Oops... Hello Neighbour...

We've been in this house for just over 2 years and have endured a relationship with the lady living over the back fence with her son... Doesn't sound like a recipe for disaster and, to be honest, it hasn't been...

However, over the time we've been here, we've found countless numbers of banana peels, avocados and apple cores in a neat line extending from boundary to boundary 1-2m from the fence.

Matt, deciding to approach the situation head on, had a conversation with the son about 12 months ago and asked him if there were kids or somebody who might be throwing the above mentioned items over the fence. The man responded that it was most likely his mother, who has dementia, and doesn't realise there's people living over here now... He was going to have a "chat". We're compassionate and understand the poor man must be living under a bit of strain so we were happy to put the odd delivery in our bin to help the fella out...

Fast forward 6 months and a new challenge arose... We started to get the odd cigarette butt landing in the same lineup as the fruit medley... Like we had been with the fruit, we popped these in the bin for a while... We thought the old lady must have picked up a new habit and was hiding the evidence from her son... Then we got sick of it and started 'returning to sender' anything that appeared... 1. in an effort to stop it, and 2. to let the man realise just how much was coming over the fence!!!!

Last month, on about 4 occasions, I would have thrown back 30-40 cigarette butts, remembering they were there when a certain toddler almost tasted them...

And then tonight I CRACKED IT!!!!!! I was weeding the garden and noticed at least 50 of the damned things littering a 3 metre squared area in the back corner of our yard. What ensued was handfuls of them flying back over the fence with as much effort as this right arm could muster. When I was down to about 1 or 2 to go, with James watching intently (and throwing a few stones at the fence in support!) Matt strolled across the lawn and poked his head over the fence to the neighbour!!!!! "G'day mate, we've just been getting a heap of cigarette butts thrown over the fence and we've got a little fella who keeps picking them up"... Sheepish response from neighbour "No worries, I'll have another talk to her..."

(Here I am bobbing down out of sight having had no idea the man was there copping my flying cigarette missiles!!!)

Matt and I legged it inside where I let a nervous/embarrased guffaw go and Matt laughed as told me what he'd seen as he walked out into the backyard...

Wonder if we'll get anymore... And I think I'll check if he's there in future before I start sending things back!!