Neighbours have ruined my fence

Yes.

Not sure why you've used inverted commas. It's their fence if they paid for it. If you want to paint/stain/ attach anything to a fence that isn't yours you ask first. If you don't get permission you put your own fence up. It's not a mumsnet thing, it's a common courtesy thing.

My neighbour has a dark red car, and parks it close to mine. It clashes. I think it would look better if it was silver. Can I paint the side facing me?

Of course. If you paid for it.

I would either stain it a similarish colour or double fence if you find it too offence

@donttellmehesalive - so you would be happy to have your brand new fence damaged then, would you? Have you ever been a homeowner?

@ElsLouise Had the exact same experience upwards of 30 years ago (wtf did that go!?). In our case, it was the culmination of various incidents of selfish, entitled behaviour. We were quite good friends with our NDNs, would have had them round for drinks etc, attached semis, two young couples, no kids.

They totally took the piss parking right in front of our house rather than swap around their cars in their drive. We also had 2 cars but never got the opportunity to park in front of our own house. We said nothing, just fumed a little quietly. Shit happens, maybe never occurred to them.

We'd had oil central heating installed by the builders (new build too - imagine it used to be an 'extra'!). We didn't have a garage so they'd built a little red brick boiler house, totally on our side. NDN DH was a crap plumber, so he installed theirs sometime after they moved in. Came home from work one day and he'd also built a little brick boiler house for their boiler - but attached to ours, without ever asking or even suggesting that he was going to do it, so there was no room for a fence in between.

We took that too, like mugs. Eventually we put our fence up, panels that had been pre-dipped. Because they'd encroached on our boiler house, the fence was 100% on our land, not down the boundary as we would have preferred.

Anyway, got home from work one night to find the dickhead completely stupid DH spraying their side of our new fence - with black bitumen!! It was all seeping through and dripping on our side. I was absolutely furious and yelled at him asking what he thought he was doing?! He had no right at all to have touched it, nor was there any need to - it had been pretreated, and if they didn't like the colour they had plenty of room to put their own up! He did stop then but the damage had been done and there was no colour on god's green earth that would have covered up black bitumen. So.... they stopped speaking to us!!! They moved not long later, went to Oz, and we moved too soon after. Our new house was detached thank god, and although there was fencing around the other adjacent gardens, we also put up our own. Wasn't getting into that one again! Also put a curve in the drive so no more car swapping!

You have every right to be furious @ElsLouise - don't blame you one bit. Could the builders help you out here? Maybe they would replace some of the fence for you if the arseholes next door pay for it?

I will never ever share a fence with a neighbour again. As an aside, we used posts rather than panels and they're still intact 25 years on.

Neighbours are to be tolerated IMO. We were friendly with another set from our first house, who then became very distant when we all moved, so far as we could see, because they moved to another semi and we moved to a detached. Then there was the NDN in current house, who was a nice enough guy, but we found him pacing his drive (semi) and ours (which we'd paid the builders to alter for us) because he was annoyed that ours was wider than his.... not to mention the married one who shagged our childminder and got her pregnant... messy!!

No, weathered grey wood does not look nice. It looks is badly maintained.

Do the same people "weather" their sash window frames to crinkly grey? Front doors? Do you think a grey, dry picket-fence looks lovely?

Maybe I haven't been exposed to posh weathered fences. The refuge house I was in had one. And an HMO property here down the road. Will have to venture upmarket and see if the upper-class weathering looks better.

All fences look better around a million pound property, I suppose. Even chain-link 😂

If OP likes the look of a weathered fence, they'll have to force the neighbour to buy them a new one to weather.. Hopefully without courts, lawyers and feuds.

Just don't throw the fence away OP, the neighbours will most likely take it in exchange for a new untreated one. I would.

I have no idea why you have chosen to make a supposed 'class' issue out of this. You have totally missed the point in any case. One's neighbours have no right to destroy one's fence.

You should access help to deal with your bitterness. Your issues are of no relevance to this post.

@adriftinadenofvipers

Any chance you have a badly maintained fence? 🤔
Chill out a bit.

I'm reacting to someone upthread implying that if fence doesn't weather beautifully, it must be a cheapo from B&Q.

And no, I don't think a "weathered" fence is a class issue. It's all sorts of other issues usually.


As to the actual post - I already said-good luck getting a new fence from the neighbours. Might be hard, the way it's going.
I wouldn't like mine ruined (though in this case it's far from it).

I actually want to stain my own fence and now I’m worried the stain will seep through to NND. What can I do to avoid this?

My neighbour has spent £k putting up a beautiful timber fence. Can I paint my side pink? I know it’s her fence and I know she paid for it but she won’t mind will she? Should I ask permission before I paint it or just go ahead? I might just paint the side of her house that I can see from my garden pink to match.

Will the pink paint leach through to your neighbour’s side in patches right down the entire length? If so, then go for it OP - YANBU!

Said no Mumsnetter ever.

Did you miss the part where the fence is new, and meant to loosen like that?

I mean this kindly OP, but that type of fence doesn’t weather nicely in my experience , they just end up looking uncared for. So it would need treating anyway at some point. If it was me, I’d treat my side in a shade I was happy with and not let it ruin relationships between neighbours. Best to have no ill- will with people who are not trying to annoy you in this case.

I'm bored with this now. I think you should just use a jet washer to blast off the drips and runs on your side.

I think OP is just as bored, as she hasn't returned 🤣 Must remember never to post on boundary/damage/parking threads, as the notifications go on far longer than the dispute does 🙄