Ye ole property line dispute.

I should start with the fact that we live on a quiet, dead end street with wonderful neighbors.  The boys across the street and the man a few houses down are a bit nosy, but they mean no harm.  The neighbor next door can be a little over zealous with his motorized things in his garage, but he quickly and apologetically shut those down when he realized that there was one more day of school and I had a child trying to sleep.  The people on the corner can be reclusive, but the husband is a prison guard, so I get it.  The folks catty corner to us across the street are young and quiet, though he has a voice that carries.  We, well, we're the ones who sometimes plays music a touch loud (I try not to, but sometimes it happens), we have a child, but we try to be polite.  We all try to be mindful of each other and watch out for each other.

The neighbor on the other side of us is lovely.  She is on PTA with me and her daughter is a friend of K.  It is her husband that I would be happy to go without.

When K was about 6 months old, we put a fence up in the backyard.  Before we did that, we had surveyors come and plot out exactly where our property line was.  The surveyors were a retired city civil engineer and a current city surveyor-- for the very city that we live in.  They came with city maps and appropriate measuring tools.  They measured from the middle of the cross street, a property down, and all the way down to nearly the end of the street.  They surveyed frontages until they got to our property where they surveyed the entire property.

This was 10 years ago.

The neighbor's husband has asked every year for the last four years where the property line is.  Every year we've told him the same thing.  "Your railroad tie is on the property line."

Again the next year.

Again the following year.

This year, Hubs and I were outside doodling around with something in the front flower beds when M asked again, "Hey, Amy.  I have to ask you a question."

"What's that?"

Standing on the railroad tie, then stepping off to show me a measurement he says, "Where is the property line?"

"For the love of God, M, we tell you every single year.  Your railroad tie is on the property line."

"But where IS the property line.  Showing me the area in front of his feet, "We said that the property line is here, right?"

"No!  The property line is where the railroad tie is."

He had stepped back at this point and was standing on it.

"Where is it?"

"YOU ARE STANDING ON IT!"

He then prattled on about taking the arborvitae down between the properties-- the only shield we have to not see everything going on at their house.  I nodded my head and went on into the house with Hubs.  To ask him not to remove them would only confirm that he would take them down right away.  I get his psychological game.

Hubs stops at the door way with the door open and I looked and said, "We are replacing them, right?"

"With 10 more."

"Good."  I started in.  Hubs was so mad and knowing that M was within earshot, "He's such an ----."

Yup.  Hubs did it.  M took him to the breaking point.

Hubs texted me yesterday.  M is having someone in to measure up this boat pad that he wants to have put in for a boat that doesn't float.  (It was given to him and she is not sea worthy.)  Hubs said that then M takes the guy to the property line to look for the pin (which is under his railroad tie) and then to the next property (it's under the concrete driveway.)  I was boiling.  He's fighting over a space about 2' wide or less.  He has never mowed it or even attempted to mow it.  It isn't his.  His MIL owned the property before and confirmed that it has never nor is their property.  His wife grew up there yet he won't leave it go.  His daughter comes and hassles K about the dumb strip of lawn.

It's not like we had Backyard Bob's survey service.  They were folks that Hubs knew, so they came and surveyed for a homemade lunch and a pound cake to take home.

The fact of the matter is that this individual is someone I've had to deal with more and more in regards to PTA.  He is manipulative.  He is hateful.  He throws a fit if you don't give him his way.

I am not backing down.  Hubs is not backing down.  If he takes the trees down-- fine.  They are his.  If he builds something on my property, I will dig it up and dump it back over.  If the trees go, a fence will go up quickly, right next to the railroad ties and right on the property line.  We aren't working with a ton of space here.  It's not like it is acres and acres.  Our lot is 40' x 120'.  It is small.

Rrrr.