I have recently (a few months ago) moved into a mid-terrace, bought with what little money I had to escape the insecure and expensive rental market. The house I bought is lovely, though it needs a lot of work and I am slowly working my way through it - I DIY what I can and get the experts in to fix any major issues and bits that should have been done a long time ago - like meter fitting, gutter clearing etc.
The house has been empty for a few months prior to me moving in and was a rental before this, with a landlord who appeared to do things on the cheap and without much skill.
Both my neighbours are lovely, but having just moved in I am at a point where I can say hi, but not have big discussions.
However, there are some issues emerging which affect my property.
The guttering on one of my neighbour's sides needs fixing - the actual end bit is missing, so water pools in the gutter and then pours directly onto the fence between our houses (no doubt leading to eventual rotting of the same; it is my responsibility) and onto my property - like a continuous open tap raining down onto the stone slab from a great height, making it impossible to sleep with the window open if it's raining due to the noise and again no doubt eroding the rock over time.
This neighbour also doesn't clean their guttering, to the extent that plants are visibly growing out of the top now, no doubt making the problem worse as water can't drain properly.
The neighbour on the other side is old and disabled, which no doubt adds its own issues.
Their fence (between our houses, their responsibility) is falling to bits and wood is now actually bulging onto my side of the garden, in addition to the huge holes appearing due to their cat, which also likes to chill out (poop, vomit) in my garden.
Neither side mows their front gardens, which had no boundaries between them, and I am in the process of putting a cheap metal border up to at least somewhat protect my front garden from the ever-encroaching weeds.
Both neighbours are lovely on first glance, but I have no doubt that the current cost of living is adding massively to their inability to fix issues in and outside of their houses.
Having my gutters cleaned cost me £60, getting new fencing for the bit that was broken was almost £1000. I do my own weeding, gardening and I do DIY many internal issues.
The area is generally quite a poor one; in that it feels like I can't just demand my neighbours shell out £100+ for issues which are on their side of the boundary, but affect mine iyswim.
How, if at all, would you approach this? I am thinking of putting a fence on my part of the housing boundary against the one that is falling to bits, but given their wood is bulging that would make my area of land smaller than it already is. I have no idea how to solve the guttering issue for myself and I don't have the time to do the front gardening for both of them to protect my own land.