We have had neighbor issues on a regular bases over here, as it's awfully hard for non-smokers to share a porch with smokers. I won't elaborate too much because that's a whole debate I don't want to get into, but overall we generally have little to no interaction with our neighbors and when we do it's generally just hurrying past as quickly as possible. Especally as Karen and I are introverted individuals and don't really socialize much to begin with we sadly easily come off as the stuck up lezzies next door.

Before Neptune got his new cage, you could see his tub from our window. We were playing a lot of tetris trying to get the critter enclosure situated, and we ended up moving the doves so he was where they used to be, sort of.

So, after a bunch of litter/cage cleaning I go to take the garbage bag of stinky out and of course our neighbors are out smoking on the porch. I intended to just hurry past as usual but the couple asked in unision "How's the snake?" Well... I can't resist an opportunity to talk about my snakes. So I tell them they're fine, and they ask what kind of snakes we have and how many and actually got into a real pleasant chat.

Turns out our neighbor lady had a burmese a while back that eventually got too big to handle and she had to give up (like happens, sadly) but she really misses having snakes around and Neptune had rekindled that desire. She said she was thinking of one of the much smaller species now and was looking into it. She and her husband/boyfriend/roommate/I have no idea had been joking that we fed those doves they used to see to the snake, and I assured that the birds were fine and we just had a freezer full of rodents instead.

My throat was burning something awful afterwards but it was very cool to finally find some common ground with our neighbors. It was also a HUGE relief that they weren't the sort to go "EW, ACK, SNAKES, I'll have the office do something about this!!" you know? lol. Turns out they think it's awesome we have snakes and I feel more comfortable pausing to talk to them and hopefully even working out something with the porch that makes us feel less like prisoners in our own home eventually.

Hidden blessings of the snake hobby Making peace with the neighbors!