My next door neighbor's plumber broke through an old septic tank with his backhoe. Smooth move. Might have made sense to try to find out what was under that spot before digging. My across the street neighbor was chopping wood out front and hit himself in the leg with the ax. Smart.

Saw our next door neighbor (former-thankfully) standing in the back of his pickup ON A LADDER running a circular saw -- cutting branches out of their trees.

Phoebe, your neighbor & my former, must be related.

Not the brightest bulbs in the pack.

The year before, the guy behind the wall was throwing rocks at the deer and threw one into the kitchen window of the house across my driveway to the left.

pudgeder~

good grief, don't I know it. I watched his house being built. We live on a newly built street. We were the second house to move in. I saw them bury the gas lines to his house. We called 811 after moving in before planting anything. My dh even took pics of the painted lines, in case we needed them later. The neighbor on the other side of him, who are first time homeowners, called 811 too just to be sure they understood where their lines were after moving in. He has admitted to being a very, very impatient person. I just thought everyone would know to call before digging, since our gas company sends us warnings all the time.

I've also seen him shoveling something down the storm drain in our street by his driveway.

gyr_falcon~

I didn't know he was planting it, until I heard something outside. When I looked, I was shocked. By the time I could get outside, he was already planting the maple. I think he used the pickaxe at the end of planting right when I saw it happening. The tree is only about 2' tall, so he didn't have to dig deep, but I know that doesn't matter. I will say something to him. His son was with him. I don't want to embarrass him in front of his son either.

I've already tried to talk to him about his grass because he started panicking over it turning brown. It's not even a year old lawn yet. It's fine fescue, and he couldn't understand why it was turning brown. He was scalping it, and the temps were getting high. But, he started spot seeding, then didn't wait the amount of time for grass to come in, so he started adding lime because he wasn't satisfied, not because he had a soil test done or anything. I reminded him it was fescue. He has allowed it to grow a bit more, but then cut it low again. Some impatient people are actually very stubborn too. I don't want to get into his business unless he asks, but when it concerns my safety, I know I should do everything possible.

I would think he should now be worried about the roots of the tree and the gas lines.

One should not plant a tree over a gas line or laterals, especially one that has tap roots. When the tree gets bigger, if it blows over in a storm, it will uproot the gas line and rip it open, and that is the medium pressure line. After going through the regulator at the gas meter, the pressure is lowered to about 7 inches of water.

Luckily, in my neighborhood, the electrical lines are overhead. The gas and phone lines are shallow buried. These are most likely to be damaged by people putting up mail boxes - yep, we have street-side delivery and mailboxes are our hazard.

Phoebe --Maybe you should notify the gas company about this dingalings less than stellar "thinking ahead skills."

Nicole___ I would have been beyond livid had someone cut down my tree! What did you do?

In MN, you're required to call and have the lines marked. Failure can result in a fine of $1,000.00 per day, plus there's the liability for damage.

I'm at the point I'm tired of rules applying to me but not to neighbors. My "trailer neighbor" is back to some games so they're finding out there's ramifications for your actions.

Neighbor's son is a meth addict. I haven't actually seen him using but it is a well known fact. She keeps kicking him out and then letting him back in. She is as crazy as he is. He has lost a lot of weight. I keep hoping.....well, never mind.

cynic~I'll have to check on our area. Last week in the paper, a construction worker doing some work actually hit a gas line. 15 houses had to be evacuated until the gas company could fix it. I can't imagine what fines they are facing. Besides, the other house being built beside me, has come out several times with the yellow paint to keep the workers in the know.

marilyn~that is just sad. I hope he can get the help he needs somehow.

It is pretty crazy how reckless some can be. My sister's neighbour blew his house up ten years and actually got praised for alerting the neighbours before the house blew up. That is common sense, which he had for that, at least.

How about calling before you dig?

My dear (senior) neighbor used to get up on his very steep roof and clean it, and the gutters. My heard would be in my throat every time!

This topic, neighbors misbehaving, is always a big favorite of mine. :-)

Many years ago, I lived in a tiny but cute WWII era waterfront bungalow. My neighbors were my landlords, a great situation because I had worked with and been fast friends with the guy for years.

But he was a complete and total ditz of historic dimensions! His patient and humerous wife would call me and whisper, " Dorie, he's on his way over there with......(fill in the blank)." I was able to herd his efforts most of the time.

He managed to cut my cable twice, break a window, burn his hair and eyebrows by using gasoline to start a burn pile. And MORE! I begged him to stop "improving" the little bungalow until after I moved out because his efforts were crazy.

And he was the most sought after architect in town, an incredibly creative man. Mucho creative but zero practical.

Can I say my husband? Like rhizo's landlord, mucho creative, but zero (well maybe not zero) practical? I got up one day and he said, I'm gonna cut a hole in the ceiling. Really? What for? I'm going to put a staircase up to the attic so we can finish it. Never asked me, never talked about it before?! I did manage to say, how about on the other side of the room where the landing won't end up right in front of the front door. He's now an ex-husband, but not because of his wild ideas of house improving. That was one thing did well together ;)

Apparently, we have a neighbor who is pouring grease down the drains. It would be nice if they only affected themselves. Last week several of the neighbors had a sewage overflow on their lawns. The sanitation people removed a big grease ball from the pipes. The houses in my neighborhood are all four years old or less. The grease ball wasn't from years of buildup.

Now I've got another neighbor who is eyeballing everyone's trash output because she thinks certain people are disposing of their trash through the drains. She says they don't put enough out on trash day.

Do big changes in atmospheric pressure addle the brain?

We lived in a furnished apartment for several months while our house was being finished. One Sunday we had a tornado alert. The tenant next door went up on his roof to adjust his TV dish. Maybe the Weather Channel was breaking up?

Severe thunderstorms are rare in many places in Hawaii. We once watched a "Severe Weather Warning" banner run across the TV screen above coverage of Honolulu residents perching on their roofs to get a good view of the storm. Even stranger, the reporter made no comment about why this might not be a good idea!

I was adding a new post in a fence so I could install a small gate into the pasture, and was digging down with the post-hole digger, and at some point noticed the parallel lines painted on the ground in front of me, and behind me from the call-before-you-dig people associated with a recent septic system service.

By interpolating the painted lines made it clear that I was almost right above one of the electrical service lines. Yikes. Although a more careful interpolation indicated I was about 1 foot away from the interpolated position of the line, I looked at my metal-handled post-hole digger, and instantly decided 18" was deep enough.

Nicole, out of curiosity from a similar situation I have, just wondering who is responsible for maintenance of the wall (painting, etc.) on Your side?

The neighbor that lives behind me has a trampoline that is surrounded by large trees. Last year I watched in horror as he was attempting to cut back branches by jumping as high as he could, holding a pair of large trimming shears. His kids were watching. I quickly ran out and asked if would like to borrow a ladder or pole trimmer, he said "no thanks, I think this will work". I continued to watch in horror from inside my house, anticipating a call to 911 and praying he didn't have chain saw.

matti5~ Oh my! That is crazy...I'm glad no one was hurt.

My former neighbor, elderly and nearly deaf, used to run his cattle in a pasture that bordered our back fence line. The last year that he was able to take care of them (kinda), he had angus steers, which would often get out about dusk. I was afraid that they'd get into the road and cause an accident after dark, so I'd call Charlie to let him know the steers were out. He'd usually bring his over-under loaded with buckshot, but one night he was so mad he said he'd loaded the rifle.

By the time he pulled into my driveway, the cattle were heading behind my barn, the opposite way they needed to go, so I told him I'd run back and turn them. Before I'd even turned them around I heard a gunshot. When I made it back around front I saw Charlie crawling out of the drainage ditch beside the driveway--he'd forgotten it was there, and couldn't see it in the dark. The gun had gone off accidentally when he fell, about six feet from my propane tank. After he fished his wet socks and house slippers out of the ditch (brown corduroy, old dude slippers), he chocked the gun on my gas tank, swearing he was going to shoot every steer. I'd noticed that the barrels were packed with mud, so I started yelling (remember he was almost deaf), "Charlie, don't shoot! Don't shoot!" I was afraid the gun would explode in his face, also taking my gas tank with it. I pointed out the mud, and he finally calmed down. I wondered if any of the neighbors heard me yelling not to shoot, but no sheriff's deputy showed up, so I guess not.

He decided to chase the cattle with his pick-up truck, which didn't have headlights, so I had to turn my truck to light up the field, and lend him a flashlight to get home. Charlie's gone now, and I miss him--but not his cattle.

Not to worry--I have a new neighbor who inherited her parents' farm on the other side of me, and decided to run cattle again. She left town for a few days, a couple of months ago, and the cattle took advantage of the opportunity to get out and traipse through my yard several nights in a row, during a rainy spell. Now that the yard is starting to dry out, it's like mowing a wash board. She assured my she'd fix the damage, but it hasn't happened yet.

pipsmom49...it's 100% on HIS side of the property line. I paid nothing and am responsible for nothing. It's stucco, It shouldn't need painting or maintenance.

My neighbors kept encroaching on my property: a small chicken coop, a small woodshed. When I told them I thought they were now on my property, the woman practically bit my head off about how careful her husband was to make sure they were in the correct spot. Since I couldn't find the corner stakes, I paid mucho $$ for a survey. She accosted the surveyor demanding to know why she hadn't been informed he'd be surveying (he didn't need to go onto their property). He told her he was working for me and didn't have any obligation to inform her. We discovered that the buildings were on my property and he set the property line with metal stakes on the corners and put a row of wooden stakes on the shared line. I sent them a demand letter to remove their buildings, which they did. She said she hoped I was building a fence (so she wouldn't have to look at me, I guess).

I hadn't planned on a fence, as there was no real need. But I came home several months later to find out they had pulled up the wood stakes, driven their pickup on the line and unloaded gravel partially on my property! I called my handyman/contractor and asked how fast he could build a fence - I didn't want to lose the holes the stakes had been in. He showed up the next day with a crew and put up a 4ft field fence (it's off in the distance from my home, so I didn't care what it looked like and the wire fence kind of disappears into the landscape). They had to build it through the pile of gravel- I told him I wasn't paying him to shovel the gravel onto the neighbor's property, so they should just go through the center of the pile. Well, she came home and went ballistic again and I guess spent an hour or more shoveling the gravel, flapping her gums the whole time about how I always did these things when she was gone, and why didn't anyone tell her we were building a fence! The contractor says his guys STILL talk about her, wishing they'd videotaped it. I put it a couple of inches on my side of the line, just to be sure there was no dispute and to keep them from piling stuff against it.

And even though I didn't have to, I let them dig up some plants they'd planted on my property, because I really am nicer than they are!

I have a psycho neighbor who insists that my fence is on his property. We did not build our house nor did we install the fence as it was already there when we moved in. He is not originally from this country and apparently has not assimilated well as demonstrated on many occasions; our explanations fell on deaf ears. When we moved in, his was a vacant lot. He is the 2nd owner of the house he lives in...no problems with the first owners. After sending us demand letters that we move the fence off his property (which we ignored), he finally hired a surveyor. My other neighbor tipped me off to the fact that a surveyor was there as I had no view of the truck in his driveway. Of course I went out asap and took photos of the stakes the surveyor pounded in and guess what? Yup, fence is totally on our property, with about a foot to spare which I assume is mandated by ordinance. Not only that but he ran HIS fence perpendicular to ours so that it meets up with ours and forms a corner. So technically, about a foot of HIS fence is on MY property. Haven't made a stink over it. Yet.

I live in a small rural town that's completely encircled by a large city. My town was established by Eleanor Roosevelt during the Depression as a place for urban dwellers to come and live off the land. Because it used to be an old farming community there are a lot of large lots where the owners have livestock or horses. One of my neighbors has cows and horses on his 5+ acres.

When the weather is nice it's pretty common to see people riding their horses down the street. A few nights ago I was driving home and I almost hit a horse and rider. It was pitch black outside (no street lights on that street) and the idiot didn't have any lights or reflectors on him or his horse. The rider was instead wearing dark clothes while riding a black horse in the dark. I barely saw them in time by light of my headlights.

I once bought a house in the village on a quiet street with only 6 houses...my neighbor was in his 90's and thought nothing of standing on his front porch and urinating! I then bought a home in the country where I couldn't even see my neighbors houses...my neighbor to the north presented me with a bill for a 20 thousand dollar fence he wanted me to pay half for! I had to hire a lawyer and fight him...welcome to the neighborhood!

I think it doesn't matter where you live...there are always issues...

There are always issues, but fortunately different people handle issues in different ways. One of my neighbors has a fence on my property, by about a foot. It is a rental property and both the owner and renter are nice people. I asked the owner to send me a note stating that I had given permission for the fence to remain (to prevent any future claims of adverse possession) and he did so. So, until and if I decide to replace the fence, the issue is a non issue as far as I am concerned.

As far as the gas line debacle the OP wrote about, frankly I'd rat the pickaxe guy out to the utility company. That way if something happened in the future, the insurance company could not make any noises about me knowing about a dangerous situation and keeping quiet about it.

pudgeder.....Nicole___ I would have been beyond livid had someone cut down my tree! What did you do?

I got a quote from a nursery to plant another BIG tree & handed him the bill. He said he would pay it, then came back and told me he was leaving the wall between our houses unfinished plywood on MY side. If I wanted to finish it, it was up to me. I explained how it wouldn't last more than 5 years, it would rot in the rain and snow. So he said instead of a tree I could opt for HIM paying to finish my side of the wall so I didn't have to look at falling down junk. AND....I took that! Ya....I know....weird situation. But I don't want my property value to drop like a rock either. (he's creepy nice, but hateful! Karma has kicked his butt is all I gotta say. I just want to get along.)