Cutting Each Other Off

[419 words] Talk about going to extremes! A man in Maine took a Sawzall and cut his neighbor’s garage in half. Since part of the structure was on his property, Gabriel Brawn had a legal right to do it. The overlapping garage hadn’t been a problem for years, as his relationship with the previous neighbor was amiable. After the neighbor died, and the new residents moved in, the conflicts began over a boundary dispute, and the animosity between the two parties escalated. A frustrated Brawn decided to bring the conflict to an end by bringing out surveyors, who concluded that part of the garage was, in fact, on his property. The neighbors had—quite literally—crossed the line. The garage was cut in half, and a privacy fence went up, equipped with surveillance cameras. While extreme, Brawn’s solution seems to have been decisive, as there has been no communication between the neighbors…