Letters to the Editor
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Let it go?
It seems we're always being urged to let "it" go when some kind of offense occurs, as if standing up to an offense is somehow worse than the offense itself. People who are stupid, arrogant, intolerant, or selfish enough to think it's ok to go plant bushes on someone else's yard (or any of the other ignorant things people will do to their neighbours) need to be told that just because they want something a certain way doesn't mean they have a *right* to it, nor does it mean they have the right to go onto someone else's property to make changes as they see fit!
If someone had gone to a neighbourhood house that had weathered paint on it and decided to repaint it in whatever today's fashionable colour is, would that be "ok"? Would that be something to just "let go?" What if someone decided your mailbox was ugly and you came home one day and found a new mailbox in YOUR yard? At my house, half of our driveway is concrete and half is gravel - that's how it was when we got it. If someone decided they didn't like the "split surface" look and decided to have the gravel half redone in concrete, I'd be kinda pissed about it!
Planting a hedge on SOMEONE ELSE'S PROPERTY is NOT right. It's not appropriate behaviour and just "letting it go" only encourages the snob across the street in thinking its her right to rearrange the neighborhood as she sees fit. And when you consider that Oleander is a very poisonous plant, it could wind up being an actual problem for the home owner. Imagine if some neighborhood pet - or, worse, a neighborhood child - were to be attracted by the scent and popped some leaves in his mouth to chew on and became ill from it. The neighbor could actually find herself on the bad end of a negligence lawsuit!
The neighbor had ABSOLUTELY no business doing what she did. At the very least, the LW should contact the police, and let them know what the neighbor has done. The police may not be able to do much if the neighbor herself opts not to make a complaint, but if this lady tries something like this on a less passive neighbor sometime, at least the incident would be on report, which might lead the police to take a subsequent complaint more seriously than they might otherwise.
One last thought - if someone planted a bunch of bushes in the snobby neighbor's yard without her permission, just how likely would she be to "let it go?"