The N family (house to our left) was there when we moved in 13 years ago. We barely saw them. We know there was a married couple with two teen-aged children and judging by the tortured sounds of a violin and then a trumpet, the said children were band/orchestra members. The music improved in the next couple of years but their visibility did not; unless we heard the music or an occasional slamming of a car door, our neighbors could just as well have been ghosts. I can count on one hand the number of times I had any kind of conversation longer than "hello" with either husband or wife.
The children grew up and presumably moved out. The house began to fall into a serious state of disrepair; the external staircase rotted and crumbled, the roof began to sag and exterior light fixtures rusted and fell off. The only reason we knew someone still lived there were the cars in the garage. Then one day, the house was sold! Our neighbors on the opposite side of the N family purchased it as a, well, fixer-upper; only they didn't realize how much fixing upping needed to be done until the house was actually theirs. Instead of just fixing here and there, they decided to knock the whole structure down and start from scratch. This past May they did just that; they started when we were leaving for work and the whole thing was down and almost completely carted off by the time we came home. Judging by the house's condition, it was definitely a mercy killing.
Then the noise began. Our "new" neighbors are early risers and pay absolutely no attention to the laws/neighborly consideration that restrict construction before 9 AM in a residential area. Backhoes, cement mixers, power saws, loud contractors speaking in several different languages, louder radios set to a number of different stations have been the norm since May--and not just on weekdays. This has been a daily occurrence for months. Unfortunately the kids' bedrooms are on that side of the house and their reactions have been mixed: C rants and fumes (his bedroom is closest) and cusses them out on Facebook; T shrugs rather philosophically and A took C's ranting one step farther; she actually went out there and yelled at the workers that, "There are laws" and they should "turn off their damn mariachi music!" That particular group of workers were Spanish and definitely wanted to share their culture with the entire neighborhood.
Though I personally don't appreciate their discourtesy, they are going to be our neighbors and they are basically nice people. I was willing to put up with it...until yesterday. Yesterday started at 7 AM with the presence of a cement mixer. The noise was one thing but the workers decided in order to lay the cement properly they needed to come into our yard. Since the sidewalk extends from their house right up to our fence line, I could see why; they had no footspace in which to work. Still, they did not ask first and if they had, I could have informed them that the pens they were working around, and in, hold live turtles.
Now, my neighbors know I have turtles there. I informed them first thing when they knocked the original house down so they would know not to spray any poisons or pesticides in that area. I don't know if the owner and his brother were present when the cement workers started doing their thing but the older brother TN definitely was when I went out into the yard and saw what they had done.
First off, someone had removed one of the corner cinder blocks of Chestnut's pen to use as a step stool to reach over the fence...then didn't bother to put it back. As Chestnut has recently become very interested in knowing what is on the outside of his pen and has developed some serious climbing ability, this was an act of potentially horrific consequences. Fortunately, Chestnut had not discovered the gap. But that was not the worst of it. Someone had sloshed some wet cement in Minka's enclosure and splattered her and her food in the process. She had splatters on her back, her legs and even on her face. Fortunately it had missed her eyes, nostrils and mouth.
Now I have a strong personality but I rarely get truly angry. I don't like the way it feels and I usually feel I can resort to other methods to resolve conflict. This wasn't one of the times. I did not yell at TN and his workers but I know I was loud and forceful. If I wasn't so furious, it would have been funny; you never saw 5 grown men leap up and scramble in different directions at once so quickly. They just didn't know what to do; maybe they didn't speak much English and all they knew was there was suddenly a very angry woman brandishing a cement-spattered turtle in their direction.
TN apologized profusely and cleaned up Minka's enclosure while I washed the cement off of her. He actually got off easy; it wasn't till later in the afternoon that I discovered she was missing a small chip off the back edge of her carapace and the edge must have dug into her back leg because she had a red mark scored into her skin. I think one of the idiots stepped on her which caused her injury and which caused him to lose his balance and slop the cement into her enclosure. I will always be grateful that I went out when I did. If the cement had dried on her, she might not have survived.
Minka is using her leg okay and ate a big meal of mixed veggies. I am glad she doesn't seem to be suffering from any lingering effects and I know a bunch of construction workers who will think twice before they cross our fence again. Screw being neighborly. Even Mr. Rogers would have approved.
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