NDickinson
Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law) Arizona
We live on a rural parcel with no covenants or laws, really, that pertain to this being an illegal activity. Okay, lesson learned.
We have a new neighbor, of sorts, who bought the four acre parcel next to ours and he began putting up fencing for his three horses. On day 1 of digging for fence posts, he took out our water main by digging with an auger attached to a small bulldozer. He promised he'd take care of it first thing the next morning as it was Sunday evening and Lowe's had already closed.
My husband called into work that he couldn't make it because our water was out and needed to be fixed. The deal was, he was going to "assist" the guy who broke our water main and the "neighbor" was supposed to buy all the parts to fix it. DH waited until noon (Lowe's opens at 7AM) and then went to get the parts himself to fix the break. Right about the time he finished fixing it, the "neighbor" shows up (by now it's nearly 4PM) and is astonished we fixed he because, "I told you I'd take care of it". WE HAD NO WATER, DUMB ASS! We needed to be able to flush our toilet if nothing else.
Fast forward two weeks later, guess who's digging fence post holes again and guess who had their water main broken? This time, it was early enough in the day that I demanded he go to Lowe's immediately to fix it and, oh, BTW, how come you didn't come to the house to get the phone number of the contractor who put the water pipes in so he could show you where everything was?
Now, the following weekend, here's the idiot on his bulldozer/auger, digging MORE fence posts and next thing we know, we have no phone service. You guessed it, he broke the phone lines going into the main and our entire area was out of service. Phone company came out that day and he is required to pay for that repair.
The very next day, home slice in on his handy, dandy dozer/auger and managed to dig another fence post that damaged our power lines in the ground. He's lucky he didn't get electrocuted but the electric company is billing him for THAT repair.
His final act of digging, the one that finally got it through his thick head he should probably stop digging willy-nilly was at the well where all five residents have water valves to our individual homes. He was using a smaller backhoe attachment and managed to break the valves for our house and his parcel. We had to call a contractor to come fix it but he couldn't get there for three days and we had to turn the water off at the well so we had now water for four days and made him get us bottles of water for drinking and flushing the toilets.
Now it's 2 1/2 months later and this wonder with digging equipment hasn't paid the bill for repairs and the contractor is now coming after us for payment. I don't blame the contractor in the least since he's the middle man and really a good guy. We are resigned to paying the bill while our "neighbor" buys yet another parcel of land here.
Our "neighbor" was telling us he's planning on building his house himself and, frankly, I don't know if we can afford for him to do his own work.
We have an appointment on Friday with an attorney to discuss all this but I am hoping some of you can help enlighten me as to what we can expect to happen, with the understanding of your writing it here doesn't make it thus, it's just an educated guess.
Having worked in the past with a property management company, I'm comfortable with entering the court room however, all we have on this guy is a PO box. The sheriff checked the address on his tags on his truck but it's an invalid address as they went to talk to him about his digging and he no longer lives at that address. They now want to talk to him about his need to have a ticket written for not keeping his registration current on his autos and trailers he has on the property.
This neighbor is absolutely driving us crazy with all his sh--, er, stuff. Help! This is now costing us a great deal of money and this guy couldn't care less.
We live on a rural parcel with no covenants or laws, really, that pertain to this being an illegal activity. Okay, lesson learned.
We have a new neighbor, of sorts, who bought the four acre parcel next to ours and he began putting up fencing for his three horses. On day 1 of digging for fence posts, he took out our water main by digging with an auger attached to a small bulldozer. He promised he'd take care of it first thing the next morning as it was Sunday evening and Lowe's had already closed.
My husband called into work that he couldn't make it because our water was out and needed to be fixed. The deal was, he was going to "assist" the guy who broke our water main and the "neighbor" was supposed to buy all the parts to fix it. DH waited until noon (Lowe's opens at 7AM) and then went to get the parts himself to fix the break. Right about the time he finished fixing it, the "neighbor" shows up (by now it's nearly 4PM) and is astonished we fixed he because, "I told you I'd take care of it". WE HAD NO WATER, DUMB ASS! We needed to be able to flush our toilet if nothing else.
Fast forward two weeks later, guess who's digging fence post holes again and guess who had their water main broken? This time, it was early enough in the day that I demanded he go to Lowe's immediately to fix it and, oh, BTW, how come you didn't come to the house to get the phone number of the contractor who put the water pipes in so he could show you where everything was?
Now, the following weekend, here's the idiot on his bulldozer/auger, digging MORE fence posts and next thing we know, we have no phone service. You guessed it, he broke the phone lines going into the main and our entire area was out of service. Phone company came out that day and he is required to pay for that repair.
The very next day, home slice in on his handy, dandy dozer/auger and managed to dig another fence post that damaged our power lines in the ground. He's lucky he didn't get electrocuted but the electric company is billing him for THAT repair.
His final act of digging, the one that finally got it through his thick head he should probably stop digging willy-nilly was at the well where all five residents have water valves to our individual homes. He was using a smaller backhoe attachment and managed to break the valves for our house and his parcel. We had to call a contractor to come fix it but he couldn't get there for three days and we had to turn the water off at the well so we had now water for four days and made him get us bottles of water for drinking and flushing the toilets.
Now it's 2 1/2 months later and this wonder with digging equipment hasn't paid the bill for repairs and the contractor is now coming after us for payment. I don't blame the contractor in the least since he's the middle man and really a good guy. We are resigned to paying the bill while our "neighbor" buys yet another parcel of land here.
Our "neighbor" was telling us he's planning on building his house himself and, frankly, I don't know if we can afford for him to do his own work.
We have an appointment on Friday with an attorney to discuss all this but I am hoping some of you can help enlighten me as to what we can expect to happen, with the understanding of your writing it here doesn't make it thus, it's just an educated guess.
Having worked in the past with a property management company, I'm comfortable with entering the court room however, all we have on this guy is a PO box. The sheriff checked the address on his tags on his truck but it's an invalid address as they went to talk to him about his digging and he no longer lives at that address. They now want to talk to him about his need to have a ticket written for not keeping his registration current on his autos and trailers he has on the property.
This neighbor is absolutely driving us crazy with all his sh--, er, stuff. Help! This is now costing us a great deal of money and this guy couldn't care less.