Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



You are here: Home / Archives for 2011

Archives for 2011

It seems we’re getting a new fence – free

by

Well … it seems sometime in the next week or so we’re going to be getting a new fence. Well, to be more clear – we’re going to be getting part of a new fence.

What’s really happening is that our neighbors, the ones in the house that’s attached to ours (semi-detached house) are getting a new fence and they are replacing the part of the fence that we share between our houses. They’re paying for it and uhm …. we don’t know exactly what kind of fence they are putting in. Can you tell I’m a little uncomfortable with that????

Uh huh … I think we need to have a talk with our neighbors. My husband did talk to them about our noise problems last weekend and their daughter has been a lot quieter this past week. Thankfully! Unfortunately … when he was talking to them about the noise – last Sunday after I fell down the stairs due to exhaustion thanks to a week of no sleep (yes I’m severely bruised!) he never did get around to asking them about the fence design. I guess if worse comes to worse we can always just say no as the fence people are trying to put the fence in. That wouldn’t be that nice though.

I’m not super concerned about the design. I think that my neighbors really like the fence that another neighbor had put in last year and if I’m right I think they’ll get something similar and if so that will be perfectly fine with us as well.

The only thing that bothered me about the whole thing is the fact that they aren’t telling us much and well we have our roses along that fence and when I mentioned my concerns about them getting damaged the woman actually had the gall to say “Which ones can you live without?” Uhm … you just don’t ask a gardener that kind of question … especially when the roses in question are pretty much irreplaceable! Wow! I’ll be pretty upset if they kill my roses. The good news is that because of the trees in both yards they can’t dig new holes for the fences so they have to use the existing holes so that means my rose roots likely won’t get damaged.

They have one of those steel garages right up against the end of the fence and it borders on the end of our yard … it’s starting to fall down .. I think it might fall down when the fence comes down … that might be interesting. LOL

Anyway, I’ll take some pictures and let you guys know how things progress with the fence dilemma. I’m sure I’ll have a story to tell!





I think we’re getting a park at the end of the street

by

It looks like they’re getting ready to do construction at the end of my street next week. I think I’d better enjoy this weekend while I can because it’s going to get noisy around here!

If I’m not mistaken I think they might be putting in some kind of commercial playground or at least it looks like it. My husband and I took a peek at some of the supplies they put on the site and it sure looks like they’re going to put putting up a playground for all of the kids. We could certainly use a decent park in the neighborhood, but this one might be a little too close to my home!

I guess I’ll find out what they’re really building once they start next week. I just hope they aren’t super noisy. My neighbors are renovating almost daily and that’s enough noise to deal with!

An update on the old bad renter neighbors

by

Do you remember how happy I was the day my old renter neighbors moved out? Yes, I was relieved! That was last March (2010).

Well … I haven’t seen them since they moved out, but I strongly suspected that they were hanging out at a house down the street – a side street that I can see directly from my front door. You see, when these bad renter neighbors lived next door they’d go down to that house several times a day and sometimes in the middle of the night cars and people from that house would park in our shared driveway and visit our neighbors house … or more often go in and out of our neighbors house all night. I strongly suspect that illegal activities were going on in both my neighbors house and the house down the street.

Anyway … The gang of people living in the house down the street apparently just got evicted. There were eviction signs up in the windows a week or two ago and from the looks of things a lot of people moved out. I think the house is going to be renovated by the owner. I’m sure the people living close to that house are relieved as there was so much “car” activity etc going on at all hours and shady people in an otherwise very good neighborhood they’ve got to be happy that that group of people are gone. I also heard that our former bad renter neighbors wife might have gone to a rehabilitation center for drug addicts as well. I always felt sorry for her little girl and baby because she always looked so out of it … hopefully the rumor is true and she is getting some help!

Now .. if only the people that bought the house next door would finally finish there very very slow renovations and move in … it’s been over a year of pounding and thumping next door – but no neighbors … it’s about time they at least moved in.

Did you watch the Royal Wedding?

by

Did you watch the Royal wedding on TV? Or if not on TV did you catch all or part of it online?

I didn’t stay up late or get up early to watch, but since we have a PVR I taped 6 hours of it and ran through some of the pre-wedding stuff, watch the ceremony and then fast-forwarded pretty much to the balcony kiss. Then, being in Canada, I saw endless recaps on TV all Friday evening and throughout the weekend (well up to late Sunday night then some other big news story took over). So I guess I’m more than a little burned out on Royal wedding news.

Is anyone else surprised at how fast Prince Williams hairline seems to be receding though? It seems like a year or so ago he had a much fuller head of hair. Perhaps all of the stress of his new career and then the lead up to the wedding made his hair come out faster? I wonder if he’s tried using any hair loss products all all?

I suppose since Canada is a Commonwealth Country we’ll continue to hear quite a bit about Prince William and Kate at least until their visit to Canada is over and one with this July .. then the news about them will start to die down. I hope. It’s just been constant since last summer .. I’m more than ready to not hear about them daily.

Still having neighbor troubles – why why why

by

I know I said it in my last post, but I’m still thinking of putting my house up for sale and moving. My closest neighbors – on both sides – are driving me nuts with noise. The little kid in the house next door – and her parents for that mater are crazy noisy, it’s like they walk around on their heels day and night, slam things around and their 2 and a half year old seems to cry all the time.

The neighbors on the other side bought the house next door a year ago and they’ve barely been at the house, but just in the last month they’ve started renovating more and more – like almost daily so I’m hearing banging, hammering and drilling noises from one side and thumping, screaming and crying from the house that’s attached to ours.

One recent commenter suggested we sound proof the “party wall” between my neighbors house and ours but we did that about five years ago when we had our Karaoke neighbors. The sound proofing cut their noise down by about 50% – believe me, when they’d pull out their microphones and turn their speakers on that seemed to be pointed at my living room it was like they were in my house .. so yeah, the sound proofing helped, but it doesn’t eliminate all the neighbor sounds because thumps and screams just seem to travel. I hate it.

Oh and yes we’ve talked to our neighbors. They just don’t seem to care. I know most of the noises they are making are just life, but at midnight and three in the morning or 7:30 in the morning I think I have a right not to hear doors slamming, shoes thumping around a house or on stairs for half an hour or a kid wailing for an hour. It’s not fair. I’m sick at home, 24 hours a day … I can’t get away from these noises so there’s no relief for me.

Oddly enough, with all the problems with our neighbors they seems to still think we’re best friends. I saw the neighbors who are renovating this evening and the woman and I got into a talk about her recent weight loss. She told me she started losing weight after reading some african mango reviews of all things. I’d never heard of it before, but if it’s working for her great. Anyway, at least with these neighbors, once they finish their renovations, as long as they don’t have any bad habits or anything we’ll probably get along with them, their house isn’t attached to ours. It’s the other neighbors that are the real problem.

Meta

Search this site

Tags

blog blogs camera Canada Chris computer crohns dinner dog Family flower flowers Food friends funny garden Gardening Green Thumb Sunday Health and Fitness Health Fitness and Beauty holiday home Home and Lifestyle house husband IBD Inflammatory bowel disease Internet Music neighbors pain photo photos plants puppy Shopping sick sleep spring Toronto TV Video visit website Wordless Wednesday