Originally Posted by pylon
I'm just gonna throw this in here re: confronting neighbours.
A little over a year ago, I was convinced, without a shadow of a doubt, I was 100% in the right about a flag our neighbour had in their backyard. We live on a ridge, with a panoramic mountain view in Cochrane, and he erected a Canadian flag on his back fence, smack dab in the center of the mountain view. Is it tacky patriotism? Yes. Is it the last thing you want to obstruct an incredible view of the Rocky Mountains with? Yes. Does it bag and clang when it's windy? Every time. Are other neighbors disjointed about it? Yup.
Is it legal? 100%.
As long as it is an Alberta or Canadian flag, it is 100% a non-issue. All I read in the city by-laws was "Nobody can erect flagpoles, temp structures over X height, etc etc etc.... and didn't read all the fine print about what types of flags.
After politely asking him to remove it, and him saying no, things got ugly. Outside of questionable tastes in flag positioning, I had no issues with them, and they were pretty decent neighbors. But it did get heated, things were said both ways that can't be taken back, and then a pandemic hit, and a flag on someone's fence, really seems like a non-issue, and I really learned a lesson about how to behave when not getting my way. I also found out he was a veteran that didn't advertise the fact.
A year later, we've gotten close to patching it up. I've done a lot of snow shoveling to help his wife when he's out of town, offered Covid PPE to him as we have a surplus and just generally tried to be much better and more accepting neighbours. We are on speaking terms again, but in the end, I should have asked, and when I didn't get the answer I didn't like, I should have just accepted it.
This situation sounds similar, and I suggest you not stare at the poop.
|