Neighbor's gutters broken-seepage in my basement

[Tuttles]

Hi all,

My next door neighbors are generally pretty nice people.  We don't have much of a relationship with the actual owners b/c there is a bit of a language barrier.  That being said, they are kind & we wave hello, they ooh & ahh over my baby, I ooh & ahh over the new grand baby, they give my husband beer over the fence when he's doing yard work, we do talk to their adult children when they are around, that sort of thing.

Now, I understand many of us are not the best "do-it-yourself" types & money is tight these days. I have peeling paint & a fence that needs to be replaced.  I get it.  It's hard to keep up with these old houses...especially when the previous owners neglected them so much.   I understand...nevertheless, I do see the neighbors making some home repairs & taking care of some things around their house.  In the 4 years we have lived in our house, I would say that as we fix up our old bungalow & yard, I will say that they seem to be making more of an effort.  That being said, they often leave a bit to be desired.  I really don't care how their yard & house appear all that much.  It is their yard, after all; however, one problem they do have that is really bothering me is that the gutters on the side of their house are clogged AND broken.  I realize they are clogged from the ivy that used to grow on our house (we eradicated the stuff when we moved in.)  I really would not care that their gutters are broken, BUT when it rains a lot, there is practically a waterfall & then a "lake" between our houses.  The water goes over the top/sides of the gutter instead of draining down the gutter.  There's no sidewalk...just flat dirt between our two homes.  We've always had some efflorescence on our basement walls, but this past year, we have had actual seepage!!!  Basically, one trickle of water that's easily wiped up (at this point, with a towel.)  This past spring, my father helped dig out some of the dirt & rocks closest to our house.  Since then, we haven't gotten any more water trickling into the basement, but it seems like the efflorescence is a lot worse now.  I can't imagine they neighbors don't get water in their basement.  I noticed they seem to have piled up a bunch of rocks near where the water sits against their house...so I suspect it is a problem for them.  Maybe not as much of a problem as their home & foundation are about a foot higher up than our house.


So....I am thinking that they MUST know there's a problem  & choose not to (or can't afford to) fix the gutters.  Should I make some attempt to talk to them about it?  I suspect that will not work as they can't possibly not notice the problem or should I just report to the blight department?  I really don't want to have bad feelings between us & the neighbors, but I also don't want costly damage to my home b/c of their broken gutters!!!  Any recommendations?

Just want to take care of my house and get along with the neighbors!

[Bonster]

This past spring, my father helped dig out some of the dirt & rocks closest to our house.  

My neighbor's leaked onto his gravel bed, impacting my sleep.
For this, I cleaned and repaired his gutters myself when
he wasn't home.

My gutter leaked (still does), impacting my
own property.  Mine overflows with a minimum of leaves due
to a slightly sagging gutter.  This is temporarily remedied
by keeping them spotless, but for times when I'm caught off
guard I simply regraded the dirt next to my house such that
all the runoff runs away from the house to the middle, and
out toward the street. It really works; keeping water
away from your house is the KEY to preventing seepage,
short of installing drainage tiles + sump system.

If your neighbor doesn't agree to grading the land between
you, just grade yours.  As the water flows toward and into
his house he just may get the hint.

[buzz]

Speak to your neighbor first, and I hope you have better luck than I did.  The guy was having some kind of problem with fumes (?) so he disconnected from the sewer system and turned his downspout toward my house.  I spoke to him the same day and he just blew me off.
City was out in 3 days to ticket/cite him.
Grading is a good interim solution but you need a permanent fix.

[renovatorbear]

It's all about those guters needing to be cleaned out. We have to do ours once a year or the water starts to spill over the sides.  They replaced all the gutters a few years ago, but they fill up with leaves and other junk that falls off the trees.  We don't do it ourselves...we hire out.  And it costs about $125 to have them done.  But it's worth it.  They usually get about half a garbage bag of stuff out of the gutters when they clear them. 

Maybe you could hire a service to clean yours and tell your neighbor that theirs should be done too while they crew is there...

[Tuttles]

Thanks for the advice.  The little bit of grading we did seemed to help, but it irks me to see all the water just sitting between the houses.  I just know it can't be good.  (In the summer, I think "mosquito breeding ground.")  Anyway, we live on a block that actually has no trees on our side of the street (I hear they were pulled out years before we moved in-some problem with sewers/pipes?) You can see by just between our two houses that the ivy that once covered my house, also grew up the side of their house & into the gutters.  When we moved into our house, the ivy was not actually in our gutters.  My husband & I worked very hard digging out ivy & weeds on our property.  We also got rid of a lot of weeds and ivy on their side of the property line.   When the ivy died, the neighbors never cleared their house.  You can still see dead ivy clinging to their house & gutters!!!!  My own gutters have always been perfectly clear, otherwise I would just probably just offer to do theirs when I do mine.  I know the neighbors appreciate the work we have done & seem to like us a whole lot better than the people who lived here previously.  Like I said, they are friendly enough & pretty nice people.  The problem is that they do a really half-@ss job of their own home maintenance.  I won't carry on about them....they can live the way the want to live.  I could probably call the city & report them for a number of blight problems. I think I will try talking to them next time I catch someone outside.  I suspect that simply getting the gutters cleaned out would help quite a bit.  Frustrating b/c there are several able bodied guys who live in the home and/or visit there frequently.  No reason one of them could not get out there to do the job!

In the meantime, any grading advice for houses that are soooooooo close together?  Everything I read about online assumes that I have quite a bit of room to work with, but I am assuming it's only 4-5 feet from our house to the property line.  The top of my foundation is about 2 inches above the rather flat ground btwn our two houses.  Like I mentioned, the neighbor's house & yard sits up about a foot higher than ours!  Also, anyone know anyone I could hire (on the less expensive side) to help out-maybe a handyman type who knows a little bit about this sort of thing?  I am a stay at home mom on a tight budget who is already seeing a chiropractor for back problems.  Thanks for the advice/help!

[Bonster]

Tracy, is that you?
LOL...you described my neighbor to a T (he's since fixed his house up due to blight notices), the top of our foundation (ours is actually below ground level in back!), and the space, about 5½ feet.

My grading involved three things:
- grading away from the house
- sloping ever so slightly toward the front (so it doesn't sit there), and
- adding vegetation to hold the graded dirt in place.

I had to move some dirt from other areas of my property, and purchased a few 40lb bags.  To hold everything in place I somewhat carefully planted Dutch white clover all around some other various shade/ground cover plants, and some neighbor-donated hostas.  My next door neighbor's is held in with a smooth layer of moss.

I have some pics & vid depicting the water flow during storms I can dig up.

[Tuttles]

Nope, not Tracy...but I am guessing there's lots of people like my neighbors around here!!!

My father was here yesterday & looked at the "lake" between our houses.  His assessment of the situation was that it wasn't bad b/c the water wasn't sitting up against my house.  All of it was in the middle or up against the neighbor's house.  Well.....next spring/summer I will get out there & work on this some more.  I can get all sorts of hostas & ferns from family members...so no expense there.  I don't think I will need to add any dirt, but perhaps remove some.  In my case, I will have to have the ground slope toward the back yard b/c both of our front yards have retaining walls that meet in the middle at the property line, plus the ground gets higher toward the front yards! 

BTW, is it possible to report blight anonymously?  I noticed online that  they ask for the reporter's information. 

[~LL~]

BTW, is it possible to report blight anonymously?  I noticed online that  they ask for the reporter's information. 

You do not have to give your information on the report form that is on the city's website.  In fact, even if you call the Building Department to report blight, you do not have to give your information at all
I've had to do this many times and feel confident my name/house number never was disclosed to the offender -- even when I actually gave my name and phone number in order to get an update or learn what the court date would be (if the situaition got that far).  Do it.  Inspector will look into the situation.  Call back in a week and ask status of your complaint.

[Tuttles]

Just had to tell you guys what happened....

So two nights ago I was in bed, fast asleep, with the husband. I kept hearing voices outside.  My husband said, oh it's probably just people on the sidewalk. I know that sounds echo in between the bungalows, so I thought to myself, I guess that could be what I am hearing. Anyway, I am an exhausted mother of a little one, so I rolled over & fell back to sleep. 

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon.  I am at home with the baby & see some guys that appear to be climbing up between my house & the neighbor's house. Well, lo & behold, the "lake" between our houses finally started leaking into the neighbor's basement.  Apparently the got quite a bit of water.  For whatever reason, we didn't get any in our basement.  Maybe b/c the water found somewhere else to run off to?  I guess in the middle of the night, the voices I heard were the neighbors outside being concerned, finally, about their gutters.   They told me they pulled a baseball out of the gutter. There was also a guy on a ladder trying to make some repairs yesterday.  I hope that they are now motivated to really fix their gutters.  I have my doubts about how good of a job they will do, but at least I know they are concerned about getting water in their basement.  I talk to one of their adult sons for awhile, so hopefully things will get better from here. I am not one to typically wish bad things upon others, but I am glad they had this happen. I can't believe that it took so long for the water to seep into their basement.  It's look very bad from the outside for a LONG LONG time.

[MRS. NORTHSIDER]

Tuttles - Unfortunately, for some homeowners, out of sight out of mind is how they perform maintenance on their properties.  Since they weren't looking directly at it every day and THEY were having no problems it wasn't bothering them.  Start having to clean up a basement filled with water and suddenly they see that they need to do something.  Hopefully, they will remedy the situation the right way.  That would be a win-win for both for you.

We have trees from a neighboring property that are growing towards and over our house.  My husband has trimmed what he can get to (we even just purchased a 30 foot ladder for next time) but still had to have gutter people out recently to clean out the gutters because we had a blockage from leaves.  They called to say they would come out once a week to check them and keep them clear until all the leaves have fallen
for $75.  We have a large two story that my husband can not and should not get on top of.  He was hesitating about it until I reminded him how much money we had spent on a new tear-off roof, fascia, soffits and gutters 5 years ago and then said OK.

[zilla545]

They called to say they would come out once a week to check them and keep them clear until all the leaves have fallen
for $75.

Can you give me the phone number. 

[MRS. NORTHSIDER]

They called to say they would come out once a week to check them and keep them clear until all the leaves have fallen
for $75.

Can you give me the phone number. 

[MRS. NORTHSIDER]

Bob the Gutter Man.  I don't know their number - they're supposed to call us back this week.

[dukesdad]

Bob (the gutter man) Lewis
(708) 447-9797

[Tuttles]

FYI,

My neighbors still have their giant ladder leaning up against the side of their house, a shovel, and a huge garbage can all resting in between our two houses.

Not a good sign at all!  Sigh! 

[Bonster]

Blight.  Call the city...all it takes is a gust of wind and you have gutter/window damage on your house. 

[MRS. NORTHSIDER]

Blight.  Call the city...all it takes is a gust of wind and you have gutter/window damage on your house. 

+1.  You've tried being the good neighbor but they are not reciprocating when it comes to the problems their property are causing you.  Time to call the city.

[buzz]

Speak to your neighbor first, and I hope you have better luck than I did.  The guy was having some kind of problem with fumes (?) so he disconnected from the sewer system and turned his downspout toward my house.  I spoke to him the same day and he just blew me off.
City was out in 3 days to ticket/cite him.
Grading is a good interim solution but you need a permanent fix.

FYI  I didn't mention this in my earlier post.  See above.
My car was mysteriously keyed a few days after the city came out.
Call the city.

[n01_important]

If you're going to snitch on someone... keep your car in the garage.   

[buzz]

If you're going to snitch on someone... keep your car in the garage.   

And you think protecting your property or standing up for your rights is snitching ?
Ghetto, very ghetto.