How fun!! Just curious where in Illinois did they have you dive? I have friends and family in Illinois we visit often so I am just curious if it is somewhere I have been.

"Baaaahhh haa ha ha ha" in the words of Woody from Toy Story! ure funni chicagoans!! I wish I could use your example, but alas, I'd be writing this from prison. Don't get me all riled up here :) I am a high school teacher in an urban district. Spell check a misspelled definitely and it magically becomes defiantly. As in "i defiantly oppose raising the age of getting a drivers lisince," in a persuasive essay. Soapbox?! Not me, not tall enough. I have been known to stand on my desk waving a Harry Potter wand to dispel "Capaspellitis Erroneous." after reading 1st drafts to make a point. Students are no longer capable of even capitalizing "I". Never mind to, too, and two. There, they're and their. I blame, for the most part, OK 50%, Bill Gates and his evil empire. Spell check and grammar, not grandma,check to be specific. The other 50% would be texting. I actually see l8r instead of later in formal research papers. Most of which are torturous proofreading nightmares!!! But wait there's more. Can you read this? One student actually brought this to me to prove his point about his spelling issues! I could read it but "defiantly" it did not help his GPA. A+ for effort though :) Cna yuo raed tihs? if yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid, too. I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulatcly uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig hhu? Yaeh, and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! Qoestuin - Can thsi be doen in ohter lnagugues? Snapsih, Fenrch, Iatilan, Gerek, Rissuan. Chenise, Jaapense, Herbew, Aaribc? Great post!

Yes, most of us can certainly sympathize! I'm sorry you're dealing with this, and it's hard to ignore things like this when you work so hard on your own property. At least there's a good fence. My neighbor across the street is on disability, and something of an alcoholic I gather. The house isn't too terrible from the outside, aside from needing a good power washing and one boarded up window. What bothers me is that he has a collection of bright red, Target shopping carts that he uses to collect recyclables and transport them to the recycling center for the deposit. I wouldn't mind so much if he kept the carts reliably on the side of the house, out of view, but he regularly leaves them right square on the front lawn or his driveway, and of course they're bright red. Sometimes he abandons the carts here and there on the side of the street, to return for later I suppose. At times, he keeps other sorts of metal recycling in front of the house. Especially annoying was a refrigerator that sat out there for several months. I eventually made a comment to him about it "do you need help moving that?" and he got the hint and it was gone within the week. The only saving grace is that he is very nice and friendly, and does occasionally take the hints that I drop. My dream is to one day buy the house and flip it, or maybe retain it as a rental property. I have already visualized what I'd plant on the property, so I can look across the street and see something pretty from my front windows. Patience is key! -Chris

Glad they found out what the problem was and you didn't have to open your wallet. We had something similar occur in our last house. It was a house we contracted on our own.We would go over to the house during the build and bring our kids. DS was almost 4 and DD was 6. Rough plumbing was in and DS thought it would be fun to throw a nail down one of the toilet pipes. 3 weeks after moving in the master bath toilet and the guestroom toilet wouldn't go down. Neither shower would drain. Called in the plumber and they pulled up the masterbath toilet to see if they could find the problem. Water went all over the place. They knew it had to be in the main waste line. Turned out that nail DS threw down the pipe ended up getting lodged in a curve of the main waste line and then any toilet paper got caught up on it and clogged the whole thing up. They had to bust through the garage sheet rock to get to the area where the nail was. DS is now 19 and the few times he has been over the house we are presently building he finds nails and takes pictures of him holding it over a pipe or vent. We can laugh about it now but at the time it wasnt so funny. He took this one the other day.