Editor:
To the person who bought the house next door – shame on you!
When you purchased the beautiful rancher from the recently widowed neighbour for $1.2 million, did you once appreciate the beautiful environment, the manicured gardens both front and back, which the deceased gentleman lovingly looked after for many years to please his wife?
which the deceased gentleman lovingly looked after for many years to please his wife?
Did you stop once to consider that all of the neighbours are just middle-class people who have worked hard all their lives to retire to this area where they could enjoy their gardens and flowers and sunshine?
You obviously did not. You came into our beautiful neighbourhood with all of your garish affluence, you bulldozed down a lovely home in the blink of an eye.
You didn’t even try to sell newly installed windows, appliances, doors etc., or alternatively, to even consider donating them to Habitat for Humanity. I couldn’t believe it when I saw chandeliers just swinging from the ceiling when the house was being torn down.
The kids were so distraught to find out that you destroyed a chandelier that had passed from generation to generation, how they would have loved to have kept it but were too embarrassed to ask if they could purchase it.
The mother – who is now in a retirement home – keeps asking her sons to drive her past her home filled with a lifetime of memories. They have to keep making excuses to her; they feel that her heart would break.
I feel so badly about the elderly neighbours beside me. They created a little park-like garden in their backyard. They planned on this being their forever home. They were so upset when they found out you were building a big house, to realize their sun would completely disappear, that after many tears they decided to sell.
This is so very sad.
I now walk in to my yard where I used to see beautiful trees, open space and sunshine, and I stare at a wall so high it looks like an apartment building. It just makes me want to cry.
It is ostentatious, a Vancouver monster house that looks so out of place here that all the neighbourhood is talking and apologizing to those of us affected, not understanding how the City of Surrey could have approved this huge building in this area.
Since the beginning of August, there has been bulldozing, demolishing, pounding and now the constant construction noise. What should have been a tranquil, peaceful, beautiful summer was destroyed.
I’m not sure what I will do. I will wait and see how much sun I lose next summer. I love growing flowers, the sunshine and live for my summers – the damage you have done to my retirement is not reversible.
You may move in, but you will never be a neighbour.
Bev Greenlaw, Surrey
