Possibility of neighbors gives you a lot to think about

They say that fences make for good neighbors. However, I’ve found over the past few months that empty lots make even better neighbors.

Since October, our house has been surrounded by unbuildable greenspace and wetlands in the back and two wooded lots on each side. In front is a cul-de-sac, so I suspect no one will build there.

The closest thing we have to a neighbor is on the other side of one of the wooded lots. They drive up, immediately shut the garage and only step outside to smoke cigarettes, the smoke from which still manages to drift somehow through the wooded lot and into our backyard. However, they’re fairly quite, so I’ll overlook that one smelly issue.

Of course, they’re quiet in that serial killer sort of way where reporters ask their neighbors after 27 bodies are found in the backyard, “What was he like?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t see him much. He was kind of quiet and kept to himself.”

Still, given the choice of living near loud, annoying neighbors who hardly kill anybody or a quiet serial killer, I’m gonna have to go with the quiet serial killer.

My next-door neighbors, though, are squirrels, chipmunks, owls, redbirds, rabbits and a chupacabra — your typical Georgia forest creatures. The trees are tall with green leaves casting shade over my property, which I welcome now that the average Georgia summer temperature is around 114 degrees.

At night, it is peaceful. About all I ever hear from that lot are the chirping of crickets, the songs of frogs and the screams of “Help! Help! I think your neighbor is a serial killer!” All of these are settings on my sleep machine, but I prefer the real thing.

So, my wife and I made a decision: We need to buy that lot. It’s not that we want to build anything on it; we just want to keep things nice and peaceful. And we don’t have to build a fence like my Uncle Dusty, who was doing just that when new neighbors moved in and came out to introduce themselves.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We don’t visit.”

I’ve actually thought of making a pretty wooden sign with flowers and butterflies and all that kind of seemingly welcoming junk to hang on our front porch with beautiful scripts letters that read, “We don’t visit.” You’d think you could find such a thing at a crafts store, but most of their signs like that read, “Welcome!” Weird.

I’ve had many great next-door neighbors through the years. Growing up, my next-door neighbors had a pool and no fence. Most of my next-door neighbors since then have become friends. Sometimes, their kids became like extended family; sometimes even their dogs became extended family.

Then again, the only reason we built this house was to get away from annoying neighbors behind us who never, ever shut up. Then they built a deck over their pool, and the old man sat up there shirtless with his beer gut hanging out and stared straight into our home.

Unfortunately, we can’t follow through on our effort to preserve the wooded lot next to us. We asked the seller and found out it’s under contract with a builder. In fact, he will own both the lots next to us and about eight more nearby. We may have neighbors out the wazoo soon.

With any luck, they’ll all be quiet serial killers. Otherwise, I hope we can get a good deal on fencing — or maybe I can get Mexico to pay for it.

This story was originally published April 3, 2017 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Possibility of neighbors gives you a lot to think about."