Am I Gladys Kravitz? Or Endora?

You make the call, dear reader.

If you know what my title means, you’re probably in my age cohort. Or maybe you like old-school TV like the timeless series, Bewitched. Either way, I will explain to the unitiated what I’m talking about before launching into my mental meandering.

As I age, I think I will become Endora.

On Bewitched, the story of Samantha the witch and her mortal husband Darrin, there are several interesting side characters. Endora, Samantha’s elegant mother, detests mortals. She’s quite disgusted with their physical  needs, their inability to apparate everywhere, and their taste in clothing. Gladys Kravitz, on the other hand, is Samantha’s nosy neighbor who constantly looks out the window, spying on Samantha because she knows there is some kind of weird hanky-panky going on in that ‘50s suburban ranch house.

OG Gladys Kravitz

Lately, I feel like one or both of them, and I’d like to help me decide. It’s sort of like one of those quizzes they put up on Facebook to gather your data (which goddess are you? If you were a candy, which would you be?). But I won’t keep your data unless you subscribe to my Substack and even then, I’ll just send you a weekly babble.

The source of my wondering is two-fold. Let me set the scene for you. We bought the house we live in about seven years ago. We found this gem on a private street in unincorporated San Diego county. I was a little wary of buying something that was not within a city jurisdiction, but the place was so gorgeous and amazing that I was blinded and my misgivings disappeared in the dazzle of the old Eucalyptus trees and pines, the song of the owls talking at night, the cotton-tail bunnies zipping across the road.

At first, it was idyllic. The neighbors were all friendly and nice, understanding. We all cooperated on things when needed. My husband, a musician, held rehearsals with his band on the pickleball court (yes, it has a pickleball court, and no, I do not play).  We asked all the neighbors for permission first, and invited them to come listen. Some did, some didn’t, but no one was bothered by it. Everybody had functions occasionally: birthday parties, a backyard wedding, celebration for a new baby. We all lived in harmony.

But then…the house across the street was sold to an investor who renovated the crap out of it and started to rent it out as a short term vacation rental. I’ve stayed in those before..who hasn’t?  But watching the renovation take shape, we realized that this was being designed to be the ultimate party house. Short-term rentals are not supposed to allow parties, but they do. We all know this. Until it happened to be across from my house, I didn’t think much of it. Then one weekend, the renovation was obviously completed and a party was in the offing. This first party was full of very young people who drank a lot and scremed a lot and played music with a lot of very bad words in it. They played it very loudly.  It echoed off the windows and walls inside the house, and if you happened to walk outside, it was like being in the middle of a nicely-landscaped rave.

The music and the lights and the screaming were on from 8 am to late into the night. I hoped it was maybe a one-off, but the next night, same thing. I’m not a prude, but I do not want to sit in my house and listen to songs where the lyrics are, on repeat, “I gonna eat ya pussy, eat ya pussy/ I gonna plow yo ass, gonna plow yo ass.”  So, I was over it by about hour four.

I called the sheriff. They respond to noise complaints, although I can see why in Sheriff world noise isn’t a high crime or misdemeanor — in fact, I felt kind of like complainy white Karen in my nice house. But they dutifully showed up, and they called form the front porch of the rental property. “Ma’am, I can’t hear any noise or music,” the sheriff said. Yes. Because as soon as the black-and-white rolled up, everything was turned off.  He couldn’t do anything without any proof, of course. As soon as he left, it started again.

I knew who had purchased the house;  he and his wife had purchased several homes in the area, and all of the neighbors had found the listing on the Air BnB site. So I emailed Air BnB to complain. They got back to me right away, and told me there was no booking at that property on this day. So what that means is that the owner rented it off the platform. He advertised on Air BnB, but then rented it OFF the platform to make more money and skirt the rules. Clever. And guess what? Air BnB has no responsibility if people do that.

So, I texted the owner on the Air BnB app. He was not happy about it. He implied that I ws just a fun-hating old lady. I insisted I was fun, but eight hours of screaming, drinking, rap music, and mayhem wouldn’t have appealed to me when I was 18 either. Then he wanted my name and physical address, which felt kind of threatening to me. I told him no…and he didn’t like that.

I sent many messages to Air Bnb complaining about this behavior, and I think they must have gotten to him because for the next few weeks, things were a bit more quiet. But of course, with time, things ramped up again. The worst is the screaming that comes from intoxicated people. If you’re not drinking too, it’s incredibly annoying.

So here, am I Endora, just disgusted with mortals and wishing they’d evaporate, or am I Glady Kravitz, the nosy, fun-hating  neighbor? I don’t know. You tell me.

The other issue that cropped up in the neighborhood was quite different, but equally annoying. Someone bought the property right next to our house, two older artists, and we were at first really excited to have more artsy people nearby.  We even invited them to our housewarming. They seemed cool.

Then the weirdness.  They put in an electric gate to their property, which is fine, except that where the gate is, it blocks access to the neighbor’s behind their property. There is an access road that goes to the back property, and these people just put up an electric fence so no one could go in without a remote. No more walking back to visit my nice neighbors. We have to talk over the back fence or they have to come over. 

Then there was the brouhaha over the septic system. We all have them since we do not have city sewer, being in an unincorporated area. However, the new neighbors didn’t want to pay for water, so they dug a well without really checking with zoning or regulations or safety. Just hired a big old digger and started digging. Surprisingly, the well turned out to be a 20K boondoggle, because it was in the leach field for their septic. Now they had to connect to the closest city water line, which was behind their house on the next street over. (We do have a water line but I guess they hadn’t had one or something…. Or they were living on bottled water? Idon’t know. ) I know they don’t like to pay for things.  When they re-roofed their house, they clearly hired people from the Home Depot parking lot who didn’t know about roofing, so the next rainy season, their roof actually slid off the roof.

So, they had to pay to hook up to the city water and sewage on the street behind us, because they no longer had a leach field for septic. They wanted all of us in the neighborhood to pitch in and get on that sewer line (at about 20K per household) but we declined, as did all the other neighbors. Our septic worked fine.  Thus started the bad blood.

Next, the woman next door wrote a scathing pice of fiction titled “Everybody Here Hates You” wherein she described all the residents of our little street as fractious, ignoble dunces who were there to make her life terrible. She stuffed a copy in everyone’s mailbox. Then she put a note in our mailbox asking us to sign a noise complaint about her neighbor on the other side, an older woman with four dachsunds who bark a lot when they are outside. We all have dogs. They bark. I declined to sign the complaint, partly because the neighbor had her OWN three chihuahuas who were kept outside in a fenced area with a dog house. They barked ALL the time, because they were lonely. At some point, they disappeared. I hope they went to a better home.

The coup de grace on this neighbor was one day, she drove her quad vehicle around to a property that had been listed for sale. Across the street from that property live a couple, older, very nice. The husband is a psychologist, the wife a former nun and teacher, and they’re terrific people. The selling neighbor, Gary, asked the psychologist to keep an eye on his empty property, which he did. When Psychologist saw The Lady driving around it on her quad, he motioned for her to come over and she ignored him. He tried to yell, to tell her that Gary, the owner, had asked that people not poke around on their own. She drove her quad angrily out of the driveway, and the psychologist put his hand out to ask her to stop. She smacked right into it, stopped the quad, and started yelling “Assault! Assault!” 

By this time, evyerbody was aware of the kerfuffle. It ended in a court case where I wrote a letter supporting the psychologist, because the woman was clearly not harmed, and in any case, she had run into him.  When they went to court, I watched. The quad woman represented herself. The judge was very puzzled about the whole thing. When the woman claimed that the neighbor, the 80-year-old psychologist who stands about 5’7, was waiting for her in the bushes with red, glaring eyes, the judge kind of figured out that this was basically a nuisance case. He sided with the psychologist, and the quad lady had to pay their legal fees.

I guess in order to pay the fees, she and her husband put two RVs on their property plus one manufactured home. They rent them out to tenants for about $1,500 or more per month. I’m not sure who would pay that much for a tiny RV, but somebody does.  It looks like a Branch Davidian compound over there, with tarps over everything, tarps on all the fences, pop up tents and canopies dotted around, and even an outdoor weight room behind the biggest RV…a rental amenity?

Long and short of all of it…I really wish we’d purchased a house in a regular city. I would like to have some rules. I would like to have some recourse to ask somebody to clean up the compound or quiet the Air BnB. 

So am I complainy Gladys Kravitz sticking my nose into stuff that doesn’t concern me, or an I Endora, simply disgusted by the ways of other mortals? You make the call.