A Neighbor Anchored a Heavy Gate Directly into Her House’s Exterior Wall—Then Flatly Refused to Remove It
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Imagine living in a house where there’s a fence between your house and the neighbor’s house. What would you do if the neighbor added a gate and attached it to your house?
In this story, one homeowner is in this situation, and he wants the neighbor to remove the gate. You’d think that might be an easy request, but the neighbor is turning it into a huge hassle and telling the homeowner to get a permit.
Now, the homeowner is unsure what to do. They just want the gate gone.
Let’s read all about it.
Neighbor refuses to detach their gate from my house
My neighbors gate/fence is attached directly to my house. It’s been like this for a long time, but now that I’m doing exterior remodeling, it’s become a real problem.
Their gate blocks access to the side of my house, and it’s slowing down construction.
At one point I had to climb through a window I’m replacing just to reach that side because I couldn’t wait for them to be home.
I asked them to look into removing the portion that’s attached to my house since it’s going to keep causing issues for future work.
But the neighbor refused.
Instead, they told me I need to get permits and show them to her before they can detach it.
That doesn’t sound right to me. Is that true? What are my options? (Long Beach, CA)
From what I understand, permits are only required when building or modifying a fence—not when removing something that’s improperly attached to someone else’s structure.
This seems more like an encroachment issue than a permitting issue.
Here’s some more context.
For context, this neighbor has always been pretty unfriendly.
They don’t acknowledge us, and the only real interaction we’ve had was them complaining about a family member’s car parked on the street in front of their house.
I don’t have proof of it but I know they killed the tree in the front of my house because that’s how she got the city to remove her two dead trees.
What’s the correct way to handle this if the neighbor refuses to remove their gate from my house? Should I go through code enforcement, send a written notice, or take another route?
Yikes! It’s the neighbor’s gate. Why would OP need to get a permit to remove it?
Let’s see what Reddit recommends.
Exactly!
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Here’s some advice.
This person would simply take action.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a homeowner who doesn’t care whether or not their neighbors hate their yard flamingos, because they aren’t subject to the HOA.
But this person would document everything.
The neighbor never should’ve hooked the gate to the next door neighbor’s house in the first place. OP should’ve complained immediately instead of letting it go for awhile. It definitely shouldn’t be on him to get a permit to remove something that shouldn’t even be there and that he also doesn’t own.
What an awful neighbor!
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