Ms. Nosy

So last Monday, I was talking to Amy--Luigi's assistant--and she tells me she was at the house in Pinson when the neighbor meandered out, flagged her down and decided to have a chat with her. The closest neighbor isn't exactly in shouting distance. This neighbor had to go to some effort to get Amy's attention. And boy did she!

And before I go much further, I should explain something about this house. It is in the mountains. It is on a few acres. It has a pond in the back. It has a wrap-around porch. This is country living. You also should know that this is a very nice house and Luigi, Amy and I have been befuddled as to why this home is still vacant.

Before Amy had the ability to introduce herself and explain that her company was managing my home, Ms. Nosy took over. Going into great detail, she told Amy my home is falling apart. She also said it has toxic mold and someone had recently died in it (oh?!). Ms. Nosy gave Amy a litany of other property defects before Ms. Amy managed to skirt away, drive down the mountain and call me.

I knew about this last week when Luigi called me. However, Luigi had gone back out to the home Tuesday. As soon as he pulled in the neighbor managed to sprint out of her home and corral him. Having no idea who he was, she started in with the same story she had given Luigi and then wrapped it up with a bigoted proclamation that Amy--who happens to be African American was chased off yesterday. Ms. Nosy then proudly suggested she had been chasing off potential tenants with these types of stories. Especially black ones.

This house has been vacant for months longer than it should and now we know why. Apparently Ms. Nosy has taken it upon herself telling lies (mold and the home in disrepair) and added her own bigotry. This has cost me a lot of money in rent and even with this news being a week old I am completely pissed.

Luigi and I debated the trickiness of this situation (he isn't familiar yet with my issue in Leeds. Oh, won't he be in for a treat!). We decided that he will first talk with her, though I am doubting that will do any good. Someone this nosy and this prejudiced isn't going to start minding her own business just because Luigi is going to tell her to stop.

Our next step is finding a a charitable attorney willing to write her a letter ordering her to cease and desist. Perhaps a lawyer's letterhead will scare her enough to at least keep her on her front porch when a car drives up. After that, I am out of options. I am not going to sue her. However, I did ask Luigi what I could sell the home for--though I can already predict how that will go over with Ms. Nosy.

What I really want to do--and even a week later it sounds appealing--is fly to Birmingham, drive up the mountain, knock on her door and give her a piece of my mind. I am going on month five of no rent because of this woman. I have a lot to say to her right now. None of it is appropriate for this family blog. And none of it can be summed up as, "love thy neighbor."