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Great neighbors are a real blessing, and even the best ones will have their quirks and problems.

What would you do if you had a neighbor who was nice and helpful for the most part, but didn’t seem to respect the fact that you didn’t want him in your fenced-in backyard without permission?

That is what the guy in this story is dealing with, and even after putting a lock on his fence gate, the neighbor started jumping over the fence. He just doesn’t know what to do to get him to stop.

Personally, I think it is time to tell the neighbor that any future trespassing will result in a call to the police. Read through the full story below and see if you agree.

NFH keeps entering my property

My wife and I moved into this neighborhood two years ago, and immediately things started off weird.

Why would the neighbor enter this yard without asking?

We have a 7 foot tall privacy fence around our backyard and our neighbor keeps coming into our backyard without our permission.

Before we moved in, we contacted our realtor to see if he would be willing to repair his part of the fence before we moved in. We have some really active dogs, and his side of our privacy fence is completely rotten.

You can’t force the neighbor to fix the fence. That is an expensive project.

I knew if it wasn’t fixed soon it would crumble. The current occupants asked him and he never responded, and at closing they gave us his phone number and I texted him and asked about it, offering to pay half, and he never responded.

So, then when we moved in, one of the first things my dogs did was walk through his fence, crumbling the boards around him (I genuinely don’t know how a strong breeze hasn’t turned this thing to mulch).

There is only so much you can do to repair a fence in this condition.

The neighbor almost immediately came outside screaming about how my dogs were destroying his fence and yada yada. I argued with him for a while, saying the fence was garbage, literally crumbled a piece of it in my hand, and offered again to pay half to replace the fence.

He told me to just repair it myself and it would be ok.

The neighbor seems to be trying to be nice.

We keep our trash can in the backyard for convenience, and our first week in the house, our neighbor returned the trash can from the roadside to the spot in the back yard, entering through the privacy fence to do so.

I told him I appreciated the thought, and asked if he could leave the trash cans outside the fence in the future. He agreed and that hasn’t been a problem since.

Going into someone’s fenced-off backyard without permission is really inappropriate.

A couple months after that month after that he rang my doorbell one day to let me know I had a water main leak in my back yard. His buddy was over, they noticed the ground was wet even though it hadn’t rained recently, and decided to investigate.

They followed the source into our backyard while my wife and I were at work. I told him I appreciated the info, but I wasn’t comfortable with a man I barely knew and a man I don’t know entering my backyard without my permission.

He seemed understanding, and I thought we had finally resolved the issue. Still to be cautious, I bought a combo lock for our gate.

That is really nice of the neighbor.

The winter months were relatively uneventful and then at the start of spring I tore my ACL, so I wasn’t able to mow, and the mower is too heavy for my wife.

I asked our neighbor if I could pay him to mow our yard for me since he kept his yard immaculate, and he agreed and took care of it all summer. Since he works from home, he sometimes mowed during the day, while my wife and I were at work.

He said he needed the combination for the lock, and I hesitantly gave it to him.

It seems that these issues are few and far between, which is good.

Seemed like we were on a good footing, and maybe I was overreacting. He was doing me a big favor and the least I could do was show him some trust.

Once again the winter months were uneventful, and that brings us to the past two weeks. I started a new job that lets me work from home several days a week, so I’m actually around to see these shenanigans I guess.

The neighbor should really know not to enter the yard by now.

One day my dogs start absolutely coming unglued trying to get into the backyard, so I let them out and follow them, and there’s the neighbor, standing in our backyard, being harassed by my dogs (they’re peaceful just scary) and he’s screaming at me to get my dogs.

I demanded to know what he was doing in my backyard, and he said he was inspecting the fence from my side to see how bad it was. I said that was fine but to let me know first.

This guy just won’t stop trespassing.

Not even three days after that my dogs freak out again, and I look out the window and he’s taking lumber out of my shed.

When I stepped outside and confronted him about it, he said the old neighbor used to share lumber with him. I told him I wasn’t the old neighbor, I didn’t appreciate having him on my property, and I didn’t do any woodworking, all the lumber was left by the previous owners, so he could have all of it.

And I proceeded to carry all the lumber to his garage. I then immediately went to the store and got a new combo lock.

Now he is jumping the fence? That is insane.

Two days ago, once again, my dogs freak out, and he’s in my backyard, taking pictures of my house and yard. I decide to let him panic this time and let the dogs loose again.

He practically pees himself, I demand he get off my property before I call the police, he runs over to the gate, and climbs back over the fence.

He is trying to get revenge, it seems.

Yesterday I get an email from the HOA saying my backyard was unkept and unsightly, the repairs I did to the fence were not compliant with the HOA guidelines, and I have 3 days to fix it before I start incurring fees.

Attached to the email were pictures taken from my backyard. Mind you, no one sees this part of my yard or the fence except me (and my neighbor apparently).

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Some people’s behavior is just mind-boggling.

And the reason it’s unkept is I’m about to do a massive amount of landscaping to my backyard and figured it wasn’t worth the effort until all my stuff came in.

I haven’t confronted the neighbor yet, and I haven’t responded to the HOA yet. I’m trying to figure out a course of action to permanently get this creep off my property and get the HOA to leave me alone.

Also trying to figure out how to make this landscaping project the most anti-nosy-neighbor retreat possible. Please send help.

He needs to put up cameras in his yard and tell his neighbor that any further trespassing will result in a call to the police. He can say it in as friendly a way as possible, but this is getting beyond ridiculous.

Let’s see if the people in the comments have any good tips for this frustrating situation.

This should keep him from jumping the fence again.

Alerting the police to the issue makes sense.

Cameras are an obvious move here.

This commenter has a great idea.

HOA should warn his neighbor about jumping the fence.

It is way past time to call the police on this trespasser. He has had more than enough warnings, and the fact that he is starting to take pictures after jumping the fence is unhinged.

This is a difficult situation because he is an otherwise good neighbor. This guy just has no concept of privacy or personal property.

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Author

Michael Levanduski