On being a good neighbour

EDITOR,

You may not know me but I'm your neighbour. I have lived here for close to 20 years. I work out of my house most days, spend my evenings quietly at home, sometimes I have company over but they are always gone well before night time. I have probably talked to you, waved a morning hello, stopped by for a chat, invited you in for a visit or been invited in by you at some time.

I try to be a good neighbour and keep my premises neat and orderly, keep the noise down, and be mindful of the fact that I share this neighbourhood with all of you. So you can imagine my surprise when I came home the other day to discover a notice on my door issuing a complaint from Animal Control about my dogs being noisy.

I'm extremely sorry if my dogs were barking and if that disturbed you. It must have been while I was out in the morning, but I was back by early afternoon and I have to tell you, being your neighbour for all of these years, I would definitely have appreciated it if you had had the decency to tell me in person, let me know that there was an issue that I needed to address and give me the chance to apologize to you in person and do what I could to remedy this issue. But now all I can think about is all the stuff that has bothered me over the years about you and how next time you do something I find annoying, all I will want to do is call Bylaw enforcement to ticket you and leave a most unwelcome notice on your door! In the past I would have taken the time to contact you directly if there was anything that was particularly disturbing but now, well, the lines have been drawn.

But no, this is not what I will do. I will take the higher ground because, after all, we are all neighbours. I will continue to wave to you in the morning and give you a friendly hello. I will also, naturally, do my best to reduce any noise coming from my dogs (I honestly had no idea that this was an issue and that they were barking uncontrollably throughout the day), but I also ask of you to recognize that we share this neighbourhood and that we all need to show tolerance and patience towards one another. I hope, in the future, that you will be more direct with me so that I can continue to be a good neighbour towards you and not, as is the case now, resort to writing this letter to the editor.Ellie Mae

Brackendale