Neighbourhood disputes turn ugly 

With the release of Billy Madison in 1995, kids of my generation were introduced to the time-honoured juvenile tradition of laying a flaming bag of dog poop on the stoop of someone for whom we wished a stinky blazing wake-up call. 

Madison, along with his friends Frank and Jack, gingerly placed a flaming bag of doggy-doo on Old Man Clemens’ porch and rang the doorbell. Predictably, Old Man Clemens came sauntering out the door only to find this homemade incendiary device lighting up the night’s sky. Madison, Frank and Jack laughed hysterically as Old Man Clemens, in a fit of rage, stomped out the flaming bag, finding that the latent affects of this device were far worse than he could have anticipated.

Deciding that we wanted a taste of the exhilaration that Madison and his friends seemed to feel, my friends and I hatched a plan of our own. The target of our raid was the brown-nosing redhead girl who lived just down the street from me. We strapped on our roller blades and surveyed the neighbourhood – what could be termed a reconnaissance mission – in an effort to find the largest dog on the block. 

Our deductive logic senses were keen, knowing that the larger the dog, the larger the bomb and the larger the bomb, the funnier our mission. We encased the dog’s donation in a brown paper bag, just like Madison, and set off.  

We approached the target, code-named ‘red-brown nose’, and dropped our ammo squarely in the middle of her porch. The adrenaline rushed through our bodies. We felt euphoric. However, as the high wore off, we realized it was the middle of the day, this wasn’t a movie and we were definitely going to get caught. The weapon was armed, but we didn’t light the fuse and we retreated shamefully, realizing that we were neither as brave or ruthless as we had hoped. 

I’m not particularly proud of my friends and I, and I don’t wish we had followed through in our efforts to emulate a movie. Rather, if we had followed through we would have caused quite an undesirable and unnecessary conflict in the neighbourhood. 

Neighbourhood disagreements can spiral totally out-of-control in relatively short-order and flaming pooch products are tame compared with many adult-initiated actions. 

It should be noted that these disputes are not the exclusive endeavours of Kentucky-waterfall sporting, Bud Light swigging local yokels who see their front lawn as a parking lot and Orange County Choppers (OCC) as the good old boy version of Versace. 

Many times it is the mint-julit sipping, expensive scotch tasting, butler-reliant, white glove patrician members of society who are affronted by anything deemed redneck. This is the class of people who instead of approaching a situation reasonably, immediately get their lawyers on the blow-horn and next thing you know, you’re being sued. 

There are three main causes of neighbourly disagreement spurring anarchy. 

The first of the causes for neighbourhood disorder centres on property delineation. Specifically, the size, construction and maintenance of fences and hedges can begin with a relatively innocuous war of words and end in a liquor-induced chainsaw massacre-esque frenzy.  

Madonna, yes, the queen of shock, awe and offense was embroiled in a two-year long legal battle with one of her neighbours over the size of her hedges at one of her many palatial estates. Eventually, Madonna was ordered to trim her hedges down to a paltry 2.4 metres. I’m sure this was a real hardship for the material girl who probably wasn’t the one climbing the ladder with the pruning saw. 

On a more terrestrial footing, a long-time friend of mine has a neighbour that decided to build a 40-ft. tall fence in her backyard. The whole conflict – which is now close to being in its second decade – began with a request from my friend’s father to either open her pool, clean it out, or fill it in, given that it had turned into a mosquito Shangri-La and a perfect base of operations for spreading the west nile virus. 

Next thing they knew, there was a cobbled together all-lattice fence standing crooked and uneven, proving that a disgruntled neighbour will happily live with an eyesore for eternity just to spite you. 

The fence still stands today, though my friend’s father has handily won every single court ruling. The city has even come to take it down, but it goes back up the next day. Not only does the fence get rebuilt each and every time it comes down, the neighbour builds it stronger, now with cement and supports that run the length of her backyard – you’d think given the strength of the new improvements that she was defending against an imminent tank invasion.

It may sound comical, but the novelty of the whole situation has worn off as the years have worn on. The last time I was at my friend’s, his father was on his balcony taking pictures of the neighbour taking pictures of him and from what I’ve heard, the battle is ongoing with no detente in sight.

The second cause of neighbourhood conflict arises from garbage and disrepair. Technically speaking, if you own a property, you should be able to do whatever you want with it. Two millionaires in New York were having a tiff, so one, Bogart “Bogey” Seaman, decided to decorate his yard with toilet seats hanging from tree branches, urinals, and a fridge adorned with a clown’s head. Eventually, “Bogey’s” neighbour sold his house and moved on. Seaman won the match but definitely shot a bogey when it came to conflict resolution and being a decent neighbour. 

One of the most common things that drives people crazy is seeing a rusted out old car on somebody’s property, generally on the front lawn. If it’s not art or a flower planter of sorts, it’s likely that the man of the house is hoping to refurbish the hunk of junk someday. That said, it doesn’t mean that his neighbours should suffer the consequences of a guy that won’t grow up. 

For all the middle-aged guys out there, even if every Sunday afternoon you put a little dab of Brylcreem in your mop, roll your smokes up in your sleeve, stretch on your leather jacket that hasn’t fit since ‘55 and throw a Pat Boone 45 on the record player, you’ll never bring back the glory days of youth. If you want to play dress up, do so in the comfort of your house and don’t subject your neighbours to your need to reclaim your mojo or reminisce through an eyesore. Even Danny Zuko and Kenickie had to grease lightening into the future. 

The third agent of intractable antagonism is parking. Millionaire neighbours in New Hampshire had a two-year back-and-forth conflict over parking rights on a gravel road. Surveillance cameras, hammers, nails and flat tires were all involved in this shameful clash of the ‘civilized’. The presiding judge dropped an Acme anvil on the two parties for acting like Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. Beep, Beep! 

Big city folk aren’t the only ones engaging in parking wars. In a big city, people are elated by any prospect of finding a convenient parking space. When I lived in Montreal, my friends and I joked that ‘touch parking’ was the proper method for parallel parking maneuvers. You’d literally squeeze into any spot by just bumping the cars in front of and behind you.

In a small town, on the other hand, parking spots are considered a birthright, even sacred in some cases. New residents – or converts – shouldn’t dare park in ‘your’ spot for fear of reprisal. Although reprisals may not be biblical in magnitude, you can still end up with slanderous banner campaigns and depraved counterattacks. 

It seems to be that men are generally the ones that take these disputes to ridiculous ends. Instead of hurling flaming dog poop, adult men – at least chronologically speaking – hurl lawsuits and waste the courts’ time with these relatively petty squabbles.

The battlefield for these men centres on grass, shrubs and curb space, which are presumably sources of pride and therefore necessitate (petty and frivolous) defense. So to all the women out there, before your sod and soil warrior dons his night vision goggles – an obvious necessity in any covert military operation – and takes to spreading Roundup weed killer on the neighbour’s lawn under the cover of night, remember that you may end up with a 40-ft. tall fence in your backyard for eternity.