To Confront or Not To Confront?

Sidetracked again! I had another topic picked out for this week, and then I read an advice column in the newspaper about confronting neighbors who allow their pets to wantonly poop on lawns and flowerbeds, and my thoughts processes were hijacked. Again.

What is this thing about confrontation? Apparently a few of us are great at it, but many, if not most, cringe at the very thought of the Cword and will do almost anything to avoid it. The man who wrote the letter to the advice column said his neighbors continually failed to curb their animals, even when he stood on the porch watching, so he came up with a “completely nonconfrontational solution that has worked without fail.”

Note the nonconfrontational approach. The man attached a pesticide dispenser to his garden hose, put some food coloring in the sprayer to make it look authentic and proceeded to spray in the evenings when the neighbors walked their dogs. He told the neighbors he had an invisible ant problem and was spraying poison on the lawn to control it, which meant it wouldn’t be safe for their pets to walk on the lawn because they would ingest the poison when they licked their paws. Worked like a charm, according to him.

He was clearly pleased with his solution, but the advice columnist wasn’t. She popped his balloon big time. “Fake poison?” she wrote in her answer to him. “Invisible ants? Lying in wait and then lying to your neighbors? Issuing phony warnings about faux toxins? Are you kidding?”

She advised him to speak to his neighbors directly, ask them to curb their pets and thank them. Easy as that. Done. Fini. Fait accompli.

Apparently she hasn’t heard of the Hatfields and the McCoys. Or the Forsters and the [they shall go nameless former neighbors to our left with the stereo system that rocked the common wall of our condo like The Big One. King Kong in Surround Sound made less noise than these people.]

The former neighbors were a workaholic single dad, who was rarely home, and his twenty-four year old unemployed son, who was always home, and who liked his music at nothing less than the decibel level of a sonic boom. Since I work at home and was on deadline, I didn’t really consider any other approach than speaking to them directly, and it never occurred to me that if politely asked, they wouldn’t do whatever was necessary to make the walls stop shaking, especially late at night. I’d found that earplugs helped slightly during the day, but as with most desperate measures, there’s a downside. Earplugs HURT.

The music was playing when I knocked on the door. Okay, that was probably bad timing on my part. It meant the son was home and the father wasn’t. The son had to turn down the music to hear me, and that annoyed him right off. You can imagine his delight when I explained the problem. Despite my gracious tones, I got a grunt and a door shut in my face.

The next day, still determined to be polite, I spoke with the father. He failed to understand the problem, not unlike the neighbors who failed to curb their pets, even under the watchful eye of the homeowner. This father was never home when the walls shook, so there was no problem as far as he was concerned. Of course, things didn’t stay polite for long. The dh got involved and the rattled neighbors on the other side joined the fray, and soon the police were making regular visits. Shortly thereafter, to everyone’s surprise, the man and his son moved. Apparently, they were renters, which proved to me there was Someone Up There watching over us poor can’t-catch-a-break neighbors. Think of the fun we could have had if they’d been owners.

To confront or not to confront? In our case, if a putting food coloring in a pesticide sprayer, lying in wait and pretending it was poison would have made any difference, I would have been happy to do it. I honestly couldn’t think of a clever nonconfrontational, nontoxic way to discourage the loud music, other than an online ad I found for one of those huge bass bins that emit low-frequency sound waves and can shatter glass. He he he. But of course the neighbors would have felt the need to one-up me, and we would all have ended up with no windows or in jail before it was over.

We’ve actually been very blessed when it comes to neighbors, like the lovely lady to our right (Hi, Mary!). But one fiasco like that is enough to make you gun shy. Before that, I would have said it’s all in how you confront. But clearly that isn’t the case. It’s also who you confront. Knock on Jaba the Hut’s door, and it doesn’t matter how polite you are.

I’ve never thought of myself as confrontational, but the dh tells me I have the perfect skill in my communications skill set. Apparently I’m a great little complainer. He’s in awe of the fact that I don’t share his qualms about sending food back in a restaurant. (He’s convinced the kitchen staff will spit in it.) I’m also the one who gets recruited to call the front desk if there’s a problem with a hotel room or if it becomes necessary to take defective merchandise back to a store. I can also be fairly tenacious (the term pit bull has been used, but I think that’s excessive) with customer service. However, that’s only if I feel some wrong has been done.

The dh cringes at that sort of confrontation, but he’s great at getting freebies, which is something I can’t do at all. He has no shame when it comes to asking for discounts and perks like room upgrades—and it’s amazing how often he gets them. Ask and ye shall, as they say. At the very least, we make a good tag team when it comes to shopping and traveling