It started seven yeas ago, and just three days after we bought our beautiful new house in the old Forest Hill area of Kitchener, ON.

We loved this neighborhood and used to drive by all the time to see the houses and the trees. It was great to see a few streets of houses that were all different, good solid construction and most of all lots of trees. So here we are settling in to our beautiful new house (Which actually needed quite a bit of work, that’s why we could afford to be here) and working like crazy to make it home, when all of a sudden there is a knock at the door. Hmm, not so strange, people tend to do that. Oh, maybe it’s one of our neighbors coming to welcome us to the neighborhood, run and answer the door!

Imagine the joy and surprise I felt at finding a City bylaw  officer standing in the door, whom proceeded to demand that we remove the bush from the corner of our lot! (we live on a corner lot) Our nasty bush is obstructing the view of traffic, we must remove it immediately or the city will do it and charge us for it! Plus we could be fined on top of it! (ok, well actually we had three days to cut it down to less than three feet.) Hmm, let me see… the bush had to have taken at least 5 years to grow beyond the so called three foot limit, but now that we moved into the house, it was an emergency to remove the F@#4ing thing. It was one of those knurly prickly beasts of an evergreen bush and encompassed an area of about 15 ft x 15 ft. There was no way on earth you could trim this beast down to 3 ft let alone an inch. The officer informed us that he was just doing his job, that it was one of our kindly neighbors that thought it would be a nice welcome to the neighborhood.  Why thank you I said as the door slammed SHUT! Of course out came the chainsaw and three days later and after a lot of sweat and swearing, the bush was removed.

Well over the past 7 years, our kindly neighbor continued to critique the look and maintenance of our property via the wonderful mechanism of anonymity “The City ByLaw”.

That’s fine; I can understand that some people just can’t keep their noses out of other peoples business, especially in a nicer neighborhood with a high percentage of elderly people. But I find it amazing that the Bylaw officer can serve you with one of these notices for an infraction and yet 5 doors down from you ignore the same violation because nobody complained about that neighbor. Ok, I admit I don’t like looking at a trailer in a driveway any more than you would and I did move it out of sight. I also understand that looking at construction material is not pleasing to the eye, but you do need to have some of that around when you are building something! Especially when you are building it yourself! I can understand the need to have a golf course lawn, even though it is healthier to raise your lawnmower to it’s highest point and cut the lawn long, say 4 Inches, so that you do not have to water it as much and the roots grow deeper.

But most recently I received a notice to cease and desist displaying and selling carvings at my residence. Yes our lovely neighbor has decided that this too is unacceptable and has complained once again to the City Bylaw officer. How is this any different than having a garage sale? What the hell is wrong with showing some artwork and maybe even making a little money off it, to pay for the supplies? It’s not a full time job, it’s a hobby! I’m not selling retail and cutting into someone’s business. It’s not hurting the environment. I’m not running a drug lab or a Grow operation.  Most people love to see me in the driveway carving. My immediate neighbors, the only ones that it could possibly bother because of noise, are encouraging it. I donate sculptures to charities for auction or raffle. (Checkout the Elvis) A little while ago, I gave a sculpture to a lady suffering from Cancer, because she said she loved driving by and seeing them. That it made her day and she doesn’t have too many good ones.

So what is it that makes someone so miserable that they feel they need to put a stop to this? I can only pity the person as they must have the most miserable, pitiful, pathetic, wretched, feeble life imaginable. A life where the only joy they gain is through causing misery and misfortune to others around them. I know that misery loves company and that if you are miserable time seems to slow to a crawl. Maybe this makes her/him feel like they are living longer as they must surly be on deaths doorstep to be so miserable and being so miserable must make life seem like an eternity!

Well, whoever you are, I pray for you. I pray that someday you experience in life, what I feel every single day. The joy of being alive and happy, the joy of seeing tears of joy on the face of someone who is suffering from a terminal disease, the joy of making someone’s day a little brighter amongst all the pain , misery and atrocities going on in the world today.

One thought on “Captain ByLaw – In the begining

  1. Your work is absolutely beautiful! I feel sad for your cranky trouble making obviously miserable neighbour. The best revenge is to just ignore them and let Karma do the rest!

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