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Bob F Bob F is offline
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Default Neighbor Draining Roof onto My Property

HerHusband wrote:
My next door neighbor has run his black corrugated pipe from his
downspouts down to the back corner of our adjoining lot, right up the
the fence, and it is draining directly onto my property, and
drenching the footings of my shed.
I can't believe this is anything but intentional. In fact, he did it
a few years ago, and even more blatantly, and halfway from front to
back, instead of the back corner.
Do I have a reason to complain to the guy?


Your neighbor is probably just trying to solve his own drainage
issues. While he may be reckless in the way he handled it, maybe you
could just mention the problem and offer to help find a solution.

"Howdy neighbor, I see you just added a drainline for your
downspouts. I bet that really helps keep things dry over there.
Unfortunately, the way you have the pipes routed, it's flooding the
area around my shed. Can I help you install a drywell to disperse the
flow? That way you can keep things dry over there without flooding my
property. Or maybe we can reroute the lines so it runs off the other
direction away from my buildings."

If he's a halfway decent person, I would think he would be happy to
work with you to find a solution that works for both of you. For
example, I have drainlines routed to the back of my property, and if
I found out they were causing issues for my neighbors, I would be
happy to fix things so it doesn't impact them.

On the off chance he's just a jerk, I would just look at it as natural
drainage. He's not CREATING water afterall, he's just redirecting the
natural flows. So how would you handle the situation if it were
naturally occurring? Maybe you could create a swale along your
property, or add your own drain lines to reroute the excess water to
areas it won't hurt anything.

Taking legal matters would be my absolute last resort. It would be
expensive, stressful, time consuming, and create even more tension
with your neighbor. In my opinion, it would just make a bad situation
even worse. He may fix this problem to appease the law, and then find
something else to annoy you with in the future.

Just my two cents,


And since he's already done this to you once, and didn't fix it until you had
complained twice, how many more time will you be so nice and helpful?