Situation with neighbor/hedges/property line (Houston, Dallas: houses, landscaping, neighborhood)

[onthefenceinhouston]

We have a situation with fences, hedges and property lines.
We live in the Heights and can fence our front yard. We’ve been in the house 9 years. There was an existing fence in the back between us and the neighbors on the north side. I assume they put it in since the elderly lady who owned our home was not able to spend much on upkeep/repairs.
About a year and half ago, north-side neighbors sold their house. My husband had mentioned to the new neighbor that we intended to fence the front yard when we could afford to since we were expecting our first child and live on a busy street. New neighbor indicated she would also like to fence her front yard. I figured somewhere down the line we would have a fence riding the property line between our yard and hers.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago and she redid all the landscaping in her yard. She removed a hedge between her and the neighbor on the other side. Other Neighbor was upset about it. It was replaced with a planting bed between their yards with a several clumps of ornamental grass and a Turk’s Cap. She claims to be putting in a Japanese garden but it is mostly bare dirt now with a few sparsely planted areas covered with black mulch.
On the other side (our side) of her property along her very narrow driveway, she planted a row of Japanese Yews, straight down the property line. My husband told her that we were concerned about the plant’s toxicity – main symptom of ingestion is cardiac arrest/sudden death. It will grow 8-10’ wide and 30’ tall and makes red berries in the winter that are also poisonous. She was dismissive and asked if our toddler would be grazing in the front yard.
She did not buy the plants herself but divided them from a foundation planting put in by the previous owner. They will be constantly impinging into our tiny yard and dropping toxic leaves and berries. I don’t think she put much planning into putting them there. She’s going to be trimming them constantly. She keeps the driveway gate locked at all times and this is the area where she gets out to unlock it and pull her car into the back.
Initially we thought we would just tell her we were putting up one side of the future fence now on the property line and could she please move her yews. My questions are
(1) Do we need her agreement to move hedges planted directly on the property line?
(2) Doesn’t she need our agreement to put them there in the first place?
(3) Do we need her to agree to a fence directly on the property line and to the style/height of fence? We would not ask her to pay for any of it.
The other problem is that we have different opinions on aesthetics and neighborliness. She applied a really dark stain and water-sealed her side of the fence in back between our yards and was actually upset we would not allow her to stain & seal our side as well. We preferred the weathered wood since it blended in with the new cedar fence we built at the back of our yard between us and the alley.
When her contractor came to pressure wash her fence, she sent him over to pressure wash our side when we were not home. I have a planting bed running all along that fence in the backyard and the guy trampled the groundcover and smaller plants and killed them. He also ripped down all the flowering vines we had trellised to our side of the fence. I was stunned that someone would be so callous with their neighbor’s property. We didn’t make a big deal out it in the interest of peace.
Now I feel like the row of poisonous plants right down the property line when she knows we have dogs and a small child and want to utilize the front yard as a play space is a big F-U to us.
Unfortunately, her property is narrower than ours. She may not be able to get out of the car anymore if there is a fence there.
I don’t feel like she has been very neighborly in making alterations right on the property line without first consulting us or the other neighbor and she has not been considerate in the past (plant murdering in our yard and all), but I don’t want to make the situation worse. It’s still civil now at least.
Insetting the fence so that it is only on our property would probably give her enough room to open her car door and maybe keep her from staining it black. She can’t alter it if it’s not on the property line, I would assume. I guess losing a few inches of space from an already tiny yard is the way to go?
I would like to point out that on the other side of our house is a nice old lady and we have a low cyclone fence between our yards and no plans to throw up anything bigger. I always thought the front fence would just be high enough to keep the dogs in and still be neighborly but now I want a 10 foot brick wall between us and the Yew Lady.
Any suggestions to keep peace in and yews out?
& my thanks to anyone who read this to the end.

[Bad Haggis]

Sell and move to the country? This is like the other person who complained about urban noise in the middle of the city. It is ludicrous people expect suburban or rural attributes in the middle of the 4th largest US city that keeps growing. This is what happens when you pile people on top of each other.

I personally would just make sure the trees are trimmed (do it myself if it breaks the plane) and keep the kids from putting things in their mouths. My kids lived around sixteen 10 ft oleanders along the fence line of our old property and never had a problem. If you givethem toys etc they wwon't bother with eating plants.

[abbybaby]

Put the fence on your side of the property line and she cannot say or do a thing about it. It will be your property and by law she cannot touch it. She won't be allowed to even hook her fence to yours if she wanted to in the future. We had to do this once.

If she doesn't trim the bushes then I would trim any that falls on your side. I believe that is all you are able to do by law. I have 3 small kids and they have never once tried to eat a berry or leaf. Dogs are also usually pretty good about knowing what plants are poisonous. The house we just moved into has a beautiful poisonous plant in the backyard. We chose to keep it since our toddler will not be left outside unsupervised.

I would also make it clear to her that she is not allowed to send any workers onto your property without your permission. I would have been upset about that. That is showing no respect for you.

I will have to say fence sharing is one of my biggest annoyances with houston. In Dallas we had our own private fences and it was nice.

Stand your ground now or she will walk all over you.

Good luck!!!

[PedroMartinez]

I'd just tell her that, for safety for your child and dogs, you plan to put a fence on your property. Have a surveyor put in the stakes, and have the fence installer put the fence in 3 inches on your side, not straddled, so the entirety of the fence is on your property. Photograph the entire thing to make sure that it is clear where the property line is, via the stakes, and that the entire fences in on your property and is in fact your property.

Forget about the previous damage done, and just include gates to your now fully fenced yard, keeping them locked so that no future staining, stomping and ripping occurs.

Before you speak to your neighbor about it, set up a timer on your phone to ring in 5 minutes with a tone similar to a ringer. Give it enough time for you to explain what your doing, but then "I'm sorry, but that is my work" or whatever, giving you a chance to withdraw before she can object too much.

[crone]

Originally Posted by Bad Haggis

Sell and move to the country? This is like the other person who complained about urban noise in the middle of the city. It is ludicrous people expect suburban or rural attributes in the middle of the 4th largest US city that keeps growing. This is what happens when you pile people on top of each other.

I personally would just make sure the trees are trimmed (do it myself if it breaks the plane) and keep the kids from putting things in their mouths. My kids lived around sixteen 10 ft oleanders along the fence line of our old property and never had a problem. If you givethem toys etc they wwon't bother with eating plants.

Beg to differ. Some kids put everything into their mouths. The pediatrician told me that you hear about 100 kids getting their stomachs pump. He said it's not 100 kids, it's the same 10 over and over. We had to lock up everything including the soap.

[Meyerland]

So many different kinds of plants are poisonous. These are everyday plants that you will see everywhere in Houston.

Legally she can plant whatever she wants to on her property. Just keep it trimmed on your side, use a high fence to block it, or put in your own shrubs to block the poisonous ones.

Putting the fence on your part of the property may cause you to lose those few inches. I vaguely remember hearing about this happening to someone else. She is obviously a bit crazy, so I would put the fence on the actual property line. She would probably mess with the fence even if it was all the way on your property. (Past experience proves this.)

My advice is to build the fence, keep the bushes trimmed, and ignore her. Our neighbor is crazy too, and that is what we have done. I watch out for the other houses in the neighborhood during the day, but I just ignore his home. ( I especially watch out for the elderly ones)

[KatieKennedy]

Robert Frost said good fences make goos neighbors. If you can't work it out and the matter escalates you can contact the Harris County Dispute Resolution Center for a free mediation of the dispute. Dispute Resolution Center, Harris County - - Home

[HookTheBrotherUp]

This neighbor could care less of what you think, else she would have consulted with you before she did anything. She cannot put gardens on the property line unless you allow it, and by not speaking up, you are allowing it, and courts will see it that way if it ever comes to it.

At the very least, see if you can locate the property markers, or get a surveyor to do it for you and mark it clearly. If her garden is one inch over that, let her know in a nice way, but be firm, don't ask for permission, or appease just to be nice. It's not like you are getting the same from her and most likely never will. Asking if your child would be 'grazing' is just a slam on you for having kids.