Here's the situation:
Backdoor neighbor A has a lush, weed-free, green lawn. Due to fits of jealousy (and pressure from my green-lawn obsessed father for which I still suffer from childhood psychological nightmares of lawn cutting and weeding), I too strive for a weed-free green lawn. Unfortunately, backdoor neighbor B does not share our love for an unaturally perfect greenscape. Instead, backdoor neighboor B (who are good friends--as I have stumbled home from their house a number of times) has decided that a lawn full of Ohio's best growing crop (dandelions) is preferred. Obviously, the discord between these preferences is causing an externality for someone. While I am not sure who is imposing the externality on whom, all I know is that I have dandelions in my lawn right now and I am not pleased.
So here's the dilemma, do neighbor A and I have the right to a green lawn, or does neighbor B have the right to violate my sense of what a nice lawn should look like--or both? Seeing as I am the one who is complaining, I guess you could argue that if I am so offended, I should be willing to pay for neighbor B to have a lawn that pleases my senses and doesn't encroach on my lawn. But I could counter that neighbor B's indifference is imposing costs on me since I have to exert extra effort, time and money to keep my lawn weed free--they are the polluter, they should pay!
And while the above story is allegorical for a larger scale discussion of property rights, preferences and polluter pays, as the picture below shows, allegory is sometimes based in reality.
At the left of the picture, around the tree, is neighbor A's weed-free lawn.
In the foreground and to the right is my half-mowed, mostly weed-free lawn. I
n the middle-top is the offending party's sea of dandelion puffs.
The weird line going through the picture is my headphone cord.
I have to listen to 80's music while mowing the lawn.
Come on Eileen!
I bet that song's in your head for the rest of the day now.
