We are moving house at the weekend. Luckily for us new house has a big garden. The bottom of the garden is all overgrown with trees and ivy, holly etc, the whole width and about 12ft deep. You cannot see through all the undergrowth to the boundry.
The boundry is our responsibility. Previously there were trees/hedges and a small wall. Because we have a toddler and two dogs we had planned to put up some sort of screening to prevent the dogs/todder escaping through the gaps in the hedging. We weren't too fussed as to what it looked like as it is covered by all the undergrowth, which the kids have named their "den". Fine....
Except when we went over this week the neighbour whose house backs onto ours has chopped down some of the hedging and taken down the wall. There is now a good 4ft gap where the hedging was and the wall that stood infront of the trees is gone, so big gaps of about 18" there between each tree too, over about 8ft. So very easy for anyone- dogs, children or adults to walk straight through from our garden to theirs. They have been having a lot of building work done on the side of their house/garden so i kind of have m fingers xed they plan on fixing it!
But I have knocked twice now and no answer, so not sure if they are on holiday?
I have driven past several times and no car in the drive.
The house belongs to MIL and she says she had no idea they had done any of this and they did not ask her.
Where do we stand in terms of telling them to fix it? Bearing in mind it wasn't great in the first place?
Where do i stand in terms of my dogs escaping into their garden? I will discourage this of course, but it will happen and quite frankly I am not prepared to take the dogs out on their leads or follow them round constantly because the neighbour has taken a chunk of hedging down!
It is all a bit stressful as previously this would have been a really simple job, just using some cheap fencing- like screening or chicken wire type stuff to block the gaps at the bottom but now it is a major job.
Thanks