Thursday, October 21, 2010

The Fence

In the early morning mist you can see the two unfinished sections of my neighbors fence. They are just finishing them now. The sections are a problem because of a tree stump. Why they didn't just cut the tree stump lower, I don't know. Anyway they have spent over three hours trying to make the fence look right. It will be interesting when the neighbor returns this weekend if he approves of how they did it.

It all started about a month ago when I noticed these men measuring and remeasuring with a cord between our properties. Upon inquiry I found the neighbor was building a new fence. Actually one of my trees damaged his old fence this winter. There was a severe wind storm while I was in San Diego. My neighbors wanted me to pay for the damage but fortunately I had called my insurance company and they told me NO--The rule is if a Natural Disaster knocks over a tree the insurance company of the damaged property pays for the damage, not the owner of the tree. My insurance company said if my neighbors inquired of me (which they did) tell them to call them and if they sued, my insurance company would handle it. I was out of it. OK, no problem.

Except when I returned from town there was a new property stake about 8 ft within my front property line. I wondered why. AHA. I could see that if the fence company used the new property line to measure from they would avoid having the fence go through or in back of a large rock, a stump, and a tree. Unfortunately, the fence would not look good going in front of the big rock on my side and it would be too close to my woodshed and make it appear that I was not conforming to the boundary line rules.

I sought out my former neighbor for advice. He is a fireman and one of those good guys who know about things and likes to help other people. He ran off a map of my property and told me to measure from my lot stake on the other side 80 ft. He also told me to check and see if they had filed a architectual plan to be reviewed.

The following Sunday I had Mary Anne follow me home and help me measure. Sure enough the stake that had been planted was about 8 feet inside my lot line. The property owner came out and wondered why I was measuring and if I had questions why didn't I just ask. Mary Anne and I assured him, I was asking. After a lot of choice words and accusations both directions he said he would make sure that the fence complied with the proper lot line measurements. He would not admit to knowing who put the stake there.

I did call LACC and they assured me no one from the club had put the stake there and so I should move it to it's proper place. Unfortunately I could not budge it. Last week when Mike and I returned from a walk the stake had been mysteriously moved back to where it was supposed to be. The only ones in the area was the fence company working on another yard nearby.

This Saturday my neighbor asked me to come out and see if where the stake was, was now ok. I asked him who moved it. He said he didn't know. I asked him who put it there in the first place, he said he didn't want to talk about it.

Long story short--the fence looks a lot better on my side than if they had come in front of that huge rock and been on my property. And it looks like they are putting the bottom of the fence on either side of the huge stump??? I ask again, why not just chain saw the stump down???


They must not own a chain saw. Matt could have done it easily.

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