Good Fences, Good Neighbors, and then there is the Woman Next Door.

Before

Six and a half years ago Hurricane Wilma blew through here, and in the process leveled the fence between my house and the house to the west of me. The storm also left me without water for four days, and no electric or phone for two weeks. It was not pleasant, and if I had the means I would move back to Chicago in a heartbeat. Unfortunately I'm stuck here in this false paradise called Florida.

For these last six and a half years I have been trying to get the woman who owns the property next door to go halves with me on a new fence. Right after the hurricane my brother and I, screwed, nailed, and duct taped the damn thing back up. That was supposed to be temporary, yet here it still sits. My neighbor's excuse for not putting up a new fence is the same every year, "I want to wait until after the hurricane season. A new fence will just be blown down any way." The fact is that the old fence is falling down from it's own weight, and I'm afraid it might crush somebody. As dangerous as it looks, I refuse to pay the full bill seeing as it sits on her property. So I've taken a stop gap measure. Yesterday I took a box of three inch screws, my screw gun, and went over into her yard and did my best to keep the damn thing from falling over the next time a possum crawls along the top of it. I think I did a fine job.

After