The biddy-----"Hey, you!?ÿ What do you think you're doing on my lawn??ÿ Hey, you!?ÿ Did you hear me?"?ÿ?ÿ
Me-----(saying nothing staring at the ground while waving the big yellow stick)
The biddy-----"HEY, YOU!?ÿ WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"
Me-----(apparently deaf as there is no indication that I have heard anything)
The biddy (as she approaches)-----"HEY, YOU!!!!!!!!!"
Me (as I slowly turn towards her and act surprised to see anyone there)-----"Oh, hi.?ÿ Lovely morning, isn't it."
The biddy-----"Why are you on my lawn?"
Me-----"I'm not on your lawn, Ma'am.?ÿ I happen to be standing in the street attempting to find the point where this street meets up with that street over there.?ÿ There is a survey bar there that must be found so we can establish some property lines in that block (pointing to the northeast)."
The biddy-----"Oh, so who are you working for?"
Me-----"The school district, Ma'am.?ÿ They intend to build a new house or two to replace the ratty old rat traps that used to be a blight on your neighborhood."
The biddy-----"grumblegrumblegrumblegrumblegrumblegrumble"
Me-----"Oh, looky there.?ÿ Just what I was looking for.?ÿ That was fortunate.?ÿ Well, time to go over there (pointing to the northwest) and find some more survey bars.?ÿ Have a nice day."
The biddy ( as she stomps off towards her house)-----"grumblegrumblegrumblegrumblegrumblegrumble"
.
.
.
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I was truly happy she didn't recognize me.?ÿ She had hired me about 10 years ago to survey her property because she was fighting with the city and the school district over spectators parking their vehicles along HER streets to get to the hometown football games.?ÿ She thought she owned everything up to the edge of the pavement, which the survey proved was not true and a figment of her imagination.?ÿ As the survey did not give her the answer she wanted she thought she would not need to pay me.?ÿ WRONG!?ÿ I sued her little butt in Small Claims Court.?ÿ She was so embarrassed (as the small town newspaper printed the upcoming court docket) that she paid me before the court date and included enough to cover the filing fee to make sure I wouldn't follow through.
When she started bellering, what I really wanted to do and say should not be written on a family-friendly internet site.?ÿ All of those words and dreams of committing vile acts did run through my head, though.?ÿ Thirty years ago I would not have been so kind to her as I tricked her into letting me find what I was seeking.?ÿ I also was kind enough to not inform her that her new driveway was actually on her neighbor's property.
?ÿ
Please note that I did not refer to her as an old biddy.?ÿ She is about 15 years younger than I am so she can't be old yet.?ÿ However, biddy is the nicest term that might convey her demeanor.?ÿ (The more she talks, demeanor she gets.)
I worked on a couple of parcels years back that came complete with the quintessential "old biddy".?ÿ Long story short she had always thought a large pecan tree a ways behind her house was on her property.?ÿ When the lath line indicated otherwise she told me that "I didn't know what I was talking about" and refused to pay for the survey (that she had initiated).
The neighbor was delighted and, after talking to me, offered to pay half the bill if I would meet the fence company out there when they arrived to build his fence.?ÿ I did.?ÿ The old biddy stood nearby and ranted and raved for nearly an hour.
Come to think of it that was first and last time I ever gave the finger to a an ex-client.?ÿ She never paid but it was worth it.?ÿ 😉
We had the "ol' biddy" on a lot line survey in Beverly Hills.
While sighting down the line through the landscaping without trying to completely whack it down she came out and started bellowing at my helper that he was on her property, yadda, yadda, yadda.?ÿ While searching for the plumb bob string to put him on line so he could set a point on line he politely told her that he was working for a licensed professional land surveyor who knew what he was doing and he was marking the line according to the instructions as radioed through the trees and bushes and she was welcome to come out and talk to me.?ÿ She kept threating to call the police?ÿ which we encouraged.
After about a half hour of this he stood up (he's six-foot-three inches) and yelled at her "My doctor says my medicine won't work if I get excited!"
She slowly backed into her house and we never heard from her again.
We had an old biddy yelling at us years ago. She got so agitated that she grabbed the transit, threw it over her shoulder and ran into her house. We needed the sheriff to get the gun back and then hang around till we finished so she couldn't swipe it again. I thought my older boss was gonna have a coronary watching that instrument bouncing up the steps and through the back door.?ÿ
Oh man!! We had an old biddy grab our instrument box once and start dragging it off but never actually grab the instrument! It was an old school Geodimeter all metal case/vault so she didn't drag it too far before letting it go and just going back into the house.
Funny part of this was that she was about 120 years old at the time and weighed in only slightly heavier than my 60 pound lab. Boss simply could not believe that she carried that gun all that way without dropping it. And it was still on the tripod.
Back in the 1990s we were Surveying a lot on a cul d sac with pavement, ditch and slope. The EP was maybe 10 feet from the R/W. Found a capped rebar on the Lot corner at the R/W and was setting up on the slope to tie it in when this lady came charging out of her house screaming and yelling I was trespassing. I calmly said I'm standing in the street whereupon she starts questioning my ability as a Land Surveyor because anyone can see the street is way over there. It didn't help that my boss showed up and starts in on her. I don't miss Surveying residential lots, people are crazy.
Of course the issue is we have no apparent authority to be there unlike a cop or firefighter. Who is this guy who is trying to tell me where my land ends? These days I just wear Fire Department blue, not even an official uniform-just blue pants, blue station T-shirt and blue FD ball cap, it's amazing how well that works.
I think we've had some version of the old biddy.?ÿ My favorite was and old "phart" that didn't believe the iron pin we had uncovered was in the right place.?ÿ We had just turned and doubled the angle to it so the party chief called him over and told him to look through the instrument.?ÿ Sure enough the crosshairs were splitting the pin.?ÿ The old fellow shook his head and muttered, "Well I guess it is in the right place then".?ÿ We didn't laugh until we were in the truck on the way back to the office.
Andy
I recall getting into a back and forth with an octogenarian women who could not believe that we needed to survey her acreage again in order to subdivide it. It had been surveyed many, many times before. After about 15 minutes it finally emerged that the "surveyors" had been students from the nearby community college, where her husband had taught music.?ÿ For his part, he spent the whole time standing well back and snickering into the back of his hand while looking the other way.
I have had my share of run-ins with disgruntled biddys (pronounced differently).?ÿ Yesterday, while test driving a new horse. periodically having to detour onto lawns to avoid cars on the road, a little old lady came out of her front door and hollered at me, "Hey you, come back here" in a tone that sounded all too familiar.?ÿ I never even left the pavement in front of her house but thought I might as well face the music.?ÿ I turned the horse around and carefully stayed on her driveway.?ÿ She disappeared into her house for a minute and came back out and marched up to me.?ÿ Turns out, she collected every carrot she could find in the house and just wanted to see the horse and dogs.?ÿ We chatted for ten or fifteen minutes and it made her whole day and she nearly had tears in her eyes when we finally walked off.?ÿ Sometimes it doesn't go like you expect.?ÿ Now I'm going to give a bunch of hateful people the benefit of the doubt for the next several years because I completely misread her tone.
?ÿ As a side note(hijack), the new horse performed very well, smooth as silk gait, calm, even tempered, not spooked at anything.?ÿ I put her out in the pasture with some geldings and they had a fine time getting to know one another.?ÿ She came into season for whatever reason and was running around with her tail up.?ÿ My wife came home to ride her new horse for the first time and the mare was wound up tight, dancing nervously, sidestepping, and generally being unruly and a completely different horse than I rode that morning.?ÿ My wife was not pleased.
People are crazy...but defending your homestead is a deep instinctual reaction that is quite normal. I have heard absurd things from the mouths of quite sane and intelligent people, but they are not thinking with the frontal lobe when it comes to defending what they consider to be part of their home. They are in flight or fight mode, even when they do not realize it.
Surveyor etiquette...
YES?ÿ
No
?ÿ
?ÿ
@flga-pls-2-2
I was prepared to go "NO" on her. She backed off just enough to prevent hearing STFU in all it's loud glory.
