How to Irritate People in the Garden

Are you unfortunate enough to live next door to a neighbor who is a world class jerk?

Perhaps you have a neighbor who is the “Property Line Persecutor” or the “Building Inspector Tattle Tale” or the dreaded “Just an Ass”. There are, of course, many, many more types of jerks that you can run up against in your everyday life but if you live next door to one, that can make pleasurable gardening more of a chore than it should be.

You could do something like say, oh, throw rotten eggs at their car or TP their house but because they live right next door to you these are probably is not viable options. Besides, doing these things would be childish. Satisfying, but childish.

In situations like these you are much better off taking the passive aggressive route and slowing driving your neighbor mad until they are forced to sell their house and move or take up residence at a local mental health institute. Either way, they will be out of your hair.

Your garden provides a great many opportunities to irritate a neighbor such as this.

Today, we will cover just a few of these garden irritation options.

1. Get a garden gnome ‘ And not just any garden gnome. Get one dressed like your jerk neighbor’s former profession. Then sit back as he makes an ass out of himself in the international news.
2. Add large phallic garden art to your backyard – Nothing says loving like an oversize phallic symbol thrusting out of your back garden. The more realistic, the better. Be responsible and keep the art in question away from small fries eyes, but make sure your jerk of a neighbor can’t enjoy a single back yard barbecue without feeling that things are just a bit stiff.
3. Build a small working lighthouse and run it at all hours of the night – The beauty of a lighthouse over a run-of-the-mill garage light is that a revolving lighthouse light is not constant. The body can adjust to the constant light of a flood light. But light that happens in intermittent bursts will just drive a person batty. Bonus points for you if you can align the light to go into your neighbor’s bedroom window.
4. Make decorating your garden for a holiday a year round extravaganza – You are suppose to keep Christmas in your heart year round, so why not the garden? Making your yard an August Winter Wonderland complete with Christmas trees, Santa, the Elves and Baby Jesus smiling from in between the daylilies is sure to push a few of your jerk neighbor’s buttons. For an extra annoyance factor, choose to decorate year round for the atypical decorating holidays like President’s Day or Groundhog Day.
5. Take up plastic garden decoration collecting – If one pink flamingo looks kitschy think what 30 or 40 will do for your yard. Start your own Noah’s Ark of plastic garden critters. Just for extra annoyance factor, dress your menagerie and change their clothing at least once a week. Give them cutesy names and talk about them to your neighbor as though they are living creatures.

This is not a comprehensive list of all the things your can do in your garden to irritate your neighbors if they happen to be jerks but it is enough to get those creative juices flowing.

Remember, while good fences make good neighbors, good garden based irritation tactics will get bad neighbors to move out and will give good neighbors a chance to move in.