Exercising Your Rights

A close friend of mine once told me "Your rights are not given to you, you have to take them." As you continue to read my blog you will realize that I have had to exercise my rights many times in the last year. Once with my ex-landlord, once with my ex-employer and the other day against my neighbour.

A few months ago a house across the street was purchased. The people who moved in were horribly annoying. I'm talking blaring music, noising kids and disturbing mess. This month the house went up for sale again! Yippee! We were so excited that they would be leaving the neighbourhood so that we could enjoy the peace again.

Well they painted the house inside, took down the blinds and left a huge mess out on the side walk for 2 weeks. The house is empty. The mess of garbage spanned across a few feet and had everything from paint cans, children's toys and of course... fast food wrappers. They moved out , put up the sign and left the filth for us to enjoy.

The house is directly across from mine and everyone who comes to visit commented on the mess. I tried emailing the owner, calling the number and everything. Finally I found an ad for the house online and emailed him directly through the ad. I warned him if he didn't clean up the mess last weekend that I would call the city on Monday since it was violating a city bylaw.

You have to understand readers that the garbage men will not clean this mess and I don't think they should have to. It has rained and its also been hot and the pile smelled. Not only that but it was starting to go into the street and some had even blown into my yard! Grrrrrrr.

So the weekend came and went with no clean up. On Monday I called the city and reported it. On Tuesday I watched the garbage men drive by the mess and shake their heads. Wednesday morning I saw the garbage once again as I left to go to my grandfathers. Wednesday night the garbage was gone.

So I guess the owner just needed a little push from the city and the threat of fines to get his butt into action!