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Upon second look I think it may be a utility pole, with the 5 lines running across the yard.
IMHO you are getting needlessly stressed out over nothing. Once again with emphasis...you are not BUYING the place. If you find you don't like the utility lines you could always move.
And when you say "across the yard", do you mean in parallel with the front property line and street/sidewalk, or in rear of lot in parallel to back property line ?
Or do you mean somewhere across the middle of the lot/property ?
Or is one end of these 5 lines going to the house ?
I've owned my home for 10 years. It was only two years ago that I "noticed" a distribution line spanning my back yard. It blends right in with the trees. No worries or concerns on my part.
In my neighborhood they have the poles in the backyard and the main lines run parallel to the property instead of being on the street. They do have to come into the property if something is wrong like after a storm when they had to reset them. They also trim the trees so that any branches above the lines are removed.
And when you say "across the yard", do you mean in parallel with the front property line and street/sidewalk, or in rear of lot in parallel to back property line ?
Or do you mean somewhere across the middle of the lot/property ?
Or is one end of these 5 lines going to the house ?
Yes it looks like that, and the 5 lines go across the yard around the middle of it. It is a pretty large yard.I just wondered if this could be dangerous during a storm. I live in Texas and we can have quite strong tropical storms.
Depending on where you live, power lines are either underground or overhead. Where OP is they are apparently overhead.
The legal thing that allows them to be there is an easement. And once the power company has one there are frequently more lines for internet, phone, cable, etc.
If you are renting- who cares. If buying, make sure you understand what easements are.
It is probably not dangerous. If there is a lightning strike it likely would hit a pole instead of your house and the pole will be grounded. I have seen lightning strike a power line pole with a transformer on it and it fried it and it lit up brightly, and then the power went off for the entire area.
Bottom line is that the homeowner has no control of where the power lines are placed, it is determined by the city/county/state. If you find a home with overhead utilities and prefer underground utilities, choose a different home/neighborhood that has the utilities that you prefer.
You don't call the local utility and ask for those lines to be moved unless you want to pay for it out of your pocket. Hint, that is not cheap or easy.
my daughters house in Albuquerque had power lines that fed the neighbors house go right through the middle of her backyard and through several trees. we trimmed on tree and the line drop to just over 8 feet.
we drove the neighborhood and saw that it was typical as the utility did not install poles at every corner or every other corner in the back yards and just taped where they wanted. Here is Texas its the same way or lines were installed years before they started selling off farms to make smaller 2-5 acre lots.
She called and called the utility several times and finally after telling them of the liability they had with power feeding another house going through her trees they sent out a crew. First crew said it was legal and nothing they could do. She called again for a supervisor /territority manager and he came out and said its not right even after all there years before she bought it. He sent a crew and they in fact installed a new pole and feed the neighbors house off the new pole.
you just gotta ***** and complain and use the safety words etc -
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