Friday, July 30, 2010

Am I Out Of Line

My other next door neighbor, Hotpants, who's never done a lick of work herself (well, perhaps a lick) has her yard maintained by professional landscapers.  Yesterday, they trimmed the ficus hedges, growing haphazardly, along our shared fence.  Some - a lot - of trimmings fell into my yard and the workers left before I noticed.  A bit irked, I couldn't bring myself to clean up Hotpants's mess, even though there was no one else to do it.  Then, today, they came back for more trimming. 

So, I went outside for a little talk, and politely pointed out what happened.  Keep in mind, communicating with local laborers can be a challenge, since most speak limited English and I speak limited anything else. 

"So," the man said.  "You want me clean up for you?"

"I would appreciate it," I carefully urged, "if, in the future, perhaps your guys might be a bit more careful."

Not sure how that went over.

Too much?

5 comments:

Ted Cross said...

I don't like the 'clean up for you' part. It isn't your mess if they made it. You weren't out of line at all.

Bossy Betty said...

Yes. The answer was "Yes, I do."

Jm Diaz said...

Now, when I first read your title, before reading of the text thereafter, my first thought was "Yeah, you probably were out of line, but that's whats cool about you.." and then I read... and realized, no. No. They should not be dumping stuff on your yard. They trimmed it...

Natalie said...

It sounds pretty reasonable to me. When my neighbors make a mess that falls into my yard, they clean it up.

Kathy said...

They should clean it up.