I have a neighbor that is causing a lot of problems for us in general, but just have to tackle one problem at a time!

My neighbor has a detached garage that borders our backyard. The garage is about 500 square feet, about 15 feet tall and is located only 12 inches from our back and side property lines. I know that bylaws do not allow for this type of building to be so close to the property line now, but he had it built in 1970 and perhaps the bylaws were different then. (Perhaps someone knows about this as well.)

The building and it's close proximity is one thing... but his gutters, downpipes and splash guard drain directly onto our property in two different locations. I am not saying that the water eventually makes it there...it is drained directly on to it.

We are on a small lot and planning a fence...and don't want a brand new fence with all this water draining onto it and the fence posts.

Does anyone know anything about this or where I can find out about the bylaws associated with this?

Thanks for taking the time for reading this and a special thanks to anyone who know about this.

Just-In

Have you talked to the neighbor and asked him/her to re-route the water?

Have you found the neighbour to be unreasonable so far? Is he/she the owner, tenant or just residing there as a guest? Does it appear easy to fix the drainage problem? And is your residence new? If your residence is new it doesn't give you less rights but it can leave that perception in your neighbours mind. Researching a little bit may be your best asset.

Thanks for the replies!

To answer your questions... if you were to look up 'unreasonable' in a dictionary, I am sure there would be a picture of our neighbor!

My neighbor regularly comes onto our property through a little hedge. The 12 inches of land he owns behind his garage he uses to store his garbage. So basically, all of his garbage is stored on the edge of our backyard for us to see daily while the front of his yard is meticulously manicured.

Hence the need for a fence!

We have asked him to remove his garbage. He will not. He also does not want us to build a fence. Despite our having owned our home for 13 years he is now claiming adverse property rights regarding our property and has hired a lawyer. Aside from rude comments, he has told us he will only communicate through a lawyer. We do not feel we need one as we only want to build a fence inside our property lines and be done with the situation altogether.

Sorry....I tried to say we had problems in general with the neighbor... and even that's just the tip of the iceberg!

Thanks again.

....

sorry, I missed a few.

He is not the owner. He passed the property on to one of his children who does not live in PEI. He maintains it daily (whipper-snipping and mowing for countless hours until all his grass is nearly gone) and is in our yard well beyond the property markers many times per week.

As far as difficulty fixing the drainage problem. I am not sure...but it doesn't look that difficult. It is just that he will never do it himself.

You can put up a fence without a building permit and without his permission as long as the fence is entirely on your property and is no higher than 5 feet. You should go and talk to the planning folks at city hall about the downspouts flowing directly onto your property. Perhaps you should also post " NO TRESSPASSING " signs so it is very clear that you are enforcing your property rights. He must be having an absolute fit now that the school has sold the property behind his former house. I don't see how he can fight you on his property rights when he is no longer the owner of the property.

You have my sympathies. I too have had some very negative encounters with this character. I am curious. Have you had eggs thrown at your house yet?

Go get a no trespass order at police sation then it's 225.00 evertime he steps foot on the propety and a cheap webcam will prove that !

Does the law also say a fence has to be three feet inside of your property , i assume so you can do the upkeep on both sides

omgosh is there more then ONE of these 'characters' around town...my family also had awful neighbors JUST like this one and when they tried to talk to them about things affecting THEIR property...eggs, tomatoes, dirt and cig butts have been thrown at their house...amoung other crap
i feel for the OP, my family went thru HELL and had to get an order (forget the full name of it) from a judge and it still didn't keep the a** from doing stuff to their property even after HE moved GOOD LUCK!

Once again, thanks for all the advice.

We have put up a no-trespassing sign and that seems to have helped a bit, (not completely) and are actively monitoring and occasionally videotaping what we are faced with consistently. The trespassing, the foul language, the mean spirited insults, the throwing of his junk over the property-line (not that the junk is not an eyesore in itself) and the consistent threats of adverse property rights and legal action towards us. The language is especially unacceptable as we have kids at home. For the record, we have refrained from any mud-slinging and have kept to the facts.

We are planning the fence, but have issues here too. We would just put it in, but there is an old rotten telephone pole that is 2/3s on our property and ⅓ on his and which he claims has been his for the last half century. The fence post hole digger can not dig close to this pole and so we will have to give up a portion of our property to build out and around it, while the rotten eye-sore that it is would continue to loom over it. The property marker is located right beside the pole and clearly indicates that it is 2/3s on our property. In the fall, our neighbor hammered the property marker into the earth and covered it over. I know this, because I used to have flowers planted around it, and it was always taller than my flowers. I dug it back up.

We have no reason to believe that the rotten telephone pole is his. It’s functional purpose was as a clothesline support to my house and another neighbors. It also served as the corner post to our old fence which now we simply want to replace. He has never used it functionally and not until this year claimed ownership of this pole and at the same time suggesting that the rotten pole has some form of squatters rights. The pole may actually have been a functional electrical pole put in by the electric company. Can this get any more surreal?

We have had many people tell us to simply remove the pole and continue on with our fence and just let him deal with it. Like I said, he does not even own the property anymore. I have no idea why he cares about this rotten eyesore.

P.S. To Reggie: Love to hear your story. He tells us consistently (after he insults us and swears at us) that in all his years that he has never ever had a problem with a neighbor a customer. We already know from other neighbors that this is not true. Also, regarding the sale of the property behind him... yep...there’s another entire soap-opera. He’s been attempting to encroach there as well. I am sure the new neighbors have no idea what they are in for when they build.

** Not been egged yet to our knowledge! We did get a couple a few years ago, but I always assumed that that was teenagers!

** Also to Ice-Maiden thanks for your advice. We will look into that no-trespass order.

I believe it is still legal to shoot at trespassers.

Just be sure you have a FAC.

Phil

If the said "telephone" pole is indeed a telephone pole or Electrical pole that was put in by either of those companies, then it belongs to them and can be moved/removed by them...at a cost of course!
If you and your neighbors have clothes lines connected to it and he has nothing on or connected, I would just go ahead and move it one way or the other....or just take it down. If you are using it and he is not, then you do have some rights to what is done with it.
The more I think about it, if he is not using it and it is 2/3's on your property, I would just remove it and let him get over it!
Most he can do is make your life miserable enough that you are finally able to get evidence and have a restraining order placed aganst him. And if he is willing to go to court over it, the most a judge would ever order for such a silly thing is that you have it replaced at your cost...at which time it would go 100% on his side of the property line.

Why not hook up a few barrels and save the water to water the lawn? He's done all the work for you all you have to do is get the barrels.

Quickest way to make him fix the problem, get value out of his rain and he sounds like the kind of person that will immediately divert the water back to his own yard

you are probably right!

Thanks to everyone for all the great advice.

Collecting the rain water is a good idea but it certainly won't keep him (and his insults) out of our yard. I am more concerned that the rainwater will rot the new fence that we are planning on putting in.

Put the rain in barrels then it won't rot your fence. It's a simple concept in the barrel not on the fence.

I've got a neighbor that sounds much the same. Have you ever seen that old Hitchcock movie Strangers on a Train... let me know

Ha! That's pretty funny!

No I did not see the movie but I looked the plot line up on Wiki. Looks like a good movie!