Not on the Fence
Posted by: Liz | From: April 2, 2007
I did something this weekend that has the potential to be the most embarrassing thing I've ever done. Very possibly. But the nature of the thing will eventually be quite public, so I will supply you with the appropriate link when the time comes. Also, I will need your help eventually.
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This weekend was the first very warm one of the year. It felt distinctly like summer, but the nice kind of summer where everything is pleasant and not killing you with deadening heat and mosquitos and high air conditioning bills. It was also a weekend to enjoy in a backyard. When we moved into our place, fence in the back was missing. Our landlords told us the previous tenants had run the fence over with a car, destroyed the house, and left it abandoned. The landlords promised to fix the fence as soon as possible.
I should note, for sake of clarity, that our place backs up to an alley and commercial parking lot, which is on one of the busiest streets in Denver. So we didn't have much privacy. And we often had to pick trash out of our yard that had blown in from the alley. The yard is nice. There was just no fence between us and Bum #4 pushing his cart down the street. So we were understandably excited for the privacy fence.
Before the cold weather set in, our landlord put up a chunk of the fence. It covered most of the open area, with large gaps on either side. We waited all winter, picking trash out of snowbanks. Then, finally, it was spring and perfect weather for fence-building. The landlord told us he would be over one afternoon to put up the rest of the fence. We were gone all day and came home to...something. It was obvious (to me) that whatever he did wasn't finished yet. There was a gate over the main walk-through gap, but it was a completely different wood than the rest of the fence. Also? It was made up of slim, ladder-like horizontal slats with six-inch gaps between them. Additionally, the gate did not reach the wall. It looked like this:
We waited a couple days, but when I tentatively asked if the gate was, in fact, finished, the landlords answered: yes. It was a new design! I carefully explained that while the design was nice, it offered no privacy. It offered the exact same view as if there were no fence at all.
The next day, the landlord was there, examining the fence and looking very grumpy. He was not happy that I had complained. He emphasized the unique design quality of the fence. I emphasized the dirty alley and the parking lot. He told me he had to think beyond us and think about what future tenants might find desirable. I said they would probably find a backyard with no view of the busy street more desirable than what he called a "neat design feature." He got huffy and told me that he thought he knew a thing or two more than me about renting and selling houses.
He grumpily conceded that if I wanted some privacy, maybe he could attach something to the fence. Like opaque PLEXIGLASS. Y'know, like a shower stall! At this point, I was too bewildered to counter with anything reasonable. I asked if we would attach a string to the gate latch so it could be opened from inside. He sighed heavily and said the point of the first design was to avoid anything as ugly as a string. He said he could cover the top and bottom slats with the plexiglass and leave a couple middle slats open so you could reach your hand through to unlatch the gate.
Much more reasonable than a string. He tried to sweeten me up by telling me how cool it was that we could put a padlock on the gate latch when we left, as an added security feature. Which would be awesome if the gate wasn't, oh I don't know, a freaking LADDER. Or if there wasn't a large gap to the left of the gate where someone could just mosey on through.
We did some very polite bickering back and forth and we both left angry. I called and vented to J. I called and vented to my mom. I kept thinking that I wanted to meet the ONE person who would prefer to have this gate that peered into the parking lot and alley than have a private backyard in a busy area. And the plexiglass! Was he crazy?
After an excruciating 24 hours, where I relived the whole conversation no less than half a dozen times for various friends who came over (and who all asked unprompted, "So what's up with the gate?"). Then, on Sunday, I came home from some errands and found, to my delight, a whole fence. A totally normal, boring, keep-the-public-from-seeing-your-every-move fence! And I could tell the landlord was peeved and thought we didn't have any taste and thought this was the equivalent of giving a whiney toddler generic box mac and cheese after his gourmet three-cheese blend homemade stuff was turned down. Like, "There, are you happy now?!"
But we totally are.
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