Do something nice for (or to) your neighbors, and how do they react? Not well.

(Photo credit: CBS)

FWIW’s New Mexico correspondent also covers California as part of his beat, and he sends along this sunny story from the land of “Can’t we all get along?”, Rodney King:

Neighbors protest homeowner’s painting her house pink and slapping some emojis on it.

The homeowners claim the house on 39th Street near Highland Avenue was painted hot pink and decorated with the two eye-popping emojis — one with a zipped lip, the other with googly eyes and its sticking tongue out — after the owner, Kathryn Kidd, was fined $4,000. Her neighbors had complained to the city she was illegally running a short-term rental.

“She was upset the city shut her down and fined her thousands of dollars,” says neighbor Dina Doll.

Both emojis, painted several feet tall, have eyelash extensions.

Doll doesn’t think it’s a coincidence.

“I think it’s not even ambiguous actually. Zip the lip … we all know what that means,” she said, adding: “I think it violates every sense of common decency.”

Kidd, who says she’s simply an art lover, disagrees.

“It’s a message to me to be positive and happy and love life,” she insisted, adding: “I have eyelash extensions. The eyes are like a Mona Lisa eye. They kind of follow you.”

There’s an Englishman renting the house currently, and takes a phlegmatic approach to the issue:

Edward Averday, who’s leasing the house for a year, isn’t bothered by the house’s larger than life decorations:  “The only thing I really have to say is this is a really nice place to live. It’s a happy house. From the inside, my view is of the ocean. What’s not to like about that?”

This being California, I wouldn’t even begin to guess how it will all work out.

As Mr. Averday says, “what’s not to like?”