I am planning on turning my backyard into a parking pad as parking in the city has become really difficult. The problem is there is a guy wire that is blocking access to my yard. How do I get rid of it. The electrical company came for inspection and said that it is not their. It is either owned by Verizon or Comcast. Called these two companies but have no idea where to point me to. What should I do?
What is it holding up? It should be fairly easy to track down who owns the pole, or whatever. If they don't claim it, they probably will, rather quickly, if it comes down. ;-)
There must be an easement and it should be recorded in the County records. You may find out that you can't remove the guiy wire if it is in the easement right of way.
I thought of the same thing, but the easement may just say that it's a utility easement, rather than name the utility. They do share each other's poles and it's hard to guess (they're usually marked, IME) which utility owns the pole. You're right, though, there may be no way to force them to do anything. OTOH, they might not want to make enemies.
Yeah, especially if you suggest that there may be an accident/incident as a result of their guy wire.
What you should have done is simply cut / remove the guy wire yourself. Removal of wire is not unusual in the US these days - it's called urban mining. Nobody could attribute it to you if you do it right.
But because you've already made a lot of noise by contacting everyone, if you remove it yourself then someone will remember that you wanted it gone and you're in trouble.
So you screwed yourself.
They won't remove it no matter how much you bug them because some engineer at some point obviously wanted that guy wire there, and they won't take it down now because it's an insurance / liability issue for them if they do any work that can weaken or make their poles less secure. Liability insurance governs all aspects of life in the US today.
Is the guy wire in an easement? If so, there isn't much you can do about it as that's their right to do so. Sure you can plead your case but that's laughable inside their walls.
If whoever you spoke to at Verizon and Comcast couldn't help you, call back and ask again. If that person can't help, escalate the call to a supervisor. It took me a couple of calls to get the details of a pole replacement project in my neighborhood, but I eventually got all the details, including who owned the poles, what order the work of the three companies would be done in and when I could expect the empty poles to be removed.
Once you get to the right people, they should be more than willing to help you out, at least as far as the details of the guy wire placement.
You may even find that they might be willing to move the guy wire. I happened to be home when they dropped the new pole and they actually dropped it about 5 feet from where they were going to when I nicely told them that it was hard for me to open my car door if I parked next to it.
The pole should have markings to tell you who owns it. About 6-10 feet from the ground.
Typically it would be (in descending order)
1) The power company 2) The original phone company 3) Rarely some new cable company.If you have a state level public utility oversight agency, they would also know.
e
He might try calling the local police. Poles get knocked over by cars all the time so they must have some contact numbers that they call to say, "This pole has been damaged...."
Or find a Verizon or Comcast truck that is doing work in the area and ask them. If they come out to fix somebody's service and find a damaged poll, they must know who to call.
When you look at the tags, you might also see the word "contact". If Verison owns it, others might have their name with the word contact indicating they have wires on it, but they don't own it. (I.e., their wires make contact with someone else's pole.)
ge
But you would think that if such an identifying tag were on the poll, when the electric utility came out to inspect it, they would have been able to tell him who's it was.
If your easement is for vehicles to pass, sounds like this guy wire violates that easement and is therefore illegally placed.
Not sure I envision what's there, but sounds like trying to drive under the triangle made by a tent wire. Should be possible to replace with a 'dogleg' guy wire. I've see these configurations in tight locations where a vehicle has to have clearance between the pole and the wire's ground attachment. The idea is that the wire comes down at similar angle to what is there now but instead of tied to ground is tied to top of a short pole, essentially moving everything a bit up in the air to provide clearance for a vehicle to go under everything right next to the pole.
He isn't clear but I think the pole is not on his property but in the alley and the wire prevents vehicle access to his yard.
For someone who wanted help, he doesn't seem to want to answer any of the posts.
Harry K
-a-guy-wire...
He could also call JULIE, they must have records of all wires below ground and maybe also have info on poles, etc.
If it's owned by Verizon, it's simple. Sign up for Verizon wireless.
It isn't that difficult. Each company that has something attached to the pole will nail an attachment tag on the pole. You simply call, give them that number and ask for someone to meet you. Just did it with Comcast maybe six months ago.
There is one other thing to check. From personal experience, there are times when the guy wire goes off of the easement. You might be able to convince them to move it since it is technically not there legally.
Per ray:
When I had a Comcast cable break as I was driving under it - and it damaged some property on top of the vehicle - I spent awhile trying to get in touch with somebody from Comcast before I gave up and just filed a small claims court action against them.
That worked like magic and they were perfectly reasonable. Never had to go to court or anything - but the claim went into their system and navigated itself to the right decision maker and it was downhill from there on.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.