shared fencing with a neighbor (homes, landscaping, neighborhood)

[willc86]

Hey guys so im running into this issue with this lady next door. I added asphalt gravel to my back yard and old fence got pushed over a little from the weight.

she is making this huge deal saying its going to fall over and telling me all of this crap on what i did looks ugly and my fence looks ugly and this and that

essentially i just got fed up and told if i see her on my property again im calling the cops. she just does not stop bothering me about it

in a sense I do regret doing this asphalt since i just realized its impossible what I need to do, but too late now unless there is some company who picks up all of that asphalt which is a huge 30 ton truck load


anyhow i am curious since we cant tell if that fence is on my property or hers. i live by powers and barnes, so those homes there (not associated) i highly doubt the fence is going to fall but wondering what are the laws with that fence

but i also figured if i get asphalt to her side im sure ill have to hire someone to clean up that mess since thats for sure on her property

[otowi]

Who owns the fence, you or her? When you bought the place they should've shown you where your property lines were but you can probably get someone to come out and do it again. And yeah, if you messed up the fence, especially if it is hers or on her property, you should pay to fix it.

[Kar54]

Originally Posted by willc86

Hey guys so im running into this issue with this lady next door. I added asphalt gravel to my back yard and old fence got pushed over a little from the weight.

she is making this huge deal saying its going to fall over and telling me all of this crap on what i did looks ugly and my fence looks ugly and this and that

essentially i just got fed up and told if i see her on my property again im calling the cops. she just does not stop bothering me about it

in a sense I do regret doing this asphalt since i just realized its impossible what I need to do, but too late now unless there is some company who picks up all of that asphalt which is a huge 30 ton truck load


anyhow i am curious since we cant tell if that fence is on my property or hers. i live by powers and barnes, so those homes there (not associated) i highly doubt the fence is going to fall but wondering what are the laws with that fence

but i also figured if i get asphalt to her side im sure ill have to hire someone to clean up that mess since thats for sure on her property

Neighbors and associations can be a pain willc. I've lived in my neighborhood for 11 years and we've always been quiet, kept up our property, and tried to be good neighbors. Sometimes that's not good enough.

Had one of the board members who lives one door up from us. Used to file complaints on my son's car parked in our driveway overnight and not in the garage (we only have a 2-car). Complained about weeds that weren't in our yard. Complained about my late mother-in-law's nurse being parked on the street for over 2 hours (twice per week). Today, everybody does things similar and nothing is said. Weird.

Some people you just can't appease.

Hope everything turns out for you. Just don't show up on an episode of "Fear Thy Neighbor"!

[JohnCurtisEstes]

Usually good neighbors split the cost 50/50 unless one of them caused the damage, then it is up to that person to make the repairs.


I have seen some neighbors pay less than 1/2 the cost if their side of the fence is not the "pretty side" (it shows the 4x4 posts and 2x4's).

[dr.frog]

Hiring a surveyor to find out where the property line is with respect to the fence would cost a few hundred dollars, probably. If any part of the damaged fence is on her property, you'd better apologize, get it fixed, and stop making threats against her.

OTOH, if it's entirely on your property, you can do anything you want with it, but be practical, here! Do you really want to live someplace where you're in constant conflict with your neighbors? If your landscaping work damaged the fence, get it repaired or replaced, whether or not you have any legal obligation to do so, and apologize to your neighbor for being an a*hole about it.

[sunsprit]

several things you need to do:

1) get the property line surveyed. You are working in the dark if you don't know where your property line is and where the fence is in relation to that.

2) If the fence is entirely on your property, it's yours to do as you wish ... on your property.

3) If the fence is on the property line, you need to restore it to it's prior condition or better.

4) If the fence (and asphalt) is on your neighbor's property, you need to repair/restore it ASAP.

As others point out, it may not be worth the hassles with this neighbor that you've triggered. Perhaps best for you to try to work with her to restore her interests in the fence even if it costs you a bit to do so. If the property was landscaped and you've buried it with asphalt, it might now be an eyesore ... so relandscaping may be prudent. IF, OTOH, it was a driveway in the past and your intent was to improve the driveway use, so be it.

[colobill]

This reminds me of George Costanza on Seinfeld!

George: ...so mind you, at this point I'm only going out with her two or three
weeks. So she goes out of town and she asks me to feed her cat. So at this
time, there's a lot of stuff going on in my life and, uh, it slips my mind for a
few days. Maybe a week. Not a week, five, six days.

Corbin Bernsen: Yeah yeah yeah. So what happened?

George: Well, it's the damnedest thing. The cat dies. So she comes back into
town, she finds the cat lying on the carpet stiff as a board.

Corbin Bernsen: So you killed the cat.

George: That's what she says. I say, listen. It was an old cat. It died of
natural causes. So get this, now she tells me that I gotta buy her a brand new
cat. I say listen, honey. First of all, it was a pretty old cat. I'm not
gonna buy you a brand new cat to replace an old dying cat. And second of all, I
go out to the garbage, I find you a new cat in fifteen seconds. I say, you show
me an autopsy report that says this cat died of starvation, I spring for a new
cat. So she says something to me, like, uh, I dunno, get the hell out of here,
and she breaks up with me. Now don't you think that would be a great case on
L.A. Law?

Corbin Bernsen just stares at George.

[willc86]

thanks all, well im going to fix it and swallow my pride, and apologize. I really lost it when she called me a jerk and idiot; and also told me my fence was ugly (although I am slowly buying the materials to fix it)

but hey, cant please everyone - huh!

figured we can set our foot on the right path