The Not Happy Thread

*sigh* I don't understand why someone would offer me their help only to take it away. I've been in the situation several times where I didn't have expectations of someone and they offered concrete help for the future. I took them at their word and later when it came time to "help," they would suddenly balk. I'd get angry and they'd never think my anger was justified. In one of these situations, a friend who offered to provide me moral support during an event didn't show. Recently, a family member told me the day before a funeral they could not longer keep an elderly relative company after the wake. These weren't "some day" offers. It would have been better not to have offered me their help at all.

 

Sounds like you need a small circle of people you can actually count on. Or you
can return the favor when the time comes. Little thing called Karma, and it
can be on your side sometimes. However, you have to ultimately choose your
own path on such things, and people can be a pain in the ass when it counts.
Take it easy.

 

Smirnoff Ice (vodka wine coolers basically) is still pretty common here.

As is Zima...

 

Neither have I. Not since all the cool kids started drinking Crystal Skull so they could make bongs out of the bottles.

 

You see Smirnoff everywhere in the UK. It's pretty much the only brand of vodka I know.

 

Just checked my liquor cabinet and Smirnoff is what I keep around for those rare occasions I need vodka.

 

Do you have house insurance? If so, check what your insurance will cover. I imagine any insurance worth its salt would cover damage done to your property by somebody else's tree. It doesn't solve the immediate problem, but it might give you peace of mind for the future—if the fence gets wrecked or your water line is interfered with.

Our insurance company just paid us for tree root damage (invasion of our waste pipe) and the tree in question is probably ours. (So many trees around us; it could be any one of them.)

Meanwhile, if you can be surreptitious enough, I kinda like Moose's suggestion. Your neighbour is being a dick. And a stupid one at that. There are trees suitable for yards and gardens, and trees that are not. Silver maples are not.

 

I've never even heard of Tito's before. Vodka's not my first choice, but when I do pick it up it's usually Stoli and my Brother in law's a fan of Grey Goose. TBH, it all tastes the same to me.

 

Not a vodka fan at all, but I keep a bottle of Stoli around for cocktails that require it. The MC of my current WIP is Russian, and the MC of the next one is a rock star in 1989, when the rock star vodka of choice was Stoli. So, Stoli it is.

 

Tinnitus in the right ear is getting bad.

 

I don't know much about gardening, but maybe, since it's still little he can uproot it gently and place it elsewhere in his garden? Or you can?

 

He could, if he would, and had room for it. He's already got a silver maple in his backyard that's about two and a half feet across. A few years ago its roots got in his water line and he had to get machinery in to dig it all out.

But he's told me straight out that he likes this new one where it is, and he's keeping it there. He's not joking--- he has it tied up to a paling of the fence so it will grow straight.

It makes me wonder if he has something against me. Where it is, it won't give him a speck of shade, it'll just destroy my fence and my landscaping and exclude the last bit of afternoon sun from my yard. And it will definitely interfere with the corner of his garage and break up the pavement in the alley. So it's doing him no good.

I'm praying God will give him a change of heart. Without that, I'll feel wrong in my conscience whatever I do, within my legal rights or not.

Or is that just the people-pleasing side of me talking?

 

That's really annoying. Is that a new thing or have you suffered it a while?

 

I should probably call my agent and see what my responsibility is at this stage of its growth, in light of Mr. West's (NHRN) stated intention to keep it there. I can't afford to hire a lawyer or a surveyor, and again, I don't want trouble.

You're right, he is being a dick. Mostly he's not--- hey, our dining room windows look right into each other's, neither window has curtains, and for the past 16 years it's been fine. But one fine Saturday a few years ago, I found some toy or other sitting in the arborvitaes on my side of our adjoining front side yard. I figured one of his kids had lost it playing, and I took and tossed it onto his front porch. Awhile later, I was still out in the yard when he came out his front door and saw the toy on his porch floor. He picked it up and came roaring out at me. "I put that there on purpose! It's for a scavenger hunt for my son's birthday! Leave it the hell alone!"

I was too intimidated even to say anything and by the time I got over my shock, he'd put the toy back in my bushes and gone back inside. If he'd stuck around I would have said, "Fine, but if you're going to use my yard, too, please ask me first."

To be clear about it, I really didn't mind the neighborhood kids, his or anyone else's, playing in my yard when they were little. That's the kind of neighborhood we have. But when it comes to putting stuff on my property, why is he getting shirty when he didn't ask if he could put it there?

Especially when it's trees that'll get 60 feet high?

 

Wow. He sounds like a real problem, and a very unreasonable person. Yeah, I'd definitely talk to your insurance agent, and find out what you're covered for. I'm a bit at a loss as to what rights you've got. I live in the UK, and things are different here. Shit. I'm sorry. You're a nice person, and don't deserve this.

 

He is a dick. Don't be rude to him. Just do as Jannert says then. Or call a lawyer or something. You can tell him "Fine. But you'll sign a legal contract wherein it underlines your responsibilities upon the tree. If it destroys anything from my side, then you'll pay for all the reparations in a timely manner and then uproot it."

 

Why not de-escalate a neighbourly dispute?

From his perspective you told him to hack down the pretty sapling aside his fence, a couple of years back you tossed his kid’s toy into their yard.

Be a peace-maker, or make plans to move house. No place for rage with neighbours?