That both parties are considered "highly educated" is something of a laugh - obviously everything they need to know they did NOT learn in kindergarten - so, yea a stern kindergarten teacher might have helped.

The whole thing is a hilarious read (yet of course sad that people behave this way, using taxpayer-funded courts to beat on each other).

I liked, in particular, his reference in paragraph [24]. That being:

... As my colleague Perell J. put it in High Parklane Consulting Inc. v Royal Group Technologies Ltd., [2007] OJ No 107 (SCJ), at para 36, “[i]t is trite to say that making a living is a stressful activity and that much of life can be nasty and brutish. Tort law does not provide compensation for all stress-causing and nasty conduct that individuals may suffer at the hands of another…”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

I'll never understand why people are willing to get into these battles with neighbors. You live right there for Christ's sake! How miserable would that be to not be friendly.

I live in a pretty close quarters apartment and I was the dick head neighbor Saturday night/Sunday morning. I wasn't playing music or anything. I had a female friend over and we stayed up talking and laughing quite late. Okay, very late. We both talk and laugh pretty loudly. It was totally my fault and I felt terrible when the upstairs neighbor, at four in the morning, had to march downstairs and ask that we keep it down.

I typed up a letter and put it on his door. Here it is:

Hi [upstairs neighbor],
I wanted to apologize for disturbing you the other night. It’s hard to know how good or bad the walls are here because I have such good and quiet neighbors myself. I understand that I must have been horribly annoying for a very long time in those early hours to compel you to schlep downstairs and bring it to my attention. Also, thanks for being so civil about it. You must have been a lot more angry than you let on. I’m really very sorry.
Please store my phone number in your phone and feel free to give me a “pipe down” text at the very first sign of me or my guests getting a bit loud in the future. Meanwhile, I’ll try my best to avoid having that happen again. My phone number is: (xxx) xxx-xxxx.
That must have been really, really annoying and I can’t express how sorry I am. One of the reasons that I enjoy living here is the quality of my neighbors. When you live in an apartment, it’s really a crap shoot and I feel pretty darn lucky here. You and [neighbor to our side] have been ideal neighbors and I’d like to do everything I can to avoid being the douche bag in the group.

Kind regards,
[whistleDick]

How fucking hard was that? It was totally my fault and I don't want to live within feet of someone that thinks I'm a dick. I couldn't imagine carrying on some sort of ongoing rivalry thing as so many people do.

If any two sets of neighbors deserved each other, they're the ones. I wonder if they realize how much entertainment they've provided the rest of the block?

I'll never understand why people are willing to get into these battles with neighbors.

It can be fun if your neighbor is just a plain ass.

In your case whistledick you were being a jerk, albeit unknowingly, your neighbor called you on it and you apologized.

Some neighbors may just internalize petty annoyances until they become apoplectic and go nuts, and sometimes they are just a petty person trying to spread the pain.

I live in the country, next door neighbors dog gt on my property and killed a couple of goats. Been there before I was and it was the first time in the 5yrs I'd been there I had a problem with them, or met them face to face.

They disposed of the goats, apologized, and I said havent had a problem before, hope not to agian, but if it happens again when I'm home I'm shooting him, and if it happens when I'm not I'm calling the cops, nothing personal. We shook and and never had another problem til the day the moved

HAd anothe neighbor a mile down the raod liked to throw parties. Wasnt home when I tracked the place down so I asked them if they culd keep it down after midnght, as I culd hear them from over a mile away louder than my TV inside my house with the windows closed.

Their resposne was to crank it louder, though I dont know how. So I and I'm sure others called the cops, they reponded to that by crashing into my mailbox and driving off with it. And they did the same to my second mailbox when I called the cops agian.

So I rented a drill, pounded a hole into the old layer of asphalt an inch under the collected dirt of my property's easement and built a column of stones around the hole set some re-bar and poured in some concrete.

The next week I called the cops on them again, and when they drove by the next night for their retaliation they had to call a tow truck.

Now they might not have had fun in our little feud, that they started, but I sure did.

lujlp - that trick with the concrete was described, somewhat differently, in one of Amy Dacyczyn's "Tightwad Gazette" books. (The vandals were drive-by teens with baseball bats - the bats were shattered as a result.)

Thats where I got the idea.

I could post a pic if you like