An Open Letter to the Person With a Compost Pile on The Backside of My Fence

Dear Person With a Compost Pile on The Backside of My Fence,

This was the first summer in our new home. We moved in last October, and had been excited to enjoy our great new patio once the weather warmed up. And we did, for most of spring anyway. Then, around late June, our porch became unusable.

It all began when my two and four-year-old, nearly feral, daughters decided, on their own, that they didn’t want to play in the backyard anymore. We chalked it up to the heat, after all it was hot. But then a few days later my wife was working in the yard and flies of all sizes and varieties started dive bombing her so much she was forced to call it a day.

After that my wife became super vigilant, and timely, about picking up after our small dog anytime he went number two in the yard. The poor little guy could barely get it out without a plastic bag attacking it.

Despite all of this, the little town of flies living in my yard quickly boomed into a bustling fly metroplex.

Next step, we got these amazing fly traps and put them all along the back fence. It was so disgusting, it was ridiculously stinky, and to witness dozens of flies swarming and being trapped in a bag -- all while dozens more crowded the entrance like it was the Studio 54 of their Fly Metropolis -- was gross.

Onetime I swear I overheard a fly saying “look, I know the flies inside are saying ‘don’t come in! It’s a trap!’ But they’re only saying it because they want to keep whatever smells so terrible in there for themselves!” Before elbowing his way in with his tiny little fly elbows. Sucker.

But, it was working. We were catching flies and as long as the wind was blowing in our favor, we could enjoy our patio once again.

And so we spent the summer on our patio with the nastiest of stenches wafting about, but it was better than the alternative; swarming flies.

That takes us to Labor Day weekend, and my wife is doing some work behind our property, and there it is in all it's rotting glory: one big a$$ compost pile, freshly filled with decomposing veggies, and whatever else our neighbors didn't eat from dinner the night before.

This compost pile is about 6 feet from our fly bag covered fence, and not much further from our perfect patio, and oh so obvious the majority source of our fly infestation.

While neither my wife nor I believe this compost pile was placed with ill intentions, we need it gone, it's football season now and I need my patio. So, please, if you have any advice on how to approach these people it'd certainly be appreciated.

Keep in mind that we have no idea who they are, and to be honest we have never seen a single person in the backyard. But we know that they are there and that they don't eat all their vegetables, and we've got the fly corpses to prove it.