'AITA for not letting my neighbors steal my property by slowly inching over the property line?'
"AITA for not wanting to share my property with the neighbors?"
spanishmudflaps writes:
About a year and a half ago, my wife and I bought an old Victorian house on a corner lot along with two more open lots to the west of it. So, there's about 100 ft of yard on the west side of our house that goes almost to the neighbor's driveway. It's a half-acre.
We've been renovating the house mostly on our own and currently live three blocks away. The neighbor's yard is very small. Not long after buying it, I noticed the neighbor's kids and grandkids using almost the entire space as they pleased.
One of the older kids, in his 20s, would regularly hit golf balls in our yard, tearing up the grass. They played football and soccer in our yard. One day, the adults played cornhole in our yard and afterwards, I noticed cigarette butts all over the ground. I'm all for kids being outside and touching grass, but if they need an open space to play in, there's a park a block away.
This clearly didn't start when we bought the place. Based on the condition the house was in when we purchased it, the previous tenants, who were renters, didn't care enough to take care of the inside of the house to mind all that much what was happening on the outside, so the neighbors took advantage.
After the cornhole incident, I decided to have a talk with the neighbors and tried to be as nice as possible in seeing where they thought the property line was. We both thought it was about three feet from their driveway on the other side of where they have several planters and store their trash cans.
I thought maybe they would realize I wasn't OK with them using my yard as they pleased and would respect that. This was about six months ago. They backed off a little bit but are still using a good 10 ft + of my yard and even mowing that area.
The renovations are almost finished, and we are at a point where we are ready to move in. I remembered I had a buddy that used to do survey work and asked him about finding property pins. I wanted to find them if they were there so I could be 100% sure I knew where the line was. He came over today to find them.
They are even further over than I thought. About two feet further, which means all of the things they have on the side of their driveway are mostly in my yard, including a large bush I thought was entirely theirs.
I eventually want to build a fence, but it's not in the budget at the moment. I painted some lines where the pins are so they could see them, but they are for sure not gonna move anything off my property without me at least asking them to.
And even then, I expect to encounter some resistance. How do I go about this? I don't want to be an a%^#ole, but they're occupying the property I pay for and honestly don't want to share. I feel like they should've respected that from the first time I spoke with them, but they obviously don't, and the fact that I learned today their stuff is in my yard further complicates it.
Here are the top comments:
Used_Mark_7911 says:
NTA (Not the A%@#ole). I’d prioritize getting that fence up sooner rather than later. Juggle some other stuff around if you have to. Either way , tell them you plan to put a fence up “soon” and are gathering estimates. Point out exactly where the fence will go and let them know they need to move their stuff.
PeanutGallery10 says:
NTA, but you need to do something now rather than later for liability reasons.
OfandOldRepublic says:
You need to have the conversation. It's that simple. NTA.
ColSubway says:
You're gonna need a fence. Even a small picket fence will do to start. Hell, run chickenwire between poles until you can afford better.
What do you think?