[bc-chris]

wrmmh is we have new neighbours across the street.

now, don't get me wrong, the old neighbours weren't awful or anything - we just never really connected with them.
a little history on the house across the street... the guy built at the same time we did. his plan was for him and his wife to sell their place and move into the new house, but his wife decided she didn't want to move. instead of selling the house, they opted to rent it out and it's been like that for 15 years. like i mentioned earlier, the renters were fine (especially after reading in the gear grinder thread about the neighbours of other posters!!) but they never did any yard work at all.... well, that's not totally true... they did mow the lawn usually twice per summer. if they don't want to care for the yard that's fine (i get it - they are renting), but then the home owner should have up-ed their rent to cover the cost of a yard maintenance company to do it (and for the record, the home owner never increased the rent in 15 years - they were still only paying $1700/month for a 3 level house - i'd guess at least 3500 sq. ft). having the house across the street looking like a dump sucks - but there's nothing we could do about it.
since the new people moved in i've seen a "yard company" truck out front twice as they figure out what they can do to start tackling the condition of the yard.
we've chatted with the new owners a few times already (they moved in last weekend). they are suuuuper nice people, really down to earth, their kids are the same ages as ours (although at different schools), the husband is HUGE into sports - especially hockey - so that's going to a lot of fun.... even though they are canuck fans! ha! ha!

we're can't wait for them to get settled in and are really looking forward to getting to know them more