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502 pages

English

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Neighbors: Persons living in proximity to other persons. Everyone has neighbors. Neighbors-From-Hell: Neighbors who are not nice. Have you ever had Neighbors-From-Hell? Neighbors are an obvious arrangement in cities or towns. Good or bad, tidy or messy, quiet or noisy, nice or mean; there are all types. City slickers moving to the country invoke the image of space and solitude, but there will still be neighbors. The space between domiciles might be larger, but a bad, messy, or noisome neighbor can still exist. Even with a country home's space and larger area, there can still be neighbors that won't contain themselves to their own area. Once upon a time there was a young family who had a dream of owning land and operating a farm. They became land owners and cattle ranchers, building their very own dream house on their very own patch of paradise. They worked hard to assimilate to this new lifestyle in a new neighborhood. It was everything they'd hoped for, and they were so happy. Then they got neighbors. They got Neighbors-From-Hell. These bad neighbors were pushy, arrogant, and mean. Their bad attitudes, slovenly habits, and meanness aside, the neighbors would not contain themselves to their own area. They encroached. They took what was not theirs. They forced themselves into the space and lives of our heroes. These neighbors meant to build their house on their property next door to our little family. The neighbors' property had some unfortunate attributes, however, and it became clear that their property wasn't very conducive to building a home. Astonishingly, these neighbors insisted on utilizing portions of property they didn't own to construct their project. There were other solutions to the construction dilemmas these neighbors faced, but these answers would have been costly. They wanted to use our little family's land for free. They wanted to steal the property and property rights of our little family. These Neighbors-From-Hell came on over bringing their messes and problems with them, and embroiled our little family in a battle for their rights and their very lives. When our heroes stood firm on their property rights, these awful neighbors tried it anyway. When the young couple complained, the neighbors lied. When the family sought the help of the authorities, they found out the difficulties of fighting city hall when the local power came to the aid and assistance of their county crony, even in the face of proven and documented lies. The common refrain used as their excuse for lies and deceit was, "Y'all aren't from around here, are you?" This bigotry and clannish attitude was brought to full force against our little family, whose only desire was to be left alone on their own land. When the neighbors couldn't steal the part of the land they were after, they tried to take everything. Using their friends in county authority and the local judiciary, they brought the fight of our young heroes' lives. Does the young family survive? Can they win against the local establishment and seemingly insurmountable odds? What do you do when your neighbors are the Neighbors-From-Hell? What do you do when the Neighbors-From-Hell have friends in high places? What do you do when they threaten your home, your livelihood, and your family? Everyone knows fighting city hall can be a pointless fight, rarely won. But what do you do when city hall brings the fight to you? Sometimes you have to stand and fight.

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Fiction

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Publié par	Outskirts Press
Date de parution	01 juillet 2017
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781478771661
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

City Slicker’s Guide to Country Living
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2018 Becky Condon
v5.0

This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Outskirts Press, Inc.
http://www.outskirtspress.com

ISBN: 978-1-4787-7166-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018904129

Cover Image by Becky Condon

Outskirts Press and the “OP” logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Dedicated to

My husband, Joe, the love of my life, my hero, my favorite Marine
who never fails to attend to the motto of
Semper Fidelis

and to

My daughter, Jonnie, a brilliant engineer,
who coincidentally is the most magnificent editor ever.
She can spot a misplaced comma, an incorrect word, or confusing prose from across the room.
Any such glitches found by a sharp-eyed reader are all mine.

Thank you Joe and Jonnie for your support to me during this project.

One
IN THE BEGINNING
W hen Don and I got together, one of the items that connected us was a dream to own property and build our own dream house. We weren’t sure how to use the land at first and were open to ideas, but the idea was of space to raise a family, and freedom to do as we pleased, build our dream house, and have room to play outside, have animals, enjoy privacy, and all the benefits of land ownership that one could imagine. We looked forward to being good stewards of a little piece of earth to call our own.
By profession we are pilots. I was a Navy pilot and Don was a Marine pilot. We met when we were based in the same squadron as Instructor Pilots. It was love at first sight. Our separate military careers were not going the way we wanted. I was hitting a glass ceiling, still strongly in existence in the “No Girls Allowed Stone Age” as I refer to it, and Don was unable to transition to the types of planes he wanted to fly. He had made himself too indispensable and talented in his earlier specialty, so they wanted him back there. For separate reasons, we both decided to end our active duty service and seek our way in the airline business.
We both scored jobs in two different major airlines. We had the world by the tail. While our beginnings were meager thanks to deregulation, cost-cutting, and other such industry good times, we were on our way to great things.
We both shared the dream of living on land we owned and building our very own dream house. We married in 1987 and moved to the south in 1988. We saved and saved. Our first home, lovingly dubbed our “starter dump,” was a cute-as-a-bug’s-ear three bedroom, two bath, 1400 square foot ranch house in a relatively new neighborhood, very conveniently placed with respect to the airport where we both worked. Our starter dump was exactly that to us. The idea was to save up enough to buy the land and build the house in cash. It was a conscious and serious saving effort. The realtor that was showing us houses almost had an infarction as a couple of airline pilots passed over and over on pricey houses that were “within our ability.” We wanted to save, not blow the budget on a starter dump. She finally gave up and we settled on a little place that would serve us for the time being.
We proceeded to save hand over fist, and Don made such delightful little enhancements that our little starter dump became quite comfortable.
Don made a built-in stereo cabinet with a cool window seat that my kitties, Lucky and Molly, thought was divine. He had sections for our different gear with electrical outlets conveniently placed with areas in back for cords that needed connection machine to machine. We were ahead of the time for home theater, but we had quite a cool setup for the times.
I love to sew, but Don hates the look of a project in work. I was a long way from a hobby room, and I lacked proper furniture for a proper sewing area. My dining room table was subbing in but as can be imagined, it became an inconvenient sewing venue come meal time. Don fixed this issue with the most wonderful set of sewing cabinetry ever. Naturally we occupied the master bedroom, and the other two bedrooms were quickly filled. One was a guest room/future baby room, and the other was an office. Mostly it was Don’s office. This was well before the time when everyone in the house had their own computer, and the myriad of devices had not been envisioned yet. Don had a computer which I could barely make heads or tails of, and when he commuted to his airline job in another city, he sported a cellular phone that came in a little suitcase where the handset was connected by a coiled cord. Our office contained a pretty cool desk which was room for him and a small space for me to observe his computer work - not near enough space to sew. I figured I’d be relegated to a card table in the guest room, but he fixed me right up. Since I used my dining table as a layout and cutting table before I set up my machine on it, he decided the best place for my sewing area was the dining room. He built in a long desk along the wall with cabinetry up above that was the perfect size for my patterns and tools. My machine had a special place on the desk. When I was finished for the day, I could slide the machine (and my project) back against the wall and swing down the doors to cover it all. A sewer’s dream.
Then my closet. Ohmagosh, my closet! His was cool too, but mine was the living end. For such a small, affordable place to have two walk in closets was a huge selling feature to me. Two of them! Walk in! Ecstasy! They were set up with your basic hanger rods and a shelf on top and that’s it. Don had other ideas. I’d never even heard of any such thing as a custom closet, but now I know. He made the most beautiful oak cabinet and hanging rods, with sections of double layers for shirts and skirts, plus single layers to hang the dresses, coats, and pants. He lined the drawers with felt, and made carousels for my jewelry and scarves. It was Heaven in a closet.
Don built shelving and benches in the two car garage and painted the sheetrock to give it a pretty look. Working in there on his various home projects soon revealed, this far south, that he needed air moving around to survive, so our garage soon had a ceiling fan. I made curtains for the garage door windows. We had the prettiest workshop/garage in Christendom.
One day, Don was out doing some landscaping on our, so far, plain little quarter acre lot. He found out the scalawag of a builder had done some funny business with our plumbing when he found a wire buried. Assuming it to be trash, he pulled on it. It came up and led from the house where it appeared to go into the house and then out to the middle of the yard where it went deeper. As he continued his investigation, the next door neighbor, Carl, came over. He had a brand new shovel with him that he offered to lend. This neighbor Carl worked at some sort of loading dock. He always had a lot of brand new looking tools. Not making a connection or accusation there but he was a curious fellow. Anyway, Don was well heeled with tools, so Carl stood idly by, leaning on his brand new shovel, while Don dug in the yard. Don’s assumption was that he would get to the end of some abandoned wire from the construction of this brand new house.
As Don toiled, Carl, leaning on his shiny new shovel, drawled, “I’ve been wondering what that is down there.” He reported to Don that they dug a huge hole in the front yard at night and buried a tank there that looked like a septic tank. This made no sense though since the neighborhood was on sewer, at least we were paying for sewer! And what in the world could the wire be for? The small hole to discover the source of the wire enlarged to a huge hole as Don struck the concrete top to what did look like a septic tank, with a wire coming out of it. Mystified, Don continued digging, unmoved by the total disaster happening to the front lawn. Finally he was able to pry off the top of the tank. The inside was very nearly filled with sewage! Our sewage! Lucky thing he opened it up when he did. The wire went to a pump that had apparently burned out! It was a lift station! There wasn’t supposed to be a lift station! We re-examined our paperwork on the sale of the house and this mess in the yard should not have been there! This was going to cost money to repair! Calls to the builder went unanswered. The builder’s company didn’t know what we were talking about. Their paperwork showed nothing of the sort. Talking to the county inspectors, we did not appear on any of their paperwork to require a lift station, so the builder had done it on the quiet. Inspection now though, revealed our house level was indeed below the sewer level so a lift station would be required. “I ain’t never seen it done this way, though,” the inspector drawled. Speaking to a lawyer was not much more help, but we tried everything. The builder refused to admit knowledge of the lift station. He also didn’t have any money. All his assets and profits were laundered over to family members, so suing him would be pointless. We were on our own.
Don went to work. The first thing he wanted was better access to this tank in case of fu