This just happened yesterday. It was SO satisfying.

I like to think we have good relations with our neighbours. We’ve always told them to let us know if they need anything or have any concerns; we’ve offered help and the use of our equipment (chainsaws, log splitter), watched over their house when they were gone (and vise versa), and told them not to worry about the fact they are actually infringing on our property. Their front yard, stone garden beds are built a couple feet over the property line, as well as their backyard shed. It’s a few feet, and we have huge lots with several football fields worth of city owned, maintained green-space behind our properties that is basically an extension of our backyard. Lots of space, no big deal.

Our whole block of neighbours share the green-space, most of them drive through it regularly (being careful not to make ruts in the grass), and park trailers, campers, boats and vehicles just past their property tree line (on city property). Now, this is technically illegal, but it’s an honour system. As long as no one is destroying it and there are no complaints made, it’s free game. We’ve only been living there three years, but this honour system has been going on 30+. We store two flat-deck trailer beds back there.

Our one neighbour has told us that in winter, the smoke from our indoor wood stove is a bit of a nuisance, “the smoke goes in their backyard”. We explained that it is currently our only means of heating the house, our furnace died and we haven’t yet replaced it. My husband is a arbourist (tree care), so we have lots of wood. We store it in proper stacks at the far back-end of our property.

Yesterday, a fire commissioner came driving through the back green-space. He said he was “checking everyone”. Prior to this, however, my husband saw our neighbour run out to the marshal, pointing at our property while he spoke. My husband and his dad were sitting in the shade behind a wood pile having lunch, our neighbour mistakenly thought no one was home.

So, the fire commissioner came into our yard. We have a properly enclosed fire pit in the middle of the yard, but no permit. We thought maybe the permit was transferable when we bought the place, but it wasn’t. He said it’s fine, we just have to fill out the permit forms and we’d be approved - but law stated that we have to have 16″ of stone or non-combustible material around the pit. Then, he starts asking about our wood stove. Wait, how does he even know about it? Well, our neighbour obviously made a complaint both about our fire pit and our wood stove. We told him it’s inspected and insured, mentioned names of people we’ve had maintain it who he knew well. We explained we heat the house with wood only, as we don’t have a furnace. That’s fine, he said, that’s a cheap way to do it!

So our neighbour reported us for an improper fire pit and was hoping we’d be forced to stop using our wood stove, but there was nothing illegal about it! But, it didn’t stop there. Apparently, there was also a complaint about our wood piles being a fire hazard, but that was legal too; they’re more than far away enough from any structures and are stacked properly. Oh, now one more complaint - our trailers are parked in the back. Now, legally, he has to file the complaint with the city. He says if the city decides to do anything, not only will no one be allowed to store stuff back there, but they will close off all access. Now, the entire block may lose the privilege - all those boats and campers, many of them even have garages that would become useless, as they are only accessible from the back.

So, in total, instead of speaking with us directly, our neighbour reported our fire pit, wood stove, wood piles and trailers. Though it didn’t turn out too bad for us - so far we only have to buy some stone, but the whole block may suffer the consequences for the trailer complaint. Our neighbour drives through the back too, but stores his camper on a cement pad in his yard. He obviously didn’t register the fact he’d lose access to it. But, here’s where he really didn’t think. My husband asked the commissioner if our neighbour had a fire permit. He peeked into his backyard.

“Oh… oh! Um, no, he doesn’t.”

He went on to explain that not only does he not have a permit, but that his fire pit is too close to our property. It wouldn’t be approved for a permit. Our neighbour had just built all the stone work for and surrounding his pit, running him around $15,000. Now, it is all useless.

We had no idea that simple question would have cost him so much. I even feel bad about it, but he literally brought it on himself.

There is a clause in the application for a fire permit that would allow his pit to be approved… by getting permission from the neighbour whose property his pit is encroaching on.

We’ll see if he asks!

EDIT October 21/19

This past summer, our neighbours resumed use of their illegal fire pit. My husband went over there to ask about it, and the husband just mumbled something like “ya, well, you know…”

Still just wanting good relations, my husband said not to worry, it doesn’t matter, we really don’t care. We thought we showed our graciousness enough to receive the same in return.

Walking my dog in the aforementioned green space, he’s always sticking his head in gopher holes, they’re everywhere (holes and gophers). I walked up to one him one day when he took particular interest in a hole and shooed him away. The hole he was scratching at and sticking his face into was surrounded - by bright blue-coloured seeds - poison. He’d been finding the occasional dead gopher - which I thought nothing of - until now. I start searching holes - every last one filled with this shit.

I start thinking about my cats and dog, all the other pets that frequent this area, all of the numerous hawks and eagles that hunt here - not to mention all the young kids that play back here! There’s a reason it’s illegal for anyone but a licenced exterminator to place poison - and a reason that even when they do place poison, that they are required to post warnings. We made it our mission to let everyone know what we’d discovered to prevent any injuries or fatalities. We were upset - and most everyone else was upset too.

One night, long after dark, we were walking the dog when we saw an ORKIN (exterminator) truck parked in the green space grass.

The Orkin man admitted he was checking on the poison, and that he was told to check after dark - because it got around that people were upset. He admitted he wouldn’t want his children playing here. He started getting upset when my husband questioned the legality of it before speeding off - almost running over my husband and dog.

Upset, we go back home and hear our neighbours on the street out front. My husband goes just to mention to them about the poison and how we were trying to let everyone know. The husband starts yelling right away that “we need to get over it, gophers need to die”, and “things are coming to a head with ‘that’ dog anyway”.

Um, what? You’re threatening our dog, for why?

He claims the dog “shits in his yard, and just shit in his front yard”. He claims he stepped in it and now there was shit in his house.

Okay… it’s not impossible it was our dog, though we’re not the only ones whose dog sometimes wanders, but let’s say it was ours. We’ve repeatedly told them if there’s ever any problem, including with the dog, just let us know. We’ll clean, replace, deal with any problem, but we can’t if you don’t let us know!

We apologized, reiterated that if that had let us know about “all these times”, we would have dealt with it, and that we will keep a better watch from now on. Apparently that’s not good enough. Apparently we have to be mind readers, and if we’re not, they’d rather do anything than just tell us outright if they have a problem.

Did I mention my cat was shot shortly after we moved here? We always suspected it was them.

Keisha Vida's answer to What is something crazy that your neighbor has done?

I fear for the lives of our animals. I’m super paranoid about their where-abouts now, because apparently they’re not safe from the neighbours if they set foot out of our yard.

Another thing I forgot to mention, back when our neighbour reported us for having cords of wood and burning it in our wood stove, he claimed we were running an illegal business out of the back, selling wood. Ummmm NO. That’s our wood to heat our house. People don’t understand the time it takes to haul, split, stack and cure the wood. It’s not worth it for us to sell. The fire commissioner agreed on that, too.

So we have a crazy winter storm. Knocks out power. We of course keep warm with our wood stove. Some family down the road came to get wood so they could cook, some friends managed to get to us in their desperation for heat and food, and we gave them wood too.

We find out, just a day ago, that our neighbour gave his daughter my husband’s cell in case she ran out of wood during the storm and power outage.

Apparently we’re good enough to ask favours of when it’s convenient.