It started out disarmingly well. T and his aides had made a good start on the remodels. We are turning the outbuilding (originally a carpenter's studio) into our "shed-room," preparatory to renting out the upstairs of our house. The plan is make it into a little guest cottage for us, with an added lean-to for storing bikes and gardening tools. We'll be sleeping out there and using it as a place for privacy, since we'll be sharing the kitchen in the main house and the open arrangement of the rooms means that the downstairs will also be a de facto shared space.
The ongoing question is, how to deal with the lack of plumbing in the shed-room? Solution number 1: T is adding a shower arrangement to the downstairs half-bath. I call it the Swedish shower, because I first came across the concept when visiting Lise in Malmo. She had a small WC, with a toilet and sink and a drain in the floor. When the time came for a shower, the curtain (normally hooked behind the mirror) came down, protecting the toilet and linens, and the hand-held shower head came out. After the shower, the curtain was shaken and hung back up, and Lise would "do the Pippi Longstocking thing," which consisted of standing on the towel and drying the floor with her feet.
So, we can shower and cook in the main house, but those late night bathroom trips will be a bummer, especially during the rainy months. We have researched composting toilets, the kind that look like regular toilets but don't flush. Instead, the waste is stored and compacted beneath the bowl. A fan dries it out, and also vents it to prevent odors. Reportedly, you only have to empty out the composted waste once a year. We thought to put it in the lean-to, out the newly-installed western door. However, I did not want to spend $1500 on it, if it didn't really do the job. So, I took a trip to M's eco-village to see how the low-tech method works.
M's friends waxed eloquent about the flaws of the commercial composting toilets. Reportedly, they are not odor-free, and you still have to compost the waste in bins. They recommend the Loveable Loo, which is basically a wooden box with a toilet seat and cover, and a bucket inside. It looks like an old-fashioned outhouse toilet (not like the chemical ones they have in campgrounds now.) You toss in wood chips after use. D says, this is the 21st century, I do not want an outhouse on my property. But I say, it costs $200. Or we can have T and company hammer it together for even less. So, that's the discussion.
All is still moving forward, when I come home from my field trip to see my control-freak neighbor talking to the Spanish-speaking help. I get that sinking feeling in my gut. Every time someone does work in the vicinity of his house, he starts making trouble. Sure enough, "Do you have a permit for this? I want to see it."
I'm thinking to two years back, when another neighbor had done a remodel. Mr. Control Freak didn't like it because the tree that used to be centered between their properties was now asymmetrical. And I guess there were actual code issues. Mr. CF reported the neighbor to the city. The city found no wrongdoing. Mr. CF sued the city. They were absolved. Mr. CF sued the investigating entity. The neighbor said Forget It and moved to Arizona, planning to sell his house. Victory for Mr. CF, but that wasn't good enough. Early one morning the neighborhood was woken up by an dull thud, followed by the arrival of several fire trucks. Someone had planted an incendiary device in the empty house. We all think it was Mr. CF, and there certainly seemed to be some investigation into that possibility.
The neighbor and Mr. CF had joint ownership of the driveway and strip of ground that run along the west side of my property. Mr. CF is very jealous of the property line and has always refused permission for roofers and other people to use the driveway during my various remodels. Although the strip of ground has no landscaping and is basically moss-covered earth, he is very protective of that as well. He also has been in control of the cedar fence that goes along the property line. During my 20-year tenure, that fence has come down three times, because he doesn't ground the posts in cement, and they keep rotting. This last time, he refused to let the neighbor replace the fence. So the neighbor, who wanted the fence replaced to aid in selling the rebuilt house, got my written permission to build the fence on my property.
Mr. CF was livid, but couldn't do anything to stop it. The sections of old rotten fence were left in our yard, and we were slowly chopping it up for kindling. It wasn't much good for anything else, but Mr. CF wanted it. He had his brother, who lives directly behind us, ask me about it. I said he was welcome to come into the yard and take it, which he did not.So, that's the background. And now, it's starting again, with us. He says I have no right to be building onto the shed. I think, great, he's going to go to the city and complain about our little lean-to and our non-permitted remodel. He is going on and on about the fence and how the underground concrete is leaking over to his property and how he wasn't consulted on the fence and, and, and.... I say, What Do You Want? He says, I want the fence moved. I say, I'm not talking to you any more and go inside where I collapse into tears of frustration.
This gets D into the act. Although I ask him to not get into a pissing match with Mr. CF, D goes outside. They do their little dance. D pretends to be innocently overseeing the work. Mr. CF goes up into his face to complain about the fence. D gets hot. He says, "Strange things happen to houses in this neighborhood." Mr. CF says, "Are You Threatening Me?" D says, "No, I'm Just Sayin'." Mr. CF says he wants his valuable pressure-treated wood from the old fence. D stomps to the pile of rotten wood and starts heaving old fence sections over the new fence, SLAM, onto Mr. CF's strip of ground. It's a violent process, but ultimately D's adrenalin rush gets the job done, and he is actually a little proud of his strength. We decide he can compete in the Fence Tossing events for the next Olympics.I am now waiting for Mr. CF to complain that we littered onto his property.
But, it being Sunday and all, I'm also thinking about the concept of agape. I actually have a deep compassion for Mr. CF. He is clearly a miserable human being. I can't even comprehend the unhappiness that drives him. While I do not like his capacity to make people around him miserable, and I think that he is actively malevolent, I wish I could figure out how to take my compassion and interact with him in a divinely loving way. Not for his sake, because I don't think he is capable of benefitting from it, but for my own. I truly want to believe that a soft answer turneth away wrath, and that Buddhist principles have value. I don't want to be angry at another human.
However, there are days when a primal scream seems the only possible response.
