Neighbors Wage War Over Noise, Grass And Colors

HACKENSACK, N.J. - The victim was hacked to bits with a chain saw on a steamy June night in one of those wealthy suburban towns where, afterward, shocked residents would shake their heads and say, "I never thought it could happen here."

Lisa Welde discovered the grisly scene the next morning. In the driveway were pieces of her beloved boxwood hedge. Nothing left but stumps sticking out of the ground.

Her neighbor, hereafter known as "Chainsaw Al," immediately confessed. He shares the driveway once divided by the dearly departed hedge and had complained for years about the overgrown bushes. Tired of looking at the unkempt yard, he cranked up the saw for a little middle-of-the-night pruning.

"He said my lawn and my bushes were an eyesore compared to the rest of the neighborhood," said Welde, of Ramsey, N.J. "He said nobody would buy his house because of my yard."

Once upon a time, in a suburbia long since forgotten, even the tiniest strip of yard held cheap folding lawn chairs, a battered grill and a bird feeder. Dad put the station wagon up on blocks to change the oil while mom (remember, kids, this was a very long time ago) hung the clothes on the line. And peace reigned throughout the land.

But this isn't one of those happily-ever-after stories. Today, obsessive neighbors are waging war over those chairs and grills. The clothesline next door is, to some, a tacky threat to their happiness - and their property values. If it's not grass so long that it could be harvested like wheat, it's dog droppings bringing shame - not to mention odor - upon a neighborhood.

Even the ice-cream man was nearly run out of one New Jersey town because his ear-splitting music shattered the suburban ideal known as "quality of life."

Homeowners become, as one Ridgewood, N.J., official tactfully put it, "cranky" when they feel the life they built is threatened.

130 volunteer mediators

Think Chainsaw Al is an aberration? Talk to the army of building inspectors and police officers in every town who spend much of their time on these complaints. In Bergen County, N.J., alone, there are now 130 court-appointed volunteer mediators helping warring neighbors sort out pressing issues such as exactly how many minutes a day the boy next door is allowed to bounce his basketball in the driveway.

"Homeowners get emotional," Leonia Mayor Judah Zeigler said. "They're quick to call to ask if there's a law against something like aluminum lawn chairs."

For Chainsaw Al, whose real name is Albert Morris, the problem wasn't lawn chairs, but those darned plants. He acknowledges that the nickname his neighbors gave him isn't as kind as the ones he had when he was a star running back in college, but he defends his actions. Since he and Welde own the driveway jointly, he legally had the right to hack that hedge.

"I waited for five years for her to do something," Morris said.

Then there's the case of the Mahwah, N.J., resident who saw red when his neighbor painted his house lavender. His lawyer told him he couldn't sue, so he built a new home a few streets away. "He moved because he couldn't take looking at it anymore," said a police officer who was called in to keep the peace.

In Carlstadt, N.J., controversy raged for years over Ruth Kronyak's bird feeder. After her neighbor said flocks attracted by the feeder destroyed his roof, the town health inspector began driving by her home every day to log the number of birds on her lawn. "Everyone has an ugly neighbor," Kronyak said. "I'm sure my neighbor thinks I'm a terrible neighbor."

`Obscene clothesline'

In Paramus, N.J., two neighbors sniped at each other for months over what one man called an "obscene clothesline." The woman hung her bras and panties on the line. When her neighbor tried to have the clothesline declared illegal, she retaliated by leaving her frillies flapping in the breeze for weeks at a time.

"She'd take them down when they got dirty and put up clean ones," said Ron Mastrolia, the town's property inspector. He was called in to view the clothesline in question and determine whether the unmentionables were unseemly.

It wasn't the first time residents aired their dirty laundry in front of Mastrolia. He answers up to 100 complaints a month from irate neighbors. Paramus residents became so concerned about protecting property values that the town hired an inspector 12 years ago to handle complaints.

"I've got some people who call to complain the moment the grass reaches 7 inches," Mastrolia said. "You pray for September." Of course, then it's fall, and his answering machine is filled with snippy messages about lawns buried in leaves. In winter, Mastrolia is buried by complaints about the snow-shoveling skills of the guy next door.

During one recent week, one man called to ask that his neighbor be forced to move his tomato plants from the front yard to the back. Another demanded that the trampoline his neighbor set up on his front lawn be declared illegal.

"People make up their own laws," Mastrolia said. When the law isn't on their side, they resort to what New Milford Police Lt. Mike Burns calls "guerrilla warfare," sneaking onto each other's property to make bonsai out of bushes. In Garfield, N.J., one homeowner accused his neighbor of poisoning his terrier, nearly killing the animal. Seems the dog had been attacking the neighbor's squirrels.

"People will fight it out in the street when they think something will decrease the value of their house and they take action," Burns said. "People are under a lot of stress. They work more. The time they have at home is limited. The quality-of-life issues are paramount."

But what drives residents to these extremes and makes them think they can tell another homeowner what to do with his or her hard-earned property? What, for instance, would make mild-mannered vegetarian Laura Bowes threaten to shish-kebab her neighbor for slapping a steak on the grill every night?

"People in a neighborhood have a responsibility to each other," the Wayne, N.J., resident said. "Whether it's in the way they keep the outside of their home, the noise they make or the smells they create. They own their property, but what they do with it affects everyone."

Take the case of Al Bihr. The neighbors in the homes on each side of his in Rutherford, N.J., recently installed central air conditioning. The neighbors made it through the recent heat waves just fine. Trouble is, the units are so loud and the houses are so close, the noise rips right through Bihr's walls. "It's like living in a factory," said Bihr, who has complained to health officials about the noise. "I have to take sleeping pills at night."

Tony Merlino, who answers complaints in Ridgewood, believes the obsessiveness is about preserving a neighborhood. It's about pride. Then, too, it's also often about a garbage can placed too close to a neighbor's window. "Residents should take it seriously. Towns should be diligent," Merlino said. "Not all towns are. You drive through other towns and see rundown homes." In Clifton, N.J., homeowners such as Tom McCabe spend their evening walks patrolling for signs that neighbors have illegally divided their homes into apartments. "Neighborhoods go downhill fast," McCabe said.

But taste can't be legislated. Merlino had the authority to force a resident to scrape the peeling paint off a tool shed, but he can't do anything about the color of the new paint the resident chose - a nice shade of highway yellow. "Spite paint," Merlino called it.

Often, strange complaints give birth to even stranger laws. A large pile of firewood will bring a large fine in Teaneck, N.J. Pot-bellied pigs - and their farmyard smell - are outlawed in Rutherford. (They're welcome, by the way, in Ramsey, where a hero porker named Honeymoon saved her owners from perishing in a fire by squealing.)

Plumbers, bakers and others with work vans can't park outside their homes in Leonia, an ordinance critics say was passed to protect the town's reputation as a home to educators and businessmen.

Cursing is illegal in the Somerset County community of Raritan, N.J., while one Jersey shore town outlawed clotheslines because they're tacky whether they hold bras or beach towels. In Totowa, N.J., an elderly man was charged with harassment after he waved to too many people honking their horns and neighbors complained about the ruckus.