For months, I ignored the noise coming from my neighbor Dave\u2019s garage. Every weekend, he worked on cars with friends, played loud music, and drank beer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then one afternoon, while trimming the bushes along our fence, my shears hit something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A beer bottle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I kept pulling branches aside until I realized there were bottles buried everywhere\u2014some so old that roots had grown around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My husband Mark and I counted 63 bottles<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was only one place they could have come from: Dave\u2019s garage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of confronting him, I installed two cameras facing only our property and the fence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The following Saturday, my phone alerted me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A bottle flew over the fence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then a third.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I finally had proof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I placed all 66 bottles into a recycling bin and waited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next weekend, another bottle landed beside it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I picked it up and walked to Dave\u2019s driveway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDid somebody lose this?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He denied knowing anything about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I told him exactly how many bottles I had found\u2014and showed him the footage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In one clip, a hand appeared over the fence wearing a distinctive black watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dave looked down at his wrist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The same watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His friends suddenly went silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I didn’t yell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, I told him I had already bought a recycling bin for his bottles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next morning, the bin was knocked over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This time, the camera caught everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I sent Dave the footage and asked him to stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A few hours later, his wife showed up at my door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m so sorry,\u201d she said. \u201cI had no idea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That afternoon, the garage went quiet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The next morning, I found gardening gloves on my porch with a note from Dave:<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was being an idiot. I\u2019m sorry.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n After that, the bottles stopped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our backyard finally became ours again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Weeks later, while trimming the bushes, I found one final bottle buried under the roots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Number 68.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I carried it to Dave\u2019s driveway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He looked at it and groaned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be kidding me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHistorical evidence,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He laughed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThrow it in the bin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes you don’t need a screaming match to make someone realize the mess they’ve been leaving behind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For months, I ignored the noise coming from my neighbor Dave\u2019s garage. Every weekend, he worked on cars with friends, played loud music, and drank beer. Then one afternoon, while trimming the bushes along our fence, my shears hit something. A beer bottle. Then another. And another. I kept pulling branches aside until I realized …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21472,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21473,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21471\/revisions\/21473"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cehre.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}