Why is it that people can't just be normal and nice? Ok..this is likely to be long...
A little background: I grew up in the house I currently own having bought it from my parents when they retired 2.75 yrs ago. It's in an outlying suburb of Minneapolis and I'm on just under an acre. About 4 years ago, a developer came in and built six $500K houses adjoining the back property line of my lot. While this is just progress and it took a little getting used to seeing lights behind the house where there used to be a wetland, this is not the issue.
The drainage of the land was altered in such a way that the back 1/4 of my yard is wet most of the year and LARGE volumes of water flow across it and sit for an extended time now during heavy rains because the natural flow was interrupted by this new construction and landscaping. The city has not exactly been helpful in finding a resolution because on their "priority list", my problem is classified as the lowest, a private nuisance. Basically it comes down to me and my neighbors correcting the problem because the builder is out of business.
Ahhh, the neighbors. Let me tell you about them. While generally "Minnesota nice" on the surface, they seem to have alterior motives for everything. They would like nothing more than to have a little piece of my yard to call their own. I have an area of 160' x 24' of mowed yard behind an old growth tree line that about 20' thick. They seem to think this part of my yard is theirs and even one of them took to mowing part of it because it would become an "eyesore" when I didn't mow it (because of the aforementioned persistant wetness). When I tried to do something about it by planting about 20 Hybrid Willow trees to soak up that wetness, the other neighbor "accidentally" sprayed about 15 of the trees (saplings) with weed killer as they were attending to their lovely rock and flower garden. Another time, the treekillers got a little backyard, stand alone fireplace and subsquently dumped the ashes and unburned wood in my tree line. I discovered that and later in the evening, after a little liquid courage was flowing through me and darkness had decended, scouped up all that crap and neatly and quietly deposited them back into their little fireplace thingy. Nothing ever came back to me on that little escapade...go figure. I can hear it now, "Why did you put all the ashes I dumped in your yard back in my pretty little lawn fireplace?"
Through yet? no. Just yesterday I entertained the idea of putting up a 6' high privacy fence along that property line and had a contractor out to give me a bid/quote. While he was out measuring, the wife of treekiller house, we shall call Mrs. Cravitz, confronted him with a "who are you and what are you doing back here?". To which he replied, "I'm measuring"...to which she replied "for what? a survey?" to which he replied (because he was busy),"Ma'm, I'll be happy to answer any of your questions when I'm through measuring". She then said, "that's ok" and stormed back into her mini-mansion.
About 2 hours later, Mrs Cravitz calls me wondering what the guy was doing back there and if they had done something that has prompted me to have a fence put up. I basically told her that no, they hadn't done anything wrong <snicker> and that I was just entertaining all my options to handle the water problem. If the city doesn't do anything about it, I want to limit my liability of standing water and small kids falling in and getting hurt, or worse, drowning. She didn't like that answer apparently because she replied that it's not a liability because her kids are good swimmers and yadda yadda yadda.
Don't get me wrong, she's ALWAYS been pleasant to me, but she's as see-through as Anna Kornakova in a tissue-paper bra, wet. Ugh..neighbors.
A little background: I grew up in the house I currently own having bought it from my parents when they retired 2.75 yrs ago. It's in an outlying suburb of Minneapolis and I'm on just under an acre. About 4 years ago, a developer came in and built six $500K houses adjoining the back property line of my lot. While this is just progress and it took a little getting used to seeing lights behind the house where there used to be a wetland, this is not the issue.
The drainage of the land was altered in such a way that the back 1/4 of my yard is wet most of the year and LARGE volumes of water flow across it and sit for an extended time now during heavy rains because the natural flow was interrupted by this new construction and landscaping. The city has not exactly been helpful in finding a resolution because on their "priority list", my problem is classified as the lowest, a private nuisance. Basically it comes down to me and my neighbors correcting the problem because the builder is out of business.
Ahhh, the neighbors. Let me tell you about them. While generally "Minnesota nice" on the surface, they seem to have alterior motives for everything. They would like nothing more than to have a little piece of my yard to call their own. I have an area of 160' x 24' of mowed yard behind an old growth tree line that about 20' thick. They seem to think this part of my yard is theirs and even one of them took to mowing part of it because it would become an "eyesore" when I didn't mow it (because of the aforementioned persistant wetness). When I tried to do something about it by planting about 20 Hybrid Willow trees to soak up that wetness, the other neighbor "accidentally" sprayed about 15 of the trees (saplings) with weed killer as they were attending to their lovely rock and flower garden. Another time, the treekillers got a little backyard, stand alone fireplace and subsquently dumped the ashes and unburned wood in my tree line. I discovered that and later in the evening, after a little liquid courage was flowing through me and darkness had decended, scouped up all that crap and neatly and quietly deposited them back into their little fireplace thingy. Nothing ever came back to me on that little escapade...go figure. I can hear it now, "Why did you put all the ashes I dumped in your yard back in my pretty little lawn fireplace?"
Through yet? no. Just yesterday I entertained the idea of putting up a 6' high privacy fence along that property line and had a contractor out to give me a bid/quote. While he was out measuring, the wife of treekiller house, we shall call Mrs. Cravitz, confronted him with a "who are you and what are you doing back here?". To which he replied, "I'm measuring"...to which she replied "for what? a survey?" to which he replied (because he was busy),"Ma'm, I'll be happy to answer any of your questions when I'm through measuring". She then said, "that's ok" and stormed back into her mini-mansion.
About 2 hours later, Mrs Cravitz calls me wondering what the guy was doing back there and if they had done something that has prompted me to have a fence put up. I basically told her that no, they hadn't done anything wrong <snicker> and that I was just entertaining all my options to handle the water problem. If the city doesn't do anything about it, I want to limit my liability of standing water and small kids falling in and getting hurt, or worse, drowning. She didn't like that answer apparently because she replied that it's not a liability because her kids are good swimmers and yadda yadda yadda.
Don't get me wrong, she's ALWAYS been pleasant to me, but she's as see-through as Anna Kornakova in a tissue-paper bra, wet. Ugh..neighbors.
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