When Nothing Else Works, Paint The Rainbow

Sherry Lau and her wife, Lisa Licata, bought a house in Penn hills, Pennsylvania, and almost as soon as they moved in their neighbors began harassing them because you know, Gay.

Sherry, a carpenter, and Lisa, a stay-at-home mom to her 13-year-old autistic son, say their neighbors, Ron Makay and his wife, Iolanda Wieczorkowki, made a bigoted comment to them when they first moved in because, you know, Gay. But Sherry and Lisa, hoping to avoid any trouble, told the neighbors they were actually mother and daughter, until a year went by and Ron Makay learned they were gay and :::gasp::: married.

And then the trouble started, though it was mainly Makay and Wieczorkowki shouting at the women, and Sherry and Lisa yelling back that they simply wanted to be left alone. And, to that end, they wanted to build a fence between themselves and the unneighborly neighbors.

Ron Makay took issue with the fence and took his complaints to a zoning hearing board meeting last July, noting an ordinance that doesn’t allow a fence taller than four feet to be built; Sherry and Lisa wanted a six-foot fence.

Makay also wanted the color of the fence to be limited but since there was no ordinance for that, the ladies erected their fence and painted it in Pride colors about two years ago, hoping, as they say, that fences make good neighbors.

It didn’t; after the fence went up, the confrontations continued, and things came to a head when Makay allegedly shot Lau’s 3-year-old pit bull mix, Niko, with a BB gun. Local police arrested Ron Makay and charged him with cruelty to animals and discharging air rifles in connection with the incident.

After that, Sherry and Lisa took another step … and painted the side of their house in Rainbow colors and that, and the fact that he was cited for cruelty to an animal, Ron Makay and Iolanda Wieczorkowki have, mercifully, kept quiet and to themselves.

And watching the Rainbow next door.

Trib Live