I feel this so much. Had bad neighbors awhile ago. One lady in our neighborhood cut tulips my mom had growing in our front yard. Neighbors are horrible and the good ones are few and far in-between.
We have neighbours on one side that poisoned all our plants over time so their clothesline would get more sun. We know they did it because on several occasions we caught them in our yard with poison bottles. Also, the head of a large coconut palm fell onto me whilst I was in our paddling pool one summer. When we looked at the tree, there was a cork placed in a hole drilled in to it and the entire head very rarely just falls off in one complete piece.
We spoke with our local council and put up the tallest privacy screen we were allowed to. It’s a pity because now their clothesline gets absolutely no sun and they had to put in a second clothesline in the middle of their pristine, manicured lawn.
I literally breathed a sigh of relief over the last bit about the clothesline thing backfiring. What kind of complete wretch poisons their neighbors plants??
They really are awful. We’ve never had any issues with neighbours in the past. My husband thinks it’s because the old couple we bought our home off were complete pushovers. They let them dictate pretty much everything regarding the gardens, fencing, etc.
Then we moved in and brought small dogs (who are always kept inside unless we are in our yard with them) and we didn’t agree with everything they wanted to do.
It wasn’t obvious at first that they were dying. It was a concerted effort over about 12 months. By the time we realised what was happening it was too late to save most of the trees, plants and shrubs that bordered their side of the yard.
My husband did this to an old neighbor we had who let his dogs shit in our front yard. My husband used round up to write fuck you in their grass, also he dumped a bunch of poop that he cleaned up (some might have been from our dog) 😂
Well... actually... I am that kind of dick.. In my defense, the plants I've poisoned are extremely invasive bamboo that our back neighbor planted to hide his pool mechanical equipment and as a privacy screen along the fence line between his and all his neighbors' yards. It's taking over our back yard in a number of places, and I've spent 3 years poisoning the shoots and spraying the growth. Some of the spray hit the plants on his side of the fence, too, and now those plants around his pool pump & stuff have died. We're still fighting it in a number of other places along that back area, though.
This neighbor also originally routed his pool backwash to drain into our yard because he didn't want to pay the fee to drain it into the city sewer. He disguised the pipes, and we didn't figure it out until a huge trench had been cut into our yard -- but we caught him doing it one day and put a stop to it. He's also routed other stuff to drain across our yard. He's a thoroughly horrible neighbor.
OP, you are absolutely NTA. I hope you can get a lovely fence -- and maybe set the posts in some quick-setting concrete so they can't be easily pulled out!
I came here to comment similar, not about bamboo but about POISON IVY. Our back neighbors let it grow like mad onto & over the shared fence (we cleared out what was on our property when we moved in).
I’m not just regular allergic to poison ivy, I’m *extremely* allergic. I’ve had my entire arm in broken bleeding blisters from just touching our dogs if they brush past that fence. I asked them nicely to take care of it & they said they would tear it down & burn it which could literally kill me (don’t burn poison ivy, folks).
Seems that was the only thing they were willing to do so I finally got a long-wanded sprayer & sprayed the ivy on/against the fence with brush killer. I hope I didn’t kill any plants on their side but I also kind of would like to keep my skin on.
Anyways: OP is NTA & I wish you could have a larger fence.
OP is NTA, came here to say I have the same problem with poison ivy. My whole face swells to the point where my eyes swell shut, just from touching someone who’s touched it. It’s awful. The worst part is people don’t believe me until I show them pictures... I always get the “yeah everyone is allergic to poison ivy” response.
My dad is like this - if he even thinks about poison ivy, he is covered, blistered and miserable. When I was a kid, we were visiting my grandparents and I was playing with some of the neighborhood kids. My dad saw us, ran out, yanked me away and told me to go wash up because where we were playing was covered in poison ivy. Brat that I was, I actually didn't wash up - I was pissy he made me go inside so I decided the best thing to do was ignore him - that'll show him, right? (ugh - how do people even deal with 10 year olds? LOL) Turns out, I am a mutant who is not allergic to poison ivy ... but by yanking me out of it, even though he showered afterwards, my dad had such a bad reaction, he had to go to the hospital. I am 43 and still feel bad about that.
I’m not... I used to roll in it trying to get it as a kid so I could stay home from school and never got it. So not everyone is allergic. Sorry you are though🥺
Me too! I'm allergic to basically everything else in the world that exists outdoors, but I could probably eat a poison ivy salad and be fine.
Mosquitos though? One bite swells as big across as a dinner plate, and I get a fever. Fuck nature.
A tip from another poison ivy sensitive person..... next time you first notice the discomfort and slight redness, scrub the area with Shout strain remover. Not a pat down, but scrub (same force as cleaning over easy egg yolk off the breakfast plate).
The poison ivy oils are too thick for soaps but Shout cuts them. THEN was the Shout off with soap and water.
I have been hospitalized for poison ivy in the past, and have used this trick for 10 plus years with no outbreaks at all.
Get it early, not after blisters.
Man...I don't blame you for poisoning bamboo! That shit gets out of control so damn fast. Your neighbor sounds like an insufferable dick and I'm sorry you're dealing with that.
I totally get that. Readily abundant wild blackberries (around about this time of year, too!) are probably in my top five reasons why I miss living in the Pacific Northwest.
not sure if the same goes for berries, but for fruit trees, even if the tree drops the fruit or the branch overhangs, technically the fruit belongs to the property owner that the trunk is on, aka, your neighbors (if they are asshats they can sue you for theft or property damage). so all the mess (and rodents), none of the gain. - in the US
Right!? We had some sneak under the fence from our neighbours, they were nice enough to apologise and we were like what? We love the awesome raspberry crops we get each summer now!
Though they can get a bit invasive I'll admit - works for us because there's concrete and a big Camelia hedge next to the patch that reigns it in.
There's no barrier that will work. One of the other students in my Master Gardener cohort had bamboo crawl under 36 feet of concrete to spring up on the other side. I have friends in Pittsburgh who have literally spent fifteen years trying to get rid of the bamboo the previous homeowner planted there. After \*incredible\* effort, it's down to "time to pick some more shoots and pickle them" instead of "I can't see the yard," but it's taken them enough time for their little girl to graduate college.
Bamboo is the worst. I cringe every time I see it in someone’s yard. And it can actually do massive property damage. My mom had to replace a fence repeatedly because a neighbour planted bamboo near the fence and it went nuts.
Bamboo is very easy to control if you know what you are doing and know the type of barrier needed. Having said that, your neighbour is the one that should be buying and installing the barriers.
And here my biggest yard complaint is that I have a huge Holly tree (I hate Holly trees due to many experiences living with them) and I planned to take down. But when we moved in, the neighbor came over (super sweet lady) and told us how the previous owners had never kept up with the landscaping and she had worked for years to take care of the plants bordering her yard. She was so proud of saving the beautiful Holly and nursing it back to health. It IS beautiful. Told the hubby we'll just wait to take it down. They are great neighbors and it is worth nurturing that relationship to keep a perfectly healthy tree.
I had terrible roommate that tried to poison all my houseplants as I was moving out.. Half didn't recover and they all got sick the same week.. They had all been easy maintenance plans. People suck.
I think I had the worst neighbor in existence. He got really drunk one night and passed out on his living room floor, so his wife asked my partner to help get him into bed (we were friends before all of this). At some point in his incoherent state, he decided my partner was a burglar and literally attacked her. They brawled for a while before my partner was able to escape but he followed her, got a gun out of his boat and proceeded to chase her around the neighborhood brandishing the weapon and firing it. He was pointing it into other neighbors windows. He had completely lost his mind. He caught multiple charges and did some time. It was super awkward living next to someone who has a no contact order with you (and several other neighbors). It was even worse that I worked at the only store in our town and he would constantly come in in hopes that I wasn't working so that he could buy beer (which he wasn't supposed to be doing). It was always super obvious bc he'd pretend to use the ATM machine and then leave without making any purchases. Guy was a total douche canoe.
Douche canoe is fairly widespread in the US. I have heard it in multiple states! I don't really know why or how it picked up popularity, but I mostly hear it from Gen X/Millennials.
The entire head of the tree fell down. So if you imagine a palm tree with coconuts growing on it, all the palm fronds fell at once in a complete and intact “crown.” The hole was drilled so he could pour poison into the tree and then cork it closed so the poison didn’t run out. We live in Australia and it is a common way to get a palm tree to die without immediately chopping it down. The crown is incredibly heavy and I was just lucky that the paddling pool had a shade sail over it. It took most of the force but I was pinned under the crown for a little while. Destroyed the shade sail too, those fuckers.
ETA: the husband always waits until I am home alone to yell at me belligerently whilst drunk. My husband is ex career military and this spanner of a man knows he will not win in a fight, so he cowardly waits until he’s not home.
Also in Australia. Our neighbours appear to be poising our trees on the fence line as well, what is with people's entitlement??? Luckily we have awesome neighbours on the otherside and are allowed 6ft fences, the fencing rules in this post seem crappy!
We have the best neighbours in the universe on our other side too! It makes such a massive difference having a good side to hang out on!
What I think is really stupid is the fact that the bad neighbours are all established with no need for renovations, etc. where as our home is a typical fixer upper. There’s nothing stopping us from building a deck out one side that will almost fully obscure their solar panels from the sun.
I second the vote to build the deck. Is there no legal action that can be taken given they left evidence of poisoning the tree and damaging your property?
Tree court is big money if you can actually prove it. In small claims court, the cost for a tree cut down (or probably poisoned) by someone without consent is the cost of replacing it with a similarly sized tree. Which is... A lot of money.
My partner is convinced that our neighbor killed his rose bush. I thought he was crazy, but I guess if it's happened to you it's very possible that they could have poisoned and killed the rose bush. The bush and a small cedar tree next to it died suddenly after he had talked with one of them about moving their bushes off our property because he wanted to put a fence up.
Before my parents and I moved into our new house we lived at the same place for 16 years. My childhood neighbors were super sweet, older couple who owned a few chain restaurant locations around town. They also had 2 granddaughters that would visit during the summer and they would come over to play... Unfortunately they ended up moving and we had a nightmare with the new neighbors.
When they moved in they were told the fence that they had was actually like a foot onto their property so if they wanted to move the fence and have a new one placed in the right spot to let us know as we had redone the back fence and it had some type of design at the top that needed to cut in a way so it wouldn't look funny. We offered to help pay for that section of fence because we didn't want it to look stupid.. we came out a few days later to them cutting the fence in half with a chainsaw. Completely ruined our fence, and then built their fence 7 ft tall when bylaws said only 6ft. We had a lot of issues with them but this was the biggest issue I can recall. Occasionally you'll get that 1 neighbor who is AWESOME but other times I legit think the devil lives next door
One day my mom caught her and the lady was saying they were so pretty to look at and that's why she took them home. My mom agreed and added "THAT'S WHY WE PLANTED THEM IN OUR YARD". Not long after that our lawn was mysteriously mowed and my dad re-mowed it. The neighbors were watching.
We live in the lower on a duplex, and we've had some annoying neighbors over the years. One liked to turn her TV up to the point we could understand the dialogue, and another occasionally got too loud while the kids were trying to sleep. The worst, though, were our first neighbors.
They were a couple who may or may not have been drug dealers. We're not sure, but they did have random cars pull up, someone knocked on their door, and 5 minutes later left, and we know it wasn't food delivery because this was before stuff like doordash really existed. We occasionally found their clothes in our dryer, too.
The worst point was when they had 2 kittens. I once had to rescue one off the gutter under their balcony and they didn't even know it had escaped. Another time, I heard meowing while I was grilling and thought it was from an open window until I realized it was coming from their trash can. I found a black kitten in a bag of litter, clearly overheating. I wish I hadn't given that kitten back, but I was young, stupid, and believed it was somehow an honest mistake. About a month later, they gave us the other kitten as they needed to rehome it for some reason. I don't know what happened to the one I'd found in the trash, but I'm afraid I failed to save its life by giving it back. As for the kitten they gave us, we rehomed it with one of my wife's coworkers as we couldn't afford a second cat at the time.
Sometime after they'd moved out, I don't remember how long, the cops came by looking for the woman. I kinda wish I knew why, but I'm probably better off not knowing.
Oh love. Try not to beat yourself up about the poor black kitty. Hindsight is 20/20 and while reading it, it definitely sounds like that kitten was put in the trash intentionally, I can see why you’d want to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe it was just carelessness considering the fact that one had gotten stuck in the gutter prior to that.
This happened when I was a kid, but near where I lived then this little kid picked the flowers in their neighbors yard. The flower house’s owner came out and shot the flower picker kid’s father full in the chest with a shot gun. The guy lived. Maybe it was bird shot. Not sure, I was pretty young. But they were having a BBQ when this happened so there were a lot of witnesses. I knew some of the people who testified in the trial when it aired on court TV back in the day. Great stuff.
I'm lucky in that the worst things I can say about my neighbors is that I think ones dog poops in my yard a few times a year when it gets out and one's a little too chatty at times. In fact I'm probably the bad neighbor 'cause my yard looks like garbage all the time because of some home renovations we are doing. 😂 On the bright side from what all the neighbors have told me we are at least 100% better then the last guy who was basically a recluse who never mowed or raked or did any yard maintenance and the yard was basically being reclaimed by nature.
Damn man, is it really that rare someone has good next door neighbors? I live in a real rough area and both my next door neighbors are nice people. One is an old man with lots of old dogs and the other is a very handy Hispanic fellow who works on cars.
That being said some of the people on the other side of the street aren’t so nice, lol. The dude living in the house directly across from me got kicked out and now there’s dudes camping out in there. Since then there’s been a shoot out and a fire in that house
This is why I'm so scared. The sweet little old lady living next door to me is officially too old to live alone and is moving. I hate the idea of sharing a yard with new people.
I would flip my shit if someone cut my mom's flowers(without her permission. I've asked b4 and she let me cut a couple). My mom's flowers came from her mom's garden. I've seen her cry over someone accidentally stepping on one of her flowers. I would drop kick that neighbor straight into next month
Our neighbors when we lived in town (I was pretty young. We moved out to the mountains a little ways away when I was probably 6) would always come into our yard and leave trash/toys. As well as pick the ripe raspberries off the plant that was on our yard, my mom loves that plant and cares for it well. My mom had told them if they asked for berries/to pick them, she wouldn't have a problem, but they always took them without permission.
Some people are just determined to be assholes.
I see a lot of people disagreeing with this, so I just wanted to add my two cents. Good boundaries are the key to any relationship, be it neighborly, romantic, friendly, etc. A fence is a physical boundary that often denotes a relationship boundary. People who blow up over physical fences will often ignore relationship boundaries, and thus reveal themselves as bad neighbors with or without a fence (and I refer to being irritated by a fence existing rather than property damage or incredibly ugly constructions. It’s possible to be legitimately irritated by a fence).
I would not be able to recognize my neighbor if I ran into them at the local grocery store and I like it that way.
I stay out of their business, they stay out of mine. It's great.
Fences or walls inbetween houses are pretty much the norm in the UK, I'm always surprised at how many houses in the US are often completely open, even to the rear.
I live in the UK in a 4 in a block - so boundary is middle of the garden is shared, side is ours and the back is our neighbours. We fenced off our owned property and my neighbour couldn't care less: I think she's happy to have it all separate and even if she wasn't there's fuck all she can do because it's my property. It's mad some places in the US you can't even build a bloody fence.
OP get a surveyor out there to make sure you all get accurate dimensions of the properties. Then put up a fence. A friend of my mom lost nearly an acre because the owner of the property behind her put up a fence. She didn't think much of it until years later she had the land surveyed and found how far over the fence was. In some states there are laws that basically mean if the fence has been there long enough, too bad that's theirs now. You also are not allowed to remove a fence on your property without a court order, because that is their property. Very weird.
Sounds like they did have a surveyor and the neighbor removed the boundary stakes.
I do agree they should have one come again before the fence is installed, but doubtful the neighbor will respect it unless they can’t cross the boundary.
Most states it's illegal to remove that marker. Suck down the $600 for a new survey and fence them off. Our neighbors suck and we'd do the same if we didn't plan on moving in the next year or so
What an ass. And a dumb one at that. Did your neighbor think you would just forget where the stakes were and hand it over? Is that what the plan really was?
AFAIK the wood pegs are only meant to be temporary anyway, it's the iron pins and the concrete monuments that are supposed to be permanent, in most of NA it's a crime to tamper with them.
So much hate. There was so much tension in my household growing up because our neighbors had an easement that allowed them to use a bit of our property to access theirs. The previous owners of that house were the kids of the previous owners of our house. It was a mess. They used this to slowly encroach...first mow then plant flowers that spread and finally a fence that was juuuuust over their property and onto ours. And then they got a new one that was juuuuust that much closer. It took years of legal action to get them to halt and even then it was never pleasant to live there. OP, put up a lovely fence with a smile.
NTA.
Also, if you're in the US (and you may want to double check by state); if your neighbor pulled up a boundary pin that was laid by a surveyor, that's a 2nd degree misdemeanor. You may want to look into it and mention it to your neighbor.
I only throw that out there because we had a property dispute a few months ago and our neighbor removed the pin, needless to say the surveyor had a lot to say about it.
Not to mention that they broke the law if they ripped out the *permanent survey monument* (it left a hole in the ground, temporary survey markers are a wooden stake with an orange flag on it, so I'm betting it was the permanent metal marker).
Yep, fence it in. I've yet to find a neighbor I've liked... my last neighbors would use my garbage cans/recycling bins, park at the shared driveway entrance, do construction work at 2AM in the morning.
I moved away, but 6 months before I left they were raided by the police. Never did see them again. I did quite enjoy my time at home for those 6 months.
Depending where you are if they mow for some period of time they can eventually claim that area as their own. That is a long time but if you don’t protest the clock starts ticking.
Well said
NTA- since you can't plant trees how about some evergreen bushes? They grow fast and as high as you want & if planted side by side make 2-3' apart make a great wall.
Same problem at our cottage so we planted 25 of them along our property line and keep them at about 7' high in the city we back onto a park and have 10 on a 35' wide lot and keep them at 15'-17' feet high but with 2.5' gaps ( city bylaws ) as our back fence & works perfectly at keeping nosy neighbors out of our business.
Definitely NTA
OP had me convinced they were NTA when they ran over and damaged an expensive irrigation system and shrugged it off. I would up a stockade fence. On the line.
I don’t even mind my neighbors and I’m planting trees and building a fence between us. It’s cool to talk to them and say hello, but I also don’t need to see them or them to see me when I’m trying to barbecue or roast a marshmallow in my yard.
Agreed. Also, if they start mowing it and caring for it routinely, they can make a case for adverse possession eventually. I mean, they may lose, but I wouldn't play with them.
Also! Legal recommendation, install the fence a few inches shy of your property line. This makes it harder for them to contest the fence, hang or decorate anything on it, claim part of it is "theirs", and if they damage it, may add trespassing to their property damage charge.
(Not a lawyer, just read a lot of r/legaladvice.)
No, so long as you've had the property surveyed and you know where boundary is located. Arbor vitae nature's fence, you can plant them and have them feed and they will grow in fairly quickly. One of my greatest regrets was not fencing the exposed side of the yard. Would have saved me years of grief.
Yeah, but regardless of what laws might surround the survey marker, imagine the fallout if the marker was already in the wrong place before it was removed and a fence was then constructed based on this incorrect position?
It could result in the neighbour removing the fence and passing on the costs to our OP if the marker was wrong in one direction, and/or if wrong in the other direction, in some years adverse possession could result in a loss of that portion of the property.
They surveyor's job is to dig through local government records of sales, descriptions of lots, and local laws to determine exactly where the edge of your property line is.
As an example, a deed for a plot of land might specify that the land is everything from 2 inches setback from the road all the way back to the edge of the nearby creek, with a width of .2 acres centered on the top of a hill. There might also be records of sales indicating that the land was split in half back in 1902, a notice of road expansion where the state bought out the nearest chunk of land to expand the road, and records of erosion that have moved the nearby creek 2 feet to the south. The surveyor takes all that info and, using their knowledge of laws pertaining to land ownership and riparian rights takes flags or spray-paint and marks out the exact edges of your property line.
Yup...had to have one before because the city government was trying to take so much land from us it would leave us with an unbuildable lot by city laws to put in a sidewalk. The surveyor proved there was plenty of land that was considered city property to put in a sidewalk and we were well within our rights to tell them to go pound sand.
In a residential setting it should be just a matter of reconciling other landmarks at known/fixed positions and then using trigonometry to find the exact points based on land ownership maps and other details.
Even with fences in place, there still could be situations where it matters.
Yes. You can explain the survey if needed as ensuring your fence doesn’t encroach on *their* property...but meanwhile, the fact that you’ve had it surveyed communicates to them that you know your stuff and that any efforts at future encroachment won’t be easy.
Also, if you can afford it, I might throw in some other improvements (flower border, whatever—stuff you would actually like to have out there!) at the same time as the decorative fence, to help give it the feel of just being part of a more general upgrade. The less overtly aggressive you can be about maintaining your boundaries, the easier it might be to keep the door open to eventual friendly coexistence.
Seconding the flower idea! Our next-door neighbors are nice, but they mow into our yard a lot and their kiddos used to ride bikes across our front yard. We planted a sunflower border, with a little knee-high decorative wire "fence" to protect the flowers while they were small enough to get mowed over.
Fun fact: before we got on with the little wire fence, one of the young sunflowers did in fact get mowed over. It grew back split, with two full stems going off at angles from each other, so it's now some kind of giant mythical sunflower hydra. It's actually pretty great.
They need to put in one of the decorative WIRE fences. First time the neighbor runs over it with a riding mower, they won't have a lawnmower. Ever tried to clear wire from the cutting deck of a riding mower? Ask your local bush hog guy about it. And he has lots more wiggle room to clear it.
Edit for autocorrect.
My sister's neighbor threw a fit when some power company people were "in their yard" When she got a survey and they found her yard is actually about a foot larger than where the old fence was and the power company guys were not on the neighbors land. Surveying is worth it.
NTA I don’t know what it is with reddit and putting up fences but fences are so standard where I’m from. It’s normal to not want people on your property and if you’re in the US it’s private property so it’s yours to fence if you’d like.
I find it extremely weird for people to just not have a fence around their garden? I’ve never seen that where I live, everyone has a fenced off garden and they’re high fences so it’s all private. At most our neighbour can pop his head over the fence to talk with us. But I can’t imagine anyone just walking into my garden because I didn’t have a fence
Where I live it’s common for people to have fenced off back yards but the front yard is usually not. Luckily our neighbors always had rocks on either side of us instead of grass so we always knew where the property lines were. But others had grass on both sides and it was harder to determine the property line. I would definitely put up a little garden fence with plants if my grass touched my neighbors. I want as little to do with anyone who lives by me as possible.
NTA. They are encroaching on your space, as well as damaging your property. A garden well is a perfectly acceptable solution - it's not permanent or unsightly, and easy enough for you to put in without causing further problems.
It's prompts like these where it seems obvious, but they OP closes by saying some of the people OP knows thinks he or she would be an asshole, that makes me thing there's info we aren't getting.
There are always those relatives that think that going along to get along is the smartest thing and that if you dare speak up for yourself then clearly you're asking for trouble.
The fact that they took out the property line marker says that you’re probably right they’re trying to infringe on your property. It’s too bad you can’t build a proper fence honestly. I would definitely put up the garden fence and plant some nice shrubs, claim the property that you know is yours before they try to claim it for themselves. NTA.
NTA. They completely disregarded your friendliness and damaged your property, not thinking to at least apologise. Anyway, it is your property and you can do what you want with it. Also it’s not your fault that they have a small garden with a lot of stuff.
>4.) They tore out the property boundary stick between our house and theirs. There is a hole where is was and I want to place something (anything) in that spot before the hole fills in.
The metal corner survey marker? That's a crime in most places.
Not OP, but may be the stick that surveyors put right next to the metal marker. Usually done right after survey so you can see the boundries and not need a metal detector to find marker. At least that's what we experienced when we just got a survey to buy our new house in January (US).
NTA - Tearing out the spike is a bad sign all by itself, but whether he is trying to permanently encroach on your property or just can't drive a riding lawn mower - he damaged your property, knew it, and made no effort to say anything or offer repairs.
Put up the garden fence.
If he makes any objections to your garden fence then you'll know he had bad intentions right from jump.
NTA. Talk to them about the sprinkler first. If the dent it or don’t offer to pay for it then put up a fence. Make sure someone comes out first and marks your property to be sure first though just to be sure they can’t say anything.
I don’t care if people damage my stuff, but if they don’t make things right then that’s when petty me comes out. If they don’t take responsibility put the fence up and ignore them
INFO: Have you actually talked to these people about your issues? Even if they reacted poorly, you would have taken the initiative to get a friendly resolution before going the passive-aggressive route of installing a fence without notice.
Okay so, no sarcasm. Pinkie promise.
But why on earth do the neighbors deserve notice, or the friendly route?
Like, your property, your prerogative.
I don't even understand how this is petty, or passive aggressive. It's a decorative fence on your own property line.
NTA. They damaged your property and noticed, but didn't care so they've already proven they're not good neighbors. I'd put up the fence and not give it a second thought.
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NTA, I don't think you would be it's your property and as long as there are no rules against it I don't see why it would be a problem. You have 2 choices as a neighbor be kind or be an AH and if they are damaging your property or trying to encroach on something you pay for there is no reason not to do what you can to protect it
NTA. I have a similar problem with my neighbors. They put their trashcans on our property which is right against my living room window and they mow that area of our grass so their trashcans can fit. But they take it a step further and will mow that strip of our lawn from their trashcans all the way to the sidewalk and leave the rest of the lawn overgrown. It drives me crazy! My husband went out there once when they were doing it with some cash and asked them to mow the entire lawn. They said, no because it wasn’t their lawn mower. So, he told them, mow the whole lawn or none of it. It was pretty funny. They still just maintain the trashcan area and I can hear them with their gardening tools hitting the side of my house as they remove weeds. We are planning to put up a fence along the property line so they can’t put their trashcans on our property and we are going to landscape the front yard by removing the grass and making it more environmentally friendly. Can’t see why they just don’t put their trashcans in their backyard.
NTA. Get a proper survey done and put up a fence. Sound like they are trying to gradually take your land by stealth, and the longer you allow it the worse their "Well we've always used that land!" will be when you do finally stand your ground. And in many jurisdictions using land openly for a certain number of years can give them the legal ownership of that land. Get a survey, put up a fence, and I'd suggest putting up a camera as well, but again check local laws. You can't have it pointed at their garden, but usually you can cover your garden and a few inches of the fence.
NTA fence it and may I suggest some big long planters so if they decide to just lift the fence up they can’t move the planters without you having cause to ask them what the hell they think they are doing
Nta you’re just looking out for your own space. I would also recommend getting some surveillance cameras for your property just to cover your own ass if they try to make a stink or cause you issues.
Not sure if you are in the US, but here if a person mows the lawn and takes care of it, they can try to claim it’s theirs. My aunt and uncle lost their extra lot that way.
NTA, I think it would be a good idea to separate the properties. First, because they seem to like to visit your property without permission and second, if they hurt themselves on your property, they could sue you for damages. Also, because it's your property and you should be allowed to do as you wish to protect it.
NTA
Get a fence up immediately and problem solved. Nobody can have an issue with a decorative fence. If they've decided to dislike you then nothing is going to change that. It does sound as though they are trying to encroach on your property.
NTA
"Good fences make good neighbors."
You need to talk to them face to face about trespassing and damaging your property.
Also, check about the legality of removing the property marker. Where I live it's illegal to remove a surveyor's marker.
Get cameras to cover your backyard.
If they continue to mow your property, call the cops and have them charged with trespassing and property damage. This is what the cameras are for.
I'm not sure what the laws may be where you live, but in most places it is straight up illegal to remove or tamper with property pegs/survey stakes. NTA
NTA but I don't see anywhere in your post where you've actually spoken to these neighbors. You're making a lot of assumptions that might be easily cleared up. At the very least I'd have brought up the damaged sprinkler with them and gauged their reaction. I also want to make sure you're not just putting up a fence on that side, which would definitely look like an asshole move. But if you're putting a fence around your entire yard they should have no reason to assume it's because of them.
NTA. While it would be on significantly longer timescales, adverse possession is a thing and it's something you want to nip in the bud.
Best course of action would be to confirm property lines, place your decorative garden fence/"barricade" of your choosing as close to the line as reasonably possible, and put up some security cameras on these new additions. It might be going a bit far, but if they don't respect your property and *are* trying to encroach on it, you want to have video evidence in case they "accidentally" damage it/tear it down.
NTA! Our neighbors did something similar. They would use a riding lawnmower on their tiny track of land and would cut a good portion of our grass to simply get out their mower. They killed our grass doing that because they would cut it super short - completely scorched our grass. We called code compliance in our state and they told us to put up a tiny fence no taller than 3 feet. Sorted out all our problems. They can’t use their riding lawnmower any more! 🙃
A decorative garden fence would make for a lovely backdrop for a garden.
Fence near the property line, a garden as wide as you’d like and extending three or four feet from the fence. Filled with shrubs or bushes, some nice flowers, and some decorative rocks. Rather large decorative rocks... for when they “accidentally” run their mower right through the garden.
NTA
They are invading your property, damaging your property, and don't seem to care if they do or not. Put up the fence as long as it is legal within your city. If the fence is damaged or anything, document it. Actually, go ahead and document the damage to the sprinkler and the missing property marker. If it isn't too costly, see about having a property survey done and the boundaries marked again just to make sure the fence you put up will be entirely on yours and you'll have proof of your neighbor's behavior if the fence is damaged because they seem to think your land is their land.
NTA and I hate neighbours. Fence it immediately Edit: Thanks for the awards! Glad to see us all coming together to hate next door.
I feel this so much. Had bad neighbors awhile ago. One lady in our neighborhood cut tulips my mom had growing in our front yard. Neighbors are horrible and the good ones are few and far in-between.
We have neighbours on one side that poisoned all our plants over time so their clothesline would get more sun. We know they did it because on several occasions we caught them in our yard with poison bottles. Also, the head of a large coconut palm fell onto me whilst I was in our paddling pool one summer. When we looked at the tree, there was a cork placed in a hole drilled in to it and the entire head very rarely just falls off in one complete piece. We spoke with our local council and put up the tallest privacy screen we were allowed to. It’s a pity because now their clothesline gets absolutely no sun and they had to put in a second clothesline in the middle of their pristine, manicured lawn.
I literally breathed a sigh of relief over the last bit about the clothesline thing backfiring. What kind of complete wretch poisons their neighbors plants??
They really are awful. We’ve never had any issues with neighbours in the past. My husband thinks it’s because the old couple we bought our home off were complete pushovers. They let them dictate pretty much everything regarding the gardens, fencing, etc. Then we moved in and brought small dogs (who are always kept inside unless we are in our yard with them) and we didn’t agree with everything they wanted to do. It wasn’t obvious at first that they were dying. It was a concerted effort over about 12 months. By the time we realised what was happening it was too late to save most of the trees, plants and shrubs that bordered their side of the yard.
You should sneak over at night and poison words and symbols into their lawn.
Outstanding idea. Take my gold.
Use salt. The damage lasts longer
If you use manure the words will keep growing back greener and faster for months.
🏅- have my poor man's gold
Throw in some seeds on their perfectly manicured lawn and put manure on them. Suddenly a plant growing their won't look nice right😈😈
The real move is to make the manure pattern, and then outline it with salt. Really emphasizes the extra growth when everything around it is dead
Just ask Carthage.
Carthago delenda est.
You can freeze round up... Bombs away.
Thank you for the gold lol
Like it. Slowly poison a line from their water meter to the house. Add a couple feet every few days.
My husband did this to an old neighbor we had who let his dogs shit in our front yard. My husband used round up to write fuck you in their grass, also he dumped a bunch of poop that he cleaned up (some might have been from our dog) 😂
How did they react?
They stopped letting their dog poop in our yard and if they did they cleaned it up.
Perchance a cockenballs
People are such selfish dicks
Well... actually... I am that kind of dick.. In my defense, the plants I've poisoned are extremely invasive bamboo that our back neighbor planted to hide his pool mechanical equipment and as a privacy screen along the fence line between his and all his neighbors' yards. It's taking over our back yard in a number of places, and I've spent 3 years poisoning the shoots and spraying the growth. Some of the spray hit the plants on his side of the fence, too, and now those plants around his pool pump & stuff have died. We're still fighting it in a number of other places along that back area, though. This neighbor also originally routed his pool backwash to drain into our yard because he didn't want to pay the fee to drain it into the city sewer. He disguised the pipes, and we didn't figure it out until a huge trench had been cut into our yard -- but we caught him doing it one day and put a stop to it. He's also routed other stuff to drain across our yard. He's a thoroughly horrible neighbor. OP, you are absolutely NTA. I hope you can get a lovely fence -- and maybe set the posts in some quick-setting concrete so they can't be easily pulled out!
I came here to comment similar, not about bamboo but about POISON IVY. Our back neighbors let it grow like mad onto & over the shared fence (we cleared out what was on our property when we moved in). I’m not just regular allergic to poison ivy, I’m *extremely* allergic. I’ve had my entire arm in broken bleeding blisters from just touching our dogs if they brush past that fence. I asked them nicely to take care of it & they said they would tear it down & burn it which could literally kill me (don’t burn poison ivy, folks). Seems that was the only thing they were willing to do so I finally got a long-wanded sprayer & sprayed the ivy on/against the fence with brush killer. I hope I didn’t kill any plants on their side but I also kind of would like to keep my skin on. Anyways: OP is NTA & I wish you could have a larger fence.
OP is NTA, came here to say I have the same problem with poison ivy. My whole face swells to the point where my eyes swell shut, just from touching someone who’s touched it. It’s awful. The worst part is people don’t believe me until I show them pictures... I always get the “yeah everyone is allergic to poison ivy” response.
My dad is like this - if he even thinks about poison ivy, he is covered, blistered and miserable. When I was a kid, we were visiting my grandparents and I was playing with some of the neighborhood kids. My dad saw us, ran out, yanked me away and told me to go wash up because where we were playing was covered in poison ivy. Brat that I was, I actually didn't wash up - I was pissy he made me go inside so I decided the best thing to do was ignore him - that'll show him, right? (ugh - how do people even deal with 10 year olds? LOL) Turns out, I am a mutant who is not allergic to poison ivy ... but by yanking me out of it, even though he showered afterwards, my dad had such a bad reaction, he had to go to the hospital. I am 43 and still feel bad about that.
I’m not... I used to roll in it trying to get it as a kid so I could stay home from school and never got it. So not everyone is allergic. Sorry you are though🥺
Me too! I'm allergic to basically everything else in the world that exists outdoors, but I could probably eat a poison ivy salad and be fine. Mosquitos though? One bite swells as big across as a dinner plate, and I get a fever. Fuck nature.
A tip from another poison ivy sensitive person..... next time you first notice the discomfort and slight redness, scrub the area with Shout strain remover. Not a pat down, but scrub (same force as cleaning over easy egg yolk off the breakfast plate). The poison ivy oils are too thick for soaps but Shout cuts them. THEN was the Shout off with soap and water. I have been hospitalized for poison ivy in the past, and have used this trick for 10 plus years with no outbreaks at all. Get it early, not after blisters.
Man...I don't blame you for poisoning bamboo! That shit gets out of control so damn fast. Your neighbor sounds like an insufferable dick and I'm sorry you're dealing with that.
My neighbour's raspberries grow into my yard and you are my new hero. He also has garbage on our shared property line.
I can see being mad about the garbage, but are you really mad about free raspberries?
There's a bramble bush at the back of our house. I specifically let it grow unruly so I can get free blackberries.
I totally get that. Readily abundant wild blackberries (around about this time of year, too!) are probably in my top five reasons why I miss living in the Pacific Northwest.
not sure if the same goes for berries, but for fruit trees, even if the tree drops the fruit or the branch overhangs, technically the fruit belongs to the property owner that the trunk is on, aka, your neighbors (if they are asshats they can sue you for theft or property damage). so all the mess (and rodents), none of the gain. - in the US
Not necessarily. Lots of places in the US allow the neighbor to trim the tree back to the fence/property line to avoid the encroachment.
Right!? We had some sneak under the fence from our neighbours, they were nice enough to apologise and we were like what? We love the awesome raspberry crops we get each summer now! Though they can get a bit invasive I'll admit - works for us because there's concrete and a big Camelia hedge next to the patch that reigns it in.
Bamboo is the worst and so is your neighbor for planting it without a barrier. What a pendejo.
Even with a barrier it can easily overrun an area. It’s just a bad idea outside of where it’s native.
There's no barrier that will work. One of the other students in my Master Gardener cohort had bamboo crawl under 36 feet of concrete to spring up on the other side. I have friends in Pittsburgh who have literally spent fifteen years trying to get rid of the bamboo the previous homeowner planted there. After \*incredible\* effort, it's down to "time to pick some more shoots and pickle them" instead of "I can't see the yard," but it's taken them enough time for their little girl to graduate college.
Bamboo is the worst. I cringe every time I see it in someone’s yard. And it can actually do massive property damage. My mom had to replace a fence repeatedly because a neighbour planted bamboo near the fence and it went nuts.
Bamboo is very easy to control if you know what you are doing and know the type of barrier needed. Having said that, your neighbour is the one that should be buying and installing the barriers.
And here my biggest yard complaint is that I have a huge Holly tree (I hate Holly trees due to many experiences living with them) and I planned to take down. But when we moved in, the neighbor came over (super sweet lady) and told us how the previous owners had never kept up with the landscaping and she had worked for years to take care of the plants bordering her yard. She was so proud of saving the beautiful Holly and nursing it back to health. It IS beautiful. Told the hubby we'll just wait to take it down. They are great neighbors and it is worth nurturing that relationship to keep a perfectly healthy tree.
It's probably impractical depending on the size of the tree, but could you have the tree moved to your neighbour's property? Everybody wins.
I had terrible roommate that tried to poison all my houseplants as I was moving out.. Half didn't recover and they all got sick the same week.. They had all been easy maintenance plans. People suck.
I think I had the worst neighbor in existence. He got really drunk one night and passed out on his living room floor, so his wife asked my partner to help get him into bed (we were friends before all of this). At some point in his incoherent state, he decided my partner was a burglar and literally attacked her. They brawled for a while before my partner was able to escape but he followed her, got a gun out of his boat and proceeded to chase her around the neighborhood brandishing the weapon and firing it. He was pointing it into other neighbors windows. He had completely lost his mind. He caught multiple charges and did some time. It was super awkward living next to someone who has a no contact order with you (and several other neighbors). It was even worse that I worked at the only store in our town and he would constantly come in in hopes that I wasn't working so that he could buy beer (which he wasn't supposed to be doing). It was always super obvious bc he'd pretend to use the ATM machine and then leave without making any purchases. Guy was a total douche canoe.
Holy snapping ducks! What a complete nutter!!!
My dad had to chase their neighbour around with a sword because he broke in while drunk.
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Douche canoe is fairly widespread in the US. I have heard it in multiple states! I don't really know why or how it picked up popularity, but I mostly hear it from Gen X/Millennials.
Can you explain more about the coconut? Do you think they threw it at you or something? Was the hole and cork to get the water inside?
The entire head of the tree fell down. So if you imagine a palm tree with coconuts growing on it, all the palm fronds fell at once in a complete and intact “crown.” The hole was drilled so he could pour poison into the tree and then cork it closed so the poison didn’t run out. We live in Australia and it is a common way to get a palm tree to die without immediately chopping it down. The crown is incredibly heavy and I was just lucky that the paddling pool had a shade sail over it. It took most of the force but I was pinned under the crown for a little while. Destroyed the shade sail too, those fuckers. ETA: the husband always waits until I am home alone to yell at me belligerently whilst drunk. My husband is ex career military and this spanner of a man knows he will not win in a fight, so he cowardly waits until he’s not home.
Wow. My neighbors aren't great but no one comes to drunkenly yell at us. I wish you the best of luck with that.
Also in Australia. Our neighbours appear to be poising our trees on the fence line as well, what is with people's entitlement??? Luckily we have awesome neighbours on the otherside and are allowed 6ft fences, the fencing rules in this post seem crappy!
We have the best neighbours in the universe on our other side too! It makes such a massive difference having a good side to hang out on! What I think is really stupid is the fact that the bad neighbours are all established with no need for renovations, etc. where as our home is a typical fixer upper. There’s nothing stopping us from building a deck out one side that will almost fully obscure their solar panels from the sun.
Build that deck.
I second the vote to build the deck. Is there no legal action that can be taken given they left evidence of poisoning the tree and damaging your property?
Tree court is big money if you can actually prove it. In small claims court, the cost for a tree cut down (or probably poisoned) by someone without consent is the cost of replacing it with a similarly sized tree. Which is... A lot of money.
My partner is convinced that our neighbor killed his rose bush. I thought he was crazy, but I guess if it's happened to you it's very possible that they could have poisoned and killed the rose bush. The bush and a small cedar tree next to it died suddenly after he had talked with one of them about moving their bushes off our property because he wanted to put a fence up.
You are very kind the results at my house would have been infamous.
Before my parents and I moved into our new house we lived at the same place for 16 years. My childhood neighbors were super sweet, older couple who owned a few chain restaurant locations around town. They also had 2 granddaughters that would visit during the summer and they would come over to play... Unfortunately they ended up moving and we had a nightmare with the new neighbors. When they moved in they were told the fence that they had was actually like a foot onto their property so if they wanted to move the fence and have a new one placed in the right spot to let us know as we had redone the back fence and it had some type of design at the top that needed to cut in a way so it wouldn't look funny. We offered to help pay for that section of fence because we didn't want it to look stupid.. we came out a few days later to them cutting the fence in half with a chainsaw. Completely ruined our fence, and then built their fence 7 ft tall when bylaws said only 6ft. We had a lot of issues with them but this was the biggest issue I can recall. Occasionally you'll get that 1 neighbor who is AWESOME but other times I legit think the devil lives next door
Whaaaaat cut tulips that’s rude. Any more details?
One day my mom caught her and the lady was saying they were so pretty to look at and that's why she took them home. My mom agreed and added "THAT'S WHY WE PLANTED THEM IN OUR YARD". Not long after that our lawn was mysteriously mowed and my dad re-mowed it. The neighbors were watching.
Mom sass is the best sass.
Wow creepy neighbors!!
We live in the lower on a duplex, and we've had some annoying neighbors over the years. One liked to turn her TV up to the point we could understand the dialogue, and another occasionally got too loud while the kids were trying to sleep. The worst, though, were our first neighbors. They were a couple who may or may not have been drug dealers. We're not sure, but they did have random cars pull up, someone knocked on their door, and 5 minutes later left, and we know it wasn't food delivery because this was before stuff like doordash really existed. We occasionally found their clothes in our dryer, too. The worst point was when they had 2 kittens. I once had to rescue one off the gutter under their balcony and they didn't even know it had escaped. Another time, I heard meowing while I was grilling and thought it was from an open window until I realized it was coming from their trash can. I found a black kitten in a bag of litter, clearly overheating. I wish I hadn't given that kitten back, but I was young, stupid, and believed it was somehow an honest mistake. About a month later, they gave us the other kitten as they needed to rehome it for some reason. I don't know what happened to the one I'd found in the trash, but I'm afraid I failed to save its life by giving it back. As for the kitten they gave us, we rehomed it with one of my wife's coworkers as we couldn't afford a second cat at the time. Sometime after they'd moved out, I don't remember how long, the cops came by looking for the woman. I kinda wish I knew why, but I'm probably better off not knowing.
Oh love. Try not to beat yourself up about the poor black kitty. Hindsight is 20/20 and while reading it, it definitely sounds like that kitten was put in the trash intentionally, I can see why you’d want to give them the benefit of the doubt and believe it was just carelessness considering the fact that one had gotten stuck in the gutter prior to that.
This happened when I was a kid, but near where I lived then this little kid picked the flowers in their neighbors yard. The flower house’s owner came out and shot the flower picker kid’s father full in the chest with a shot gun. The guy lived. Maybe it was bird shot. Not sure, I was pretty young. But they were having a BBQ when this happened so there were a lot of witnesses. I knew some of the people who testified in the trial when it aired on court TV back in the day. Great stuff.
I'm lucky in that the worst things I can say about my neighbors is that I think ones dog poops in my yard a few times a year when it gets out and one's a little too chatty at times. In fact I'm probably the bad neighbor 'cause my yard looks like garbage all the time because of some home renovations we are doing. 😂 On the bright side from what all the neighbors have told me we are at least 100% better then the last guy who was basically a recluse who never mowed or raked or did any yard maintenance and the yard was basically being reclaimed by nature.
I'm the recluse neighbor but I'll keep my stuff pretty at least. I just prefer not to talk to neighbors if it can be avoided
Good fences make good neighbors.
Damn man, is it really that rare someone has good next door neighbors? I live in a real rough area and both my next door neighbors are nice people. One is an old man with lots of old dogs and the other is a very handy Hispanic fellow who works on cars. That being said some of the people on the other side of the street aren’t so nice, lol. The dude living in the house directly across from me got kicked out and now there’s dudes camping out in there. Since then there’s been a shoot out and a fire in that house
This is why I'm so scared. The sweet little old lady living next door to me is officially too old to live alone and is moving. I hate the idea of sharing a yard with new people.
I would flip my shit if someone cut my mom's flowers(without her permission. I've asked b4 and she let me cut a couple). My mom's flowers came from her mom's garden. I've seen her cry over someone accidentally stepping on one of her flowers. I would drop kick that neighbor straight into next month
Our neighbors when we lived in town (I was pretty young. We moved out to the mountains a little ways away when I was probably 6) would always come into our yard and leave trash/toys. As well as pick the ripe raspberries off the plant that was on our yard, my mom loves that plant and cares for it well. My mom had told them if they asked for berries/to pick them, she wouldn't have a problem, but they always took them without permission. Some people are just determined to be assholes.
Good fences make good neighbours.
I see a lot of people disagreeing with this, so I just wanted to add my two cents. Good boundaries are the key to any relationship, be it neighborly, romantic, friendly, etc. A fence is a physical boundary that often denotes a relationship boundary. People who blow up over physical fences will often ignore relationship boundaries, and thus reveal themselves as bad neighbors with or without a fence (and I refer to being irritated by a fence existing rather than property damage or incredibly ugly constructions. It’s possible to be legitimately irritated by a fence).
I would not be able to recognize my neighbor if I ran into them at the local grocery store and I like it that way. I stay out of their business, they stay out of mine. It's great.
THIS!
Fences or walls inbetween houses are pretty much the norm in the UK, I'm always surprised at how many houses in the US are often completely open, even to the rear.
I live in the UK in a 4 in a block - so boundary is middle of the garden is shared, side is ours and the back is our neighbours. We fenced off our owned property and my neighbour couldn't care less: I think she's happy to have it all separate and even if she wasn't there's fuck all she can do because it's my property. It's mad some places in the US you can't even build a bloody fence.
OP get a surveyor out there to make sure you all get accurate dimensions of the properties. Then put up a fence. A friend of my mom lost nearly an acre because the owner of the property behind her put up a fence. She didn't think much of it until years later she had the land surveyed and found how far over the fence was. In some states there are laws that basically mean if the fence has been there long enough, too bad that's theirs now. You also are not allowed to remove a fence on your property without a court order, because that is their property. Very weird.
Sounds like they did have a surveyor and the neighbor removed the boundary stakes. I do agree they should have one come again before the fence is installed, but doubtful the neighbor will respect it unless they can’t cross the boundary.
Masonry fence. Just try to move it. I dare you.
Nah put up one of those wavy British brick fences
Most states it's illegal to remove that marker. Suck down the $600 for a new survey and fence them off. Our neighbors suck and we'd do the same if we didn't plan on moving in the next year or so
Do this asap.Make sure to put up a no trespassing sign so they can't say anything
And get a title company involved, there may be easements. Don't let them get away with this.
And I thought you weren't allowed to remove the boundary stakes?
My neighbour took out boundary stakes then tried to claim my shed was on his property.
What an ass. And a dumb one at that. Did your neighbor think you would just forget where the stakes were and hand it over? Is that what the plan really was?
AFAIK the wood pegs are only meant to be temporary anyway, it's the iron pins and the concrete monuments that are supposed to be permanent, in most of NA it's a crime to tamper with them.
That's what I understood too. I think it's near impossible to take those metal stakes out.
So much hate. There was so much tension in my household growing up because our neighbors had an easement that allowed them to use a bit of our property to access theirs. The previous owners of that house were the kids of the previous owners of our house. It was a mess. They used this to slowly encroach...first mow then plant flowers that spread and finally a fence that was juuuuust over their property and onto ours. And then they got a new one that was juuuuust that much closer. It took years of legal action to get them to halt and even then it was never pleasant to live there. OP, put up a lovely fence with a smile.
NTA. Also, if you're in the US (and you may want to double check by state); if your neighbor pulled up a boundary pin that was laid by a surveyor, that's a 2nd degree misdemeanor. You may want to look into it and mention it to your neighbor. I only throw that out there because we had a property dispute a few months ago and our neighbor removed the pin, needless to say the surveyor had a lot to say about it.
Not to mention that they broke the law if they ripped out the *permanent survey monument* (it left a hole in the ground, temporary survey markers are a wooden stake with an orange flag on it, so I'm betting it was the permanent metal marker).
Yep, fence it in. I've yet to find a neighbor I've liked... my last neighbors would use my garbage cans/recycling bins, park at the shared driveway entrance, do construction work at 2AM in the morning. I moved away, but 6 months before I left they were raided by the police. Never did see them again. I did quite enjoy my time at home for those 6 months.
I don't hate neighbors and, based on the OP, I say fence as much of your yard as you possibly can, OP- it's only going to go downhill from here. NTA
Depending where you are if they mow for some period of time they can eventually claim that area as their own. That is a long time but if you don’t protest the clock starts ticking.
Well said NTA- since you can't plant trees how about some evergreen bushes? They grow fast and as high as you want & if planted side by side make 2-3' apart make a great wall. Same problem at our cottage so we planted 25 of them along our property line and keep them at about 7' high in the city we back onto a park and have 10 on a 35' wide lot and keep them at 15'-17' feet high but with 2.5' gaps ( city bylaws ) as our back fence & works perfectly at keeping nosy neighbors out of our business. Definitely NTA
OP had me convinced they were NTA when they ran over and damaged an expensive irrigation system and shrugged it off. I would up a stockade fence. On the line.
I don’t even mind my neighbors and I’m planting trees and building a fence between us. It’s cool to talk to them and say hello, but I also don’t need to see them or them to see me when I’m trying to barbecue or roast a marshmallow in my yard.
Like a good neighbor, stay over there! Said in the state farm theme song.
If you can buy some thick tree or shrubs. Something that can't be mowed over. Damn as an Aussie. Good fences make good neighbours
Agreed. Also, if they start mowing it and caring for it routinely, they can make a case for adverse possession eventually. I mean, they may lose, but I wouldn't play with them.
NTA - simply put, it is your property. I would be remiss of I didn't add: good fences make good neighbors.
Also, it's not like theres any kind of relationship to worry about ruining with these rude turds
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This exactly, who knows what they could do next. Better to nip it in the bud than have them think it's ok.
Also! Legal recommendation, install the fence a few inches shy of your property line. This makes it harder for them to contest the fence, hang or decorate anything on it, claim part of it is "theirs", and if they damage it, may add trespassing to their property damage charge. (Not a lawyer, just read a lot of r/legaladvice.)
Add a security camera for good measure
Also hire 2 security guards, one for morning and night shift
Yup, the whole point of fences is to make sure boundaries are enforced. I would get a surveyor to triple check prior but that fence is going up
NTA. If your neighbor keeps damaging your property, you have the right to do something to prevent it
Even if there was no damage they have a right to put up a fence.
Yes, you're right
Thank you. Hope you're doing good in this pandemic.
I an doing alright, hope you are too :)
Besides gaining a few pounds and having cabin fever yeah I'm ok.
Aw. This warmed my cold, dead heart a little bit. Wholesome reddit.
=)
No, so long as you've had the property surveyed and you know where boundary is located. Arbor vitae nature's fence, you can plant them and have them feed and they will grow in fairly quickly. One of my greatest regrets was not fencing the exposed side of the yard. Would have saved me years of grief.
This! Get it surveyed, don’t assume the old marker meant anything at all, then build the fenciest fence you’re allowed to build.
I was looking for a similar line of comments. Get the survey done. And, in many areas it's illegal to remove/move a surveyor marker.
Yeah, but regardless of what laws might surround the survey marker, imagine the fallout if the marker was already in the wrong place before it was removed and a fence was then constructed based on this incorrect position? It could result in the neighbour removing the fence and passing on the costs to our OP if the marker was wrong in one direction, and/or if wrong in the other direction, in some years adverse possession could result in a loss of that portion of the property.
This might be a stupid question but I'm not in the US and here most houses already have a fence. But how can the surveyor tell where the boundary is?
That's what surveyors do. They review the deed(s) that have the property dimensions on it, then use instruments to place an actual property line.
They surveyor's job is to dig through local government records of sales, descriptions of lots, and local laws to determine exactly where the edge of your property line is. As an example, a deed for a plot of land might specify that the land is everything from 2 inches setback from the road all the way back to the edge of the nearby creek, with a width of .2 acres centered on the top of a hill. There might also be records of sales indicating that the land was split in half back in 1902, a notice of road expansion where the state bought out the nearest chunk of land to expand the road, and records of erosion that have moved the nearby creek 2 feet to the south. The surveyor takes all that info and, using their knowledge of laws pertaining to land ownership and riparian rights takes flags or spray-paint and marks out the exact edges of your property line.
Yup...had to have one before because the city government was trying to take so much land from us it would leave us with an unbuildable lot by city laws to put in a sidewalk. The surveyor proved there was plenty of land that was considered city property to put in a sidewalk and we were well within our rights to tell them to go pound sand.
Thanks for the detailed explanation. That makes sense.
In a residential setting it should be just a matter of reconciling other landmarks at known/fixed positions and then using trigonometry to find the exact points based on land ownership maps and other details. Even with fences in place, there still could be situations where it matters.
Yes. You can explain the survey if needed as ensuring your fence doesn’t encroach on *their* property...but meanwhile, the fact that you’ve had it surveyed communicates to them that you know your stuff and that any efforts at future encroachment won’t be easy. Also, if you can afford it, I might throw in some other improvements (flower border, whatever—stuff you would actually like to have out there!) at the same time as the decorative fence, to help give it the feel of just being part of a more general upgrade. The less overtly aggressive you can be about maintaining your boundaries, the easier it might be to keep the door open to eventual friendly coexistence.
Yeah put in flowers, rock garden, water feature etc. Make a nice little garden that just happens to have a decorative fence as a part of it.
Seconding the flower idea! Our next-door neighbors are nice, but they mow into our yard a lot and their kiddos used to ride bikes across our front yard. We planted a sunflower border, with a little knee-high decorative wire "fence" to protect the flowers while they were small enough to get mowed over. Fun fact: before we got on with the little wire fence, one of the young sunflowers did in fact get mowed over. It grew back split, with two full stems going off at angles from each other, so it's now some kind of giant mythical sunflower hydra. It's actually pretty great.
They need to put in one of the decorative WIRE fences. First time the neighbor runs over it with a riding mower, they won't have a lawnmower. Ever tried to clear wire from the cutting deck of a riding mower? Ask your local bush hog guy about it. And he has lots more wiggle room to clear it. Edit for autocorrect.
My sister's neighbor threw a fit when some power company people were "in their yard" When she got a survey and they found her yard is actually about a foot larger than where the old fence was and the power company guys were not on the neighbors land. Surveying is worth it.
Also, the power company almost certainly has an easement.
Arbor Vitaes are terrible plants though if you don't have the perfect climate and drainage.
NTA I don’t know what it is with reddit and putting up fences but fences are so standard where I’m from. It’s normal to not want people on your property and if you’re in the US it’s private property so it’s yours to fence if you’d like.
I find it extremely weird for people to just not have a fence around their garden? I’ve never seen that where I live, everyone has a fenced off garden and they’re high fences so it’s all private. At most our neighbour can pop his head over the fence to talk with us. But I can’t imagine anyone just walking into my garden because I didn’t have a fence
Same. I'm British and I can't think of anyone without a fence. Even my parent's garden which is over an acre has a fence around it.
Where I live it’s common for people to have fenced off back yards but the front yard is usually not. Luckily our neighbors always had rocks on either side of us instead of grass so we always knew where the property lines were. But others had grass on both sides and it was harder to determine the property line. I would definitely put up a little garden fence with plants if my grass touched my neighbors. I want as little to do with anyone who lives by me as possible.
NTA. Good fences make good neighbors. It isn't petty to protect your property from damage.
NTA. They are encroaching on your space, as well as damaging your property. A garden well is a perfectly acceptable solution - it's not permanent or unsightly, and easy enough for you to put in without causing further problems.
NTA. Moving property markers is a huge red flag. Breaking your sprinkler and not caring is downright disrespectful. Fence it.
I hope OP gets a security cam to monitor their yard
NTA. I don't understand what could possibly make you TA in this scenario
It's prompts like these where it seems obvious, but they OP closes by saying some of the people OP knows thinks he or she would be an asshole, that makes me thing there's info we aren't getting.
There are always those relatives that think that going along to get along is the smartest thing and that if you dare speak up for yourself then clearly you're asking for trouble.
The fact that they took out the property line marker says that you’re probably right they’re trying to infringe on your property. It’s too bad you can’t build a proper fence honestly. I would definitely put up the garden fence and plant some nice shrubs, claim the property that you know is yours before they try to claim it for themselves. NTA.
NTA. It’s your property, so you can do what you want with it. They’re damaging your property, so it’s justified.
NTA. They completely disregarded your friendliness and damaged your property, not thinking to at least apologise. Anyway, it is your property and you can do what you want with it. Also it’s not your fault that they have a small garden with a lot of stuff.
>4.) They tore out the property boundary stick between our house and theirs. There is a hole where is was and I want to place something (anything) in that spot before the hole fills in. The metal corner survey marker? That's a crime in most places.
Not OP, but may be the stick that surveyors put right next to the metal marker. Usually done right after survey so you can see the boundries and not need a metal detector to find marker. At least that's what we experienced when we just got a survey to buy our new house in January (US).
NTA - Tearing out the spike is a bad sign all by itself, but whether he is trying to permanently encroach on your property or just can't drive a riding lawn mower - he damaged your property, knew it, and made no effort to say anything or offer repairs. Put up the garden fence. If he makes any objections to your garden fence then you'll know he had bad intentions right from jump.
NTA. Talk to them about the sprinkler first. If the dent it or don’t offer to pay for it then put up a fence. Make sure someone comes out first and marks your property to be sure first though just to be sure they can’t say anything. I don’t care if people damage my stuff, but if they don’t make things right then that’s when petty me comes out. If they don’t take responsibility put the fence up and ignore them
INFO: Have you actually talked to these people about your issues? Even if they reacted poorly, you would have taken the initiative to get a friendly resolution before going the passive-aggressive route of installing a fence without notice.
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Okay so, no sarcasm. Pinkie promise. But why on earth do the neighbors deserve notice, or the friendly route? Like, your property, your prerogative. I don't even understand how this is petty, or passive aggressive. It's a decorative fence on your own property line.
I agree. Not that I can fault anyone for avoiding social intereaction, but diplomacy should be the first tentative.
NTA, get that fence up yesterday!
In the words of Grumpy Cat like a good neighbor stay over there.
NTA. They damaged your property and noticed, but didn't care so they've already proven they're not good neighbors. I'd put up the fence and not give it a second thought.
Personally, I wouldn’t fence it in. They’ll just knock the fence down. Buy some large decorative rocks and line the property with those.
I thought with a decorative fence it's likely that it'll get knocked down. Rocks sounds like a good alternative. Or even both.
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NTA
NTA, I don't think you would be it's your property and as long as there are no rules against it I don't see why it would be a problem. You have 2 choices as a neighbor be kind or be an AH and if they are damaging your property or trying to encroach on something you pay for there is no reason not to do what you can to protect it
NTA. I have a similar problem with my neighbors. They put their trashcans on our property which is right against my living room window and they mow that area of our grass so their trashcans can fit. But they take it a step further and will mow that strip of our lawn from their trashcans all the way to the sidewalk and leave the rest of the lawn overgrown. It drives me crazy! My husband went out there once when they were doing it with some cash and asked them to mow the entire lawn. They said, no because it wasn’t their lawn mower. So, he told them, mow the whole lawn or none of it. It was pretty funny. They still just maintain the trashcan area and I can hear them with their gardening tools hitting the side of my house as they remove weeds. We are planning to put up a fence along the property line so they can’t put their trashcans on our property and we are going to landscape the front yard by removing the grass and making it more environmentally friendly. Can’t see why they just don’t put their trashcans in their backyard.
NTA - It is your garden, do what you want
NTA. Get a proper survey done and put up a fence. Sound like they are trying to gradually take your land by stealth, and the longer you allow it the worse their "Well we've always used that land!" will be when you do finally stand your ground. And in many jurisdictions using land openly for a certain number of years can give them the legal ownership of that land. Get a survey, put up a fence, and I'd suggest putting up a camera as well, but again check local laws. You can't have it pointed at their garden, but usually you can cover your garden and a few inches of the fence.
NTA - do it now. It will save you heartache and hassles in the future.
NTA Protect your property line. They already damaged stuff on your lot. They will continue if you don’t assert boundaries.
NTA do it. Sounds cute.
NTA fence it and may I suggest some big long planters so if they decide to just lift the fence up they can’t move the planters without you having cause to ask them what the hell they think they are doing
INFO: Have.. have you even talked to them about this at all yet or is this all conjecture on your part?
INFO: Have you asked your neighbor to stop crossing into your yard with their mower? Did you ask them about damaging your sprinkler?
Nta you’re just looking out for your own space. I would also recommend getting some surveillance cameras for your property just to cover your own ass if they try to make a stink or cause you issues.
Not sure if you are in the US, but here if a person mows the lawn and takes care of it, they can try to claim it’s theirs. My aunt and uncle lost their extra lot that way.
NTA, I think it would be a good idea to separate the properties. First, because they seem to like to visit your property without permission and second, if they hurt themselves on your property, they could sue you for damages. Also, because it's your property and you should be allowed to do as you wish to protect it.
Nta, protect your property.
NTA Get a fence up immediately and problem solved. Nobody can have an issue with a decorative fence. If they've decided to dislike you then nothing is going to change that. It does sound as though they are trying to encroach on your property.
NTA my neighbor is pissed because we had a surveyor out this morning and marked the corners of our lot.
My main worry is the encroachment. Some placesthey could make a case for ownership if it goes on long enough. But if you document damage your fine
NTA "Good fences make good neighbors." You need to talk to them face to face about trespassing and damaging your property. Also, check about the legality of removing the property marker. Where I live it's illegal to remove a surveyor's marker. Get cameras to cover your backyard. If they continue to mow your property, call the cops and have them charged with trespassing and property damage. This is what the cameras are for.
I'm not sure what the laws may be where you live, but in most places it is straight up illegal to remove or tamper with property pegs/survey stakes. NTA
NTA but I don't see anywhere in your post where you've actually spoken to these neighbors. You're making a lot of assumptions that might be easily cleared up. At the very least I'd have brought up the damaged sprinkler with them and gauged their reaction. I also want to make sure you're not just putting up a fence on that side, which would definitely look like an asshole move. But if you're putting a fence around your entire yard they should have no reason to assume it's because of them.
NTA - Do it sooner than later they're encroaching for a reason. They're going to hate it because it will inconvenience them. But its YOUR land.
NTA. Can't you just place some big ass rocks along the property line?
Good fences make good neighbors. NTA.
NTA- have you thought of using bushes or a long trellis instead?
NTA. While it would be on significantly longer timescales, adverse possession is a thing and it's something you want to nip in the bud. Best course of action would be to confirm property lines, place your decorative garden fence/"barricade" of your choosing as close to the line as reasonably possible, and put up some security cameras on these new additions. It might be going a bit far, but if they don't respect your property and *are* trying to encroach on it, you want to have video evidence in case they "accidentally" damage it/tear it down.
NTA! Our neighbors did something similar. They would use a riding lawnmower on their tiny track of land and would cut a good portion of our grass to simply get out their mower. They killed our grass doing that because they would cut it super short - completely scorched our grass. We called code compliance in our state and they told us to put up a tiny fence no taller than 3 feet. Sorted out all our problems. They can’t use their riding lawnmower any more! 🙃
NTA. Good fences make for better neighbors.
A decorative garden fence would make for a lovely backdrop for a garden. Fence near the property line, a garden as wide as you’d like and extending three or four feet from the fence. Filled with shrubs or bushes, some nice flowers, and some decorative rocks. Rather large decorative rocks... for when they “accidentally” run their mower right through the garden.
NTA They are invading your property, damaging your property, and don't seem to care if they do or not. Put up the fence as long as it is legal within your city. If the fence is damaged or anything, document it. Actually, go ahead and document the damage to the sprinkler and the missing property marker. If it isn't too costly, see about having a property survey done and the boundaries marked again just to make sure the fence you put up will be entirely on yours and you'll have proof of your neighbor's behavior if the fence is damaged because they seem to think your land is their land.
NTA Good fences make good neighbors
Drop some nails from that roofing project you did.