Making Up Property Lines

There’s a lot of detail, so I’ll try to keep this as briefly as I can.

My wife and I moved into our current house in the summer of 2020. We loved this house right at first sight, we put in an offer, and we couldn’t be happier that we actually got the house! It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s our first house together (we’re in our late 20s). However, when we looked at the house on google maps, on our maps app, etc, there always seemed to be a “for sale” sign in front of the house and thought it was odd, because it’s such a nice house.

Anyway, the house is semi-detached, and is attached only by the garage. I wasn’t thrilled about this, but whatever, I could overlook that. The house also had about 3-4 security cameras around the front.

After owning the house for a couple of weeks, we speak with a few of our new neighbors, and every time, they ask us about our next door neighbor (the NFH), and ask “how has she been so far?” For a little background, our NFH is a divorced woman, in (I believe) her 70s, rarely leaves her property, and looks very unkempt. She’s also the next door neighbor who’s attached at our garage. NFH has been a bit weird, but nice. We mind our own business and kept things very cordial, learning via the rest of the neighborhood that’s she’s a bit off.

As we get to know the NFH, we find out that the NFH and the previous owners of our new house were AT WAR with each other. We never spoke with the previous owners at that point in time, but the NFH had nothing but bad things to say about them. Oh well, not our problem.

So, getting to the meat of this story, having a garage attached to her house/garage, our driveways are also connected. While we were chatting with her outside one day, we told her how we were looking into tearing up our driveway in order to get a new stamped concrete driveway (the driveway was a brick one, identical to hers. We wanted it changed because weeds would constantly come through the cracks between the bricks and would look awful). NFH never raised any objections or had any problems with it.

A few weeks later, the driveway contractors come by and start ripping up our driveway bricks. One of the contractors knocks on our door and tells me that NFH’s car is partially parked on our driveway (our driveways have an outline/pattern to them indicating who owns what part of the driveway). The contractor told me that he went over to NFH’s house and knocked on her door to ask her to move her car. However, she did not answer the door, locked the door, and shut her blinds to cover her little window next to the door. The contractor asked me to knock on NFH’s door to see if she can move her car off of our property. I knock, and stand at her door for about 10 minutes. I also put myself in front of a couple security cameras she has (forgot to mention her cameras earlier) to show her it was me.

When she finally comes out, she is YELLING at me about the contractors, thinking they were at her house to potentially mug her/break in. I apologized and explained what was going on. She also explained to me that her car wasn’t on our property, and that when she got her roof done 10-15 years ago, they told her that they laid the new roof up to the property line (which was way past the little driveway brick designs we have). Regardless, she moved her car and allowed us to use that part of “her driveway”. I gave her my cell # in case there were any more problems and told her that if she happens to get any parking tickets for being parked on the street for too long, we will happily pay them for her.

Being confused about the property line, I pulled out the land survey that we received with the house, and measured our side of the house up to the last inch. According to our land survey, that wasn’t her property as she claimed. We also noticed that the property line she claimed was on an angle (due to her crooked roofing), and also included about a foot or so of our garage, which, at that point, I knew she was either lying, or didn’t know where her property line truly was.

After clarifying that with our contractors, she somehow eavesdropped on our conversation. She texted me that evening (about 10pm) stating “We can no longer use her property to enhance our driveway” and that the property line actually WAS on an angle. I ignored the texts.

During the next few days, the contractors worked on our new driveway. She would then come out to take pictures of the contractors and her property line, and generally harass the contractors (activate her car alarm, let her dogs bark, etc.) When the contractors come to get me, I attempt to come out and show her our land survey, but by the time i get outside, she runs back into her house. This goes on for a few days.

After a few more days of harassing our contractors, I finally text the previous owner of the house (he previously accidentally sent a package to our current house, and I told him I’d text him when it arrives, hence having his cell #) asking what kind of problems he had with NFH.

He calls me, which ends up being about a 15-20 conversation about how NFH would dispute the property line, to which the previous owner of our house had a land survey done, concluding that the property line is not where NFH claims it is (it’s where we thought it was the whole time). Previous owner also had a camera installed close to the property line, which he sent me video of her staying on her actual side of the property line when having a verbal argument. On another occasion, he sent me a video of NFH hitting him with a shovel, which NFH pled guilty for. NFH currently has a restraining order against her with our house due to this. Prior to the restraining order, she also called the police 40+ times on the previous owner, not sure why though.

I also went back on google maps, and noticed that NFH lined up a wall of bricks on the actual property line (the one from the land survey, not her made up one). Probably to “mark her side” with the previous owner of our house (she currently has those bricks in her garage). This might be why she was avoiding us, and never provided a land survey of her own.

Now, the driveway is done, but she still puts her garbage can on our driveway. After seeing photo and video evidence of her acknowledging the actual property line, my wife and I are convinced that she does this with everyone who owns our house. We ignore her garbage can, because at this point we figure that she just does this for her own entertainment. We’re also thinking that there might be some mental issues going on.

I have a couple more stories about NFH. If people want more, I can post more stories (they’re much more brief). Sorry for the long post!