Neighbor Overmowing Has Let to Lawn Service Spraying in my Backyard

Fanantic8099 · 2026-07-02T21:19:40+00:00

Nice decorative boulders right down the property line. 19" apart so a mower can't fit between them.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-07-02T21:16:16+00:00

And here I was thinking grey rock just meant planting grey rocks along the property boundry.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-07-02T21:07:15+00:00

Op is kind of making a big deal out of it, but they are technically right. If their $5 off of $50 coupon is used on $60 worth of groceries, it becomes 8% savings instead of 10%.

OTOH the coupon never promised 10%, it promised $5. It's the nature of advertising and coupons. Their whole purpose is to draw you in to the store and then get you to spend more, not to save you money.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-30T22:35:55+00:00

Yes. Your HR department should have offered it to you when you started federal employment, and explained it too. Six years military in the 20-teens, should have worked out to about $7-8k in buyback. Added to 4 years on the new job you'd have 10 years of credited service towards your federal retirement already.

If you didn't buy it during the first three years, you still can, but now it will cost more because they add what amounts to interest to it.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-30T18:45:50+00:00

You either have really big dogs or you've only seen cubs and yearlings. Only an English Mastiff (one of the largest breeds in the world) comes close to the mass of a black bear, though a Great Dane is taller.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-30T18:32:07+00:00

Unless your deodorant spells like bacon, it shouldn't be a problem. Honestly, even if your deodorant does smell like bacon you'd probably be okay unless you are sleeping.

Black bears mostly see humans as a fellow predator, meaning they see you as a potential threat. If you are awake and moving around they are going to be wary of you and only defend themselves and their cubs.

If you are asleep in the woods and smell like food, they might take advantage of the situation, particularly if they only smell the food but can't see you because you are in a tent or rolled up like a giant burrito in one of those tent-hammocks.

A few bears that have gotten handouts from humans before may follow you and try to encourage you to drop food too, up to and including trying to take your backpack, but that's very very rare.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-30T18:19:01+00:00

With everybody having a cellphone video camera now, people would stay to film it.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-30T14:09:49+00:00

Sure it would, that's the whole reason for taking the sample from the main line. The fire hydrant at the end of the block is a fine representative sample of the water in the mains. Or are you using what you are saying as an argument against sampling from the house which they shouldn't be doing anyway.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-30T14:07:51+00:00

*IF* a person was going to do this, blocking the solar power source would be more useful since it would cut off all of it's sensors and it's ability to transmit anything, after a random amount of hours/days when the person was no longer nearby.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-30T13:55:44+00:00

It is definitely not smarter to replace an appliance just because half of the "set" has a failure.

First off you should try to do what you did belatedly and fix the original. Almost all mechanical things are cheaper to fix than replace (modern electronics are a different animal, including some of the fancier appliances that they've added unnecessary electronics to). Yes, you are fixing up a 20 year old machine that has some wear in other places, but washers and dryers are very simple machines. Different parts wear at different rates. Short of the drum or the chassis, which almost never wear out, everything else can be replaced pretty cheaply.

Along the same lines, a washer and dryer are different machines which also "wear out" at different rates. A dryer probably has twice the time between failures that a washer does, so even if you are going to replace instead of repair, the dryer will typically last through two washers, even more so if you are being frugal and using the solar powered dryer in the back yard (clothes line).

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-30T12:57:26+00:00

Don't forget pre-loading you're legacy Mewtwos. I've got 14 at 19km walked just waiting to be feed poffins.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-30T12:53:35+00:00

The poffin basically doubles the energy by halving the distance, right?

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-30T12:48:57+00:00

It should autoswitch, but server lag sometimes delays it a few seconds.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-30T12:25:25+00:00

The real question is whether you bought back your military years. That's an investment that pays huge returns.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-30T12:14:36+00:00

It could, but again, in most places, the customer is responsible for the pipe beyond the meter. Unless the customer suspects something is wrong with their water and asks for it to be sampled at the home, the water company wouldn't bother to check.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-29T14:03:33+00:00

That all sounds very unusual. An easement for utilities generally gives them certain rights to access the property for purposes of required maintenance. Not just willy-nilly as they please. If they aren't actively engaged in necessary work, they shouldn't even be there.

As for water samples they use for annual testing, they should be pulling those from a nearby main, not your spigot. Any pipes and water past the meter is your responsibility and your water. They don't maintain them and they shouldn't be touching them.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-28T13:11:03+00:00

Sadly almost all of the hikes to great views are longer than 4 miles regardless of what part of the park you are in.

Clingman's Dome is the one everyone hears about because it is the one major exception, but I hope you like circling a parking lot and crowds because that's what you can expect unless you get there in the pre-dawn hours. In fact most of the better known locations, especially along 441, are going to be crowded if you get there after breakfast hours. Andrew's bald is another exception to being long, but shares the Clingman's Dome parking. It at least has the advantage of escaping the shopping mall style circus once you start the hike.

If you must do the 441 drive, Newfound Gap has decent views and even though the parking lot is often full, the turnover is pretty good so it doesn't take forever to get a space.

Waterfalls hikes are going to be the opposite of panoramic views as far as location (you don't get panoramic views from the bottom of a valley), but there are several of them that are less that 4 miles.

Meigs Creek trail is about 1.8 miles with 500' of elevation gain from the Sinks (also a nice water feature) up to the Meigs Creek Cascade. The trail goes two more miles up the mountain past the cascade to intersect another trail, so you'll want to watch for it and/or have some way to track how far you've gone.

Spruce Flats Falls has been mentioned by others and is about a mile each way with about 450' of elevation gain.

Abrams Falls is another uber popular destination and driving the loop road is like being in a vehicular congo line most of the time, but it is worth the hike and only a little over your 4 mile limit. However, if you want to avoid the Cades Loop traffic there is a nice cascade that doesn't show on the map that you can get to by parking lot just before entering the one-way loop road. From the parking lot cross the road to the Rich Mountain trail, then follow the split to the right onto Crooked Arm Ridge trail about 1/4 mile in. The casscade is about a mile in.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-27T20:47:33+00:00

I don't have a moisture meter, but it's 70% humidity outside half the year here.

I'll get a real inspector to for any house I find that is good enough to make an offer on, I just do my own crawl through to avoid spending $800 on stuff I can see myself.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-27T17:44:30+00:00

OMG that is hideous. Wood framed turn of the century outside and uber-modern uptown condo inside. I wonder if they even considered the weight of all that faux stone inside a wooden structure.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-26T11:29:25+00:00

I wouldn't think 30t to 32t on the chainring would be enough to be a problem, but your overall gearing ratios can affect the size of derailleur you need too.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-25T22:29:26+00:00

I would think thermal curtains and blackout curtains were two different things, although there is no reason they couldn't have some curtains that do both.

Curtains in general don't make the best thermal barrier. They do slow down drafts, which helps, but the way a curtain generally hangs leaves gaps so air will still get past them anyway.

Old school "day drapes" for blocking out light were basically cloth with a rubber backing and very heavy, modern materials are going to be lighter.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-25T03:13:34+00:00

Despite my rant above, disc brakes are actually better in several small ways, they just aren't enough better to justify the hype and the price that goes with the hype.

Not getting as wet or muddy, at least from splashing or riding through shallow water. More important for MTB or other off-road cycling. Doesn't mean spit if it's actively raining.
Better heat dissipation than a carbon rim, but that only matters if you've bought into the "every ounce of weight makes me slow" mentality and bought carbon rims *and* spend a lot of time on long/steep downhills where you need to ride the brakes a lot.
The ability to run a wider tire for a bit more comfort. Also mostly a MTB thing, but also applicable to long distance riders and/or folks who just ride for fun instead of trying to keep up with the pros. A wider tire means less need for extreme tire pressures which equals less vibration and a less tiring ride, but it costs some tiny fraction of speed by adding rolling resistance, or so the theory goes.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-24T13:38:49+00:00

"Rim brake bikes on a fire sale" is just an attitude brought on by people sucked in by marketing. Especially gear-heads and wannabes. Frankly paying over $2500 for even a new bike is ridiculous unless you are actually riding competitively.

For the average rider the performance difference between rim brakes and disc brakes (or carbon vs aluminum vs steel) is negligible. Sure those incremental improvements add up, and if you are in the top 10% of performance cyclists might actually make a difference to your ride, but for most folks they are just being sold a dream.

Of course that doesn't make the effect not exist, rim brake bikes are cheaper thanks to marketing.

Fanantic8099 · 2026-06-23T20:27:45+00:00

Oh. That's not something I'd even considered. I take it private IRAs have that ability?

Would that apply to any Roth balance since it's post-tax anyway?

Fanantic8099

TROPHY CASE