CONFORM: Cincinnati Style!

STEVE KEMME, CINCINNATI ENQUIRER - Passing motorists often honk their horns and wave when they see Robin Sutton working in her yard. "It happened so often I could hardly get my flowers in the ground," she said. But their interest wasn't Sutton or her flowers. It was the circuslike display in her backyard. To wit: 15 toilets sprouting with plastic flowers; dozens of purple, green, brown and white toilet brushes poking up from the lawn, and a host of multicolored pinwheels whirling in the breeze. There's also a plastic human skeleton sitting on one of the toilets and another one riding a plastic horse. The unusual yard decor is part of a protest launched eight months ago by Sutton and her partner, Allen Lade, who have lived for five years at the corner of Forestlake and Lancelot drives. . . Sutton and Lade set up the toilets - almost all donated by their plumber friends - because Anderson Township refused to allow them to build a 6-foot-high cedar fence along the Lancelot Drive side of their backyard. The couple wanted the fence for privacy and to allow their grandchildren to play safely. But the township's board of zoning appeals said the fence would be too visually imposing. Since then, Sutton and Lade have greatly expanded their own visually imposing display. They added the skeletons for Halloween. For Christmas, they strung 2,800 lights in their backyard. They invited neighborhood children to spray-paint the toilet brushes. "It's fun," Sutton said. "But it's also a reminder of basic property rights. It shows the absurdity of being told you can't put up a fence."