To pour weed killer over the fence to next doors garden?

[sparechange]

I live in a mid-terrace house and get on well with neighbours 4 houses in each direction.
Except the house next door, which is semi-derelict and uninhabited, save for a visit once or twice a year. We've lived here for 4 years and in that time, all the curtains have been closed and an upstairs sash window has been open 24/7.

Next door but one (empty house's other next door neighbour) has lived there for 30 years and doesn't know the name of the person who owns it and why they only appear occasionally. The house appears abandoned.

We have a fairly new 6 foot panel fence between us and empty house, and there are now nettles and other weeds standing 2 feet above the top of our fence. All sorts is growing under the fence and through gaps, and it's starting to damage the fence.

WIBU to pour some weed killer over the fence into the garden?

Sparechange that looks just like our neighbour's - except theirs is full of buddliea that's significantly taller than the fence. You have my sympathies.

I'd put a note through the door, firstly asking them to do something about it within x timeframe due to the damage to your fence, then saying you will do it if they haven't responded by y date. Then if you don't hear anything, crack on with it.

This is horrible to have next door and I have a friend in a similar situation. She feels ashamed to have people visit because of it - but the shame is her neighbours, not hers.

The council are your best bet - they may have an 'empty property' person who deals with this nuisance. Or environmental health. Why is a window left open - are there squatters?
The council will surely send someone round to investigate and hopefully secure the house and tidy up outside. They should then send the bill to the owner. You don't have to put up with this. Good luck.

Councils can gain possession of empty homes.

If you are in London (or elsewhere but there is likely to be more interest in London) contact the private landlord person in your Council's Housing department. (You can Google "empty homes" and the Council name.)

Ask them about what they do with empty properties. Fairly recently Councils were given new powers to compulsory purchase such properties. If they already have a charge on the property this is something that they might be interested in doing, as then they can get the money back that they have previously put into the property. .

Then list any health problems or anti-social behaviour. For example rats or other vermin, Any Japanese knotweed or similar where there may be enforcement potential. Suggest, if you are able, that your are concerned that it is turning into an unsafe anventure playground for kids, or that you are concerned about the potential for squatting and ask what you might do if this happened. (I think the onus is on the property owner to make sure the propoerty is secure.) If you do see signs of anti-social behaviour, eg being used for drinking or drug taking, call the police., and then the Council's anti-social behaviour team.

In short lay it on thick, sound nice but worried, and try to get the council to take an interest. They now have the power to do something.

I would do this first before doing anything that might be considered trespass.

blithering it's to aid ventilation to stop mould/damp.

If you use something like "Roundup" with glysophate in it, you don't need to access anything but the leaves of the plants you want to kill. It works by the plant taking the poison in through its leaves, spraying it on the ground would do nothing.

www.braa.co.uk/Roundup%20(Pocket-guide).pdf

Glyphosate is controversial though. Obviously, poisons that kill plants might not be so good for our health either.

www.gardenorganic.org.uk/glyphosate-debate

For me, on balance, I'd be willing to spray this on the bindweed and nettles that you can access over the fence. If the back garden is unused then you and your children and pets won't be touching it anyway.

I would definitely go to the council. My friend lives in a terrace with an empty house next door. Someone broke in & stole the hot water tank/ piping & left water cascading through the empty house. The council took action to repair this & then forced the owner to secure the house properly & maintain it.

As far as I know most councils have an "empty property" department who can investigate this & try & get the empty houses back into use through rental/ purchase etc.

Could you try to send a letter via the postal service to the owner? With a bit of luck he might have a redirection for all post set up?

Several thousand pounds for a fence!? What's it made of. We've bought several panels and even if we replaced both sides of our large garden it wouldn't reach one thousand pound.

Wow, those are some high stinging nettles. You'd have to have two goes with weedkiller for those. I have a patch of stingers and 1 spray wasnt enough.

I know I'm hugely missing the point of the thread now, but I'm curious to know why you paid several thousand pounds for that fence?

I have a similar one and I paid £30 per panel.

Any chance you could borrow some pigs? They would soon chomp through that! Shame if they accidentally made their way into next door's garden while you were looking after them.

Definitly kill those weeds. the owner will never know its you. and what will he do anyway. You have to protect your own property.

If you want to contact the owner you can look up the owners address at the Land Registry for £3. Be careful when you google it as the first few searches bring up private companies who look up the details for you and then charge you ££££££.

Could you ask the neighbour on the opposite side of the property if they have a similar problem with weeds? I know you can see that they don't but it's an opening gambit They might then say what they do to keep them down.

The property next door to us is rented and the tenants don't care about the garden at all. Gardeners go in occasionally but it's left to go wild between visits. There is ivy growing over and through the fence and unfortunately it's their fence so there's nothing we can do about it. We'd be happy to replace the complete fence (after removing the ivy obviously) but we don't know the landlord and hardly ever see the tenants.

I dream of ways of killing the ivy so I don't think you are unreasonable at all OP!

We had exactly the same problem, but wth Japanese knotweed thrown in. The Land Registry gave the name of the owner (purchased the house in 1984 and never moved in), but I couldn't find them on electoral rolls or anything.

After 8 years of emailing my local empty property officer, cleaning dog poo off the front of the property (it was delightful in summer, but the council basically said 'private property=not their problem), picking up used needles and porn DVDs from round the back of the house, phoning the police and boarding up broken windows after 3 loads of squatters, and chucking weed killer at their knotweed whilst digging the bits that were determined to spread over my lawn up and burning them. The house finally got taken possession of, auctioned off and renovated ... I do miss the silence though!

Keep making a pain of yourself with the council, mine did come out and cut back the garden twice (in 8 years!), after I complained about the foxes living in there who were burrowing under the fence onto my garden (they were really cute, especially the cubs, but it gave me an excuse for a flurry of emails!).

going worra
We have several quotes and they were all around the same. They had to remove the old fence and rotting posts, replace with new ones and treat them. It took a couple of people a few days to do, and it was a fiddly job because we had lots of trees and plants which needed detaching and reattaching so I don't think it was unreasonably expensive

Ahh I see. That makes sense OP.

Throw a few ex-battery chickens over the fence? They eat anything down to the bare roots, given time.

Would it be useful to contact your local MP?

I've downloaded the title deeds from the land registry. It looks like he bought it under Right to Buy in 1994, so had presumably lived there for a while before then.
There are 4 charges placed by the council between 1994 and 2011, including 2 that say "Equitable charge created by an interim order of the [My Local County Court dated XX June 2004 in favour of [name] trading as [name] Chartered Building Surveyors." and "Equitable charge created by an interim charging order of [local] County Court dated XX March 2011 in favour of The Mayor of The London Borough of [my council], Court Reference XXXXX.
So that means they've already had to repair it twice?

I've also now got his name from the title search and have done an electoral roll search and it isn't bringing anything else up, so I guess this means this is his only UK address?
It is a (west?) african name, so it might be that he spends some time out of the country?

The most puzzling thing is that he appears to have a mortgage with Santander?! I had a mortgage with them once, and they were bastards with the valuation, so how on EARTH a surveyor has seen this place and signed it off is beyond me...

I'm in a very similar situation to yours OP. We moved into our house less than 12 months ago but the previous owners (lived there for 8 years) said they had never seen the person who owns next door. The garden is an absolute jungle and our fence is now being pushed over by the weight of branches and roots.

I'll be taking the advice above and contacting the council to see what they can do.

Search bt phone book for his phone number