Thanks for that!
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Excellent!! I’m going to try this (when we get a dishwasher)! 
I don’t really get that recipe because it calls for baking soda & vinegar, a base & an acid which mixed together neutralize each other. Maybe someone more sciencey can explain how that’s not completely useless, lol.
Last week the AC died & the next day the fridge stopped working! Yesterday the compressor on the fridge got replaced so that’s fixed, whew. Today we’ll have an estimate on a new AC. All at the same time we’re finally booked for finishing the back room - stairs, siding, drywall, electrical work, etc. This has been an expensive summer but at least we’ll be going into autumn with a few things taken care of.
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The only thing I can think of is that the proportions (4 cups of base, .5 cups of acid, plus .5 of citric acid) react a bit, but the vinegar is not enough to cause all of the base to react. Once it is dried, and then rewetted when you use the dishwasher, the reaction continues.
She does say in the article that she does not add the vinegar to hers or to add an extra cup of vinegar to the dishwasher when using. For her, the citric acid is probably what causes the baking soda to react when wet. Liquid/water is the catalyst that causes the reactivation of the base and acid.
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Well, we had something unexpected yesterday! I wasn’t home but we had an unexpected visit from a building inspector from the city. They didn’t give the exact details, but they said someone in our neighbourhood had notified the city about unpermitted building work happening here and us causing nuisance and making a mess.
We’ll receive the final report in a week or so, but it looks like the inspector wasn’t concerned about anything. For a short period of time we did indeed cause nuisance (we had a skip outside of our home and demolition was going on) but that was a fairly short period of time, 6 months ago. And we always made sure we complied with the noise regulations.
The inspector looked a bit surprised, it seems the house was much more finished than he’d expected it to be based on the information they received. There’s no visible work going on, there are floors everywhere (upstairs still temp sheet vinyl, but a proper floor) no dirt, no mess, clearly lived in but not fully painted yet and some of our furniture is still in storage.
He took some measurements but I’m absolutely sure we didn’t do any unpermitted work. I have a degree in law and spent some time going through local regulations. We did increase the footprint of the house by a little bit, but not enough to need a permit, and we did not make unpermitted structural changes or remove any load-bearing walls.
I have a bit of a bad taste in my mouth about the complaints though. We have frequent contact with all of our close neighbours, we’ve asked them quite often about nuisance, we’ve given them chocolate and champagne to apologize, they’re all super curious and find excuses to visit our house. If someone is concerned about permits, jealous or angry they’ve hidden it very well. Maybe it’s from someone who lives a bit further away and doesn’t know us personally. Or maybe the complaint is from 6 months ago and the city is just very slow.
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That last bit is most likely.
Aren’t people awful? Our neighbourhood has a few busy bodies that watch everything & think their opinions are law. I made good friends with the closest ones so they will talk to me directly if they have an issue, & also so they will watch out for our teenagers when we’re away, haha.
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I am so sorry you have had this experience, it would sour things for me, too.
If you have trouble shaking it off, I wonder if you can inquire as to the date the complaint was made? Knowing it was a long time ago might help feeling less irked.
Or you could just choose to believe that it was from the Time of the Skip and let it go.
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There is always one person that has to be “right” and the neighborhood “vigilante”…I am sure it was the city being slow in responding…I would think the person might be jealous of all of your improvements or just wants to feel important.
Remember my neighbor from my old house? We went out to dinners, knitting club, shopping, etc. She sent in a complaint about my cat to the county zoning board…never said anything to me about it…behind my back. I was so angry and hurt that she would throw away our friendship by doing this. Looking back, I am sure she was prodded by her sour daughter-in-law and regrets that she listened to her. We could have easily fixed this problem had she come to me, but instead…well, anyway…people are not my favorite living things sometimes!
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What a waste of a friendship! Over something as small as a cat, I’m sure you’d have been able to solve that between the two of you.
I’m going to wait and see what the formal response from the city will be, maybe that includes more details about the complaint. I just really hope it’s not from anyone we know well. We know everyone on our street and we’re all friendly, as far as I know. I hope it’s just a random busybody from three streets away with nothing else to do. We knew we were going to cause some nuisance, and we apologized in advanced and gave everybody our phone numbers, but these are older homes from the 1940s and all owners are renovating them, one by one, it’s inevitable.
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What a pain!! I hope nothing untoward comes of it!!
There does always seem to be someone who has to complain!!
All the improvements you’ve been making are great!! Enjoy them to the fullest!!
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How disappointing! For you and the inspector. 
The price of living in a society - i.e. around other people - is that other people are a nuisance. That’s just how it is and we all have to accept a certain level of inconvenience - all adults capable of independent living should know this.
Back in Portland, TheMisterT’s last house had come with a 6’ privacy fence that was too close to the sidewalk to meet code - but it existed and was accepted. Well it eventually rotted and fell so he replaced it with a much better looking 6’ privacy fence w/o thinking a thing of it. Months later a letter from the city came and he had to attend a neighborhood committee meeting to defend it. His close neighbors sent letters of support, one even came to the meeting. The complaint was anonymous and a French member of the Committee compared the anonymous neighbor to the Nazi’s and the situation to Vichy France! THE DRAMA! Anyway, TheMisterT ended up having to pay for a permit in arears w/o a fine since he was simply replacing an existing “structure”… with a safer, better, more attractive one.
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Aaarghh. Who really cares that much about a neighbour’s fence?? Especially if it’s a new and good looking fence. I used to live in a neighbourhood where someone kept koi carpers in a pond in his front yard. When they kept being stolen he put up a 7 ft tall sheet metal fence with camera’s and barbed wire right next to the sidewalk. He ended up having to tone it down a bit. That really felt like walking past a prison 
but I understand his frustration about the theft.
People are annoying. My neighbour on one side is an outside cigarette smoker and the other one smokes pot. When I open my windows, I can smell the smoke sometimes and then I have to close the windows. It’s annoying, but people are entitled to do smelly things on their own property.
The Netherlands is a densely populated country and I live in the innercity, if someone doesn’t want to deal with people they should move to a place without people - northern Scandinavia or Siberia or something. I thought Montana would be safe from neighbours but as you still hear your neighbours’ noise, it’s clearly not remote enough.
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I read somewhere about a vegan neighbor asking their omnivorous neighbor not to barbeque in their backyard. I understand them wanting to not engage with cooking meat and smelling it is engaging, but… a personal desire for certain conditions and expecting those conditions are two separate things.
People move to our county, specifically, because it’s notorious for not having rules, but being adjacent a city with amenities and jobs. We didn’t know about this rule thing when we moved here almost 11 years ago and back then it was way less the case - both with lack of enforcement and with neighbors just not giving a 
about modifying their behaviors or not giving in to every impulse to be considerate and neighborly.
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Speaking of lousy neighbors…
I am so angry right now. Jim went out to get the mail, and came in with several things, including an unmarked envelope, that was just left in the mailbox. It told us that we need to take care of our yard, and how the sender 'feels bad for the R----‘s and G—s, and everyone else on the cul-de-sac’, (the R—'s live next to us, and we have no idea who the G—‘s are). Since we moved in back in March, we have spent over $14,000 just on repairs and improvements to the house. (That doesn’t include furniture, or other household needs.) It’s obvious that the house was in disrepair for years before we bought it, and any neighbor nosey enough to leave a note, surely was nosey enough to take a look at the Zillow listing online. The note also stated that they were 'making a list of houses to report’. I’m not sure to whom, but probably the HOA.
I wish we had been able to spend that $14,000 on landscaping, and repairing the yard & patio tiles, and replacing the overgrown fence. And repainting the house, which definitely needed to be repainted 5 years ago! Unfortunately the chimney, a window, and a door, were all rotting out, and had to be repaired and replaced. Jim is outside mowing every week. My mom spent a full week weeding (mostly the backyard, but also the sides where she could), and filled 24 lawn bags with weeds. Jim has pulled many bags too. I’m not sure if they think I personally should be doing more yard work, but I’m not really sure how to do that, with a toddler to watch. Ada sleeps about 2.5 hours every day, when I scramble to get housework done to keep everything going. If I spent that time weeding, I not only wouldn’t be able to finish the task, but we’d never eat, or have clean clothes.
The R’s who live next to us, own a property management company, and have a line of trucks here every week, along with an entire groundskeeping crew, to keep their yard looking like a golf course at all times. The people who live next to them are lawyers, and clearly employ gardeners. Many of the houses have well tended yards, with some professional landscaping done in the spring, that they are able to maintain on their own for the season. Apparently two owners ago, the woman who lived here was a “master gardener” (according to several neighbors), who spent every day sun-up to sun-down in the yard, working on it. Unfortunately she got older and started letting it go, and then the next owners let it keep going. (That guy gambled all their money away, without telling his wife.) Even if I didn’t have Ada to watch, even if Jim & I spent hours in the yard every day, it’s more than we could possibly fix in a single season. It’s the kind of situation that requires a professional service and tens of thousands of dollars to get back into pristine shape.
Now I’m debating going and talking to the R—'s next door. The husband is the HOA president, and they’ve seen Jim outside working every weekend. Part of me wonders if it was one of them who wrote the note, while another part of me knows we’ve told them how hard we’re working to fix things up, one item at a time. Right now, in midsummer, Jim is having to spend a couple hours a day taking care of the pool, so it doesn’t fall into worse repair. In the fall, he’ll be back to doing a few more hours a day in the yard. We’re already saving to get the house painted in the spring. I don’t really know how we’re supposed to have done more in just a few months.
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That sucks. It may be worth showing the letter to Mr. R in the capacity of letting the HOA prez know that someone, presumably a homeowner, is sending anonymous hate mail. The board may not be able to do anything about it without knowing who the sender is, but they should know it’s going on.
His reaction may also give you some insight into how likely it is that the Rs were involved…
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I agree with @megwell…go talk to them and maybe give them a little plan so they at least know you know the yard needs work, and that the HOA president should not tolerate harassment and bullying!
Or, start a little bonfire at the end of your drive and openly burn the note… 
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Yes, I agree. And if the president is not involved he knows he needs to be alert when someone shows up with a list of “problem homes”.
You’ve only lived there for a couple of months @MistressJennie and from what you’ve told and shown us, the house needed lots of work and you guys are spending a lot of time and money on it. Your neighbours should be glad the house was bought by a young family with impeccable taste who are going to bring it back to it’s former glory. You’re just not going to be done next week and that’s fine. Mowing every week and weeding when you can means it can’t look that bad.
I’m also 100% sure that hate mail sender has looked up the listing, plus probably sales and mortgage records too if those are publicly accessible where you live. That’s what these kind of people do.
If you ever find out who it is, just know we’re all here to send your neighbour lots of happy mail with lots of glitter as a random act of kindness. Doesn’t sound likw they’re familiar with that…
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People. What a bunch of a$$holes! I agree about speaking with Mr. R about it and sharing the letter. You could also speak to the USPS since putting a letter or parcel into a mailbox without paying postage and/or being a USPS employee is illegal as I understand it… and this person seems to reallllllly care about rules.
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Oh please!! Sorry that this happened to you and Jim!!
I agree that showing the letter to R would be the best option (although burning it publicly has appeal -you’d have to know who sent it to be sure to time it so they would see).
A few years ago we had Jackson’s friends over one day to help with yard work. The dogs were out in their fenced area rather than just leave them inside. Lady barked a lot because there were a lot of people here (some she knows, some she didn’t). We got an anonymous letter threatening us with the police and animal control (neither would have done anything - this is the country - people’s dogs bark). Not - “we’d appreciate it if you could keep your dogs quieter”, but “we’re going to call the cops!” It was just that one day - she doesn’t bark like that all the time.
It might have been amusing if they had called the cops - because they probably would have called the Oakland cops, and we’re in Livingston. Sometimes it is good to live on the country line!!
Hope you never receive another anonymous bullying letter again!!
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Ah man, hopefully that was just a busy-body visitor to the 'hood & not a secret shitty neighbour.
Don’t take it too much to heart, opinions are like buttholes, as the saying goes. Sometimes the people that expose theirs are doing so out of an utter lack of class & civility.
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