code inspector

Came home from work today to a little note on my front door. It was from the building code enforcer for the small town I live in. I do know what this is about. It's about a man and a woman who after the throes of divorce has ravished her life savings, she doesn't have the money to finish a project he started in the back yard. A shed. It's up, framed, roofed, then wrapped with paper and chicken wire in preparation for stucco, and that's where the progress stopped. I've been a little slow on the uptake, no money. Not knowing how to finish the shed. The building permit expired years ago. The code inspector was cordial, gave me pertinent information in straight forward language. Helpful. I have good neighbors. I have five of them from the way my house is on the lot. Four of them are excellent, upstanding, easy to live by neighbors... notice I said four, not the people just north of my house. Oh I was blindly friendly to them, I came with an open heart and smiled at them when they moved in. Introduced myself like an idiot. And the first thing that rolls out of her mouth was a complaint about "those crappy people" she used to live next to. I gave her the benefit of the doubt, but soon came to know it was THEM who were the crappy people. They would walk on my walkways (no problem) then leave trash and mud on them. (problem)I saw them do this. Asked as kindly and politely as possible to pick up after themselves and was snorted at. They used my trash cans putting cheap stinky beer cans, cigarettes and poopy diapers in my recepticle without even asking. They tore up my picture frame fence, 120 feet of it and two years later put up a cheap shoddy fence. I could go on and on, but you might be getting an idea of what is going on there. I hope I am taking the high road and not diluting the wonderful upstanding fabulous person I am by sinking to their level, so I don't call the cops when I smell pot smoking in their garage parties, or they block my driveway with vehicles or they leave their trailer parked in front of their house for weeks on end. I can only think they must be miserable people whose lives will be nothing but problems, pain and loss because they're terrible human beings. It's not really up to me to balance the universe, so I console myself with the idea that what they're putting out there will be their fate. I hope they choke.