Published on 12, July, 2020
Good Day. I my best Aussie accent.But back to being serious.just wondered as you know I talk about my lovely neighbours and my ongoing issues.The latest is one of them has sent a very aggressive letter demanding that we remove items from a wall that he considers his and that basically we have been accused of stealing their land.We have lived here for nearly 7 years and have never had an issue.This person moved in around 18 months or so ago and has been flexing his muscles.My understanding is that as much as we would like to no one can lay down the law and tell a fellow property owner that they must do something now.
Am I right in thinking there should be a friendly discussion first then mediation if that fails and then they would need to instruct their own lawyer to establish rights.As you can imagine with my Autism OCD and anxiety this has given me a day from hell getting said letter by hand on a Saturday
Look forward to any advice or if anyone else has gone through this
Outside their house in the street there is a little metal box with a flip top lid that allows the firemen to turn off the water supply to their house.
It is not a good idea to turn it off in the middle of the night and fill the hole with "postcrete".
And although sometimes it's an easier feat that turning that tap in the street (they can been deep and stiff) to find the 4 inch pipe that carries the wastes from the house and drop the contents of a larger bag of postcrete in there, you still should not do that.
BUT, as my own negotiatons with adverse neighbours (different causes, but it does need to be sorted) are undertaken, I know I can make their house/business completely "unlivable" with very little real effort or expense, and with a modicum of planning they'd never know who did it.
Having this power to "just shut them down" in the back of my head reduces their "scariness" and allows me to concentrate on the real mission, which is to make them like me, and just stop being "kakheads".
In similar situations in the past using the mighty psychology in that book I recommend I have turned such people from being adversaries, to allies. And it's ridiculously easy, once you get the "idea" behind it.
This is a variant of the old proverb "speak softly but carry a big stick" and also the product of my very limited military experience and the preceding traiing. I cannot stress enough, that whilst you need to have an evil and powerful plan to obliterate the opposition and actually make sure you have the capibilty of carrying it out, moving to execution of your plan is the last thing you EVER want to do.
You now have to come up with something "better"! So that you don't have to do the bad thing..
In my case I have a whole suite of better options in play, and they are gradually working, because as I negotiate my way to a better relationship with people who took an instant dislike to pretty much everything I am I can excercise a lot more patience.
After all, I have the ability to make their bathroom, and kitchen totally useless, and if I make sure I mix the postcrete right, for a period measurable in weeks...
It really does help me keep a cheerful demeanor when negotiating with these would-be foreign crime king pins that my little empire is surrounded by.
SOME PEOPLE think up evil schemes and do them to others, DO NOT DO THIS.
It really takes the fun out of the whole thing, very fast indeed, and you might (like me in the dim and distant past) discover you have a "conscience" and have done something that was needless and stupid and you can't remember without cringing inside.
But the day they guy who regularly stole my drink, helped himself to most of 18 finely ground ex-lax that had fallen into a bottle of pop, I still do not feel in the slightest bit guilty about..
It would have been creepy if i'd added it to HIS food or drink, but adding it to my own part used bottle of drink and watching him swagger in and "rob" it, that was ruled fair play by my NT peers at the time.
Never engage with hostile people in a way that they expect.
Being unexpectedly, genuinely NICE to people who don't like you, is way more powerful and effectvie than a fist in the face, but you don't want to "simp" you just do something that genuinely nice as soon as you recognise the opportunity. (That's where the transactional psycholgy book I recommend to all who think like me comes in dead useful) The guy who used to report me to the council when I first came here, ended up putting my bins out and cutting my front lawn. The last guy a decade or so previous ended up handing me a beer, and generally stopped being a pain. I just waited for my moment, bided my time and used "niceness" on 'em when they least expected it.
Read Art of War by Tzu. You can beat them, you just got to figure out how, and keep checking your own behaviour, in case you are accidentally being annoyng in away that will cost you nothing to stop doing.
I like your style my friend but not me perhaps I need close protection !