You are at the crossroads with your neighbours. What you do next will effect the next x years you live there. You have been wronged and have the higher moral ground - don't blow it with a act of revenge.
You haven't told us what your relationship is like with these neighbours, other than their son kicks his football in your garden. We say 'you can chose your friends, but not your neighbours' and we usually find ourselves living next door to the last family on earth we would want to be pally with. You have to make the best of a bad job.
Also little girls can be just as annoying and loud as kids as boys and while they may not often kick a ball they do scream - so you will doubtless be inflicting annoyance on them soon enough.
I suggest talking - invite your neighbours round for a drink. Get to know each other - and forgive him for burning your bushes. Try seeing where that gets you before anything else. Offer to water their house plants while their away, feed their cat etc. And perhaps get a cheaper, less delicate hedge...
dave
The Budapest girl's sweat smell and taste as Paprika ...
... Zürich girl's sweat tastes as Rösti
get to know your neighbours. As others have said, now that you own the place, you are in it for the long-run. There is nothing worse than having petty feuds with your neighbours. Our little community has a party every summer so the neighbours get to know the new sheep in the flock as well as re-up old acquaintences. Our "block" for lack of better word has 12 units, and 9 are owned, the other 3 rented. At the party usually the 3 owners in abentia show up as well as the tenants! We own our own place and this party was fantastic to get to know everyone. We are now on a first-name basis with all our neighbours and don't feel at all that we couldn't speak to them if there was a problem.
Bottom line: Get to know your neighbours!
dave
I don't think anybody was serious about any revenge idea... It is just very good, and healthy (by the way) to exteriorise our feelings in some bad ideas of revenge.
But it's not because you think about it, you will do it. It is healthy to take the steam out and honestly, you feel much better after.
If you take action and do those ideas, yes, there is a problem. It is absolutely not the way to resolve a problem.
Just to think to what you could do, it make you feel better.
It help me to stay sane when I have to deal with stupid selfish idiots and I can't do much about it....
Nil
We only have one side of the story here...
Maybe the neighbours think Hat is a stupid selfish idiot if he shouted at them to keep their son's football under control? Maybe they didn't realise they burnt a hedge? Maybe they are too embarrassed to do anything about it?
Who knows.....?
If Hat gets to know his neighbours (and vice versa) then these things can be settled EASILY!
I believe HAT has spoken to the neighbour about something else and felt it was futile. Having been in that situation before I know how it feels. I would suggest HAT tries to speak to another neighbour as some sort of middleman.
Thanks for all these 31 replies.
Some good advice, some criticism, and some skepticism.
Some additional info:
1. We moved in June 2007, we bought the place.
2. House was standing there unsold for at least 1 or 2 years.
3. We have BIG flat but elevated garden grounds next to this neighbour.
4. She has a cat, which roams freely (the cat ****ted and pee'd on my new BBQ grill machine, and I said nothing)
5. First week living there, my son, 3 years old then, was over-friendly with their son 6 year old. They were playing quite nicely together, but somehow the mother came over to my wife and asked us to "remove" our son from their grounds, saying it is dangerous for him with their son.
FIRST Sign of "trespassing" into their spatial territory? I kept quiet, be the BIGGER MAN, as someone said.
After the cat pee incident and seeing how the elevation difference will pose a physical danger to my children (3 and 1 yr old), I decided to spend big money to plant Thujas. It is almost 4000chf.
As it was our land, we did not have to ask anyone. We in fact, politely informed the neighbours.
2 days after the planting, Thujas are 80cm and young, the son from next door, started to play "penalty shootouts" with intention of kicking the Thujas.
As a parent, I would be first to stop my son, from such wilful acts. However, the father was in the same garden, he can see all, and he said nothing. After 10 mins, I went over and spoke quietly to him, asking him if it was ok, if his son stopped kicking at the plants, because they were very recently planted and the gardener suggested not to disturb them.
He sheepishly said, it was accidental play and not really wilful play.
SECOND SIGN of (sorry to say this) SWISS Behaviour: Deny all wrong doings.
There exist a small gap between our Thuja (corner) and their granite wall barrier. The son is used to enter their garden using this "corner". However, when he does this, his steps erodes the soil (imaging a small hilly corner) and the Thuja may fall out.
I asked the neighbours about this, and they insisted the son is NOT ALLOWED to walk there, because it is dangerous. At this very same time, the same son was walking there.
When it became a little hot, because the son again kicked our Thuja and he again walked through the corner, guess what the parents did.
They accused my son of throwing stones into their garden. They claimed "this never happened until you arrived".
BINGO!
Third sign of swiss behaviour: when accused, accuse back.
After this unhappy beginning, we avoided them. But I try again to be "BIGGER MAN". I met the man in the garage one day, and I went over and apologised (although I dunno what I did wrong) and suggested that we try again to be good "friends". I also asked him why his wife seemed to dislike our son.
I expected something like "no, it is not true. It is misunderstanding...etc etc".
Instead, he said bluntly: go speak to her yourself. I don't know.
-----------------------
Months passed. Things seem to improve. We wave at each other when we meet. Although being a frank and direct person, I feel very false.
But what to do? I am foreigner, so I do what the swiss do....be false.
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2 weeks ago, as i explained, this man has been BBQing with this small portable bbq. I even thought, what the heck, if there is a proper BBQ onsale, I may just buy it for him, as a present.
He places the BBQ on the granite wall (his right really). But it is inches from my Thuja.
I told my wife, never mind, let him be.
It is only after examining the BURNT Thuja, that I changed my mind . We cannot let him be.
I intend not to talk first, but I played out a drama the last 2 days, watering the Thujas like mad, in view of them.
If they should be so stupid to BBQ there again, then I shall talk to them.
Doing revengeful things to them, is a way for me to express my anger. I may or may not do them.
However, based on some other things this family does, like parking a big pallet of flammable copier paper in the tiefgarage, shows how "considerate" they really are.
12 months, they only talked to us say 3 times, 2 of them in quarrel mode.
Ha ahahah..
Thanks for reading.
HAT
Do you live in a flat or a free-standing house? You said you bought your own house but live in a big flat....
If this is a unit composing multiple properties then shouldn't you have a Versammlung once a year to air out problems, etc. If this is a free-standing house then obviously this doesn't apply. But, you mentioned a Tiefgarage which means that there is common property which should lead to a yearly meeting for the owners. Have you had one of these yet?
Well i guess talking to your neighbur might be the best option, after all people tend to be a lot more straigt forward and sometimes petty over things like how you tie your paper recyling and your rubbish. It is only fair, good neighburs are god send and we all love to have them but after all you dont have to like them and vice versa, so be straight forward and if that dont work , write a letter.
good luck
Offering him a beer (a free one, perhaps) would be an excellent place to start.