Am I a bad neighbor?

[jhburke]

I live on a private lane that has 5 houses on it, For the last 25 years I have removed the snow, cleaned the ditches, trimmed the bushes and trees back. A couple of years ago the farm store on the other side of the lane was planning to build on to there building. I was approached my the manager to see if we might be agreeable to them using the lane to bring in there supply trucks. They offered to black top our lane all 826' although they would only be using about half of it. They would maintain and landscape the side facing us for 25 years. Also they would sign an agreement that only a max of 6 trucks a week. Unbelieveable 2 home owners refused. Mind you most of us were in our 60s. I told them the freebies were over. That winter one of the homeowners that refused asked a friend on the lane after a big snow, wasn't I going to clear the snow off the lane. I had been cleaning the driveways also. So now I just take care of what I want and if the others don't like it. They are welcome to do it theirselves. No takers.

 

[BillG_in_TX]

Of course, you could be reading this all wrong./w3tcompact/icons/hmm.gif
Maybe they don't like your tractor, and don't want it that close to their property!/w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif

If that's the case, there's no hope for those idiots./w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[BWa]

How "new" to the neighborhood are you , I have seen cases were family or good friends build homes close to each other only to find at some point one has to leave or losses the property , this leaves a bitter neighbor that nothing you did or can do will make things better again this many not be the case ...
You can always ask just what has got them ticked off ,,, may or may not work ...
It is your land you should enjoy it , I hope that this problem is easily solved for you ..........
Bill G.

 

[hazmat]

Spencer,

you are NOT a bad neighbor. If you were running a private junkyard, that is one thing. Building a new barn is another. If your neigbor wants more space, he should buy more space. If he can't afford to or doesn't want to, that is HIS problem.

The trees are a good idea, assures privacy for you and him. As they say, good fences make good neighbors.

Could be worse. My brother in law paid lots of $$$ for 2 acres in a suburban setting. He is 40 feet from his neighbor. They can each see into the other's family room. Driveways are in-between, no option for fencing or trees.

 

[dmccarty]

Spencer,

Don't let them bug you. Its their problem not yours. Don't
take on their issues....

- They use YOUR road for access. They can't be to mad if
they get to use your land for free. If they are mad the heck
with them...
- Placing your barn next to theirs is the right thing to do. It
lumps all of it togather which I think is better than having a
barn here and a barn there when you look around your land.
- With the lot size you have you don't really have many
choices. I know on the 4.5 acre parcel we are building on it
is very tight trying to fit a house, detached garage, barn,
septic field, and driveway. I own the 5 acre parcel to our
south and I'm building right up to the 50 foot mark that is
allowed by the covenants. And its tight.
- If you think you might build another house on the lot then
that trumps every other consideration. You only have so
many sites to build a house on a lot.
- I have seen to many situations where other people try to tell
landowners what they can and can't do with their land. Its
really arrogant. But its the way of the world I suppose. There
have been a couple of these issues in my neighborhood and
there is one brewing right now because the farmer to our
east is going to timber some of his land. He has timbered
before and does an excellent job of timber management. I
bet most of the bozos who are up in arms about what he is
going to do ON HIS land with HIS trees don't have a clue that
he has timbered before. The neighbors are ticked because
they walk and use his land as a view point. So they are mad
that their view might get ruined. They think there two acre
parcels somehow give them the right to say of HE runs his
400+ acre operation.... Arrogant and stupid. HIS land has
been in HIS family for at least three generations. The people
who are complaining have lived there at most for 30 years.

Do what YOU think is right and let them have their own
problems. They seem to be hypocrites if they are going to
complain about your barn site given their barn site.....

Later,
Dan McCarty

 

[kevincook]

Here is my take on the situation. I don't think you are a bad neighbor at all. I see in your profile that you just moved in last fall. If your neighbors were worried about what might ever be built at that location they should have purchased your property before you did last year. I think if you want to have control over property surrounding your house or are worried about your view you had better spend the money and purchase the property your worried about. Your neighbors didn't do this and they have to live with the consequences.

Secondly, I think letting them continue to use your property to access their barn could be a problem down the road if they make a claim to the use, unless you already have some type of a lease agreement with them for the access rights. This might be more of an issue in the future if they are ticked off at you.

Your location choice looks like a good one to me but you will never make everyone happy so don't worry about it. Finish your barn and then just enjoy it.

 

[Mosey]

It appears to me that they built their barn as close or closer to the property line than you are building yours. That and the fact that they are using your property to access their barn makes me conclude that they have nothing to complain about.

Have you considered that maybe it's just your imagination that they are upset with you? What have they done to make you think they are upset with you?

Also, as someone suggested, it might be just that they are not happy about the noise and commotion of building the barn. Once it's done and everything settles down, any hard feelings will most likely fade away.

I wouldn't worry about it and just continue building, although it would probably be a good idea to avoid making noise before 7am and after 10pm. I agree that adding some evergreens will benefit both you and your neighbor. Consider the Northern White Cedar Arborvitae ( there are lots of varieties of Arborvitae type trees, get the ones that say they will reach 30 feet in height) and White Pine trees, since they are both fast growing and long lasting.

 

[hazmat]

<font color=blue>Consider the Northern White Cedar Arborvitae ( there are lots of varieties of Arborvitae type trees, get the ones that say they will reach 30 feet in height)</font color=blue>

Maybe I should have quoted Mosey in green, but anyway. I'll second the Arborvitae recommendation. My parents built their house 10 years ago. Planted 6' arborvitae trees. They are now 30+ feet!!!! They seem to grow almost as fast as the lawn.

 

[Spencer]

Wow,
Thank you everybody for your responses. I want to add a little more information to the mix. I am attaching a animated .gif file that I made. It is almost perfectly to scale and consits of an actual color aerial photo, a color overlay traced from an actual county plat map, and some text that I added. This shows my property in green, the neighbor's property in red, and our easement in yellow. We are both land locked and use the same easement for access to our properties. We are completely in the woods out here. You can see by the aerial photo the two sites that were less wooded than the rest of my property (exactly where n I placed the numbers 1 and 2). Site #1 is where I chose to build. Site #2 is what I plan on saving as a possible future building site for a house.

Although I would like to think that I am not being a bad neighbor I appreciate all of your honest responses. I did try to look at it from the neighbor's point of view before I started but it is hard to not be biased to myself. So as some of you have done, if you think I wrong, let me know. I honestly want to see this from all angles. Although it is too late to change the location now, the information will help me in the future.

Please view the attachment and let me know what you think. Sorry I didn't have it for the initial post. I started working on it this morning and it took me a couple of hours to complete. You can push the stop button on your browser to stop the animation and push the refresh button to start it again.

I do want to reply to some comments already made but I would rather wait and see what other comments you may have before I do.

 

[Trev]

<font color=blue>It might just be me but I think me neighbors are a little unhappy with me lately.</font color=blue>

Well, I guess my first thought is that you need more data. /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif As you say, it might just be you. I don't know what you've based your feeling that they are upset on.. but they could have been just having a bad day. In cases like this, especially with neighbors that you will probably be around for a long time, I think it's best to lay the cards on the table so to speak. Rather than guess what they're feeling, and then torment yourself with all this internal doubt, why not just say to them something like "Hey, you know, after I started building this I, perhaps mistakenly, got the impression you might not be too happy with it. Is that true? If so, it wasn't my intention to do anything to upset you. Would it help if I painted it a certain color, or planted trees to screen it a bit from your view? I value having you as neighbors, and certainly don't want anything to spoil that relationship."

If someone said something like that to me, it would completely disarm me, and I would feel that the person wanted to work with me to maintain a good relationship. It would be really hard to feel angry at someone who stopped by and expressed these sentiments. Know what I mean?

Best wishes,
Bob