Spent the day working gratis on the neighbor's yard to help mitigate an escalating dispute between two adjacent property owners up-slope from our back yard. A drainage ditch was installed 15 years ago between the two properties; this ditch t-bones into the middle of our back fence. One neighbor is preparing his property for sale and wanted the ditch cleaned out. The area was not only overgrown with bushes and cacti, it was literally buried in a foot of mud in some places. Yes, there is a concrete drainage ditch in here somewhere:
Johnny took out the old fence that was falling over and I dug. Couldn't help but add a little random act of gardening along the edge when I was done:
New fence and structures on the other side are my house.
Unfortunately, fixing this issue is just the tip of the iceberg for an ongoing dispute. The ditch ties into a the opposing neighbor's drainage ditch and ultimately flows down to the street. This situation was established by consent of both parties, but no formal easement was ever recorded with the city. Should the relationship break down further (or the house be sold to someone who chooses to block the flow,) the drainage could potentially flow unimpeded through my back yard.
We'll be heading back in the coming days to shore up the junction area, add sandbags along the decline to slow water flow and potentially build a backsplash / overflow barrier where the junction makes a sharp right-hand turn.