OT drainpipe - funny?

Grossly OT but I hope slightly humorous.

New couple moved in next-door about a year ago. He knows everything there is to know about - everything. Other than that seems not too bad a chap. A tiny problem is that anything his side of the fence must be done perfectly while outside that boundary it doesn't matter. Like using a lump hammer to bend over a steel gutter bracket on my garage (don't ask why). I replaced the guttering with plastic 2 weeks later anyway but that hammering didn't do the soffit board much good. Next we have the laying of a considerable weight of broken concrete slabs against the (single brick) wall of my garage. Tried to be diplomatic and accommodating "Hope you don't mind etc but prefer you didn't put any weight against this wall as...". He frowned about that as if I'd insulted him. The latest is that his new garage drainpipe ends here...

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snag is that everything to the left of that pipe is my garden! It's behind my shed and that corner is now waterlogged. So he's run the drainpipe across a path in his garden and drained it into mine. He's concreting over most of his garden afai can see so the earth behind my shed seems attractive I guess.

Best to "confront' him about this or just blank off that gap in the fence so the water spashes back his side...? Just trying to avoid making a bad neighbour here - not very good at that.

Dear Marjory - am I being paranoid? What can I do without losing it? He seems ok with DIY so why place the pipe to drain onto my garden? I mean surely he can see that's not nice. I?m no saint but would never do that. I just don't get it.

Reply to
mike
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It'd certainly be tempting to cap the drainpipe. But that's likely to lead to escalation of the problems.

Is there any chance that your wife (if you have one) could talk to his? Sometimes women can be less confrontational.

Reply to
Jeremy Nicoll - news posts

I would go with the query type of approach...

along the lines of "By the way

Reply to
John Rumm

Slipping a "U" bend on the end is unlikely to direct the water to where you want it, but might get the point over slightly more subtly than capping it!

Reply to
Andy Burns

Reply to
Lobster

In article , mike writes

Direct, unambiguous approach required.

"It looks like you're draining your garage roof into my garden, can you move it please."

Avoid justifying yourself with, "the ground is becoming waterlogged" or similar distractions and don't ask if, "he would mind", that gives him an opportunity to say that he does.

When he doesn't move it, ask him again next week and if that doesn't work, fill the pipe with builders' foam, or ok you could mortar a concrete block in the corner to avoid the criminal damage aspect.

Reply to
fred

In message , fred writes

Maybe this is an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

Do you have room for a water butt? Is so, why not suggest that instead of routing the water onto your land (which you're really not too happy with), he should re-route his pipe so that it fills your water butt?

Reply to
Ian Jackson

The answer of course is that he is just thick, so I'd tend to just make sure his pipe cannot drain your side. I mean he will find out soon enough about having his levels right the first time it floods and he has to retro fit a soak away.

Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

In article , Ian Jackson writes

The guy sounds a bit of a prat so it may be misinterpreted as a sign of weakness (o/p watch out if you overhear him referring to you as Flanders ;-).

With our weather the problem still arises when the butt is full and starts overflowing.

On the various suggestions of blocking the downpipe, on reflection that may be counterproductive as if there is fall towards the downpipe then any overflow may just land on or pour into the o/p's property. Given that, the o/p's original suggestion of building a mini wall[1] to reflect the water back to the 'dark' side may be the most effective. That is if the friendly approach fails.

[1] As I said before, a concrete block (or soldier laid bricks) would do but maybe use some waterproof no more nails type adhesive/sealant to fix and seal the upstand to garage & adjoining bricks instead of mortar.
Reply to
fred

I suspect that's criminal damage, unless the bracket was over his property - in which case he can only take it back to the boundary.

What you do about this, apart from ask, I'm not sure. You might need to ask on uk.legal.moderated for suggestions.

Others have suggested that discharging collected water onto someone else's land is a no-no. I believe you must not go across your boundary to deal with this (if the pipe exit is on his side) and you might be causing criminal damage if you did anything to the pipe that's on his side.

But beware of flying and creeping freeholds, where such things as TV aerials, or pipework that cross the boundary can gain legal status.

You may be lost before you start.

Perhaps you could ask him nicely to deal with these things. Either he will reject the idea out of hand, or ignore the idea.

You could then frighten him by mentioning that the consequences of his actions (or inactions) might be that you will have to write formally to him, which could then be the basis of a declarable neighbour dispute, which in turn could knock tens of thousands of pounds off the value of *both* of your houses.

No.

My suggestion is to consider moving, before trouble gets to the notifiable stage on a buyer's solicitor's question form.

People are like that. I once had a neighbour that was paranoid about any plant or thing of ours that went over their fence, but they couldn't give a monkeys about their equivalent. I had to cut their shrubs back, little by little, when they were out so they wouldn't notice. They didn't like birds in their garden, so put a bird scarer on (their) fence that overhung our garden. It was made of plastic, so when they were out I coated it with WD40 and it fell apart a week later.

Try this site:

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Terry Fields

Reply to
Terry Fields

Well thanks all for the helpful suggestions - amazed at the range of creativness on this grp :-)

The way I see it juts now is if I ask him (politely as possible) to re-route his rainwater outlet he can either grudgingly agree (as he's never wrong of course), OR not agree to do it. If the latter, then I

*will* build a wall/shield (whatever) to stop that water floating the corner of my shed. Of course in that case it's obvious why I have done it and we have a conflict situation. otoh if I just build the wall anyway he *might* just think I did it as too "Flanders" to face up to him. That though is not the case - I'm not a bit concerned about having a go - in fact I find that a damn sight easier that being diplomatic (I'm not very good at that). That's my problem I guess. However I don't actually want to be a bad neighbour.

The funny thing is the only reason I discovered that outlet in the first place was that I got the step ladder out and was cleaning out

*his* garage gutter from the leaves from *our* trees. Didn't want to give him cause for complaint about it - and I saw this downpipe leading away into the corner... A sortie behind the shed revealed the awful truth :-)

Ah well..., thanks again chaps.

Reply to
mike

In article , mike writes

Sounds like a good response, reasonable and proportionate.

And you are most certainly _not_ being a bad neighbour.

Reply to
fred

Although interestingly enough, the deeds to our house specifically refer to us having the right to discharge water over the footpath and onto the road!

SteveW

Reply to
Steve Walker

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