The F###ing scaffolding is back!

[Allthecoolusernamesaregone]

Post 3

Briefly Post 1, Had had neighbour (1)’s scaffolding up in my garden for a month and then had argument with her misogynistic builder.

Post 2, Building work completed. Overjoyed that scaffolding finally removed Saturday morning - until I found out this was not by the company which owned it.

Today neighbour(2) said ‘I see your scaffolding has gone. Lucky you. Mine should have gone Saturday morning’

Long story short her scaffolding company thought they had collected and couldn’t understand why she was complaining, until she told them they had gone to the wrong address.

I asked her to make it clear that whatever they did with the scaffolding, I didn’t want it back. She agreed completely. She is fed up with hers, and that was for work on her own house.

I came home to find it in my front garden. It is no longer erected, doesn’t block light or access, but it takes up more space as all of the boards and poles are on the ground.

I understand to a degree why neighbour(2)’s company returned the items to where they found them.

I asked DH to phone the owning company to sort out collection, I desperately wanted someone to treat this seriously and thought he would stand a better chance.

Anyway he didn’t have any luck either. They can’t (won’t) collect until 29/7/22 - which is actually later than the date they have already given neighbour (1).

I will have no lawn left by then, there’s not enough space to use my table and chairs and I can’t easily get to my greenhouse.

We thought that after they presumably thought it had been stolen before they would want to collect urgently now it’s back.

What is my AIBU?

Have just been telling neighbour (3) about the saga. He queried why they hadn’t seen that the stencilled markings on the equipment weren’t theirs. His eyes lit up a bit when I said there were none.

He has always been fine with us, but he ‘knows’ lots of people and some of them are not averse to ‘catching’ things which ‘fall’ from lorries, etc.

He pointedly said it wasn’t a good idea for them to leave it lying in my garden, that dismantling it was noisy and time consuming, but just picking it up wasn’t, and it could easily just go missing when I was out.

I do want it gone. The man DH spoke to was rude and arrogant.

We are actually going out for several hours this evening.

WIBU to let that slip to neighbour (3)?

(I suspect it is unreasonable and that my desire to get rid of this inconvenience is clouding my normally very honest judgement.)

Get a tow rope, tie it your car and pull the whole damned thing down.
Are we council enforcement officers ?

@Allthecoolusernamesaregone
Just one more point that DH has just told me, and made my blood boil is that the man at the scaffolding company told him he couldn’t make demands as he wasn’t their customer.

Then surely as you/your DH are not their customer, you have no responsibility to ensure that their property is not stolen?

Exactly!
There's a reason Scaffolders go round in rowdy gangs, like starlings, rattling and clanking ..It weighs a lot, far too much for one woman to lift, some of those boards are long, as are the poles.
Most Scaffolders are strong and practiced at moving/erecting/dismantling the stuff. {If a good company}

In my experience (I work in construction) scaffolders are a unique set of people with their own ideas on what is reasonable. And almost always, they don’t give two shits about their scaffold. It’s basically free storage while it’s at yours and they’ll just come and get it whenever they decide they need it, if they need it. I wouldn’t waste a second more time trying to deal with them, I would let your neighbour know you’re going out and if it’s gone when you get back, good. If the scaffolding company ever bothers to show up, as far as you’re concerned they collected it while you were out one day.

Genuine question - WHY?

This is still continuing?????

we had scaffolding up for months and months, they wouldn’t remove it. So DH said , I assume it’s now my property and I’m taking it down tomorrow and keeping it. Next day the scaffolder came to take it down.

Scaffolders have a poor reputation for a reason.

latest scaffolding we had was a very good company. They took it down really fast as soon as the job was over. Bright pink scaffolding was a new one on me.

Noise won't matter if she's not home to hear it. Or listening to a noisy TV program. 😁

Scaffolders really are a class of their own. The mechanic company I work for is the only one in the area stupid enough to deal with them.

They really are. All other trades can't bear dealing with them.

I could you with some scaffolding boards for the allotment.

I'd report it as fly tipped 🤣

Hopefully your neighbour is helping you out right now

I've been following this saga from the start and I'm really invested in this! haha

My OH said that he'd tell them that you're going to sell it for scrap :) They have, after all, abandoned it on your property!

Bloody hell OP, you couldn’t make this up!

And yet if I remember correctly, your first post was about the arsehole builder and you said that, by contracts, the scaffolders had been lovely when they came to put the stuff up.

How disappointing that they also turn out to be arseholes.

by contrast, not contracts.

this, I'd be chucking it on the responsible neighbours drive

i knew it was you op-tell neigbour one she has to deal woth it now whther that be move it to her garden or keep phoning the company because youre not repsponible for it and you dont want the hassle if it goes missing again

YANBU to want to make it easy for Neighbour 3 to take it, but you would be colluding in a fairly valuable theft. Which probably isn't something you'd normally do and aggravation over garden access probably isn't a good reason to break that habit. Not that you need to take steps to secure it.

I would tell your neighbour 1 she needs to either get the scaffolding company to take it by tomorrow or to hire someone to move it onto her own grass otherwise she will need to pay to have your garden resodded on top of correcting any other damage you've suffered from this debacle. You shouldn't have to, but if you really like your grass I would try finding someone who could do this and giving her the number, it's more likely to happen that way. Your neighbour 1 ought to be jumping through hoops for you given what you've put up with for her.

If threats don't work, then once it's gone you can try suing for the costs of putting things right. PITA, though.

I would be tell them 'as you pointed out I am not your customer and I am therefore not responsible for the safety and the preservation of the equipment that has been left on my lawn. It is left there at your own risk and any damages that it causes you will be responsible, for including the destruction of my lawn. I suggest you collect it immediately as i will not be checking the credentials of anybody who arrives to remove it'

I'd send them a message tomorrow evening to say 'thank you so much for collecting it today whilst I was out at work'

And when they go ballistic, 'You mean it wasn't you that let themselves into my back garden and collected every last bit like you let yourselves into my garden and dumped up there in the first place? Oh, dear. No, we don't have a Ring Camera or anything like that.'

Your neighbours are happy, you're happy, the cheeky fucker scaffolding company isn't happy. Three way win, there.

Some of you saying youd move it to
the neighbours garden

scaffolding? You would move
scaffolding?

Calla Junk it firm, its essentially been fly topped on your land

I wouldn't blame you for hoping it gets robbed but in the meantime I'd be moving the lot to your neighbour's front garden. They had the work done, they should have the inconvenience.

No way should you put up with that crap til the end of the month, especially knowing your lawn will be dead!

Knew this post was you. You are not unreasonable whatsoever. They have been absolute horrors. Go for a nice long walk and maybe when you're back the scaffolding may have been "collected."