January 6, 2025 at 12:22 am

When His Friend Hired Him To Rebuild A Fence Around His Property, The Neighbor’s Survey Completely Backfired On Them

by Jayne Elliott

Source: Reddit/Malicious Compliance/Pexels/_Alicja_

The saying goes that fences make good neighbors, but in today’s story, rebuilding a fence brings out the worst in one of the neighbors.

Instead of letting a neighbor rebuild a fence exactly where the old fence was located, a next door neighbor makes it a lot more complicated.

In the end, she probably regrets this decision!

Let’s see how the story plays out…

The New Fence

Recalling this story made my heart smile 😁

A few years ago, I was building a new fence for a friend of mine.

I had to remove the old sections that were falling apart, first, of course, and when I got to the intersection of his back fence, his side fence, and the next door neighbor’s back fence, I carefully separated the neighbor’s fence from his.

Then I proceeded to carry on removing the side sections that went between their two properties.

The next door neighbor was furious!

My friend had told me that the side section was 100% on his property.

The previous owner (30+ years ago) had deliberately given the next door neighbor’s property an extra foot or so, to ensure that he was building on his own property (without calling for and paying for a survey).

The neighbor, Susan, whom I will refer to as Karen for the remainder of this story, came running outside screaming at me that I couldn’t remove the side fence, and it was their property and just what do I think I’m doing?!

I responded back, very calmly, that my friend had told them well in advance that he was going to replace the fence.

He was just going to build it in the same place as the old one, and asked if they were willing to split the costs, to which they declined.

No biggie.

Karen insisted on a property survey.

Karen started screaming at me again, telling me I had no right to do that, and that my friend didn’t give them proper notice.

She didn’t realize that there wouldn’t be anything between their two properties to contain their dog.

By now, I’m about ready to lose my mind, so I knocked on my friend’s back door to let him know what was going on.

That he needed to talk to Karen, and that I was leaving because I didn’t want to do or say anything I would regret, or cause problems with the neighbors for my friend.

The entire project got put on hold, pending a property survey that was going to cost $650.

They demanded my friend pay half of, despite him telling them that the fence was definitely on his property, and nothing was going to change with the new fence.

He was fine with them continuing to have a foot or so of his property, so that he didn’t have to rock the boat.

They were wrong about where the property line was located.

Fast forward to the following Monday when the surveyor comes out…….

Turns out, the old side fence was not “a little” on my friend’s property, but ALMOST 10 FEET onto his property.

The neighbors had built up raised flower beds and done a nice brick retaining wall right up along the fence line, that they had spent a lot of money just in materials for – never mind the time they put in constructing it.

Needless to say, my friend came away with the biggest grin.

For the mere price of $325, he was entitled to expand his yard of more than 30 years, by about 800 square feet

…and Karen and her husband (who happened to be the polar opposite of his wife in personality, and was super nice) spent the next week moving their garden, retaining wall, and all of the dirt that was on my friend’s property, so that I could build the fence on his side of the ACTUAL property line.

The fence Karen built was cheap and didn’t hold up well.

They then hired the cheapest contractors they could find to slap up a fence on their side of the property line.

They spent almost as much as my friend did on their new fence. (I gave my friend the friends and family discount)

3 years later, the last 20 feet or so of their fence is on the ground already, because it was such a bad job that it fell over in a moderate wind storm this past spring.

My friend’s fence is still standing, rock solid, and his dogs are definitely making good use of the extra 800 sq ft. 😁

It’s too bad Karen insisted on a property survey, but it worked out well for the friend!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…

Th surveyors of this subdivision had a really good idea!

Source: Reddit/Malicious Compliance

This person heard a very similar story.

Source: Reddit/Malicious Compliance

Here’s another similar story.

Source: Reddit/Malicious Compliance

This is a funny thought!

Source: Reddit/Malicious Compliance

Everyone loved this story!

Source: Reddit/Malicious Compliance

It’s amazing how often people don’t know where their property line is!

Reddit has taught us all about the importance of official land surveys.

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.