This week a series of annoyances managed to all roll out one after another, forcing me to bring out my inner Hulk—albeit, the kinder, gentler Hulk.
About two weeks ago, I got new neighbors: A young couple with two young children, an infant and a four-year-old. They also have a cat with three kittens, and they’re trying to push the orange one on me. (Not gonna happen. Tig and Gracie hate other cats, and at the age of ten, I think it’s unfair to them to bring a stranger in the house.) But here’s the thing: Their four-year-old has been bothering me incessantly. She knocks on my patio door to tell me Tig wants to come in. Meantime, he was sound asleep on the patio until she came by to bother him, whereupon he woke up and frantically tried to get inside to get away from her. She knocks on my patio door to tell me she’s wearing a new shirt. She waves at me through the kitchen window while I’m preparing dinner, because my window looks out on my patio and she is in my backyard area, because she is not, apparently, being watched very carefully by her mother. And to top it all off, her mother knocks on my front door to tell me Tig wants to come in, and I have to explain to her that no, he doesn’t, he wants to sit on my porch and not be bothered, and that he knows how to let me know when he wants in. If he can’t get me to hear him scratching on the door, he will either yowl until I hear him, or come around to the patio door and get my attention that way. Really. I’ve been living here for five years, and my cats are thoroughly adapted to their environment.
Then, for the past week or so, we have the added annoyance of my cats misbehaving. Tig kept waking me up at 5 a.m. by yowling at me to get up and pay attention to him. This happened night after night until I finally woke up enough to start throwing shoes at him. I never hit him. I throw them in his general direction, and he gets the message. So it took two nights of throwing my slippers—no, three nights. He finally stopped waking me up. Now it’s Gracie’s turn. She’s discovered that I work from home now, so that means I can pay attention to her 24/7. Well, uh, no. She’s been yowling at me to come pet her upstairs. She’s been doing this every couple of hours. Two days ago, I got fed up with all of her noise and went to the foot of the stairs and had words with her. She sat on landing at the top of the stairs, eyes growing wide, and listened. She also got the message. I heard a yowl just now as I was writing this post, and yelled, “Gracie!” in super-stern voice, and she stopped.
Finally, yesterday, neighbor child knocks on my patio door—the blinds are closed—in midafternoon. Tig is asleep in the corner, ignoring her. She grabs her shirt and tells me that she’s wearing her new teddy bear shirt.
“What did I tell you about bothering me while I’m working?” I asked.
“But I’m wearing my new teddy bear shirt!”
“Briana, GO!” I said. I pointed. I never point. But she was really pissing me off.
She took off running.
I have not been bothered since.
Ahhhh. That sound you hear is the sound of me getting my privacy and control back.
This time next year, I hope to be working from my own townhouse. I’m going to install a fence.
A big one.
Update: She crossed the line. She squirted Tig with a water bottle. And in order to do this, she had to sneak onto my patio—all the way onto my patio—and get him while he slept in the corner near the door. She did. But I saw the tail end of it. I went next door and told her mother to keep that child away from me, my patio, and my cat. I was not nice. I was not patient. And I wasn’t accepting excuses.
I do not want that brat anywhere near me or mine again.
Meryl,
Not trying to shamelessly plug my blog, just go and enjoy a very similar annoyance I had last night.
HERE!
Humane.
Short of Ed’s electric fence suggestion, there are electric eye/radar triggered devices that shoot water at invading critters. When I find an URL for one, I’ll post it.
chsw
Houston, you solved your problem. And it was a funny post. Kid totally deserved it.
Funny. I got kids asking me to subscribe to the Times-Dispatch last night using the same spiel. The college thing is big.
I have been ripped off twice by kids selling subscriptions around here. I no longer ever buy them from door-to-door sales.
A man having to go on a long drive is in town when he is just too bushed to go any further. He figures he only needs a brief nap, no reason to get a hotel room, so he pulls over and parks, then tries to sleep.
Rap-rap.
It’s a jogger rapping on the car window. He askes, “Do you have the time?”
“It’s seven,” the driver says, and goes back to sleep. Just about the time he dozes off:
Rap-rap.
It’s another jogger. She asks, “Do you have the time?”
“Seven-oh-five,” he says. Before going back to sleep, he digs out a sheet of paper and writes on it:
I DON’T HAVE THE TIME
Places it in his car window, and goes back to sleep. Just as he’s dozing off:
Rap-rap.
It’s a concerned-looking jogger. “It’s seven-twenty,” he says.
Effective solution, Meryl. And when this kid becomes a triple axe murderer and the reporters come around to find out where she went wrong, where her path was diverted from love and acceptance, I’m sure you’ll be honest about it.
What? Is that supposed to be a joke?
Not very amusing, Alex. The kid has been bothering me nearly every day for two weeks. I have been polite. I have talked reasonably to her mother. I have talked reasonably to her.
She crossed the line. She SNEAKED onto my patio, knowing full well that I could see her out the window if she didn’t.
You can’t get onto my patio without coming onto MY property. I pay for the rental of this property every month. Tig was in the corner near the patio door. On purpose, because he’s figured out that if he stays on the other side of the patio, the kid comes and bothers him.
I am still furious at the invasion of my privacy, the bratty behavior of this child, the wilful ignorance of her mother to stop her from bothering me even after I told her that her daughter was bothering me, and the child’s continuing to bother me no matter how many times I tell her to stay off my patio.
I’m not her playmate, and my patio is not her patio. And let me tell you, there is one way to unleash my fury faster than any other: Mistreat my cats in any way. That is second only to mistreating my family and friends.
If this child’s mother had paid any attention to her daughter’s continuous ventures OUTSIDE her mother’s view, I wouldn’t have gone off on the mother this evening.
I’m still furious.
I think you can tell.
When my son was very small, we had a neighbor kid with a brand new baby sister. He didn’t get enough attention from his mom, and so he would latch onto me when I was outside with my son.
Up to a point, that was okay. But then one day, he started snatching twigs away as my son reached for them…
Kids who feel neglected can be very, very hard to deal with. You were perfectly in the right, Meryl. You shouldn’t have to deal with her issues…
I’m a witness (via telephone) to a few of Meryl’s attempts to deal with this child, because these incursions occur frequently, loudly and with dogged persistence. Meryl’s been relatively patient, diplomatic and much more restrained than I would have been. The kid doesn’t remotely comprehend the meaning of “no” unless it’s delivered with a (metaphorical) 2×4. I wonder why?
Meryl, give the kid a cat or kitten of her own, to love and abuse as all children do to their pets. Maybe she’ll then stop bothering you and yours.
chsw
I used to have to deal with crap like that, but 7 years ago I made the move to my own place where I can’t see any of my neighbors and they can’t see me. 10 acres of bliss… Just deer, wild turkeys, rabbits, coons, and a million birds. To find all that within 7 miles of a good sized town in central Florida, is my idea of heaven on earth.
The kid has a cat. With three kittens.
She has been crossing the line. Next time, take her by the hand and take her back to her mom or dad, and inform them to their face that their child is not to be let wander around the neighborhood at four years old.
That’s all, do not get into a discussion with them, make a statement and leave.
Also keep a log.
Yeah, my wife and I moved into a neighborhood full of cute little kids, and we thought it was great for a few months. Then starts the missing items from outdoors, and the chasing of the cats, the pulling of our flowers, the playing in our yard and getting hurt when we’re not there, etc etc. When we finally put our foot down, we were “mean”.
The thing is, I like kids, and get along well with them. All ages, from infants up to college kids. I thought this was going to be great, having new neighbors with children AND cats.
But I don’t like brats. I don’t like children whose parents don’t know how to set rules. (I really loathe those kind of parents, but that’s an entirely different subject.)
Next-door-neighbor child shows all the signs of growing up to be a brat. So I will set the boundary lines and demand that her parents keep her off my property.
It may be that one day, when she is older, she will understand that she needs to change her behavior. But until and unless that happens, you’re absolutely right to set boundaries and keep her away from your home.
On the topic of cats, this is interesting:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/29/science/29cat.html?ex=1340769600&en=093ed135c4e5c8c2&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss