Yabba Dabba Don't

There is one in every town. No matter what sort of town you live in, whether the people in your neighborhood are rich like Scrooge Mc Duck or poor like Sluggo, whether you live on the East Coast or the West Coast or somewhere in the Great Middle, no matter what, you have one.

Talking about the one house in every town where half the cars that pass by slow down to take a look because it's "that house." It could be the house in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, where the owner imported over a million dollars worth of Italian marble to use as siding  - and the neighbors went pazzo (crazy) because carloads of tourists and locals alike were careering down the street to see the shiny marble house, and then turning around to come back the other way so everyone on the driver's side - Dad, Uncle Tony, and Grandma Pearl - could see the place. 

It could be the house where a spurned lover tossed a homemade Molotov cocktail at the front door, only to find that you actually have to light the fuse to achieve the desired results. 

Or it's the place like we see on the way to vacation, where the front yard looks like a giant version of a claw machine, so full of kitschy doodads is it. Bendovers that look like a lady wearing bloomers while weeding the strawberries, profiles of cowboys leaning against the house, old wheelbarrows tipped over with plants growing out of a pile of topsoil, tiny wishing wells, burros, and two mailboxes: one regular, the other on a twelve-foot pole marked "FOR AIR MAIL ONLY."

You can't get away from them. There are houses like this everywhere you go. And sometimes, it winds up in court, like in Hillsborough, California, where the owner of a house built and decorated it like 1313 Cobblestone Way - the address of Mr and Mrs Fred Flintstone.

Hillsborough is one of those neighborhoods in San Francisco that are described as "posh," so the town responded to the outraged complaints from others who live near the place by trying to make them change the look of the place. The owner is a retired publishing mogul, Florence Fang by name, and she likes the way the place looks, even though nothing else around looks like it. 

The town of Hillsborough called the giant dinosaurs and life-size sculptures all over the lawn “a highly visible eyesore.” They brought a suit against Fang, on the grounds that she violated local codes with the dinosaurs and non-typical paint and the odd landscaping. To them, that constituted a public nuisance.

The attorney for Hillsborough, Mark Hudak, said the town has always been proud to have a rustic, rural atmosphere, and has rules in place “so neighbors don’t have to look at your version of what you would like to have, and you don’t have to look at theirs.”

Hudak also said residents have to get a permit before installing such sculptures, 60's sitcom theme or not.  

Time after time, Hillsborough issued stop-work orders, and ordered Fang to remove the Bedrock features around the multimillion-dollar property. The house is a 2,730-square-foot property, after all, not some lean-to in the middle of nowhere.

Well, Fang counter-sued.  And they reached a settlement. Technically, Fang settled with the town, but the agreement they reached says she gets to keep her tribute to Bedrock's First Family.

The agreement goes on to say that the town will "review and approve" a survey of the landscaping theme Fang installed, Fang will apply for building permits and receive them, the town will pay her $125,000, and she will drop her lawsuit.

So, to sum it up: she did wrong, she irritated the neighbors, she did not follow the rules of the town, and she gets to keep things just the same AND get a nice check from the city. 

Here's my chance to turn our house into an Elvis Theme Park. Thankyouverrrrrrmuch.