andrew that she didn’t want to deal with his drama (which is kind of what friends are for, right? An outlet to vent at). That was the final straw for both of us. She verbally attacked me after I had finished mowing my lawn, and I told her she has no idea what being a friend entails. (In the past, she had ignored us, because we refused to pick up orange juice for mimosas and other such events).

We have shoveled our driveway the same way, year after year. I try to do it in a way that very little would accidentally get on her drive way. There is only one spot where that is not the case and that is beside our garage. She shovels in a way that it piles up and spills through the chainlink fence. My dog has climbed said hill in the past to escape so now I make sure it doesn’t get to that point. (It is also blocked off as effectively as we could manage though windstorms have been known to destroy those kind of fixtures in our city).

I have only shoveled that area once this season and I threw it to back onto her property, onto the hill, as best I could. I believe this is what set her off.

Anyways the cops knock on the door and tell em about the complaint, but that they haven’t managed to talk to our neigh bour about it, she isn’t home. I told them she is home, she works from her basement and there’s a client car in the driveway. They go back to talk to her after talking to me.

For anyone who complains, it is important you answer your front door when the police show up to address it. They should not have had to walk back and forth plus it makes you look bad.

She tells them I threatened to kill her December 2017. That I drove over her lawn a couple summers ago. Blah blah blah. These are allegations with no evidence (though she claims she has footage of us driving on her lawn). We never drove on her lawn (to explain further, there is a grass median that separates our driveways, half is her’s, half is our’s).

The cops aren’t really concerned, only if she keeps calling will something have to be done. However if she keeps calling the cops on us, we’ll say it is harassment, because it is.

My husband also got a chance to talk to them, because I called him after they talked to me the first time. They weren’t worried about it, and even acknowledged she seems off.

Another side note for complainers, it looks better for you if you try to address the problem like an adult by talking to your neighbours first. She had said in the past she would talk to Andrew if there were any issues and she chose not to.

The end of the day, the cops seem to view us more favourably than they view her. It is also said that cops have to get involved in these matters. Our shoveling was not endangering her or causing damage to her property. She escalated it into a complaint without even trying to resolve it with Andrew (we had agreed in the past not to talk to one another).

It is a shame she has made this petty, and I know me ranting about it is petty too. I needed to get it off my chest though. I had been thinking of seeking a resolution between us through the means of a letter. I don’t want to be her friend again, I just want to find peace.

I clearly will not be doing that as she will keep the letter and try and paint it in a bad light if she ever calls the cops again.

What a winter it has been for us.