What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Hi! I live in unincorporated Clearwater, FL.
This summer the rains have been HORRIBLE! Both my neighbor and I have in-ground pools, and we have just been letting the sun evaporate the extra water (and trust me, there have been some times that I thought the pool was going to spill over from the rains). However, my neighbor to the rear of us has a one of those screen enclosures around their pool so they can't benefit from evaporation like we can.
To add to that, our house sits lower than theirs (and the front of our property is lower than the back of the house as far as grade goes). We only know about this b/c the other day I was putzing around the back yard and through our privacy fence that separates our yards I saw their bright blue drainage hose (we have the same type) snaking through their yard and laying right up against our fence, open end of the house actually under the fence as to drain into our yard, not theirs. Their yard was recently sodded -- who wants to kill off a few grand in sod with chlorinated water, right? Plus I don't know if their septic drain field is in the front or back (ours is in the front) but that would flood their drain field as well.
Our yard, however, is more planted and directly against the fence on our side are some planted beds with several very large, hearty, well-established plants that I really don't want to die from getting OD'ed on chlorine. I also have the fear of 1) our own pool getting overflowed from their water coming into the yard (the beds are just to the side of the pool) and 2) the integrity of the substrate being compromised by a few hundred gallons of water being dumped in at regular intervals. For the record, just by looking over the fence and at Trulia listings (When it was on the market a few years ago) the pool looks to be a little smaller than ours, which is a 20,000 gallons, so I'd estimate 10k-15k gallons. You can easily dump 500 gallons at a time and only see a few inches difference in the height of the water.
My question is....what do we do?
Have I seen them dump the water? No. However, when I noticed the hose this weekend it was plump. Water had been in that hose recently (you move the hose and water flows back to the pump. It was plump all the way to the end. That hose laid where it stood when water was running through it.). That hose was put there purposefully and is approximately 100+ feet from the house, snaking through the grass, around trees and their newly planted sod. This wasn't an accidental placement, or "we'll just put it here next to the pool pump". This is about as far away from the pool and/or pump as you can get and still be on the property
I work from home, but work in the front of the house. I can't sit out in the back yard 24 hours a day and wait for water to trickle through the back gate. These people seem to be youngish (based on their late-night corn-hole and cigar parties) so I have a feeling they probably have been dumping at night vs during the day, but I have no idea. No idea also how often they have dumped. The blue hose is very noticeable, even through the privacy fence, which is how I even saw it. Bright blue against green grass...you can't miss it.
My Father-In-Law, who has 50 years of experience annoying his neighbors says we should send a certified letter asking them to please stop. My co-workers say I should go to their house and knock on their door and ask them to please stop.
I am not very comfortable going to their house. Firstly, they seem rowdy. Not trashy, just...again, young and loud. Not 19 young, but "my first house" young. And I also don't want to get shot in the face.
Secondly, we wrote a very non-confrontational letter that I will post below that doesn't say "we saw you dumping water in our yard," because we didn't, but just "hey, chlorine kills plants, and we spent a lot of money on our plants, so please don't, even if you haven't." That at least gives a paper trail.
The third option is to call the City or County for illegal dumping. You're not supposed to drain pools into storm water (kills the fishies and turns Tampa Bay into a chlorine pit) You're not even allowed to use lawn fertilizer March-October b/c of how it affects ground water and run-off into the bay/gulf. But I don't know if dumping into someone else's yard is "illegal dumping," or just dumping into the street/storm drain is "illegal dumping." I know the latter gets you upwards of a $10k fine...
Here's the letter....
Dear Neighbor
We are your neighbors that live directly behind you at xxxxxxx Over the course of the past year, since we purchased our home, we have put in a great deal of time, effort and money completely renovating our back yard including completely replacing our existing pool deck as well as replacing all of the previous landscaping. This weekend while we were doing some planting in our back flower/plant bed that borders the fence separating our two properties, through the slats in the fence we happened to notice the blue drainage hose running from your pool pump.
We, too have an inground pool and understand the need to discharge excess water following heavy rains but we are concerned regarding the location of where your hose ends which is only a few feet from our rear plant beds by the fence that separates our properties. When we first moved in we initially discharged excess water into our front yard (as we were advised that pool water would not harm grass or plants) but soon after we noticed that our plants and grass were yellowing, and eventually dying because of the effects of the pool water. We are also concerned that discharging a large volume of water into the current area has the potential to saturate the soil under the plant bed as well as the pool deck itself, potentially undermining the integrity of both the soil and pool deck.
Because of this, we respectfully request that you please relocate your pool drain hose to another location that would ensure that it does not drain onto our property, therefore preserving our plants and soil as well as the integrity of our pool deck. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or concerns. We truly try to be good neighbors and do not write this out of any anger or malice, it is just that we donÂ’t want anything bad to happen to our back yard.
Sincerely,
FL-Nurse and husband
---
An update -- I just called the county -- it is not against code to drain pool water into your own (or someone else's, with permission) property -- in fact, that's where the county suggests you drain it vs into the street, so this isn't an issue of code unless they are draining polluted or contaminated water, or such large quantities that would undermine the foundation of my property/pool/house (what are those quantities? no one knows).
This summer the rains have been HORRIBLE! Both my neighbor and I have in-ground pools, and we have just been letting the sun evaporate the extra water (and trust me, there have been some times that I thought the pool was going to spill over from the rains). However, my neighbor to the rear of us has a one of those screen enclosures around their pool so they can't benefit from evaporation like we can.
To add to that, our house sits lower than theirs (and the front of our property is lower than the back of the house as far as grade goes). We only know about this b/c the other day I was putzing around the back yard and through our privacy fence that separates our yards I saw their bright blue drainage hose (we have the same type) snaking through their yard and laying right up against our fence, open end of the house actually under the fence as to drain into our yard, not theirs. Their yard was recently sodded -- who wants to kill off a few grand in sod with chlorinated water, right? Plus I don't know if their septic drain field is in the front or back (ours is in the front) but that would flood their drain field as well.
Our yard, however, is more planted and directly against the fence on our side are some planted beds with several very large, hearty, well-established plants that I really don't want to die from getting OD'ed on chlorine. I also have the fear of 1) our own pool getting overflowed from their water coming into the yard (the beds are just to the side of the pool) and 2) the integrity of the substrate being compromised by a few hundred gallons of water being dumped in at regular intervals. For the record, just by looking over the fence and at Trulia listings (When it was on the market a few years ago) the pool looks to be a little smaller than ours, which is a 20,000 gallons, so I'd estimate 10k-15k gallons. You can easily dump 500 gallons at a time and only see a few inches difference in the height of the water.
My question is....what do we do?
Have I seen them dump the water? No. However, when I noticed the hose this weekend it was plump. Water had been in that hose recently (you move the hose and water flows back to the pump. It was plump all the way to the end. That hose laid where it stood when water was running through it.). That hose was put there purposefully and is approximately 100+ feet from the house, snaking through the grass, around trees and their newly planted sod. This wasn't an accidental placement, or "we'll just put it here next to the pool pump". This is about as far away from the pool and/or pump as you can get and still be on the property
I work from home, but work in the front of the house. I can't sit out in the back yard 24 hours a day and wait for water to trickle through the back gate. These people seem to be youngish (based on their late-night corn-hole and cigar parties) so I have a feeling they probably have been dumping at night vs during the day, but I have no idea. No idea also how often they have dumped. The blue hose is very noticeable, even through the privacy fence, which is how I even saw it. Bright blue against green grass...you can't miss it.
My Father-In-Law, who has 50 years of experience annoying his neighbors says we should send a certified letter asking them to please stop. My co-workers say I should go to their house and knock on their door and ask them to please stop.
I am not very comfortable going to their house. Firstly, they seem rowdy. Not trashy, just...again, young and loud. Not 19 young, but "my first house" young. And I also don't want to get shot in the face.
Secondly, we wrote a very non-confrontational letter that I will post below that doesn't say "we saw you dumping water in our yard," because we didn't, but just "hey, chlorine kills plants, and we spent a lot of money on our plants, so please don't, even if you haven't." That at least gives a paper trail.
The third option is to call the City or County for illegal dumping. You're not supposed to drain pools into storm water (kills the fishies and turns Tampa Bay into a chlorine pit) You're not even allowed to use lawn fertilizer March-October b/c of how it affects ground water and run-off into the bay/gulf. But I don't know if dumping into someone else's yard is "illegal dumping," or just dumping into the street/storm drain is "illegal dumping." I know the latter gets you upwards of a $10k fine...
Here's the letter....
Dear Neighbor
We are your neighbors that live directly behind you at xxxxxxx Over the course of the past year, since we purchased our home, we have put in a great deal of time, effort and money completely renovating our back yard including completely replacing our existing pool deck as well as replacing all of the previous landscaping. This weekend while we were doing some planting in our back flower/plant bed that borders the fence separating our two properties, through the slats in the fence we happened to notice the blue drainage hose running from your pool pump.
We, too have an inground pool and understand the need to discharge excess water following heavy rains but we are concerned regarding the location of where your hose ends which is only a few feet from our rear plant beds by the fence that separates our properties. When we first moved in we initially discharged excess water into our front yard (as we were advised that pool water would not harm grass or plants) but soon after we noticed that our plants and grass were yellowing, and eventually dying because of the effects of the pool water. We are also concerned that discharging a large volume of water into the current area has the potential to saturate the soil under the plant bed as well as the pool deck itself, potentially undermining the integrity of both the soil and pool deck.
Because of this, we respectfully request that you please relocate your pool drain hose to another location that would ensure that it does not drain onto our property, therefore preserving our plants and soil as well as the integrity of our pool deck. Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or concerns. We truly try to be good neighbors and do not write this out of any anger or malice, it is just that we donÂ’t want anything bad to happen to our back yard.
Sincerely,
FL-Nurse and husband
---
An update -- I just called the county -- it is not against code to drain pool water into your own (or someone else's, with permission) property -- in fact, that's where the county suggests you drain it vs into the street, so this isn't an issue of code unless they are draining polluted or contaminated water, or such large quantities that would undermine the foundation of my property/pool/house (what are those quantities? no one knows).
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