She told me that and I was so stunned, I just sort of stopped and stared at her and did one of those mindless smile and nod things.

She called last Thursday and said she was calling to tell me she was coming to take the flagpole bracket off the garage. I said,"But I'm using it." She said that she knew that and then something along the lines of it was her house and that she'd take it if she wanted to. I called the hardware store who said they'd have those stocked in a few days and called her back and told her to go buy her own. I told her that I paid $1100 a month for the house as it was with the fixtures as is. I also told her that she was welcome to take it if she replaced it with something comparable because I'd spent several hundred dollars buying seasonal flags and that the one by the door was too small for the expensive nice wood flagpole I had and I'd left the bracket I had in Davis when we moved. She seemed miffed when we hung up, but I figured no big deal, she'd be patient and go buy her own.

When I went to shop on Saturday with my neighbor, she came over when Mike was here and simply removed it and told him I could go buy my own. He stood there in slackjawed amazement. When she removed it she left the screw holes and left a big wood chip on the side of the garage. Lord knows how!

I'll grant you it's a small thing, but if she'd asked, I might have worked something out with her, but she claimed it was her house and she could take it if she wanted to. Frankly, at $1100 a month, it's MY house. I keep thinking, what's next? The dishwasher?

I thought maybe that was the end of it then on Monday, some strange guy comes to my door in the middle of dinner and wants to look over the house for painting. I was sullen, I'll grant you, but I hadn't been warned of said visitor and my lease says I get 24 hours notice and workmen are supposed to show up during normal business hours. Dinner is NOT normal business hours. That and they haven't discussed said painting with us at all. When I asked the guy when this was supposed to take place, he said on a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in late October. Being that I work from my home, Friday is kind of a problem. Friday without notice is impossible. Being that they apparently aren't talking to us, it appears we aren't going to get notice. Being that the lease says workmen can't show up during non business hours, we can tell them to fuck off on the weekend, in addition, if they give us no notice versus even 24 hour notice, I can tell them to fuck off, too. So they just may be fucking off a lot in late October.

Then my daycare person, who picks up kids at the same school this woman's son goes to said that the landlord wouldn't even look her in the eye. Apparently, she's doing this over a $10 piece of hardware she could have bought damned self at the hardware store and she knows she did wrong. But they're all freaked out about people living in the house, and unfortunately, that's at the expense of our privacy and peace and quiet. At the kind of money we are paying, they can go to hell. Most houses in this area are $200 less a month!

I called and left a really polite message on Monday. I had Mike listen to me leave it, so he can vouch for the fact that I was very polite. Really! I waited three days and I sent them something in writing today.

I told them what repairs still aren't made and told them if they didn't make the repairs in a couple weeks that I would make them myself and deduct them from the rent. I brought up questions we had about changes to the yard in the back. I also told them no workmen on the weekends before 930AM and that I wanted a week notice before they were coming, so I could arrange my work schedule.

If I don't get my notice, I'm kicking the painters out and making them come back the following week, so I do get my notice.

I'm in no mood, dammit.

But my daycare person said something really wise.

She said she prays for people who cuss her out because it makes her feel better. I've been praying for them. "God, please bless them and have them be happy. Please protect my family and my home. Amen."

It made me mad, but that really does help.

If things escalate, then we move at Christmas time. Friends have already said they'd help. Hopefully, we can just get Bear through a year of school, but we suspect that they'll just keep working on being assholes, though it appears it's not too much work for them, afterall.