When Officer Chen arrived, he took one look at the mess and pulled out his notepad. "Did the problems begin immediately?" he asked.
"No. About five months ago," Mason replied. He explained there hadn't been an argument, just a routine property survey because he was refinancing the house. The surveyor had marked the front boundary near the sidewalk. Sylvia had come outside, demanded to know why, and pointedly asked whether anyone planned to dig. She had even removed two of the orange flags before the work was complete, later claiming she thought they were trash.
Three days later, the nightmare started. Mason had found his first planter broken in February, which Sylvia blamed on the wind. His gutters clogged with rags in March, which she blamed on nesting birds. Someone scratched three long lines across his front door in April, which she blamed on neighborhood children. In May, his porch light was ripped from the wall, and she claimed a delivery driver struck it. By June, the anonymous city complaints started rolling in: accumulated rubbish, unsafe standing water, improper chemical storage, rodent attraction, and neglected landscaping.