Rules are for the Birds

Our next-door neighbors here are good people.
Jim checks on our condo when we’re back north, Sally kept my flowers out back alive and has baby-sat Mamie on occasion. We have different circles of friends but still socialize on occasion.

           Sally is smilingly upbeat, devoted to her grandkids, loves to hang out at the pool, and with black hair down to her waist, may have been a quintessential beach bunny in her day. Under that laughing exterior, though, I have a feeling she has a will of iron.

          Jim is quietly affable and wants little more than to play golf a few times a week and watch sports, but he always seems to be doing someone a favor. He visits an infirm friend in Sarasota several times a week and last year he and Sally went around replacing all the burnt out carriage lights in the complex. He also organized, bought, and assembled, benches for residents’ use. His role in the marriage seems to be to smile and shrug when Sally gets an idea in her head.

           And I want to turn them in to the authorities.

          Since our building went up in 2015, Sally has been tossing white bread to the small black ducks that visit the pond in back of our porches (lanai to you Floridians). This year at the soup kitchen we also have ibis, herons, turtles, and honk-honking mallards. 

          I expect that we also have bird poop, lots of it. Next in our future could be rats and snakes – both of which are known to lurk on the property.

What we often don’t have is quiet. I’ve woken up at 5 a.m. to the sound of feathered feeders honking for breakfast. At any time in the day, since our lanais are immediately next door to each other, if we stand near the screening, birds appear.

Feeding any wildlife is against the condominium rules.

A friend from another building asked me about this and I explained my predicament of not wanting to narc on people I may be next door to for some time to come. She kindly took the issue to a condo board member who suggested that residents could post problems on the condo website, (which would mean the reporter would be identified by the email address).

This gentleman, by the way, lives directly across the pond – with an unobstructed view of the morning and evening feedings.

Oh, and Jim’s on the board and Sally’s a building representative.