# Forum Home Renovation Roofing  neighbor's guttering directing over my fence

## davegol

My neighbor has built a tin shed from the back of his house (a unit) to the back fence (our shared fence). 
Aside from the fact that I'm sure this structure isn't legal... 
The downpipe from his (house) roof has been removed so the rain just spills onto the roof of the shed.
The water then runs down a roof corrugation, and then cascades into my garden, creating a big wet 'sink hole', destroying my garden and potentially drowning the fence post foundations. 
Does anyone know the rules? Is it his responsibility to get rid of his own rain water safely? 
Or should I just adopt the unfriendly approach and redirect it back to his property (somehow)? 
He hasn't been very approachable in the past, so I'd like to go in armed with the rules, rather than a "friendly request". I've tried friendly. Didn't work.

----------


## r3nov8or

He needs to manage his own storm water within his own property. Some small sheds don't have effective gutters - they are just end capping for the roof sheets - but that his shed now takes water collected from his residential roof is the issue, and needs to be managed.  
Was he really so short on space that the downpipe had to go? It's like 90mm!

----------


## InsaneAsylum

take photos and contact your local council. I had a problem with a neighbour collecting rain water into 44 gallon plastic drums from his "several sheds" in the backyard (god knows why one needs so many sheds). trouble is he wasn't emptying them and we got heaps of rainfall a few years ago which ended up causing flash flooding to my garage and house. i took photos and spoke to the council who inspected both properties. i'm not sure what they said to him but he now has 1 big shed with stormwater that ends up where it should ie. the gutter at the front of the block!

----------


## Bloss

First raise it directly with the neighbour.  Council will tell you it dod so before they take any action. Firm but friendly at first - as r3nov8or said all stormwater must be managed and retained within property boundaries - generally this means keeping any water & runoff in stormwater pipes and drains heading to a street gutter. But he might be oblivious to the impact of what his actions have caused so speak to him first - and offer to show him on the next rainy day . . .

----------


## METRIX

Speak to your neighbor, first, I had a similar issue with a terrace I bought in the inner city, there was 4 terraces guttering all connected together, then outputting via 1 x 100mm down pipe located over my house.
Needless to say this was inadequate, and water had been overflowing from this for years, this ended up attracting termites because of the constant wet subfloor. 
The rules were to notify the neighbors in writing with my intentions to replace my gutter and in doing so block off the neighbors gutters either side, the rules requiring them to dispose of storm water collected on their property. 
I was to give them 4 week notice, needless to say only 1 neighbour bothered to act on this, so I had the gutters replaced, the weird thing is, one of the terrace houses was owned by a real estate agent and was leased out, she got my letter but didn't bother to  have her guttering repaired, I thought at the time, how would these people go managing a rental property for you, when they cant even have a simple down pipe added to their own pace.

----------


## Oldsaltoz

You need permission to build up to the boundary and a signed statement from the neighbour to do so. If you have not signed up for this it's not legal.

----------


## Marc

I had a similar problem with a guy who lived next door. Flush flooding my shed regularly from downpipes not connected to storm water. His garage driveway was also connected illegally to my stormwater with a pipe under the fence.  I called the council who sent an imbecile who told the neighbour that I had the right to concrete the driveway connection (something I never said) and the neighbour decided that slashing my car's tyres and spreading super glue on the paintwork was the correct response, just like he used to do in Palestine. 
10 years later and different people live there yet the gutters are still connected illegally only this time to the sewer. The council is a useless entity created to give a group of people a good lifestyle at our expense, and to collect money from the easy targets and leave everything that is hard alone to sort itself out.

----------


## Bloss

All about attitude and good neighbours - so start there first. If you start off being all about what's 'legal' rather than simply 'doing the right thing' or if you approach it in anger you will likely get a negative reaction. If you start by assuming a reasonable person is your neighbour you have  abetter chance of getting it resolved fast rather than escalate to a full blown dispute. My dear old Mum used to say 'if you get angry you lose, even if your are in the right" - I took that to mean that if you show your anger (as we are often entitled to feel anger, it's just rare to be a good thing to display it!). Of course some people are not open to reasonableness, but deal with that if that's the response not by assuming a 'blame' attitude form the start. Keep in mind the main result you want - stopping the water getting into your place.

----------


## davegol

Thanks for the suggestions guys.
The last incident involved me politely requesting him to not throw the branches that he cut down from his trees over the fence into my backyard just because he couldn't be bothered getting rid of them himself.
Sigh ... I will try again with the neighbor. 
I agree with you Marc re councils. Never once had any success with them. I think their only KPI is to see how many residents they can bring to tears.

----------


## Bros

> You need permission to build up to the boundary and a signed statement from the neighbour to do so. If you have not signed up for this it's not legal.

  Not entirely correct as I built a shed on the boundary without neighbor permission but the catch was it was a fireproof wall and the stormwater diverted back on to my property. My other neighbor wanted to build a normal tin shed on the boundary and he had to see me for permission.

----------


## Bloss

> I agree with you Marc re councils. Never once had any success with them. I think their only KPI is to see how many residents they can bring to tears.

  Council staff maybe, but councillors want your vote so often better to go through them if the staff seem not to be doing enough . . . but do so after talking to staff not before . . .

----------


## Marc

Yes Bloss, your mum is right. The op however has most probably obviated the precursor to the problem which most probably included the initial niceties and politeness. I know I exhausted all of the above to no avail.My mum had a different say that translated would go more or less like this: "Even if you dress a monkey in silk she will still be a monkey" (not sure why the monkey was a she and not a he though)We should start a thread entitled horror stories about my neighbour, now that would be a popular thread!

----------


## Renopa

...better still, how about a thread to swap neighbours???   Anyone want mine??

----------


## woodbe

Turn his ignorance into a blessing. 
Use his water to fill your rainwater tank and direct the overflow back into his yard  :Smilie:

----------


## r3nov8or

> Turn his ignorance into a blessing. 
> Use his water to fill your rainwater tank and direct the overflow back into his yard

   Pumping at inconvenient hours, onto his roof, so you can collect it again, and never run out!

----------


## OBBob

> Pumping at inconvenient hours, onto his roof, so you can collect it again, and never run out!

  Lol... Today Tonight here we come!

----------


## Marc

I had a neighbor that use to run a window rattler aircon day and night non stop 24 hours. It was a useless thing and made a terrible racket. Nothing made them desist from using it all through the night. No amount of request, polite ask, information about rules, calls to the real estate, nor council visit handing a leaflet. (yes the council contribution consisted in two useless pricks having a junket together and a chat to her and handing her a leaflet. 
I did however solve the problem satisfactory for all parties. I sent a combined email to the RE and the owner of the property explaining the situation and saying that I was willing to pay half the cost of a split aircon for the room in question installed by a tradesman of my choosing providing it was done within a fortnight. 1/2 the bill to be sent to them.  
They replied with alacrity and I got them a Fujitsu 2HP installed by an aircon technician I know. My 1/2 bill was $400 yet Fujitsu had a promotion at the time and got me $200 back, So I got my pace for $200 and surely the owner thought at the time that I am an idiot.
6 month later the tenant did a runner owing 4 month rent and two electricity bills. 
However the aircon is still there and the next tenant used it at his heart content and I can not even tell if it is on or off. 
PS
I can picture a pump sucking from a pit next to the fence, with an irrigation gun pointed at the neighbors roof, in a perfect closed circuit. Nice!

----------


## Bedford

> PS
> I can picture a pump sucking from a pit next to the fence, with an irrigation gun pointed at the neighbors roof, in a perfect closed circuit. Nice!

  Yep, it's always better to be on the outside pi ssin' in, than the inside trying to pi ss out!

----------


## OBBob

> Yep, it's always better to be on the outside pi ssin' in, than the inside trying to pi ss out!

  And never,  never underestimate the wind.

----------


## Bros

> Yep, it's always better to be on the outside pi ssin' in, than the inside trying to pi ss out!

  Said LBJ.

----------


## METRIX

> I had a neighbor that use to run a window rattler aircon day and night non stop 24 hours. It was a useless thing and made a terrible racket. Nothing made them desist from using it all through the night. No amount of request, polite ask, information about rules, calls to the real estate, nor council visit handing a leaflet. (yes the council contribution consisted in two useless pricks having a junket together and a chat to her and handing her a leaflet. 
> I did however solve the problem satisfactory for all parties. I sent a combined email to the RE and the owner of the property explaining the situation and saying that I was willing to pay half the cost of a split aircon for the room in question installed by a tradesman of my choosing providing it was done within a fortnight. 1/2 the bill to be sent to them.  
> They replied with alacrity and I got them a Fujitsu 2HP installed by an aircon technician I know. My 1/2 bill was $400 yet Fujitsu had a promotion at the time and got me $200 back, So I got my pace for $200 and surely the owner thought at the time that I am an idiot.
> 6 month later the tenant did a runner owing 4 month rent and two electricity bills. 
> However the aircon is still there and the next tenant used it at his heart content and I can not even tell if it is on or off. 
> PS
> I can picture a pump sucking from a pit next to the fence, with an irrigation gun pointed at the neighbors roof, in a perfect closed circuit. Nice!

  A big stick jammed into the fan will soon stop it making noise permanently, or something jammed into the overflow forcing this back inside will also have it turned off sooner rather than later. 
I bought a house that was split into two tenancies, upstairs was two blokes and downstairs was an old lady, the old lady moved out when I purchased it, so I moved in down stairs so I could start working on the gardens, the guys upstairs seemed ok at first (had 3 months left on their tenant agreement) which I let the managing agent look after (luckily), they knew I owned the house, and got the crappers because I used to park in the carport, I explained I owned the house and as far as I was concerned it was first in could use the carport, I had no issue if they parked in there. 
So I asked them if they could stop driving their motorbike through the front door and parking it in the lounge room, as there was a perfectly good 20sqm awning covering the front door area, they refused to stop doing this !. 
In the end the older guy moved out with three weeks remaining, he went back to queensland, and said the other guy would stay on for the remaining three weeks, three weeks later the young guy disappeared, leaving rent unpaid for these weeks, catch was it was the older guy who's name was on the lease, so he lost most of his bond to me for the other guy, so much for mates. 
I have lived in many places and have never had one bad neighbour, and I have made a lot of noise renovating all those houses, I find the trick is you get talking to them, and get them interested in the renovation, invite them in often to have a look, and they all have been great. 
Where I grew up we had a ass of a neighbour, he used to leave his boat out the front of our house right in the middle so we could not park there as there was not enough room either side, even thought he had a perfectly good front of his own place he could park it, no matter of conversations could persuade him to not park it there, but if we parked out front of his place, his misses would carry on !!!, some people are just wan@ers

----------


## Renopa

I suspect the overflow from the rainwater tank in my neighbour's yard is directed to this side of the fence as the pavers under the back deck are often wet, there's a Merbau deck above with a CB roof over that, so no way rain can get under the deck.  Have spoken to them but 'nothing is coming from their yard'.  Found the pavers saturated a couple of weeks ago and immediately you think the garden tap has accidentally been left on or a pipe somewhere is leaking.  But nothing is found.  
A year ago, they left their garden hose running when they rushed back into the house to answer the phone (and forgot to come back to the hose).  Water in this yard was above ankle depth when discovered ....no apology or anything, in fact they were quite put out because I knocked on the door at their dinner time!!! Huh....too bad, at the time I didn't know where the water was coming from and suspected their rainwater tank had sprung a leak.  Either way no damage was done to their yard but it took several days for mine to dry out because there had been a lot of rain in the previous week and the ground was already saturated, not to mention the newly planted vegie garden that was washed away.   
Not hard to tell where the water seeps now because the grass is so lush in that section.  Might wait until they go on holidays and have a look see.  Food dye added to the water is good proof.  Their aircon runs 24/7, even when they were overseas for 3.5 months it was still running 24/7, fortunately it's not noisy.

----------


## METRIX

> I suspect the overflow from the rainwater tank in my neighbour's yard is directed to this side of the fence as the pavers under the back deck are often wet, there's a Merbau deck above with a CB roof over that, so no way rain can get under the deck.  Have spoken to them but 'nothing is coming from their yard'.  Found the pavers saturated a couple of weeks ago and immediately you think the garden tap has accidentally been left on or a pipe somewhere is leaking.  But nothing is found.  
> A year ago, they left their garden hose running when they rushed back into the house to answer the phone (and forgot to come back to the hose).  Water in this yard was above ankle depth when discovered ....no apology or anything, in fact they were quite put out because I knocked on the door at their dinner time!!! Huh....too bad, at the time I didn't know where the water was coming from and suspected their rainwater tank had sprung a leak.  Either way no damage was done to their yard but it took several days for mine to dry out because there had been a lot of rain in the previous week and the ground was already saturated, not to mention the newly planted vegie garden that was washed away.   
> Not hard to tell where the water seeps now because the grass is so lush in that section.  Might wait until they go on holidays and have a look see.  Food dye added to the water is good proof.  Their aircon runs 24/7, even when they were overseas for 3.5 months it was still running 24/7, fortunately it's not noisy.

  They sound like very observant neighbors, NOT

----------


## Renopa

Ooooh yes!!

----------


## InsaneAsylum

far out I must live in a good area with a good council.... some of these stories  :Shock:

----------

