This has been bugging me for a long time. I'll try to keep it concise. Sort of a rant, and advice seeking, together.
I live in a townhome community. My immediate neighbor and I haven't spoken to each other for about 10 years, after she said she wanted to pave over her entire front yard. Our front yards are small, and a driveway takes up just over half of it.
I researched zoning ordinances and even spoke to the zoning officer about it, and found out she is not allowed to pave over her whole yard. Her yard is between her driveway and my driveway. I told her that, 10 years ago, and she was pretty mad about it, since many folks in other townhomes have indeed paved over their whole front yard, in spite of the zoning ordinances, so they don't have to mow it, and can park on it, but it stopped her from doing so, thank God. It's just too much pavement, makes everything look so inner-city and commercial. I guess some folks think it looks OK. Not me.
Fast forward 10 years to 2018.
She hasn't paved her driveway and it has deep ruts in it. (But it doesn't bother me) She recently had some work done to one side of her driveway and it is full of gravel. I'm guessing she is going to repave her driveway soon. I'm also guessing she will only be repaving the existing driveway, since she hasn't forgotten the zoning laws I told her about.
Sometimes I feel like going over and asking her what she plans to do with her driveway, like "you're just repaving the existing driveway, right?" as though there were another possibility, but then I think no, just leave it alone. She knows what she can and can't do, according to zoning rules. I did ring her bell twice one day when I knew she was home, and she didn't come to the door. Actually sort of a relief.
A blue line showed up 3 weeks ago, going from the water access plate on my sidewalk, to the street, and there was another blue line on the neighbor's sidewalk too. I wondered why my sidewalk needed a blue line if my property wasn't going to be involved. Shortly thereafter she had the work done on the side of her driveway, which involved some excavating. Nowhere near my property though, so why the blue line?
I'm really curious to know what she's up to. And anxious about it too. And he thought of talking to her is very stressful. I get the feeling it would just make things worse, if anything.
Maybe I'll be calling the cops, or the zoning officer on her, depending what she does. That would be pretty awful.
By the way, it's not a question of having the nerve to talk to her. I've talked to her before about outdoor projects she had going on, and it turned out OK, but that was before we were no longer speaking.
Advice?
Signed,
Wallowing in anxiety and not sure how to make the situation better.