This is from a Toastmaster’s speech that had some good observations about neighbors good and bad.

• Quote from Robert Frost poem Mending Fences “good fences make good neighbors”.
• One neighbor thought fences were pointless, but the other relied on their purpose of dividing the property.
• The first story of neighbors who were having a party with music, drinking, talking. Really loud on a Friday night and dog barking in the back yard.  Police were called for noise disturbance. The noise makers thought we were the bad neighbors.
• The second story of a neighbor didn’t value his property. The front yard was mostly dirt and he would park his car there.  Work on his car at 1100pm with music blasting.  So many cars parked in front of her house that they would block their mail box.  Kids in that house would try to climb the fence in the back yard to see what we were doing.
• The third story of neighbors in Georgia. The better part of town, everything manicured and resembled houses from the Stepford Wives movie.  Quickly constructed sub-division and with bad insulation.  Worked night shift and went to sleep at 6 am.  On weekends, neighbors would work on projects in their yard and 1000am and wake others up.  Loudly complained about the noise and neighbor heard.  Could hear kids play basketball in the front yard and hear the mailman.
• Fourth story of a house in California.  Houses small and located close to each other.  Neighbors lived there a long time.  She considered herself the visitor.  A neighbor complained that light from daughter’s bedroom window shining into her room, but she didn’t do anything on her side to fix it.  She told her to fix it.  She stopped talking to that neighbor.
• Good fences make good neighbors. Is it a physical barrier, property marker, or boundary line of socialization? The point is to stay out of each other’s business and have respect for each other.

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