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Help My Neighbor Destroyed My New Crushed Limestone Driveway

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dftush

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Michigan

Two winters ago, my neighbor used his companies snow plow truck and plowed my driveway quite a few times causing large ruts in my 200+ foot driveway that made it unusable for the entire spring and summer, even for the mailman.

I don't make alot of money so I can only afford one home project each year. I paid $700 plus materials for a guy to lay down levels of 23a crushed limestone to repair all the damage to my driveway. It was done slowly over a 2 month timeframe and each layer was driven back and forth on hundreds of times to set it before winter. It was a thing of beauty and set, looked and felt like a real concrete driveway. I was so happy and proud.

Christmas week I came down my driveway from working 3rd shift and saw the my neighbor had plowed it again. There was only an inch or two of snow and I just couldn't believe it. I was physically ill and still am over it. It is Spring now and my beautiful driveway is now a loose, crumbling, gravely roller coater ride. Much of the 3/4-1 inch limestone was strewn all over my yard. I came home the other day and noticed my neighbor had simply raked much of the loose, debree and leaf filled limestone back into the driveway so it is even more crumbly. I told him not to do that based on speaking with the guy that did the work last year and also the company where he purchased the limestone from, but he did it anyway.

Can anyone tell me what I can do? Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Heartbroken
 


justalayman

Senior Member
Have it repaired and give the bill to the neighbor. If he refuses to pay, take him to small claims court.
while this is a possibility and may be what you want or have to do, since the neighbor was likely trying to do you a favor, you might try to find a way for him to repair or assist you in repairing your driveway so that maybe the relationship is not injured.
 

Banned_Princess

Senior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Michigan

Two winters ago, my neighbor used his companies snow plow truck and plowed my driveway quite a few times causing large ruts in my 200+ foot driveway that made it unusable for the entire spring and summer, even for the mailman.

I don't make alot of money so I can only afford one home project each year. I paid $700 plus materials for a guy to lay down levels of 23a crushed limestone to repair all the damage to my driveway. It was done slowly over a 2 month timeframe and each layer was driven back and forth on hundreds of times to set it before winter. It was a thing of beauty and set, looked and felt like a real concrete driveway. I was so happy and proud.

Christmas week I came down my driveway from working 3rd shift and saw the my neighbor had plowed it again. There was only an inch or two of snow and I just couldn't believe it. I was physically ill and still am over it. It is Spring now and my beautiful driveway is now a loose, crumbling, gravely roller coater ride. Much of the 3/4-1 inch limestone was strewn all over my yard. I came home the other day and noticed my neighbor had simply raked much of the loose, debree and leaf filled limestone back into the driveway so it is even more crumbly. I told him not to do that based on speaking with the guy that did the work last year and also the company where he purchased the limestone from, but he did it anyway.

Can anyone tell me what I can do? Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Heartbroken

Sue him in small claims court, the cost to fix the driveway.
 

JustAPal00

Senior Member
while this is a possibility and may be what you want or have to do, since the neighbor was likely trying to do you a favor, you might try to find a way for him to repair or assist you in repairing your driveway so that maybe the relationship is not injured.
I agree with this, but if it doesn't work out court may be your only option.
 

dftush

Junior Member
Thank you all so much...you're very kind.

I guess I'll try speaking with him once again telling him I am not pleased with his "resolution" to the destruction and see if he is willing to repair it properly which I'm sure he would have already done by now.

Get estimates to get it back to where it can "set" again, present them to him and if he refuses, tell him I will escalate it to his company because after all he did use a company truck.

If none of that works, I can try small claims court, but I don't have any real proof like him on video or anything and the family has not been the best neighbors so I'm not expecting honesty...shall we say..

This guy works as a manager at a place called Fast Eddies, so hopefully that is not telling.

He was trying to be nice but now he needs to do the right thing. I'm so tired of people walking all over me.
 

FarmerJ

Senior Member
At any time did he have consent to clear your driveways snow ? I noticed you didnt offer how it came to be that he cleared your snow.
 

dftush

Junior Member
Sorry it took so long to respond back to you on this. I didn't log on for a few days.

Two winters ago, my truck got stuck in my driveway twice. I work 3rd shift. I got my neighbor to pull me out to the road twice. After that, he took it upon himself to start plowing me out. I thought it was a very nice thing to do so didn't tell him not to. It was only until the ice melted in Spring 09 that I saw the total destruction his plowing caused. The ruts in my driveway alone, made my driveway unusable that year, even for the mailman. That is when I was forced to fix it. I did not tell my neighbor nor ask him to help pay because he was trying to help. He also caused much more destruction but it is the driveway I need fixed.

In the fall, I told him I got an AWD vehicle and got my snowblower (his gravel redistribution caused it to break twice) fixed so I was all set and wouldn't need him snowplowing anymore. I still didn't have the heart to tell him about the destruction because I did not want to hurt his feelings.

I look forward to your insight and thanks alot for taking the time to respond.

Heartbroken
 

justalayman

Senior Member
I still think it was a gesture of goodwill. As such, I'm not so sure I would kill a relationship over this. Neighbors willing to help are a treasure.

Not blaming you but maybe if you had shown him the damage, it would have allowed him to realize why you didn't want him to plow. If you didn't say anything about the damage, maybe he figured you just didn't want to take advantage of your neighbor's goodwill and in response, he went ahead and helped you anyway to show you he really wanted to be a good neighbor.

So, you are where you are but regardless of whether you demand payment from him, ask for payment from him, offer to share the work or costs with him, I think you really need to explain why you don't want him to plow anymore.
 

dftush

Junior Member
I agree with you...hindsite is 20/20. But that has definitely happened. I walked my property with him a couple of weeks ago, showed him the damage of my new driveway and explained a lot of the damage from the year before.

What bothers me is that knowing all that now, and knowing what the experts said about how to try to repair the damage to my new driveway , he still just went ahead and raked loose, debree filled gravel back onto the driveway he broke up. He just raked it anywhere, not even into the low lying places but on top of some areas that had luckily remained hard. So now I'm getting loose gravel into my tires. It has gone from cement like to loose and crumbly and it was beautiful and 2 1/2 months new.
 

dftush

Junior Member
By the way, when I was talking to him about the driveway he said he saw the limestone being plowed up but just kept going. When I asked him why he never responded.
 

justalayman

Senior Member
I'm betting your neighbor does not work for NASA, at least inside a building;)

Sometimes we have to give allowance for others shortcomings. Hopefully you can come to a reasonable and acceptable resolution. Best of luck to ya.
 

dftush

Junior Member
No...he manages a Fast Eddies which is an oil change place. And thanks....I'm going to take heed of an old movie titled a Streetcar Named Desire, and try a good old southern, fragile female angle like the lead female character in the movie who exclaims "I depend on the kindness of strangers." I'm going to try to sweet talk it out of him. I'll let you know how that works out. :)
 

Isis1

Senior Member
No...he manages a Fast Eddies which is an oil change place. And thanks....I'm going to take heed of an old movie titled a Streetcar Named Desire, and try a good old southern, fragile female angle like the lead female character in the movie who exclaims "I depend on the kindness of strangers." I'm going to try to sweet talk it out of him. I'll let you know how that works out. :)

lol!! sometimes that works too!
 

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