If your neighbors knocked on your door and told you that their construction workers needed access to your property in order to get to their property to fix an important issue, would you allow it even if it meant the workers would damage part of your property, or would you refuse?

In this story, homeowners are in this exact situation. At first, they refuse, but when they talk to their lawyer, they decide this is the prefect opportunity for malicious compliance.

Keep reading for all the details.

Don’t Sue! We’ll let ya come onto our property to fix your sewer line!

The house I grew up in was built on the side of a hill.

Great views, but the geography posed some challenges for the city utilities, sewage in particular.

Their solution was to put all the houses on the hill in what was called a “shared line.” Essentially, one big pipe ran through all of our back yards, just below the houses’ basements. Effluent would flow out from the houses, into the shared pipe, and then down the hill to the city sewer line by the bottom-most house.

Then, a new house popped up.

When we moved in, we were at the highest point that it was possible to build on and still be part of that shared sewer line.

But a few years later, someone bought a lot just over the crest of the hill and linked up with ours- without being part of the planned community that had an HOA that took care of the sewer line (among other things).

And in fact, they did so without the HOA’s approval.

The new house had a lot of issues with the sewer.

And so for the next two decades, my family would be the subject of near-constant harassment over the state of the sewer.

Their end of the line was lower than ours by just enough that it would stop flowing and clog, often backing up into their basement bathroom and shower.

They’d accuse us of “diverting” our effluent to their line (because I guess we were some kind of plumbing wizards).

They never should’ve been allowed to build this house.

Now the reason nobody built a house on that part of the hill during the original development was that the soil was unstable. Something hydrology related.

Sure enough, over the years, that house would occasionally separate from the hill and slide down a couple of inches.

But our neighbors had connections in the code enforcement agency, so the place never got condemned like it should be. They just had to shore it up and re-connect all the utilities.

The thing is, the further down the house moved, the steeper the negative incline was from their sewer connection to our junction box, making the clogs and backups even worse.

The homeowners pointed blame in the wrong direction.

At one point, it got so bad that their sewer barely flowed. Some days, it got completely clogged.

Somehow, this was OUR fault.

They spent the next year calling us every time they tried to flush a toilet and something gross came out in their downstairs shower.

They refused to back down to the neighbors.

They called a plumber, who said they had to re-do their part of the shared line. And to do it, they’d have to bust through our two-story masonry wall so they could get a backhoe onto our property and dig out the line.

Of course, we had issues with this.

We said no, you will NOT come onto our property and tear it up with a big piece of construction equipment. Hire human laborers or something.

But instead, they hired lawyers who started slinging paper around. According to them, we were in violation of state law that specifically gave an implied easement granting a homeowner access through another’s property to maintain their own.

Two can play that game!

So we hired lawyers of our own, who said that we basically had a choice: we could win the case- but pay a ton of money- or just let it happen. Either way, we’d be screwed.

But they pointed out one important fact: that 20 year old masonry wall wasn’t in the greatest of shape anyway, so…

A few months later, we presented them with a bill for $75,000 for the rebuilding of the wall, installation of a new set of stairs, replacement of the entire wrought-iron fence that had separated the two properties, re-sodding, replacement of ornamental plants and shrubs, and some minor repairs to OUR sewer (which they had borked up while re-laying their pipes).

I’m not a general contractor, but my guess is that they could have hired pick-and-shovel labor to dig out that pipe and replace it with a new one for a fraction of that price. But no. They had to have a giant caterpillar tread machine do it.

They did not want to pay.

They balked.

But then we handed them a zerox copy of the letter that their lawyers had sent us with “pursuant to paragraph blah blah of the common code of blah blah blah” citing the NEXT paragraph which stated that the person USING the easement was 100% responsible for any damage that might be caused.

They still balked, but my parents put a lien on their property that stayed there to the day they tried to sell, at which point they HAD to pay up or the purchasers’ creditors wouldn’t underwrite a mortgage.

I think they had to pay interest too, but I’m not 100% sure about that.

I like the lawyer they hired! He made a really good point about how complying could work in their favor.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person loves how the story played out.

One person corrects the assumption about manpower versus what construction machinery can do.

Another person thinks the neighbors actually had a less expensive option.

That bill would get really expensive if they didn’t pay right away.

The neighbors never should’ve been allowed to build their house.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.