I agree Ziggy, condoms and ornaments? Otherwise sounds good to me. Beautifying a public space using his own free time and funds. He says that he doesnt bother private land, which is good, because, regardless of its state, it still isnt his. Have to admit though, I havent read many articles related to gardening that mention Che and Mao. Hmmmmmmmmmm.

Just read the entire thing thanks a bunch, it was very helpful and pretty much proves what I was thinking. I have the same type of situation here but my back yard opens up to a cul de sac. My neighbor has the same situation where their backyard is in another cul de sac basically we face opposite ways. In between our two properties is a public walkway...he went ahead and put a 4 foot iron fence completely open for the simple reason he did not get a permit and knew if he did they would say 4 foot anyways and have him go through the whole variance processes. I need a 6 foot fence as our patio in the backyard is complete open everyone waking can see exactly what we’re eating for dinner. My neighbors are “cool” with whatever we want to do, but again it’s a risk because if someone complains we run the possibility of having to take it down completely, moving it or having to change the fence out completely. Neighbor did the open fence and will place trees around the outside of the fence to keep a little privacy which sounds like a good idea and lots of maintenance.

Oh how scary and awful. Hearing about these sorts of things just sends waves of anxiety through me. For some reason nobody ever takes threats seriously. Until the crazy person goes and does something. Then it is too late. We just had an incident two blocks from me where an ex-employee who had been fired returned and shot the manager and two other employees. They all died. The manager was a 19y/o girl. They were all just kids. The scariest type is the "jilted suitor" who will stop at nothing to gain "love". I saw the 1993 movie 'I Can Make You Love Me' the story of Laura Black and couldn't sleep for a month. Here is a link that might be useful: Movie

As far as I can tell, the vast majority of "robber sues homeowner and wins" stories seem to be urban myths. I did study one case in law school where a homeowner was successfully sued, but in that case, he had set up a gun on some sort of automatic trigger connected to the front door of an unoccupied cabin. The court said that this was going too far, taking the chance of killing someone to protect property, rather than life. The basic rule on self-defense is that you have to try to run away rather than use force, if you can do it safely. That basic rule does *not* hold true in your own home. There is no "duty to retreat" in your own home. The other basic rule on self-defense is that you can use only enough force to repel the attack. However, what amount of force is reasonable depends on your duty to retreat. Since you have no duty to retreat inside your home, you can use more force than you would outside your home. As to whether you can use wasp spray as a weapon, I don't know the answer. My best guess would be that if you used it during an attack on the street, the courts would treat it as any other dangerous weapon. If you used it in your home (or car, at least in some states), even if you planned to use it as a weapon, I doubt there would be an issue. The law varies by state. If you want to see what your state thinks about these matters, look up the "castle doctrine," as in "my home is my castle." As a practical matter, I think most people are okay using whatever force they need to protect themselves inside their own homes. And that's even more so for women. Where I could see it getting dicey is if some teenaged kid broke into a house for drug money, having no weapon and thinking the house was unoccupied, tried to run away when he saw someone was home, and the man of the house grabbed him and beat the living s*^t out of the kid. Even then, I'll bet most police officers would tell the kid that he shouldn't have been in the house in the first place. As to whether the man of the house could then be sued, well, of course he could. Some of the castle laws protect people from being sued in these situations, but for the most part, anyone can sue anyone. Can't necessarily win, but can start the suit.