Everyday Canvas

Those Who Lived Next Door

If bad neighbors would be like Macbeth's witches, what could one do? Hmmm. The three witches in Macbeth were prophets of some sort, as they predicted things. They talked one by one, then together they said, “Double, double toil and trouble; // Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.” My guess is they were sisters, as only sisters manage to talk at the same time.

I just don’t remember ever having three witchlike sisters together next door, but I might have encountered a witch-like character in each neighborhood I lived in. I’ll just go chronologically, as this will make the recall easier on me.

The first one was, “Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,” and she moved next door after she sold us her large house. I was a new bride then, in Kingspark, LI, and her meddling scared the bejesus out of me at first. I’ll call her Mrs. P.

Mrs. P had just divorced her husband and thrown him out the door. Yes, she had actually thrown him out the door, according to other neighbors. Not that it mattered to me, but what mattered to me was that she thought she still owned our house. She would just walk in, inspect the house, and say, “Your bathroom walls are still wet. You should dry them, after each time your husband takes a bath.”

Hahahaha! She was singing to the wrong choir. Then, when we took a vacation in the Poconos, she got mad. “You’re letting him spend all your money. You could have re-painted the house or fixed the backporch.” At this point, I had stopped getting annoyed and took her meddling like (RIP) Joan Rivers’ jokes. Mrs. P wasn’t all that bad, though. She was very helpful in her church and knew a lot of people in town, and in some way in her heart, I really believe she wanted to help me.

The second one lived next door from us in the next house we moved to. She saw me as “By the pricking of my thumbs,// Something wicked this way comes.” I’ll call her Mrs. G.

Mrs. G wasn’t too, too bad either, but we had moved in after her best friend moved out, not being able to afford the house or the taxes after the mafia shot her husband on Long Island Expressway. In her mind, we were somehow responsible. I swear we didn’t know about her husband at the time.

Two days after we moved to this second house, I found a swastika painted in black on the front lawn. Now, we’re not exactly Jewish, but in a sickened mind, I guess, we were. We also didn’t attend any church, and in that neighborhood, this was heresy. We didn’t complain or tell the police or anything, as my husband said, “Let’s not make a big deal of it. If we did, we would be doing exactly the thing whoever wished us to do.” Later, I learned from another neighbor that it was her son who painted the swastika with Mrs. G. giving him the can of spray paint, but her worse acts came when we adopted a puppy.

Who knew that her dog had died two days before we adopted Joe? I bet that, too, was my fault. She didn’t do anything to the dog, but she kept calling him to her while I was trying to train the dog to stay within the boundaries of our two–acre yard, which couldn’t be fenced in. She somehow made the dog go to her when she clapped, while I, too, was using clapping for the same reason. She would also feed the dog without telling me, and at one point, I took the dog to the vet, wondering why he wasn't eating much. This was so weird; because here was this woman who wouldn’t talk to me at all, but she wanted my dog, as if the dog pound lacked other dogs. In a few years, however, with the help of the lady across the street, we managed to patch up whatever ailed her, and she turned out to become a harmless --if not nice enough-- neighbor.

My third witch would “charm the air to give a sound,// While you perform your antic round: “ And round it was for us in Lewistown, PA, where we were being housed in an apartment for two months by the company for which my husband was doing a part-time job after his retirement. The building was next to a Greek restaurant/bar in the middle of the town where two main roads made a cross. The lady next door would get drunk every night in that bar and come home, to mix up where her door was and would try to break into our apartment. She also did pot and all her pot smoke kept finding its way into our apartment through the heating vents. Worse yet, I was having a bad time with asthma and any smoke did set it off. But this lady was very nice and polite during the daytime, and she’d remember nothing that she did at night. Luckily this thing lasted only two months.

In hindsight, all three ladies were quirky people, not exactly witches, and in some way, I enjoyed watching their weirdness. As Macbeth said at the end of the witches scene: “Where are they? Gone? Let this pernicious hour // Stand aye accursed in the calendar! “

14 Ways to Deal with a Bad Neighbor?

1. Try to stay on good terms with them and act as if you didn’t understand their efforts to annoy you.
2. Invite your neighbor for coffee and cake, and hope that the relationship will improve.
3. Confront them, but without starting a fight.
4. Tell your neighbor you are a black-belt or a sharp-shooter, not in a threatening way, but as if you are making small talk.
5. Continue talking to them and being nice in some way, even if they are being nasty.
6. Build a fence or get a dog and make your space unapproachable.
7. Try videotaping any nasty action with a webcam, so you may use it for further action.
8. If the neighbor is doing something illegal, like being a drug dealer, report it to the authorities.
9. Talk to the landlord if you have one.
10. Call the police, although in some neighborhoods, police may prove to be just as unfriendly.
11. If the neighbor is noisy, use earplugs.
12. If the neighbor is sending bad odors and stuff your way, buy air purifiers.
13. Go to court, and sue someone, your neighbor or the landlord, for breach of enjoyment.
14. If nothing else works, move!

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Prompt: The three woman who live next door to you remind you of the three witches in Macbeth.*Shock* Why?

Don't forget to put list in the subject line and that your list needs to apply to the prompt. I am looking forward to your lists with this one.