Won’t You Be, Or Not Be, My Neighbor?

It may not be as extreme a situation as the property dispute between the Hatfields and McCoys, but one issue among neighbors in Piscataquis County came to a head recently, and it resulted the halving of a garage, with a Sawzall!

According to an article by Ernie Clark in Saturday's Bangor Daily News, "Gabriel Brawn used a land surveyor’s demarcation between the two lots as a guide to remove the half of the building sitting on his land when a dispute over the boundary line boiled over."

The article states that the issues between the Brawn and Ritter families of Dover-Foxcroft didn't start until the Ritter family's patriarch died in 2016. Up until that point, the two families had lived in peace for the entire 4 years prior to that time.

The Brawns, who had been living in the home since 2012, said following Ritter's death, their neighbor's house turned into a revolving door of tenants and upheaval. When the Brawns went to clean up some downed trees in their own back yard, the Ritter's son, who had lived there off and on for a while, took issue with that and triggered the bad blood between the families.

There was some back and forth. At one point Brawn tried to buy the Ritter property. When that didn't work, the authorities in Dover-Foxcroft were looped in. Two surveyors were called to determine where the property lines were. Once that was done, the Brawns took matters into their own hands, literally.

"The next day, Gabriel Brawn — who works in construction — took a Sawzall and skillfully cut down the half of the garage that was on his family’s property and left the remains on the other side of the surveyor’s line."

That's certainly one way of getting your point across.

The Brawns are also putting up a fence that runs the length of the property.

I think one of the lessons to take away from all of this is "don't tick off a neighbor who has mad Sawzall skills!"

My guess is no one will be asking them to borrow a cup of sugar anytime soon.