Comment: When cooking a barbecue makes you the neighbour from hell

COMMENT

How do you know if someone's a vegan?

Don't worry, they'll tell you.

Or so the joke goes. Vegans, crossfitters, hybrid drivers - they're better than you and they want you to know it.

What's the point of living a wholesome life if you can't brag about it?

#goals #inspo #livingmybestlife

It was the joke of the day when vegan Cilla Carden took her Perth neighbours to court claiming they deliberately let the smell of their barbecue and cooking fish waft into the backyard of her meat-free home.

Within hours, a Facebook event was inviting people to a barbecue at Carden's house. Thousands of people RSVPed, prompting Carden's lawyer to make a statement warning that anyone who attended would face criminal charges.

The mockery came from around the globe.

It reminds me of a similar incident here in the Bay a few years ago, when some residents living by Pilot Bay complained about smells wafting into their homes from public barbecues.

They, too, faced ridicule - albeit not to the same global extent.

It begs the question - how far is too far?

Everyone's heard a story about a neighbour from hell. They're rude, inconsiderate, loud, obnoxious - that is, according to the storyteller.

Ask the so-called neighbour from hell, and they'll probably give you their own version of events in which the storyteller is the true baddie.

First neighbour: "That Carol next door wakes me up at 7am every Saturday morning when she mows her lawn - what's a man got to do to get a sleep-in around here?".

Second neighbour: "That Jim next door wouldn't know a tidy lawn if he saw it - the slob only mows his once a month, and it's bringing down the whole neighbourhood!"

Who's really in the wrong? The answer could go either way, depending which side of the fence you're on.

On the face of it, complaining about barbecue smells is hilarious - nimbyism at its finest.

But we all want to be the kings of our own castles, and what's normal to some is offensive to others.

Sometimes we need to take a deep breath and assess why were are offended.

Is that smell really, truly, honestly worth getting mad about?

Or will you - and those around you - be better off by letting it go and making an allowance for people different than yourself?

At the very least, getting over it won't make you the butt of a worldwide joke.