Woman Held Hostage By Neighbor's Yard

A woman in a coffee shop yesterday explained to the man behind the counter that her recent efforts to sell her house had all been torpedoed by the state of her neighbor's yard. She described it as wildly overgrown, part junkyard, and part landfill. She said that it attracted vermin and other unwanted forms of wildlife. The man who lived there was apparently elderly and though they'd never been close, he and the woman always got along. But he'd been angered by her recent suggestions that he clean up his property, and had refused to speak with her since she'd offered to hire people to do it for him. Since then she said he seemed to be actively trying to make the situation worse.
She said that very few people even stopped in to see her house once they saw what it was next to, and despite offering her home for nearly 20 thousand dollars less that what comparable properties were selling for, her real estate agent had told her that unless something could be done about the neighbor's yard, her place was unlikely to sell. She said she'd even called city officials only to discover that the man was more or less free to do as he pleased with his yard.
Who'd have thought you could hold someone hostage, she said, with nothing more than weeds and trash?