Other people's business

There’s a generator running in the canyon that sounds like a helicopter circling overhead. That’s exactly what I thought it was at first. I kept looking up with binoculars but couldn’t see anything. So, I walked around the neighborhood to see if I could find out what’s going on. Turns out a father and son are building a small house on the side of the canyon. Only problem is, they’re landlocked and haven’t got any electricity. So, in the meantime, it’s going to sound like a landing zone around here until they get connected to the grid. I ask them how they got a building permit without a utility easement in the first place. The plot thickens. They had one. It was on a pole going to, what looked like, an old miners shack that was here before. But, when the miner died; somebody took it down. Now their neighbors won’t let them run underground cables below ..and the City won’t let them hang wires above. I sympathize and tell them I think Santa Barbara is a hard place to get things done. They ask me where I live. When I point it out ..they start looking at a ‘site plan’ and discover that we share a border. Now they’re scrambling around looking for a pole they can connect to by passing below my property. A pole is hard to find because everyone else around here has underground utilities ..except for Dr Jones and his surrounding rentals. But, to hook-up there becomes a mechanical nightmare because they would have to slant drill underneath a creek ..then along my border with Dr Jones, for a distance of about 500 feet. Now they’re talking about it as though it were a done-deal. They snap off the generator and start making phone calls ..and I’m like ..hold on a minute. The plot thickens further. Turns out they already have an easement to get in and out of their property; there’s a road they share with the neighbors on the other side of the creek. In fact, they already have underground utilities they can hook-up to about 20 feet away from them on that road. The only problem is, it wasn’t spelled out legally .. so their neighbors are asking them for a king's ransom to do it. In reality, they already have the right to do it ..and they know it. But one of the neighbors is like, the head of Edison’s construction department, and he can push the work-order so far into the future; it’ll be decades before they get electricity. They know that too. So now they’re negotiating with him to see if they can get his price down somewhere below what it would cost them if they had to mount a legal battle. I learned something from this ..I found out what can happen when I stick my nose into other people’s business.