What would you do ?

[ROYC75]

Let me back it up here, I've always suspected that the backside of neighbors house had a sewer line or even the main sewer line coming across into my lateral line. Years ago, they allowed landowners with multiple houses together to share the same lateral line. Now I have the proof, his line does tie into mine, matter of fact, it's right up under the deck of my house.

Backing up to 3 years ago, I had to replace about 80% of my lateral line from the bottom of my circle drive to the main city sewer line. That cost me $ 7500.00 and I didn't replace it all because I didn't want to dig up my blacktop drive at the time.


My neighbor has turned into a childish dick ever since his dog followed my dog back to our property and our other dog killed it. To add insult to injury, he slipped on the wet grass and broke his collar bone.

So my question is, do I make him pony up $3750.00 or have him put in his own sewer line, approx. 130 feet ? I would be willing to bet that 130 feet will cost him at least $10K to put in !

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Originally Posted by ROYC75

Wow, this place never fails to amaze me. Let me see if I can clear some of the nonsense up here?

We have a perimeter fence around our property. Our Lab didn't have his collar on and wandered across the property line. So, by the time I had walked down to the end of the driveway (at the edge of the house to see what was going on), he was 15 feet across the property line doing what dogs do, licking and sniffing each other's ass's. I commanded him to come back across to my side, as he came back, the neighbor's pain in the ass Yorkie decided to follow him. Having artificial knees, I could not run to the property line fast enough to stop what was about to happen next. My grandson's Pit was there with his shock collar on, as soon as their dog entered 6' inside of our property, it was too late. It had been raining some prior to this time and the neighbor slipped as he tried to run downhill to catch his dog before crossing. He slipped and did a Charlie Brown flop on his back, landing in a way to break his collar bone. I got citated for not having my Lab on a leach, yet he was not citated for the same thing. But he took all of this personal, took the time to give the grandkids a hard time. Telling them, I'm going to kill all of your dogs. Even making threats towards the kid's friends. I had to call the police on him several times about it and even spoke to the Co. Attorney about his threats, causing fear within them. Even after I apologized to him the next day, expressing my sorrow for his dog and his personal injury that was sustained on his property turned into an ass. Nothing worked, he kept on starring at us as we took our pets out on a leash, video us, making threats, playing loud music all day (which I didn't care, we like the same music) even after hours outside. He even started playing the same song all day long, for 16 hrs out of the day! Sad part is, we always got along up to this point, I used to mow his yard for him. He retired as a prison guard, was having some medical issues and a couple of weeks prior to this dog incident, he apologized for being a " asshole " about treat us and anybody around us. I told him then not to think twice about it, that I knew something was up with his demeanor. But this incident flipped him out, he put No Trespassing signs on the trees, paid for a survey crew to mark his property and has put up a fence between us, all within his rights. Please keep in mind, this whole time he had acted like an ass (over medication & emotional duress) I never engaged in his comments and told the kids to not comment. (This attitude of his has gone on for 5 months now and I'm about to send it into orbit).

Keep in mind when we both bought our houses, me in 1998 and he in 2010 , we were not aware of the current sewer line issues or how it was installed back in the 1930's.

Which brings us to date, he dug up a section of my yard to cut into a sewer tile that runs under my deck, to get to my sewer line. (FYI, there is only 10-12 feet between our houses) This line connects between my house and a clean out trap I had installed about 6' from my house. So his line is within 2, maybe 3 feet off the corner of my house! Then it runs about 60' out to the end of my driveway where we put in a cleanout trap and the new line starts, 90' to the city sewer main.

Years ago back in the 30's when both of these houses were built, the same guy that owned the old tobacco warehouse across the street had our houses built to help house the people that worked there (plus the many more on this street). They were boarding houses back in the day, reason they were built side by side, so close on the same sewer line. Building codes were so much different then than now and all of this old tile is giving way! I feel it's just a matter of time before the section between what we did and the house gives in under my blacktop drive.

I need to do something about this scenario with a 1-time, somewhat friend that has turned into a dickhead over pets!

Since I have not approached him yet, I'm leaning towards just letting him put his own line in. But I was wondering if there was another option here for him, cuz we are going to have to revisit this sewer line again. So I was thinking about getting him to own up to 50% of the maintenance is only fair.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by Womble

All the OP is asking for is for one person on here to say what he wants to hear:

a) Yes, it's perfectly reasonable to demand thousands of dollars from your neighbour for work that happened three years ago.
b) Also, OMG what a childish asshole for being miffed that his dog called mauled to death by your peace loving pitbull.

All other opinions will be ignored.

Ps. What would you do?

Seems like the yappy dog got off easy.

[TLO]

This thread won't be complete until BIG DADDY stops in.

[El Lobo Gordo]

Originally Posted by Womble

All the OP is asking for is for one person on here to say what he wants to hear:

a) Yes, it's perfectly reasonable to demand thousands of dollars from your neighbour for work that happened three years ago.
b) Also, OMG what a childish asshole for being miffed that his dog called mauled to death by your peace loving pitbull.

All other opinions will be ignored.

Ps. What would you do?

I think it is fine for the OP to demand thousands of dollars from his neighbor for the work done three years ago as one of the conditions he needs satisfied before he would agree to keep the sewer lines as they currently are. What is the worst that can happen? His neighbor refuses and he caps off his neighbor line and is done with it.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by ROYC75

Bottom line is, I'm going to make him move his line off of my property unless he's willing to pony up and share the same line and expense to maintain it.

It's the reason I asked, what would you do ?

If you're going to do that, lawyer up. It's up to you if this is worth that level of battle.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by El Lobo Gordo

I think it is fine for the OP to demand thousands of dollars from his neighbor for the work done three years ago as one of the conditions he needs satisfied before he would agree to keep the sewer lines as they currently are. What is the worst that can happen? His neighbor refuses and he caps off his neighbor line and is done with it.

The worst that could happen is that he caps the line, finds out that this is actually covered under some sort of historic easement, and is then not only responsible for uncapping it but also any repairs to re-connect it and any other repairs in the future. Plus legal fees.

Capping it may be an option, but I definitely wouldn't go that route without getting an attorney involved first.

[Skyy God]

Originally Posted by DaFace

If you're going to do that, lawyer up. It's up to you if this is worth that level of battle.

Roy’s in the **** around phase.

Keep us posted when you find out, buddy.

[El Lobo Gordo]

Originally Posted by DaFace

The worst that could happen is that he caps the line, finds out that this is actually covered under some sort of historic easement, and is then not only responsible for uncapping it but also any repairs to re-connect it and any other repairs in the future. Plus legal fees.

Capping it may be an option, but I definitely wouldn't go that route without getting an attorney involved first.

I agree whole heartedly the OP needs to consult an attorney before he actually caps the line. I think everyone believes it would be dumb not to consult an attorney. Maybe he gives the neighbor 30 days of notice and the neighbor decides to re-route the line. Or maybe the neighbor proposes to share the expense of maintaining the line at which time the OP can say he might be willing to go that route if the neighbor is willing to help pay for some of the recent repairs.

If it were me, I think I'd want to the neighbor to get his own line and if that option is reasonably possible that is how I'd lean.

[ROYC75]

For all of those stating to get an attorney, of course I will, even thou the city attorney has said we are within our rights to take course of action needed for resolution. It's never wrong to get multiple opinions from attorneys. To say the least, this shit is out of my league!

TBF&H, I worded the OP to make it sound like $$$ was the important thing here when to everybody here it came down to the dogs, $$$$ , who the asshole is etc. A lot of this was just fun and games amongst posters but some of you here were serious when I was looking for solid answers, a how would you feel scenario.

Anyhow, I'm meeting next week with an attorney to see how they feel, if the city attorney is telling me the correct information regarding olr right of way sewer lines that have new building codes set forth.

TBFH, if he hadn't turned into an ass about this shit with the dog and dug up 5' of my lawn to fix his side of the line, I might have been more inclined to work with him here. I know it's going to take at least $12K to do the job, if not more. There are some large ass trees to get through on the backside of his property and the city sewer line.

Just think, any digging or heavy equipment has to come in through my driveway and yard too, unless the neighbor to his other side allows them to go through their nice place, blacktop and fenced in yard !

[Iowanian]

Roy, we've been cool for a long time but I'm not going to lie...

In his shoes, I'd have taken that pit to the train station.


Regarding the sewer that should have been disclosed in the abstract or agreement when you purchased the home. If that was the case, I'm not sure that you can go back on him now, but it would seem to me that there would be some split responsibility going forward depending on where the damage is done.

[Jewish Rabbi]

Maybe instead of getting a lawyer you can kill one of his children too just to let him know you mean business.

[srvy]

Originally Posted by ROYC75

Found out today, according to the city, I can have that line capped off after a 30 day notice if I choose to! Now I am not an attorney that specializes in shit, but the city told me it was up to the landowner to work out any form of resolution with said neighbor on old sewer lines.

Told you so but you may have missed it in my long winded posts. But be damn sure when you take this action if you do a title report does not indicate a agreement on a shared connection to city sewer line. If there is nothing recorded you have a subsurface encroachment onto your property.

PS: Your deed would of made note of this.


I also believe the sewer district had to know your neighbor had no connection to their sewer but were charging as if he did. I feel they should serve notice that they are going to run a lateral connection from their city line on their right of way out to his nearest property line. Then give him a deadline to make a legal connection to it.

[Balto]

I think you only have one option and that is him getting his own line. UNLESS like others have mentioned, it says in the title/deed that its a shared line. If not then wouldn't you be worried about resale on your home? I think playing nice and offering him to pay half of that $7k repair is not even an option because of resale of both properties.

Send the certified cutoff letter and move on. Really the best thing you could hope for is if his new line needs to go under your driveway, that you are worried will need to be torn up at some point anyway to repair the remaining line, this would be a great time to go ahead and get that work done with him having to pay to replace the blacktop.

OH and just to keep in the spirit of the thread.....The real question is do you have access to his dead dogs corpse so you can use that to plug off the line when 30days are up?

[Skyy God]

Sounds like if you escalate the situation, your neighbor has a couple counterclaims. Wet grass doesn’t sound like the best slip and fall case ever, but I bet you’re omitting details.

Or you could not be a dick and work with him to fix the problem. Your call.

Lawyers get paid on grudge matches like this.

[ROYC75]

Originally Posted by Skyy God

Sounds like if you escalate the situation, your neighbor has a couple counterclaims. Wet grass doesn’t sound like the best slip and fall case ever, but I bet you’re omitting details.

Or you could not be a dick and work with him to fix the problem. Your call.

Lawyers get paid on grudge matches like this.

I'm protected by City & County no leash laws and the fact his dog came to our property. Case Closed!

As for his fall, on his property, I'm not responsible for his falls, minor injuries sustained on his wet grass according to the city & county attorneys. Trust me, he has done tried, they told him there was nothing he can do. Case Closed !

My only concern here is the sewer line! That's it !

[Jewish Rabbi]

Have you ever thought about paying someone to map out where the sewer line enters your property and then put some dog treats on top of it so you can lure another dog into your yard to kill?