This past Labor Day weekend wasn't the best time for Batman to leave Gotham...
We went to Tahoe for our friends' Ed & Beckys wedding at The Ridge. Much fun was had at the wedding & I must say casino karaoke at the Lakeside Inn was good fun as well. It was also helpful to watch another wedding a few weeks before my own.
I got home from Tahoe after a 4 hour drive. Asking passerbys in the bumper-to-bumper stopped traffic informed me that a motorcycle & Subaru had driven off the road, resulting in fatality. When we passed the accident, the motorcycle looked like crumpled tin-foil with leaves sticking out of it. We passed the Subaru later on a tow truck...
As we arrived back in Sac, there was graffiti on the building across the street (again). This happens a few times a year, and a good neighbor (let's call him Batman) usually goes out & paints over it right away to discourage further hooliganism. Being on the windows, it was lucky someone in the neighborhood association had the owner's contact & they came to clean the windows today (and hopefully the screen soon)...
After unpacking, I went out back to water the plants to find my newly planted clover trampled & mushed. Yes, it's newest episode of the tiresome saga called "The 3-story house being built 2 feet from my yard".
I will now briefly recap the story...
City code in my zone says a building must be at least of 3' away from a neighbor's property. I pointed that when they started drawing construction lines and the neighbor/owner replied my fence was 'like two feet on his property' based on a survey he had. His project manager chimed in, correcting it to be 6"-9". I asked for a copy of the docs, but had to acquire them myself to find it was actually 3"-6". I'd bet if I paid the $1000 for my own survey, it'd be closer to no inches. Okay, great way to kick off a neighborly relationship by fibbing, right? So, they're trying to fit a duplex on a narrow lot & get every square inch they can (both outwards & upwards). Even after starting construction, they built to that 6-9" figure after I corrected them on it. I had a city inspector come out, measure, & verify my case - but let it go to avoid a hassle. Furthermore, I realized that California supports 'adverse possession' which means the fence had been there in plain sight for enough years to make it my property... survey or no survey. Later, contractors and all got into a mini-feud about them trespassing, putting up scaffolding, & turning my yard into a construction zone. We finally closed the book on it all with some compensation & promissory notes to repair damage.
Okay - back to Labor Day... After what I thought had been closure, the neighbor/owner agreed to tell all his workers not to use my yard until talking with me first. (That's all I wanted in the first-place... common courtesy). So this weekend his guys trampled/mushed my newly planted clover with their ladder work. I called & emailed the neighbor/owner to find out who it was. As of yet.. no response, we'll see.
That brings me to this evening. I was out front, when I saw two guys wheeling furniture down the alley. I knew what was up, because people treat that alley like a junk-yard & I'm goddam sick of it!
Well, for that one... I'll leave you to the video-blog:
