My backyard is large and offset; as a result, I share a fence with five separate neighbors — two down one side, two across the back, and one down the other side.
The story as I heard it was that the former owner of our house had a brother in the fencing business. As a result, our fence was built like a tank. There’s a strip of concrete running under much of it. All of it is supported by steel poles sticking out of concrete. Unfortunately, not even the best fence installation can keep wood from rotting, which is what’s been happening over the past couple of years. One by one we’ve seen slats lying in the yard that can only be nailed or screwed back into place so many times.
Last year, neighbor number one paid us a visit. The fence adjoining his yard had completely rotted and fallen off the poles. He wanted to know what I wanted to do. I told him he could do whatever he wanted and I would pay half. Then he said a bunch of things that sounded like “blabbidy-blah-blah” and I repeated my stance. He went away and a few weeks later there was a new fence. He sent me a bill, and I paid it. Perfect. In retrospect I think I probably paid more than half, but not having to deal with putting up a fence was worth it.
Years ago, we had to replace the fence at our old house. Me, dad, Andy and Tim all worked on it. Putting up a fence is hard work, I discovered. For anyone thinking about doing it, I suggest you don’t. Andy and Tim got the short end of that stick. We replaced one side, and immediately hired a company to do the other side. I had nightmares about post hole diggers for a month, and I vowed never to attempt it again. So far, so good.
Last month, neighbor number two approached us. (For the purpose of this post, the neighbors have been numbered in the order in which they have contacted us; I suspect next year I will have stories about neighbors three, four and five as well.) You guessed it; neighbor number two decided that his section of fence needed to be replaced as well. Now I will say if it were me, I would make this fence last another ten years, but you know, whatever. So we said fine, replace the fence and send us half the bill — which they did. (In fact, our half of the bill with neighbor number two was the same as our half of the bill with neighbor number one, despite the fact that the second stretch of fence is 3x as long as what we share with neighbor number one.) For those keeping track, the going rate for “send me half the fence bill” these days is apparently $800.
Neighbor Number Two likes to talk a lot. Sometimes he sticks his head over the fence like Wilson from Home Improvement. When he talked with Susan the other day, he asked if we still had squirrel problems, and mentioned that he watches them run around on our roof from time to time. One night while working on the fence he knocked on our back door amd asked if it was okay to chop down the gigantic weed that I let grow so long that it now looks like a tree, which was impending the fence installation. Yes, Neighbor Number Two, chop away. The weed tree has fallen; it sits in the backyard. The new fence is about a foot taller than the old one; I’m hoping it blocks my view of neighbor number two.
So, anyway … after a couple of days of work (not mine), we have another new section of fence. At this rate I expect to drop another $2,400 on fencing and receiving bills from three more neighbors before long. That of course doesn’t include the sections of fence that I don’t share with a neighbor. Those sections will be getting nailed and screwed back together for years to come. I can’t afford to replace them!!!
glad to see it’s a Slow News Day at home…so far!
Here in ABQ most neighborhoods use cinder block retainer walls to separate the properties instead of wooden fences. It’s a flood plan thing (the few times it rains here it rains HARD and without the retainer walls, peoples yards – and houses – would be flooded out).
Anyway, my neighborhood is in a low risk flood area so the retainer walls are only two feet high and we use chain link fences to separate the properties. Not much privacy there. So people either replace the chain link with wooden fences or make the retainer walls taller. Most people pick option B. My next door neighbor picked Option B this past summer. I payed half: $1,400. Ouch. The good news is the retainer wall will last a very long time. More than 30 years. Wooden fences, if they don’t lacquer or put linseed oil on it every year or so, will last less than ten years (I know because the neighbor behind me put in a wooden fence in and it started falling apart less than ten years later). My parents retainer wall is nearly forty years old and it looks just fine with no maintenance required.
I have three more neighbors adjoining my property. Chances are – once I get off my butt and arrange the financing – I’ll be the one knocking their doors to tell them about it. I won’t ask for half (my other neighbor didn’t ask – I offered to pay half), I’ll just tell them I’m putting it up and warn them about it. That will give them time to either object or offer to pay half.