I'll HUFF and I'll PUFF and I'll blow your house down

[strange_complex]

Oh dear. This is not the best way to start a morning's serious research:



I did go to bed last night feeling really quite nervous about how windy it was - though my concerns centred mainly around the enormous trees on the road outside, which I am often scared will fall over in the night and crush me in my bed. Happily, as it turns out no lives or limbs have been lost, but there clearly is now going to be tedium involving insurance companies and fence constructors. :-(

I've started the ball rolling this morning by calling the people who manage the adjoining property in an attempt to find out who is actually responsible for that fence: them or me.It's never been clear - you can't work it out by looking at which side the posts are on because they're in the middle, and I've been told conflicting things by different people who live up and down the road, too. The lady on the phone didn't know and said she would ask the owners, but of course when someone phones you up and says, "A fence has blown over: do you think it's yours or your neighbours?", any normal human being would obviously reply, "Oh, well I always thought it was theirs", wouldn't they? So I think I can guess what their answer is going to be.

Damn, damn and triple-damn.

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Comments

[viscount-s.livejournal.com]

Despite the fairly spectacular nature of the pictures, I'm sorry that this has happened. Here in the Netherlands, the storms are due to ramp up from now until about 5pm this evening, and at present, the office building I'm in is seriously swaying - almost as though it was afloat.

[biascut.livejournal.com]

Oh crikey!

We woke up to a chair in the middle of the garden, a smashed mirror on the deck (which, obviously, shouldn't really have been there, but was) and tipped-over green house. Yours is a bit more spectacular, though!

[inbetween-girl.livejournal.com]

Yikes! :(

I'm amazed we don't have a similar situation here, after a night like last night we usually get up to find the wendyhouse has blown away and the garden looks like a scene from The Wizard of Oz.

Good luck with the fence bureaucracy.

[katsmeat.livejournal.com]

I always understood it was a general principal that everybody was responsible for the fence on one side - presumably if somebody was resopnsible for two fences, it'd lead to somebody else being responsible for none and be grossly unfair.

Perhaps you can establish who is responsible for you and your neighbour's respective intact fences.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

We've actually got through unscathed here at the parental manse, which is a bit of a surprise as the QEII bridge was closed off by yesterday afternoon. I hope you manage to get this all sorted out easily and quickly.

[ms-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Oh no :-( I hope sorting it out is relatively painfree but if not I'm always on hand for cakeage and moanage if needed.

So looking nforward to Wednesday :-)

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Yowzer! Hope it all gets fixed with minimal hassle. I was rather expecting a scooter on its side this morning - it's happened before - but everything seems to be roughly where it was last night.

[kernowgirl.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, indeed! Is it just fences blown over? I understand they're quite tedious enough, but I hope nothing of greater sentiment (or integrity to the house) got damaged.

[kantti.livejournal.com]

My fence got blown over a few years ago and I had a similar dilemma about who was responsible, with a similarly rented neighbour. I eventually looked at the little homebuying form the previous occupiers had filled in at it did have a question about who owned the fence, but I suspect their answer was mostly guesswork. In the end I decided just repairing the fence would be the path of least resistance. And then I failed to actually repair it for many many months, much to the dismay of deeply_spurious. I'd tried to get a fence contractor, but none of the ones I called would answer their phones or return calls or come round when they said they would or produce quotes after visiting, and I eventually concluded the universe did not want me to have an upright fence. I hope the repair process is a bit more efficient for you - or rather that you're more efficient than me!

[steer.livejournal.com]

Could you replace the fence with limes manned by legionaries?

[Oooh... scifi/Romans crossover -- in Fallout New Vegas one of the chief villains models himself and his army on Caesar and his legions. They go about with banners crucifying people. He even calls himself Caesar and a plot point is a literal "decimation" (in the roman sense) of a legion which does badly.]

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

Oh no! :-( I hope you can get the information you need quickly - that's half the battle in such a case.

[qatsi.livejournal.com]

Oh no! At least you are OK. I did notice a variety of wheelie bins blown over on their sides yesterday on the way to work, but nothing more severe than that in these parts. I've been lucky in the past - a single panel did come loose once, but the neighbour fixed it himself (I didn't really get on with the neighbours at the time; they were real party animals and I was glad when they moved out, a few years ago now). Since then the new neighbours have replaced the entire length of that fence, so I can honestly say it's their's. As I live on a corner plot, I'm not entirely convinced about the "it's always the one on the left" rule. At least, if it comes down to it, it should be a farily unambiguous insurance claim.

[hollyione.livejournal.com]

Oh dear - and your garden is so big there is a lot of fence to replace!

In terms of liability, would your original deeds tell you?