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The question

I made a mess of things with our new neighbours. We have similar-aged children and we started to befriend them over the summer, which I in particular, as a stay-at-home mom, was happy about.

But as time went on it became clear it was not to be. The wife turned out to be an impulsive drunk, taking off her clothes, haranguing her husband. And the way she went off on her kids verbally had me wondering if I should be calling the Children's Aid Society.

I offered to take her kids for a few hours if she was stressed. That backfired: She started treating me as a combination nanny/sounding board for her never-ending stream of invective against her husband.

Finally I decided I had to pull out of this relationship. That's when I did something inexcusable. I told her I'd had it with her, and gave her a piece of my mind about her home life.

Turned out her husband had left her that same day. Bad timing! I apologized, and she seemed to accept it, but the next day I received an awful e-mail from her, very upper-crusty in tone, lecturing me on my behaviour and calling me all sorts of names.

I wrote her back saying I wished her the best.

But maybe we should just wave from over the fence from now on. I do wish her the best, but my husband and I agree: Why waste time on someone about whom we both think, "What a fruitcake."

But now I feel like a failure. Not only did I wind up not helping her children, but I hurt them, because now they're cut off from playing with my kids. Any ideas on how I can salvage this situation, or at least put it behind me?

The answer

Whew, what a toxic stew. Let's see, you've got drunkenness, nudity, haughty pretensions, marital discord, friction between neighbours, bad parenting, bad timing, bad vibes and a friendship gone sour.

I think this is my favourite Damage Control question ever!

I only hope I'm able to give you mature advice, that I can successfully ignore the little voice in my head that keeps saying: "She gets drunk and naked? Damn, I wish that fruitcake was my neighbour!"

I do have a few more mature thoughts than that for you, I think. First, stop beating yourself up and feeling guilty. You say, "I made a mess of things with our neighbours," but it sounds like they were pretty much a mess well before you came along.

But I know how you feel. My wife and I made some neighbour-enemies when we bought our current house.

It was a coveted "old lady's house," highly prized in my world because everything's original (and it's just that much better maintained than the almost-as-coveted "old man's house") and it's in a primo location, on a street upon which my wife had dreamed of living with starry-eyed yearning for years.

But this other couple on the street had their eye on it too. They had even gone so far as to butter up the old lady's family by writing letters. They felt they had dibs on it, so when we quietly bought it (private sale, it hadn't gone on the market), they were outraged, accused us of unfairly swooping in and scooping it up. (Not true, and at one point, to smooth things over, we even offered to sign the deed over to them. But they had some deep-seated need to be angry at us, I think.)

Henceforward, they pointedly ignored us whenever they encountered us. And I realized: It's bad enough making enemies under any circumstances. But when it's a neighbour it's truly awful because they're everywhere. They pop up wherever you go, like a malevolent jack-in-the-box, grimly glaring. In the street. In the park. At the store.

Then of course the neighbour's son and my son became best friends. So day in, day out I had to stand next to the mother who hated me and shot me dirty looks while our kids played in the sand.

It was horrible. And it went on and on, until finally, one glorious day, they moved.

I did learn one valuable life lesson from this experience: It is possible, with due diligence and application, to avoid your neighbours. Even if your children are friends.

My neighbour Mats is the true master in this arena. He's like a wraith, a ghost - a myth. I see him maybe once a month - and I live next door to him.

Perhaps you too should become a Mistress of Avoidance. Study the great avoiders of history - leprechauns, ninjas - and employ their techniques: moving swiftly and silently through the neighbourhood; wearing clothing that blends in with the shrubbery, and so on.

Do whatever it takes. Avoiding people is tricky, I know, but it's a trick we all need to master at some point in our lives. Why not start here, with the ultimate challenge?

Additionally, you know the saying, "good fences make good neighbours?" People tend to think of that as a metaphor, but it's also literally true. Where I live, you're allowed six-foot fences, but you can also cheat a bit by putting an extra two feet of latticework on top. I've got the latticework. I wish I was allowed to build a 10-foot fence.

And I love my neighbours! Check the rules in your area and build the highest fence you can. That way, even if you're both in your backyards you can ignore each other without tension. Maybe the saying should be: "The higher the fence, the less you'll feel tense."

Of course, one feels for the children. Hers and yours. But what can you do? Keep an eye on the situation, I suppose, and hope the verbal abuse doesn't escalate into something else. Maybe call the CAS and discuss it, lay it out for them and see if they have any comments.

Really, though, I would just steer clear. Of course, as always, your response to a person like this should be compassionate, mixed with perhaps a soupçon of pity (and maybe a couple of grindings of fresh schadenfreude for extra piquancy). She's going through a bad patch. Her whole life may be a bad patch. Feel sorry for her.

But whatever you do, don't lapse back into friendship with her. Trouble can be contagious, and I don't think you want to catch what she's got. It could be you next, ripping off your clothes and drunkenly bawling out your husband shortly before watching him storm out the front door with a suitcase in either hand.

And then it'll be just you and her glaring at one another. At which point, one of you will probably have to move.

The good news is: I think Mats might be selling soon. Maybe I can swing you a deal.

David Eddie is a screenwriter and the author of Chump Change and Housebroken: Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Dad.

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