I found out my neighbor built a balcony over my backyard while I was gone for a week. And the craziest part wasn’t the balcony. It was how casually they acted about it. Like building part of their house over someone else’s property was just normal. And standing there in my backyard that afternoon staring up at it.
I remember thinking the same thing over and over in my head. You have got to be kidding me. Now, to understand why this got under my skin the way it did, you need to know something about that backyard. I bought my house in 2018. Small two-story place outside Columbus, Ohio. Nothing fancy. Beige siding, older roof, squeaky deck boards that complain every time you step on them.
The kind of house people drive past without noticing. But the backyard, that was the whole reason I bought the place. The lot runs deep, way deeper than most properties in the neighborhood. There’s this big old maple tree right near the center, probably older than half the houses on the street. And when the leaves come in during the summer, it throws this huge blanket of shade across the yard.
When I first walked the property with the realtor, she said something like, “Most people see the house first.” I remember looking past it and saying, “Yeah, but look at this yard. Three sides fenced, no direct windows looking down into it. Quiet, private, the kind of space where you could sit outside with a beer at night and actually hear crickets instead of traffic.
