The Scarborough Mirror: News

DAVID NICKLE

Flying rats, strange men on rooftops and unwanted home repairs were just a few of the many faces of failed neighbourliness that showed up at Wednesday's Scarborough Community Council meeting.

In their last meeting before the election, Scarborough's 10 councillors took what turned into several hours of their packed-full agenda of local planning items, to deal with three requests from homeowners so fed up with their neighbours that they felt their only solution was to put up fences higher than city bylaws permit.

Councillors listened agape to deputations that seemed a primer in how not to deal with next-door neighbours.

First up was Rosanna Jardine, who described an escalating feud with her neighbour and former landlady Lila Mak. Jardine, who was defending a 1.4-metre tall fence in her front yard, and a 2.2 metre fence in her rear yard said that she had erected the fences "due to constant harassment" by Mak - harassment, she said, that included tossing leaves and debris over the fence, trespassing to damage a shrub on her side of the fence, and at one point, tossing a dead rat on her steps.

Jardine even provided a videotape, showing her neighbour and former friend getting out of a school bus she was driving, tossing leaves over the fence and walking onto her property to fool with a shrub.

"It is unfortunate this matter has come this far but Ms. Mak's complaint has nothing to do with the fence but who is living on the other side of the fence," said Jardine.

Mak, for her part, did not deny her neighbour's allegations - but she claimed that while she had no videotaped proof, she was simply giving as good as she got.

"She was in my driveway so many times I don't have time to take pictures," said Mak, who also said that she threw leaves over the fence because they came from a tree on Jardine's property. And she said that while she did throw a dead rat onto her neighbour's property, it was only because Jardine had done so first.

"I admit that I'm wrong - I'm not here for right or wrong, I'm here for the height of the fence," she said.

In the end, the community council sided with Mak's complaint, and ordered Jardine to make her fence comply with the bylaw.

Next up were Pam Festin and Elena Sipen, who together owned a house on Sylvan Avenue . They said that their relationship with their neighbours on either side, John Markel and James Taylor, had deteriorated from a friendly and mutually beneficial relationship to one in which foul language and intimidation were the norm.

They accused Markel of cutting down a tree on their property, allowing his sons to skateboard on their property - and they accused Taylor of sending a contractor onto their property to repair a broken rain spout without their position.

The two neighbours were there to defend themselves. Taylor said that he had indeed cut branches off a tree in the back yard to make sure it was safe - and he said that he did indeed repair the downspout, because he had a contractor on-site when he noticed the spout was going into the foundations.

The community council finally approved in part the elaborate fencing that the two women requested, although they ordered that fencing that would cross a driveway be chain link rather than solid for traffic safety purposes.

Finally, the community council heard from Gwen Morgan, who was there to defend a somewhat larger fence extension to her south Scarborough home.

She and her husband had erected a 1.3 metre laticework on top of the existing 1.5 metre wooden fence.

The reason?

A neighbour who constructed a deck on top of his rear yard garage.

"He uses his garage like a deck and is up on the second storey and looks over," she said. "I have had issues with this man for years... I did plant trees over there and three of the trees died. My husband put up a screen, and I do feel better with the screen up."

The community council went along with most of the request, asking her simply to take down one small section.

All three matters, however, raised the question about whether good fences really do make good neighbours.

Ward 39 Councillor Mike Del Grande (Scarborough-Agincourt) said that the city shouldn't be using fences to deal with matters that are more properly before the courts.

Ward 37 Councillor Michael Thompson (Scarborough Centre) had less problem with using the bylaw on that way.

"It's very important we err on the side of caution - we need to make sure there is a protective barrier there," said Thompson, who related a story of a family member assaulted by a harassing neighbour.