How my quaint homestead was ruined by 2 assholes that call themselves ‘Fu 1’ & ‘Fu 2’

(seriously…I couldn’t make this shit up)

    You heard right: Fu, not Foo as in Foo Fighters but Fu as in Fuck U and anyone who crosses their path.

    There’s so much to say I don’t know where to start. I guess from the beginning is logical, but since I have a tendency to embellish and be verbose, I will also provide a terse, concise, TL;DR time line of shit storm that is the Fu’s and all their glory (oh, and vast resources…they won’t let you forget that!).

So let me tell you a story: Once upon a time…

In The Beginning…

There was peace and tranquility. Birds tweeted about, chipmunks scurried the land gathering their nuts, bunnies got busy making baby bunnies and during the Summer the foliage obscured views to our nearest neighbors. Not that there was any animosity towards any of our neighbors. It’s just the privacy that people often take for granted now a days was nice.

Yup, this was mine and my wife’s little oasis. For ten years I also owned and operated a local carpet cleaning business and the pole barn that came with the property got much use as there were always repairs and maintenance to do on the equipment.

Then came 2017. I’m not going to tough on the events that transpired that year as they will be covered in ‘The Shift’ section of this blog. But to summarize for those who don’t have days to read some story about some dudes mid-life crisis, here’s the TL;DR version:

I had/am going through a mid-life crisis and walked from my business. Didn’t go out of business because of slow business. I walked when we we’re the busiest we’d ever been and had no debt attached to business and decided to dive head first (more like a attempt at a dive that’s ended up sideways & backwards) into software development.

So that’s enough info to know that post 2017 I’ve spent a lot of time in front of a network of computers with more 15 screens in my office trying to develop…something…anything…hello world anyone?

Jokes aside, it has been a struggle. In an attempt to keep nose to the grind stone and hammer something out,  I’ve isolated my self too much and my mental health has not improved. Again, this isn’t the place to elaborate on that, so…

Our property is setup with 2 driveways. The second drive way leads to my shop and isn’t our primary driveway but I definitely used it more than my primary when I was running the carpet cleaning business. It also has an easement that states not to block the driveway because there is a grape farm behind my shop that we don’t own and the farmers need to be able to get access to their vineyard to do their work.

Now in the 10 years prior (2008-2018) we rarely saw any one trim, spray, tend to and even pick the grapes in the vineyards out back. So the traffic was very minimal.

In fact the only time I saw workers over there was in the Winter of 2016 or early spring of 2017 when 2 guys came up to me asking me about a van I had taken out of service and inquired about purchasing it. I still had a 1,000 pound truck-mount cleaning machine installed in it and didn’t have the time to mess with it, so I declined.

After chatting for a few, I had mentioned that I was actually considering building a second pole barn that would of had 3 bays and attached to my existing shop. They then mentioned that the owners of the vineyard were looking to sell. I chuckled, having grown up on a grape farm, I didn’t miss that kind of work and said that’s the last thing I need on my plate.

Well they thought I might be interested anyway, so a couple days later someone drops off a document that had some info about the property. Well it just so happens I was out cleaning shit and my wife happened to be home. Needless to say this was news to her and she had a couple questions for me when I got home thinking I was looking at purchasing some property without her knowing.

Once I told her about the brief discussion I had with the grape workers and that they must of misunderstood me or more than likely thought whats to lose. I was talking about expanding the business and they had property adjacent to mine for sale. Makes sense…

Oh does it really make sense now. Everyone knows hind sight is 20/20, but knowing what I know now, I would of done taken that opportunity and became a grape farmer instead of a starving software developer.  I should of taken a page from my ex-folks Tom & Cathy’s book when they purchased the house next door to them after the previous owner passed and their children sold the estate.

LIFE TIP: When a property next to yours goes on the market. Do whatever you can and use any means necessary to buy that shit!

Now the property mostly consist of grapes. Never in my wildest dreams did I consider someone would move in and build a David Koresh type of compound 30ft from the rear of my shop. Nope, never crossed my mind. Unfortunately for my wife and I, that’s where we find ourselves.

 

A Mailbox appears:

On a autumn day late 2018 we noticed a new mail box off the entrance to our second driveway that leads up-to my shop. Hmm. I had forgotten the property was for sale. I don’t even recall seeing a realtor sign. (I believe the property original address may have been listed on the road that sits about a 1/3 of a mile north of the road our property resides on.)  Regardless, we found it odd.

Why? Because who needs a mailbox for a farm? Is someone gonna try to build a house in the vineyards? We didn’t know, but this was the first sign that our home life would never be the same.

All was quite for about 6 months. We occasionally saw vehicles drive in and out of the 2nd drive. But they never introduced themselves and the only times I saw anyone, they were in and out to quickly for me to introduce myself.

One day however, Katie and I were doing some fall yard work and shortly after the mailbox was ‘installed’, we saw a couple of vehicles parked over there. We kept to what we were doing as it looked like they were having a meeting discussing their plans or surveying the area. Not the kind of formal survey that determines property lines, but seemed like casual discussion.

Well it must have been a productive meeting because as I was raking some leaves I caught a whiff of that smell that anyone who’s smelled it once, you never forget it. Yup, I’m talkin’ about the aroma of some skunky ass refer, cannabis, Mary Jane, pot, dope, what ever you call it, you know it when you smell it. This must of been some super strong shit because I was upwind too!

I looked over at Kate, and joked about it and we had a little laugh and after about 15 minutes I think they realized that we were within 2nd hand distance and proceeded to disembark. As they were leaving, I was introduced to a guy who I call ‘Gucci Dude’ because I don’t know his actual name and he’s of Spanish/Mexican ethnicity, he’s got gold chains, the sun glasses, and basically dresses like a pimp. With that said…

‘Gucci Dude’ has got style and drives a BMW.  Cool in my book.  I’ve had no issues with this individual and we’ve had a couple of brief discussions about BMWs as I have 2 E36s and a 2000 740il parked around my shop.

The other 2 individuals that day quickly got into their truck and pulled away. I think they may have briefly waived, but I could of also been stoned from the whiff of 2nd half herb and hallucinated that because that would be about the most friendly gesture those 2 would have done in the short time I’ve known these creeps.

Needless to say, they left in a hurry and didn’t introduce themselves. I chalked it up as them maybe being embarrassed that we obviously new that they were smoking or maybe just paranoid and high and didn’t feel like chatting.

 

Spring…a wonderful time of year…to uproot your neighbors driveway

Spring used to be my favorite time of year, these days all the seasons go by too quick and I’ve noticed I tend to favor the colder months now because being inside all day writing code can really suck when it’s nice out.  When it’s cold, you have a default excuse to be held up inside…because..well…because it’s fuckin’ cold out. I look less like a agoraphobic during the shittier weather months.

Well one fine morning in May of 2019 I went outside before my wife left for work to check the air in the tires of the car. We have rims with low profile tires and my wife is always worried about the pressure because it’s hard to tell if there low because…their low profile. 🙂

As I walk out, I notice some people and activity and the entrance to our second driveway. It was the town’s department of public works (DPW) workers and some other ‘dude’. After I made sure everything was copacetic with the tires I went back in to let Kate know we had company as they saw me seeing them when I walked out.

A knock is heard. Who could it be? Well we were about to find out and hindsight also shows some more red flags.

As I answer the door, it’s a punk looking dude (big sun glasses and some weird hat) and introduces himself as Frank, but call him Foo.

Foo?…Ok, that’s not weird at all.  What ever, so we introduce our selves and he mentions something about the property and I realize, oh…you don’t just own behind our house, you also own the grape vineyard on the opposite side of our house too. Great we are surrounded by Foo.

He then proceeds to say that their having a new culvert put in because the driveway isn’t going to ‘work for them’ and access to my shop will be blocked while the work is done. OK? My driveway that you have a right to ‘drive’ across to access your property isn’t going to work for you? WTF?!

Well, me being nice and neighborly Brando says righty-O. Actually…that’s a lie. I didn’t say that, I just had an itch to rhyme right now. :p, but I basically said that he’s lucky I’m not running the carpet cleaning business anymore because that wouldn’t work for me.

I ask if that’s what their doing today and he laughs and says no, the DPW doesn’t move that quick. I then say, OK, cool, just give me a day or two notice. We exchange contact information and part ways.

A week or two later about a half hour after Katie left for work, I was getting ready to turn in, I’m pretty much on 3rd shift. I find the quite of the night more suitable for writing code, as do a lot of other coders out there. So yeah, I’m getting ready to hit the sack and happen to look up at the security camera monitor and notice the town DPW dropping of a large drainage pipe in my front yard.

5 minutes later, my wife TXTs me that Foo had sent her a message and that the town DPW will be installing the convert today. 5 minutes later the DPW is back with a trailer and an excavator. So much for a day or two notice. This clown technically gave me no notice. I’m mean, he gave me approximate time frame initially of a week or two, so its not like it was out of the blue, but come on man.

His true colors were starting to show.

So I mossy outside to get a look at the ‘new covert’  and witness the modifications to my front yard that were being done without my consent. Now, I know I probably should of intervened or at least questioned the DPW but at the time I wasn’t too annoyed, plus I was able to get them to dump, essentially my dirt near my shop which was handy because I needed some fill for other parts of the property.

 

I did think it was odd, and still do really, that I wasn’t contacted about the work that was being done to my property. I realize I should of spoke up, but I was still feeling the whole ‘new neighbor’ situation out and didn’t want to cause problems and be ‘that neighbor’ that is just a pain in the ass just to be a pain in the ass.

So after the ‘ditch’ episode, things remained calm until the weekend. So a whole 5 days went by and I’m in my office working. I look up at the security camera and see Fulvio Sr. has parked his side-by-side next to my fresh pile of dirt that I had the DPW dump near my shop.

The Pile of Dirt Incident:

And what does he proceed to-do? Well help him self to my dirt of course. I mean, it’s only 10-15 ft from the easement boundary. I didn’t realize then what I know now about Fulvio. He interprets the right-of-way access easement on the driveway means the property is his to do as he pleases; and that nice pile of dirt was ‘close enough’ to the easement boundary, he figured he would just help himself to it.

I remember saying out loud: ‘man this guys got some balls’. I proceeded to head over to my shop to see and ask him ‘what the f*ck is he thinking?’ When I confronted him about it, he said he ‘assumed’ the the DPW just dumped it there and he was doing me a ‘favor’ by hauling it away. He said he was gonna text (I mean Jesus dude, you were literally 60ft from our front door. Knock!) us about the dirt, but then decided not to? He really didn’t give a reason and was kind of fumbling over his words because he knew he crossed a line.

I told him, no…I asked them to put the dirt they scooped up from  my property back on my property so I could at least use it for fill in lower areas of the yard. I thought that was an acceptable trade off for having a massive ditch dug in my front yard without out any input from me.

He apologized and said he would call Pierce Services to drop a load of dirt off within the next couple days and asked if he could still use the dirt from the current pile to fill in some areas on his property. I stated that would be fine and he did make good on his promise.

That situation like you’ll come to see in the coming days stuck with me because it just left us wondering what the hell is this guys deal.  I am pissed however that I didn’t take a picture of the security monitor when he was out there scooping away because I had a hard drive go in one of my DVRs and lost some footage last year as a result.

Coming soon:

How Fulvio and Fulvio II continue to push boundary’s and become less and less neighborly (if that’s even possible since they never were from the get go). A brief summary of the incidents that I will be documenting in detail include:

• Starting a forest fire behind my shop without notifying me. Looked out back one evening to see tons of smoke and a flames over the roof line of my shop. Yup, they burned a couple hundred square foot area to clear it for their future Fu-plex. Went over to investigate but didn’t see any one actually keeping an eye on it. There was a vehicle, but after 15min, the fire subsided so Katie and I headed back in. But again…WTF?!
• Having one of their land contractors mow down a 10-12′ wide path on the edge of my property without any mention before or after the fact. This is when I was really starting to ask questions about what rights do these people actually think they have, and also started to realize these people just do what ever the hell they feel like and are determined to not let anyone stop them from their ‘we don’t give a f*ck attitude’.
  I posted the full footage from my shop’s camera 1 that recorded the destruction. I’m not sure what happened to the footage from cam 2, but camera 1 shows enough to see some of what I’m dealing with. You can browse that footage here: Neighbor’s Contractor Illegally Mowing Large Path On Edge of My Property – Terrible Neighbors

• Plowing over the south east property marker on the corner of our properties then putting forks from a fork lift right over it as a means to ‘hide’ what they had done.
• Dumping the building materials for their compound on my property next to my shop.
• When the Amish arrived to build their compound, they took it upon them selves to enter my Jeep and try to move it because it was in their way! It was parked next to my shop, a good distance from the driveway with the easement. Had they not dumped the building materials on my property in the first place, my Jeep wouldn’t not have been in their way. This was definitely a WTF moment. I thought the Amish did the horse and buggy thing, now their into grand theft auto? I did once again, give them the benefit of the doubt as they we’re probably in the dark about the developing ‘easement’ situation and they saw the materials right next to the Jeep, so one could assume it was actually Fulvios property if they weren’t informed about the boundary’s before breaking and entering. This was really Fuilvio Sr.’s bad for not COMMUNICATING once again.
• Fulvio Sr. backing into the freshly dug ditch in my front yard shortly after the Fu-pound was erected. At the time I kind of had a laugh about it and even bailed him out by using my AAA membership to call a tow truck for him. After some reflection, I think he may have been drunk because he wasn’t even close to the drive way. Oh, and he never did anything about the huge ruts his truck left in my lawn. Dick. So wish I called cops instead of tow, but I can’t dwell on would of-should of(s). I can only learn from those errors in judgement and try to make the better call next time a questionable situation arises.
• Fulvio’s electrician making himself at home on my property by dropping his trailer off on my freshly shoveled area around my shop. Which is outside the easement boundary.
  

• Their trimmers dumped some of the buckets I had scrap metal in so they could use the buckets to scoop dirt because they decided to drive a Mazda 3 through a mud pit that was more than 6″ deep in spots. Again, the Fulvio’s are far from the brightest star in the sky, and the company they keep seems to follow suit.
• May of 2020 things get heated when they put a 20 ton pile of dirt on the back edge of my property.
• I put up barrier to prevent them and their guests from parking on my property and basically ignoring the easement boundary. Fulvio Sr. ripped down a day later. I called the sheriff. I also brought up the breaking and entering of my Jeep, the stealing of my buckets and the primary reason: Fulvios fit of rage when he tears down my barrier which you can witness here: A Fu (Fulvio) Goes Ape Sh!t – Documenting Terrible Neighbors
  

Remember when I said dwelling on regrettable decisions in regards to not calling the police when he backed into the ditch. Well, I still haven’t learned. The sheriff told me, that yes, I do have evidence of my property being taken, they said they couldn’t do anything about the entry into my vehicle, (which I was fine with, I got no beef with the Amish, but I was alarmed that there isn’t much to deter people from just opening someone else’s vehicle, having a look around. That’s apparently not a big deal.)
The officer also stated that I could press charges on him destroying my beautiful chicken wire Fulvio deterrent. I declined as I thought we could get past this and I wanted dearly to keep things civil because the last thing I want, or anyone for that matter wants, is to feel uncomfortable and on edge in their own home.
So I let it slide and at the present time of me writing this and with how toxic things have become, I also regret that decision.
Note to self:Live and learn Brandon! So when are you gonna do the learning part?

• At the end of August 2020, I alerted the Stampone’s that one of their guests almost got in an accident in front of my house because they didn’t pay attention when backing out and pretty much backed into traffic. Well, for some reason this hit a nerve, and Fulvio II came charging at me and stated that he was going to put me in a wheel chair. No physical contact was made and I did contact the sheriff, but because of their being no contact, there wasn’t much they could do. I felt bad for them coming out but I also wanted it documented and a report at least filed because these guys have obvious anger management issues (even one of their guests that was basically acting as a mediator stated that the Fulvios has a temper. Ok? so how does that make it acceptable? Can we try to act like adults here? I guess that’s too much to ask.
  But with knowing how hot headed they can be, the fact that they have fire arms and their determination to use what ever means possible to force us from our home…well, let me put it like this: if I end up dead, I think it’s obvious where to look for a suspect.

Well that’s going to sum it up for this dealing with terrible neighbors documentation session. I have to now email the Town of Pomfret about a code violation because unbeknownst to me, you can’t have multiple vehicles on your property that aren’t currently registered. (I still have my carpet cleaning trucks, a Jeep I use as a farm vehicle to get over to my shop in the winter, and seasonal vehicles (2 E36s and a 740iL)

Why all of a sudden after 5 plus years? Well because the Stampone’s told us they were going to call the town and said that it will bury us in legal fees and that we better start looking for a new place to live.

Yes, in the midst of a pandemic, the 2 Fulvio’s insist on turning me in to the code enforcement office and stated this past weekend he’s reporting me to the health department? The health department? WTF? I seriously don’t know what for, but I’m sure they have better things to do than to check on a non-issue at the present time. Stay tuned though for updates. Apparently their showing up sometime today (2020-09-21)

Prior to the notice from the town though, I really thought that if you lived outside the village, you could have a number of vehicles on your property. I never nehttps://youtu.be/St9_lnG_GfIw what the actual limit to ‘number’ of vehicles that is acceptable is a total of: 1. I just assumed as long as your yard doesn’t look like a junk yard and they weren’t a complete eye sore, all was well.

With that said, hey… I realize and know now that I’m in violation and I am the area around my shop is resembling a junk yard more than I’d like it to be but I am making an effort at cleaning up the area and getting the vehicles in operating condition and ready to sell.

If I have to liquidate the vehicles in their current condition, I would be taking a significant loss and especially during time of career limbo I find my self in, it would take a significant roll in further diminishing my already poor mental health I find my self in.

The ‘career’ change hasn’t gone exactly as planned and I’ve been dealing with depression for years now. Well before Covid struck and put  many people in a diminished mental health state.

I used optical character recognition (OCR) software on the Town of Pomfret code enforcement document PDF file because I noticed that the pages were just scanned as images and none of the text was searchable. Being able to search the text of the document is very helpful, especially when searching for the rules and regulations in regards to ‘junk’ vehicles.