Adventures of an Urban Nomad - Fence Wars

Laurence Harrould - Sunday, January 29, 2012

It's always dangerous coming between neighbours when there's a boundary dispute. Thanks to Danita's excellent negotiation skills we managed to avoid being caught in the crossfire.

The house we'd been staying in had a brick fence at the back of the yard. One morning we woke up to a man laying bricks on top of the existing fence. We assumed this was all authorised although the owner of "our" house hadn't mentioned anything about it. 

Danita (being the curious one in our relationship) went out and had a chat with the builder. He was a nice guy and explained that the neighbours were extending their garage. Again we assumed the owners of "our" house were aware of this. So far so good. 

After a few layers of new bricks however, it became apparent there could possibly be a problem. The existing fence was constructed of what were originally white bricks (after 20 or so years the original colour was somewhat open to discussion). What was of concern was that the new layers were rather pink thus creating an "interesting" feature. By the end of the day he'd completed the addition to the wall - an extra 60cm. This was definitely something that needed some enquiry.

We contacted the owners (who were in Europe at the time) asking if they were aware of what was happening and mentioned that the additional layers were more pink than white. This resulted in some rather concerned emails leading to "discussions" with the neighbours (to which we were fortunately not a party). Next day the builder was back, very carefully removing the extra layers.

Some time later it all started again - this time with white bricks. While they didn't quite match the original (they did have 20 years of "growth") it was a distinct improvement on the pink option.

On the owners' return we received a very grateful email thanking us for letting them know what was happening. Had it not been for housesitters they would have returned to a multi-coloured back wall clearly visible from the rear half of the house. Now he just has a large wall to deal with - but that's another story.

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