This is a strange one (well for us at least!) - not sure if anything that has been done is not ‘OK' but it’s very weird…and a bit annoying and of course checking that we not just being unreasonable?!
Our next door neighbour moved in about 7 months ago. Our properties share a retaining wall that is at the back our house and at the side of their garden. At one end, the wall is only about 2 feet tall and the other end, as the garden slopes up is about 7 feet tall - the top of the wall is level with their garden. It is a little bit of a strange set up due to it being previous farmland / cottages (from the 1840s) so the plots are not uniform (as per my diagram). We have lived here 13 years and the previous owner of the neighbour's house didn't replace a small trellis style, 3 ft fence when it blew down about 10 years ago. That fence was placed on her land inside the retaining wall.
The back of our house overlooks their garden completely (as do the other houses) which is not ideal for them but it is the way it is. When they moved in we introduced ourselves and in his words, "You seem like a nice lady, I might not then build a 2 metre fence then." We had no concerns with them building a fence as obviously they also overlook our back garden when they are in their garden.
Now he has built the fence - absolutely fine.
However this is where we are confused...he has built the fence about 2 feet away from the actual retaining wall - the actual edge of his property. Even more perplexing is that he hasn't actually taken the fence right up to the wall at the end of the garden leaving about 3 feet that is open to his garden (as in the picture from our window). Once again we were, 'OK, strange but hey ho." However now he has started to come behind the wall and dump his garden rubbish in the space between the wall and the retaining wall. At first it was just an extra concrete pole left over from the fence, then it was small rocks from the flower beds he was clearing out, then it was uprooted plants and twigs, then large slates and general small bits of rubbish - plastic bits from gardening supplies etc. It now looks quite the mess and the dumped stuff is actually starting to be in places higher than the retaining wall.
To top it all off our window from the dining end of the kitchen overlooks this part of the wall and as our house is only a few feet away from it, not only do we see the dumped stuff we also were granted recently the delight of him going into that space while we were having lunch and dumping it - and with him being two feet higher on his land, when he bent over (he wears no underwear and he wears his joggers hanging off so most of his butt is exposed) we were given a right eye fill! The fact my daughter has to look at his exposed butt from her window whenever he’s in the garden is another story!
Ignoring the butt view, it is the fence not up to the boundary, the gap and the dumping that is just so strange!
We really don't want talk to him if we can help it. When he moved it we explained (neighbourly kindly) that if he parked his large van on the small road, to be aware that often large delivery / oil trucks drive down it and wouldn’t get through. He got really aggressive and said that no one tells what to do. We just left it…Other than that no interaction.
So do we ignore him and the rising mound of rubbish. Do we just take it away ourselves so to keep it level and OK to look at? Or do we also put up a fence to block him / keep the mess out? If we do, do we erect it against the retaining wall on our side or do we put it on top of the retaining wall or on the top edge of the retaining wall - where he should have built the wall originally. Or are we just unreasonable and it is his land, can do what he wants and we need to just live with it?