Fences Make the Best Neighbors

My house is on the corner of two semi-busy streets, and is backed by an alley (the garbage truck drives down the alley; I will NEVER have to remember to take out or bring in the can again!), which means I share a property line with exactly one other person. Oddly, this is the one line that doesn't have a fence on it.

When I was closing escrow, the neighbor started doing weird things: placing a wire portable fence around things that were clearly on this property, swinging it back around a tree that might have been in the middle (she was claiming the pump was hers, but the tree--closer to her house than the pump--was mine); staking the "line" down the two lawns with ugly metal posts. The realtor shrugged and said she was thinking of putting up a fence. Not in that zig-zag pattern, she's not, I said.

I called her. She didn't answer or return my call. On the third day, I stopped trying.

I called the city. They said they couldn't do anything.

I called surveyors. All of them threatened me with their hourly rate (competitive with a lawyer) and stated it would take between 3-10 hours. I balked. I hid in my giant bedroom and fretted over getting myself into some kind of old feud, when I like neighbors to ignore each other as much as possible. I told one of the surveyors to go ahead.

After not returning my calls for five days, she showed up at my door at 11PM. Her response was as though we had had this conversation before, and we have been fighting about this for years. I (gently) pointed out that we had just met, and I wasn't trying to stop her; I was a new neighbor and we needed to figure this out together. Also we needed to consider the property line, and the aesthetics of this fence. I suggested we share the cost of a survey. She said no; it was cheaper for her to build, take down and build a new fence, than to split a survey. I pointed out there was no way anyone was so detail oriented as to set property lines that weren't as straight as a ruler. She disagreed.

Eventually, we came to a compromise that was less zig-zaggy, but still left her claiming the wall of my garage as on her property.

I wasn't completely happy, but it was over. I tried to go back to my life.

Friday, there was a note on my door from my surveyor, and there were new stakes on the property line. These ones were 3-4 feet farther south than the ones the neighbor put in next to her sprinkler head, reclaiming my garage, claiming the water pump she had already started to dismantle (forget about the hideous pipes the seller ran across the facade of my house, because this neighbor refused to allow the sprinklers to be attached to this pump any longer), claiming the walkway next to my garage, and claiming her matching gate that is probably her only access to the alley and trashcans.

I fretted again. Now, she would be mad because this added 15-20 more feet to the fence she wanted to build, and I would have to tell her to move her sprinkler so she couldn't claim part of my yard. I stayed home. I took a nap. I didn't call the surveyor back, nor call the title company or a lawyer or the neighbor. I waited.

Sunday, she showed up at my door, finally seeing the stakes and realizing what they meant. She said, well, I see the front one; where's the back one? I stuttered, oh, behind the fence. I wanted her to go see it alone; why should I go stand in the alley in the dark with this woman? Better to be near the house and lights and people walking by if she is going to freak out at me. She kicked at the pump. Well, I guess this is yours; good riddance; I don't know anything about them.

I could see the pipe had been broken. I knew she or her handyman did it, but she instantly denied that they had "started work". I let it pass (the other end of the pipe had already been caped in my yard, by the seller); it was too easy to fix to point out the vandalism. She looked up at the trees and said, at least these aren't mine because they need to come down. I looked up at the healthy trees that needed a haircut and didn't respond.

She asked me for the surveyors number. I went to get it, my heart thumping, and came back to find her talking out loud to herself and walking the line. She walked a curve and asked, like this? No, I said, that bush has grown over the line; it goes through it in a straight line between those two posts. I'm going to have to move this sprinkler, she said. Of course, how silly of me. She threw a fit when she found out that pump she thought was hers was watering my yard; of course she will pay to move it, rather than risk paying to water a strip of my yard. She then announced she wasn't going to have the whole fence built, just the part that would block her yard from my view. I could still access her yard from my newly acquired walkway.

Then she said, I'm just going to call him and get my own survey done then. I shrugged. Your thousand dollars, I thought. I offered to split it two weeks ago. This isn't like hiring a lawyer and coming up with a verdict slightly more beneficial to you. It isn't even like seeing another doctor for a second opinion.

This morning, I called the surveyor to ask for the bill. He said, your neighbor called. Then he hesitated. I got the gist. She wasn't belligerent, was she? Oh, no, but she kept asking how I did it and if I was sure it was a straight line. I told her I found the original corner markers and I just uncovered them. That whole section has the corners, but they are old; they are definitely still where they are supposed to be, and all the lines are straight on a grid. I thanked him and asked what the bill would be. He said, "Well, I'll be charging our minimum." Apparently my property line was easier to find than he had thought. What a load off. Now I just have to decide if I should finish the fence she's too cheap to build with all the money I didn't spend on the survey. Seems like a worth-while investment to me.