Let’s face it: we don’t always get along. There are times we may annoy each other to the point of wanting to explode and we don’t seem to reason with any of it. At the end of the day, we should let bygones be bygones because no issue is ever worth losing sleep. Right?
Wrong. A man living in Dover-Foxcroft Maine decided he was past the boiling point with his neighbor and finally took action to restore order: saw and order to be more specific. On May 26th Gabriel Brawn hired surveyors to make a determination that a certain structure belongs to his property. The property of 140 Grove Street is where Brawn and his family grew up and moved back to in 2012.
An amount of .23 acres that comprise 148 Grove Street once belonged to a different resident which had a home that was added to the property roughly several decades ago. Make sure to pay attention because this is where the water gets murky.
the former owner of the more recent property, Steve Ritter, passed away in 2016 and left his wife, Theresa Laythe-Ritter, with ownership of the estate. The problem was that she did not commonly reside at the property and therefore left her uninformed about certain details.
Tracy Brawn, Gabriel’s wife, mentioned that Laythe-Ritter rented out the property to tenants and soon began to experience problems. “When the dad was alive this was a perfect place to live” Tracy stated. “as soon as that poor man passed away this place turn into craziness and chaos.”
Tensions seemed to escalate in April between both parties and soon action was going to be taken.
The Brawns put wood chips near a boundary so that a tractor could travel and pick up tree limbs on their property. On the other hand, Ritter’s youngest son Blake Ritter placed a steak on the same ground where the wood chips were placed by the Brawns. You can probably already smell the recipe for disaster.
“He said, ‘this is our property get your stuff off it,’ so we had to call the surveyor” Tracy said.
After arranging for the surveyor to come and make the determination the result was shocking. It turns out that the dividing line between both properties lies right through the middle of the garage!
As a backup, another surveyor also provided a similar determination. By rights, the house property is on the Brawns land. Blake Ritter then asked the couple if he could retrieve his father’s ashes from the garage.
“We said please do. We want our property back because we’ve been paying taxes on it for years,” Tracy explained. “But he went over there and started throwing trash all over the place and smashing glass and taking bureaus and throwing them outside in the yard.”
“There’s been a property line dispute for a couple of months and obviously that was the result between mr. Brawn and the owner of the other building,” Dover-Foxcroft police chief Ryan reardon said.
And that’s when the unthinkable occurred. In an incredible demonstration of handyman skill, Gabriel Brawn used a handheld sawzall to slice right through the middle of the garage. This man really means business!
Since the incident, the couple have put up a partial fence and have also installed security cameras on their driveway in order to monitor any disturbances. “We’re putting up a fence. Fences make good neighbors,” Tracy mentioned, “That’s what we’ve learned from this.” You can see the carnage left after Brawn sliced the garage in half. You should always love your neighbor, but if you can’t for whatever reason, slicing a piece of their garage is also a good way to settle things in your favor.
Jonathan Arrastia resides in Miami, Florida. He is a contributing writer for Shareably and enjoys walks, playing basketball, and creating art projects.
