The Lawnmower Man

Heh..

Every morning at exactly 7am, Chief starts our lawn mower. He places it in the middle of the yard and duct tapes the bar thingy that keeps the mower running so that the motor keeps running.

He also removed the something or other that keeps it quiet so now, it’s anything BUT quiet.

He comes in … stays awhile… goes out .. mows a little.. comes in.. stays awhile.. goes out.. mows a little.

The first day he did this, the Chief of Police kept circling our house.

Apparently, our so-called neighbors still thought we had a generator.

There’s absolutely, positively NO love lost between my Chief and the Chief of Police and I wish I had had a camera to see his face when he realized it was a lawn mower.

Especially since every single thing I was able to find regarding the borough does not mention lawn mowers .. or any landscaping tool for that matter.

After a few days of this … and almost measuring our grass blade by blade to make sure we were WELL within regulation.. and mowing some more to ensure we were complaint .. Chief decided to move on to OTHER parts of the yard that needed cleaning up.

Can you say CHAIN SAW?

Dang.. those branches hanging over are dangerous. Why, the Code Enforcer Guy could poke an eye out the next time he trespassed on our back lawn.. they were hanging so low.

And since we just may have had plans on Mother’s Day he needed to get started early.

So again, at 7am this morning, he went out and just as he was about to start the chainsaw, the so-called “neighbors” two houses down walk out of their house..

He looks at them.. and in his best horror movie voice says:

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY.. HEH.. HEH.. HEH..

And rips the chainsaw chord.

I don’t know about you, but this imagine IMMEDIATELY came to mind:

Funny to, a little while later when he was yet again mowing the lawn, the Chief of Police drove down our street.. slowed down.. and pointed to the blade clippings in the street.

MY Chief gave him the finger .. because there’s no law against grass clippings in the street AND they pay a street sweeper God knows how much money to drive the obscenely expensive street sweeper machine down my block twice a week.

There’s no doubt that we’re being harrassed.. there’s no doubt that we are being made to feel like criminals for doing absolutely nothing against any violation or code.

In fact, a while ago the CEG was on our ass about a pile of wood that was neatly stacked in the way back corner of our yard. A thunderstorm had downed a tree and we had it cut down and stacked. It was there for about a year when the CEG started getting ornery about it.

Just so happens.. today.. we passed by a house a few blocks from us that has a huge pile of a former tree along side their fence .. on the outside of their property. You can tell it’s been there awhile (I just never noticed it) but it got us wondering… have THEY been harassed about removing it?

My guess is no.

But honestly, it’s tiring.

I have a job interview on Monday and if I get it .. we’ve decided to move. This job will be closer to Chief’s new job and we wouldn’t have to deal with the hypocrasy that is this borough.

And believe me.. as soon as I’m out of there, I’m naming names and giving details!

Alternative Energy: You KNOW It Wasn’t Going To Be Simple, Right??

… because, yknow.. I’m anything BUT a tree hugging, enviro hippie nut job!!

Well, maybe a nut job but not in this case!

Anyway.. we live in a land where our electric/gas company likes to rape their customers. And I’m not talking any old generic rape.. I’m talking BRUTAL prison rape.

Chief has been talking for some time about moving away from them and implementing some sort of alternative enegry.

Mind you, this man is half McGuyver and half Grizzly Adams so I really wasn’t looking forward to even HEARING what any of his “ideas” were.

We have very differing opinions of what going off the grid entails!

Anyway.. he was doing some heavy duty research. THAT I will hand to him. He’s more then willing to put the time and effort into something HE thinks is important … changing the washer on the hot water knob in the shower, though? Not so much.

At any rate.. We got hit with a ridiculously high bill :: and I mean RIDICULOUS :: along with a 10 day shut off notice. Mind you, during the usage dates this bill spanned we were in a very difficult financial situation and even though he didn’t have an income and I was receiving unemployment benefits, he was turned down for assistance. THEY claimed it was because of his 320.00 monthly child support judgment.

However, his judgement is NOT for 320.00 .. it’s for 160.00 .. and the Crack Whore hasn’t paid that since the beginning of summer.

I have my OWN theories as to why he was turned down but this isn’t the appropriate post for THAT rant and vent.

Anyway.. so with his paycheck, he went out and bought a generator. And marine batteries. And inverters. And heavy duty extension cords.

There really isn’t much in the house that needs power. 1 fridge, 2 tvs, 2 cable boxes and 3 laptops.

Mind you, I’m looking at him like he’s completely off his gourd. I was P.I.S.S.E.D that he just didn’t take his check and make an arrangement with the power company. There are certain things I can live with and certain things that I will not.. electricity falls into the WILL NOT category. Say what you will, but I am woman that likes some convenience once in a while.

But he swore that he was going to get this working and as soon as we could afford it, he’d get solar panels and a windmill. He had it all figured out but we would need to take it one paycheck at a time.

After a few days, I kind of warmed up to it. No more yelling at everyone in the house except the dogs to turn off the lights when they leaved a room .. or turn off the tv before going to bed .. that kind of stuff. If they wanted the charges to last for the laptop or router or if they wanted to watch tv later on in the evening .. well, they were just going to have to conserve.

Their annoyance gave me a sick kind of pleasure!!

But you know.. this is ME and we wouldn’t have a story if it wasn’t!

About a week or so into this endeavor, me and Chief had to go to the store. Spaz was on spring break so he was left home alone. We don’t let the generator run when an adult isn’t in the house so it was off when the borough’s code enforcement guy walked right up to our property and started examining the generator.

One thing I have to note here:

EVERYTHING was in compliance with the borough’s code. The generator was NOT hooked up to the house’s main breaker box.. we didn’t run it passed 10pm (noise ordinance) and the generator itself is within so many EPA laws it’s ridiculous. It’s even rated to operate in California .. the EPA Capital of the World!

In turn, we made sure that it was as sound proof as possible.. wasn’t an eyesore (big dog houses work great for housing one).. and didn’t start it either too early or run it too late. We even installed what looks like a car muffler on it to make it quieter. You can’t hear the damn thing if your in MY house let alone someone else’s and when you’re outside, near it, it isn’t any louder then a lawn mower.

But apparently, the neighbor two houses down has a vendetta against us ever since she called the police about a fire blazing in our yard when we were actually BBQing and the subsequent raw eggs that the Idiot King decided to lob in her yard in retaliation.

I was at the store when this whole cop calling egg throwing incident occurred, so don’t blame me for not stopping it!

Okay .. so anyway.. we come home from where we were and Spaz tells us he saw the code enforcement guy walk up into our yard and examine the dog house where the generator is.

As soon as I hear that, I told Chief to call the landlord. Any time there is an issue with the code enforcer guy, he weasels out from talking to one of us and goes right to the landlord.

Chief does and good thing.. the landlord’s office was calling at the same time. He leaves a message explaining that nothing we are doing is illegal or dangerous and that if the CEG (Code Enforcer Guy) wants to come back around and check, he’s more then welcome to.

This was a Monday afternoon.

Tuesday comes and goes and we don’t hear anything from either the landlord or the CEG.

Funny thing though.. the generator wouldn’t start. Hmmm… don’t you find that a little suspicious? I do.

Chief finally gets it going. He thought it was that fact that maybe something “enginey” had happened.. I know nothing about engines so all I heard was blahblahblahblahblah when he explained it to me. Whatever.

Wednesday morning rolls around and guess what? Generator won’t start again. He gets it working but after an hour or so, it stops again. Great. HE has to go to work.. I know nothing about what might be wrong to get it re-started.. and I figured, yknow what? I’m just going to go get another one .. we’ll worry about taking the bad one back the following day.

So me and Weed jump in the car and buy the only other generator the place had.. which was bigger then the original one .. Chief gets it going and we’re all happy campers.

And then the landlord’s office calls again late in the afternoon while Chief is at work.

She tells me that the CEG called again.. that HE called the power company and found out that our electricity had been cut off and if we didn’t have electricity re-instated by the up coming Monday, then he was going to condemn the house.

Wait..

WTF??

I told her again that NOTHING was illegal .. I told her that if the CEG wanted my electricity back on then HE could pay my bill to have it turned on.. I told her that we offered to have in come into the house.. but we haven’t heard anything from him nor did he return to the house.

She said she didn’t know if he could even do that.. and that she would have to call the owner of the house and tell him what was going on.

But I’m not going to lie.. this freaked me out. As rebellous as I am, I tend to stay within the lines and since I wasn’t the one who actually did all the research on the rules and regs and because I have never been in this situation before, I was out done.

Chief comes home from work around 10pm and I’m telling him what happened and getting more pissed off now.

I mean, isn’t GOING GREEN shoved down our throats all the time? If there was a storm and we lost power, we could use a generator then, right? Why is now so different?

Chief ASSURES me that the CEG can’t do what he threatened.. in fact, he was actually trespassing when he walking up into our yard the first time and that all this was because the asshole chief of police drove down our block when Chief was out trying to get the generator started and both glared at each other. There’s no love lost between either of them and the assumption was made that the asshole chief of police went back to the CEG and was like, “.. what the hell you doing about that generator???”.

The next morning, Thursday, the landlord calls. The actual landlord who owns the building. I right away hand the phone to Chief because I don’t want to deal with it. But guess what? HE’S just as pissed… if not more.. about the whole condemning of the property thing.. So pissed in fact that he told us to erect a fence around the property .. something we’ve been asking him to at least pay half of for the last four years.

So thank you, CEG! I’m getting my fence!!

In all seriousness, knowing that the landlord was on our side and didn’t give a rat’s ass that we were running a generator and moving to solar and wind power put my mind at ease. My indigestion had more to do with him being ok with it then the borough, I think.

Bowels and stomach operating just fine now, thank you!

But then another funny thing happened… the NEW generator stopped working. The engine operated fine but the part that makes the energy wasn’t putting anything out so we had to take THAT one back.

We’re up and running now (please don’t jinx it!!) and other then Spaz complaining when we move off generator and onto battery power for the three minutes it takes the router to go back on .. things are peachy.

Eventually, the generator will be converted to propane along with the stove and water heater and then another conversion to solar panels.

It’s baby steps.. one leap after another as the paychecks come in but right now, the only “bill” bills we have are the rent, cable and water.

Give Chief time though, he’ll think of a way to dig a well to the creek and use tin foil to get HBO!