You might check with your local fire authority to see if they are in violation of brush clearing laws.

Good idea and thank you for the suggestion. We have had the fire dept. out, they can't do anything because the weeds aren't threatening buildings. It was the Sherrif's dept that suggested perhaps wild flowers could somehow magically appear in the weeds (they had to come out several times because of the horrible things the neighbors have done -- we also now have a restraining order).

I am going to closely monitor the weeds for ones on the Agricultural commissioner's list of noxious weeds. Should any pop up, and I think they will, we will be giving them a call for control.

In the meantime, I'm going to fight them with flowers and continue to smile when I drive by. :-)

How about a goat?

Once the California poppies are growing, it is illegal to mow them down or eradicate them. But they look pretty, the official State Flower.

We have a "problem" (drastic understatement) neighbor that has accused us of all kinds of kooky things (watering the roof of her house, following her on the freeway, blah, blah, blah). We live in Lakewood, California. The lots are small and the typical backyard has a garden bed around the perimeter and then a grass area. Crazy neighbor's garage wall creates one wall of the back yard.

We recently removed a row of bricks that created a terraced effect against the garage. The problem was that when we removed the bricks and dirt, the bottom of the garage wall was stained from the dirt. I knew if CN saw me painting the wall, she would call the police. I ended up doing it at night.

It's just nice to know we are not alone. I am sending positive vibes to your poppies. May they thrive!!!!

I am the midnight gardener.
Seriously, there's a couple of things I do which I have a perfect right to do, but I would rather not have to confront the neighbor. Like the person in Lakewood, our lots are close together and our lots are narrow (40 feet wide). So the next door neighbor who lets all kinds weeds grow on their front lawn (did I actually call it a lawn?)is a pain. My lawn is right across the narrow driveway from theirs. All the dandelion seeds and other weed seeds blow right in our direction. I am constantly pulling weeds out of my flower bed and pulling them out of the lawn. We grow the lawn extra tall to try to deter the neighbor's weeds. I am not a lawn fanatic but my family and I do all the lawn work ourselves, so it's a matter of pride that we try to keep our lawn in good shape.

So when the neighbor became extra lax in even mowing their weed patch, and the weeds crawled onto our driveway, YES, I sprayed RoundUp on the weeds crawling onto our driveway. And a little extra roundup on the edge of their weed patch. In the wee hours of the night.

Did I mention that these people actually put manure on the weed patch every spring?? Go figure. I even had a cop who was at our house look at their weed patch and sarcastically say "Nice lawn."

The other thing I do occasionally is snip back the tree branches coming over the backyard fence. These same neigbors added a guest house and a house addition on to their property. They "maxed" out their property, leaving very little open space for landscaping. So they planted trees right next to our shared wall that runs between the properties. I love trees but I resent that because they decided to max out their property, they planted the trees so close to the wall that the branches will eventually grow onto our side and shade out the plants I am growing in my yard. Not to mention the leaf debris, and the eventual maintenance pruning. So I snip the young branches back to the property line, which I am legally allowed to do. But again, I do it at night.

These people do what they want, and I am not going to change that by talking to them.

Love the goat idea! Unfortunately, CN (love the term CN!) would shoot it if he saw it on his mother's property.

Kelly & Buddy, I'm sorry you have CN's too. It is nice to know we are not alone... I have a feeling that I'll be doing a lot of midnight gardening until those weeds either start getting mowed again or become wildflowers.

I was so shocked at CN's hatred and malace when we first built our home and moved out here. We have never had a problem with neighbors before, we are good neighbors, most people actually like us. Our home is our pride and joy, it is our dream home that we scrimped and saved for 16 years to build. I designed every inch of it and we are doing all the landscaping ourselves so we are very personally invested and will not be driven out by CNs. We've increased their property value tremendously by building our home. We are quiet and our children are polite. We take pride in our gardens, the yard always looks great. We don't have loud parties or park cars on the lawn. Besides that, we live way out in the country, we have 100 acres and CN has 80. It's not like we are on top of each other! They are mad that we exist and there is no reasoning with them. They could have bought the property before us but chose not to, then assumed it would just continue to be farmed with no development as it had always been. They're darn lucky we bought the land and not someone who wanted to turn it into a duck club with 100 camp trailers lined up on the property line and hundreds of hunters waking them up every morning! Sometimes I have fantasys of allowing my husband's city hunting buddies bring their trailers out here during duck & geese season just to freak CNs out! Alas, husband is a calm, mild mannered guy and doesn't want to make the situation any worse. Thus I fight with flowers :-)

Today I picked up a couple of bulk packets of Mexican Primrose and as I drove up the drive this evening I threw handfuls out the window onto the weedy strip. It was very edgy as it was only dusk! I felt so daring! LOL It's supposed to start raining tonight so hopefully they'll germinate. My mom had MPs that took over her yard, I'm hoping these do the same.

You are NOT alone! My CN accused us of watering her driveway, causing it to crack. Her house is a disaster...peeling paint, dried-up front lawn, dead rose bushes, etc. She has called the sheriff on us numerous times for ridiculous things and filed a restraining order against us (we don't set foot on her property because we realize she is unstable). She has caused problems with all the neighbors around her. We did go to court, with about eight other neighbors, and got the restraining order removed. CN acted her crazy self in the court room and the judge "got it". Like you, Miss Poppy, we are decent, caring people. Most people really like us. :)

We bought our house about 15 years ago. When the previous owners remodeled, they asked CN if they could lay their sod about 1 foot onto CN's property. CN agreed (big mistake). In one of her ranting sessions with us, she reminded us that part of our grass was on her property (this grass area butts up to her driveway). CN then placed potted palms (they are now dead) on a good portion of her driveway, so it FORCES her to drive onto our grass. All we can do is chuckle.

It is a little twisted, though, isn't it? The CNs in the world make us start looking a little crazy...like throwing flower seeds out the window at night or painting garage walls in our pajamas!!!!

overcomingweeds, why dont you just spray round up as you come home and as you leave along the edge of your driveway for starters... do it once a week.

I am blessed to not have CNs.. and they are all quiet. But their front grass/weed patches (or lawns) are a nightmare and they wont do a thing. Im stuck in the middle and it drives me nuts to see the dandelions in the air. I added St. Augustine instead of fescue, and this is the only way I can keep the weeds out. My planters I have to yank out weeds all the time. It drives me nuts! but heck, at least they keep to themselves, are quiet and dont bother anyone. That's the exchange I guess, but I feel like I live next to abandoned haunted houses.. LOL