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This tale of neighbour annoyance comes directly from the Department of Be Careful What You Wish For.
Take a happy little row of modern townhouses where most of the neighbours get along with each other most of the time. The walls between their gardens are “extended” upwards by the addition of plant pots and everyone is happy.
Even when one resident breaks the mould slightly and included an abstract “romantic” pottery statue of a couple embracing in their parade of pottery, no one raised an eyebrow. Why would they? The figure was bought from a major home improvement chain.
Then a new couple with young children moved in next door and asked that the statue be removed as it was inappropriate (the female figure was clearly female) and they didn’t want their children exposed to that kind of display.
Errrr, no, said the statue owners. There’s nothing wrong with the statue. It’s not obscene or even erotic. It’s just profiles of two human shapes.
The offended couple took the issue to the strata committee but they sided with the statue owners. Everyone went back to their semi-bucolic bliss until the offended couple complained that the 30 cm-high statue was a danger to anyone walking past the wall as it could fall and hurt someone.
At another strata committee meeting, the statue owners challenged all the others to weigh their lightest pot plants and discovered the statue was far from the heaviest item on the walls. Ironically, the offended couple’s plant was.
End of story, or so everyone thought until they received a letter from their strata manager.
As someone had raised the issue of health and safety regarding items sitting on the wall, the owners could now be liable if a pot plant ever did fall and injure someone. All the pot plants had to come down … including those belonging to the owners who complained.
The pots are on the ground now but someone has complained about plants obstructing their giant 4WD baby buggy.
You’d have to think some people just aren’t cut out for strata living. You can comment on this potty corner of strata living HERE.
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