It's not a hole to China...

"So, the police just called me at work."

"Do you need me to come bail you out?"

"I'll give you one guess why they called."

"Our favorite neighbor doesn't like the trench we just dug in our side yard?"

"Gee. How did you know."

"What did they want exactly?"

"They wanted to know how long the hole is going to be there."

"Tell them it will be there as long as it takes to trick her to fall in."

We bought an old house. A 94 year house to be exact. And it has old pipes to go with all the other things old about the place. This would include the sewer pipes. Given that things were done a bit differently back when the house was built, there is quite a bit of updating that needs to be done on the pipes in order to make the plumbing a little more acceptable shall we say.

I will have to blog about the "poo on the wall story" soon, as I think it will highlight what I'm talking about here quite nicely.

But for purposes of finishing THIS particular story I will summarize:
- sewer pipe got clogged
- we snaked the pipe ourselves
- we got poo on the walls
...and my leg

I think that makes my point.

Moving right along.

In order to update our sewer pipe so it stops backing up, meets code, and appreciates the value of the property, we had to embark on a project known as "replacing the sewer lateral".

Which pretty much means we dig up the whole sewer pipe as it runs from the house to the city sewer line at the street and lay down a new one made out of new! modern! fancy! materials.

On the first day of the project we hired a team to come and remove the concrete path that happens to run over the pipe, and excavate the dirt underneath to expose the area so we could break out the old pipe and lay down the new one.

And because we are not stupid we hung a copy of the permit and a note on the door for the police officer we knew would show up to investigate because a "concerned citizen" was most likely going to call in and complain.

Hence why Trevor was called at work by a cop.

"Did he give you any shit?"

"No, we are completely within our rights. He just wanted to know when we thought we would be done so he could let her know. That and she's freaking out about the dirt on her driveway."

Did I mention that part?

Yeeeeaaaa.

The sewer line happens to run right on our property line next to her, and the space there is VERY narrow.

Which means all the dirt that got excavated? Yea. It's lying on her property next to her precious driveway. Not ON her driveway - she still has plenty of room to back out - just NEXT to her driveway.

Which gives me great pleasure.

We came to find out a few days later from another neighbor that the Crazy old Lady is concerned about the hole that some "weird people" dug in her yard. She was worried that they would never come and fill it back in.

You know...those crazy bands of freaky hole-diggers that roam the Bay Area looking for driveways to trench.

Well, at least she didn't think aliens were involved.