This morning I notice that our neighbors contracted the tearing down of their fence that separates our homes. It's not a tall fence, maybe 3-4 foot tall that has probably been there a few years. Just three weeks ago, we finally finished enclosing our entire backyard by putting up a fence on both sides and back of our house so our dog could have free reign of the backyard. Neighbors on both sides have a fence, so we needed the back and sides only.

I guess my question is should they have given us a heads up about this since they know we have a dog? I really can't let my dog out in the backyard, as he doesn't have the enclosure that was there and would surely run. I am certain that they are replacing this fence, but not for sure how long that will be. They certainly don't need our approval, but a warning would have been nice.

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I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!

Yes, a warning would have been the polite thing to do.
When one neighbor decided to take down the privacy fence between the yards, we shared the cost of putting up a chainlink fence. The neighbor wanted to pay to have the fence installed, we wanted to do the installation to save money so our share was less and the neighbor paid to have the fence installed. DH is very handy and more than capable of installing chainlink and privacy fence.
The neighbor on the other side has a privacy fence which he maintains.
We replaced the privacy fence on the backside just a couple of months ago. Put up some T posts and hogwire for a temporary fence to keep the dogs in. Now we have the flat side of the privacy fence on our side with no more mowing around the posts.

I'm confused crittles. If you put up the sides and back, and your house is in the front, why can't he run around? Is your backyard round? Am I missing something again?

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"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? " ~Epicurus

I noticed that too. Figured it was in the wording or perhaps the OP has lost it??

We have the same set up, and honestly, I don't know who's fence it is behind us. I guess the people behind us??? Since they were here first....... At the least, they could have been courteous enough to let you know............

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Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

I see where that is confusing. Okay, one neighbor has a tall privacy fence and the other neighbor had the smaller 3-4 foot fence that just basically went from the backyard to the middle of the house (so only their backyard was enclosed) We put up a fence perpendicular to that one to enclose the area from the property line to our house (on both sides of our house, so it enclosed our backyard).

I do agree that it's a great idea to share costs of fencing with a neighbor. I certainly would not have been offended if they approached us about sharing some of the costs of the new fence, as we benefit as well. But, both parties would have to be in agreement of what to install. I do think that so many people will not ask their neighbor unless they are pretty good friends. We do not know them well as he has only lived there 10 months and they just got married two weeks ago. I have a feeling that they are going to install a tall privacy fence. I personally prefer ones that aren't so tall, but that's just me.

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I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!

Maybe both sides = left front and right front.

I know this is off subject but I noticed that when I grew up back in Ohio Nobody had a fence unless they actually put it up themselves. Here in AZ in every house I have owned we have brick walls already built. I always notice this on TV programs like Super Nanny etc. I always comment to my hubby about it.

When the one neighbor decided to take down the privacy fence, he was the owner of it. We then became co-owners of the chainlink. The neighbor on the other side is the owner of the privacy fence and has never asked for help in maintaining. They weren't exactly the friendliest people and now they have moved out to the mobile home retirement village and their son has moved into the house. We have always owned the privacy fence across the back and had no desire to convert to chainlink as the neighbor has an inground pool with young women grandchildren that use the pool.

I have taken notice of this as well. When we lived in Oklahoma, I noticed everyone had a tall privacy fence. And if you didn't have one, it was assumed you couldn't afford, not because maybe you didn't prefer it. When we moved to Minnesota, the first thing I noticed was that nearly everyone did not have a fence and if they did have one, it was small or a chain link fence.

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I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!

You can also get into certain neighborhoods with covenants and no chainlink fencing is allowed, only privacy. When we first moved into this house with privacy fence all around, DD was only 2 and she wouldn't go into the backyard. She was used to being in our old chainlink fence backyard and Memaw's big, open space with the fences a long way off.

Yes, your neighbor should have 'warned' you that they were taking the fence down, assuming they knew you had a dog. When we built this house 4 years ago, we had to privacy fence almost an acre. Talk about expensive, DH and I did it ourselves. Very time consuming too. Do you even think any of our 'neighbors' offered to help or help pay for the fence? No, and even one neighbor had a cow that he didn't want a privacy fence (well, we did and we have two dogs--of course he waited until we finished the fence and then he added on to it sigh--but remember he didn't want one, ha ha--he was also using our land as a garden before we moved in, so this is of course why he didn't want a fence, among other things I won't bore you with--he's a real pill). We did not ask or expect anyone to help us or help pay for it, by the way. Just surprised us that no one offered as it is something that we have done in the past residence that we moved from--it's only fair as both neighbors share the fence and enjoy it, etc. One neighbor did bring us a really nice baked item. She's probably the nicest one we have. We have several acres and a subdivision wraps us if none of this makes sense. Some of the houses already were fenced, but the majority were not.

The neighbors that didn't offer to help pay for the fence were probably wondering why you didn't ask if they wanted to share in the expenses. The neighbors probably assumed that you didn't want any help since you didn't ask.

I wouldn't let a neighbor "add" to my fence without paying me for it. If they attach to something you own, they need to pay you. I guess I am confused on that one sadarl

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Proud to say I haven't shopped at a Wal-Mart since Sept 2003

where we live, no one has a fenced yard. there is no way we could afford to fence in ours. we have 5and a half acres of yard. just think what the cost of that would be!

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I should probably clear up that we did talk to the neighbors in front of us up the road, they said they wanted to fence but couldn't afford it (they were using our long driveway as their own personal access into their yard even after we asked them repeatedly to stop, not to mention they could not contain their 3 kids--even so that the 2 year old was wandering down to our yard daily for about 45 minutes at a time unsupurvised as me or the kids dound him down here several times--think liability--, the kids were in our driveway daily and they were throwing rocks out of our driveway daily so our ownly recourse was to fence them off or get the law involved I guess--we opted for the fence; they even broke a neighbor's window out and wanted us to pay for it, um, right; they are not good neighbors to say the least). I did talk to one of our neighbors to the right of us and she couldn't afford to fence either, she is the only one that acknowledged it with even a thank you, etc., and is a nice person. We couldn't wait around for the few that wanted to fence to come up with the money as we have two dogs. The other few neighbors were not social to us or even friendly from the get go--we tried--we built on a patch of land that they always thought was going to be pasture land, so they all decided to take their hate out on us, even though they didn't know us. We decided not to add fuel to the fire with those neighbors and I think we made a good decision. We have no problems with anyone at this point (though in our defense it was never 'us', we were and still are considerate of our neighbors, etc.). One of the properties on the other side is a rental and they certainly weren't going to fence it. The neighbor behind us started his 'stuff' when we were in the early building stages--he would call the city and complain about everything; verbally assaulted our builder numerous times, along with the plumber, electrician and even the city employees numerous times. He's a jerk to say the least. He managed to hold up construction on our house for two weeks because he would not let the city attach water into the line in his backyard for our water line; the city had to get some sort of paperwork/permit to cross his property. This went on for two years after we moved in (um, at one point he even had a 'rage' and was throwing rocks over the fence at us when we were in the fence building process), and only stopped when I proceeded with harrassment charges against their entire family (it got really bad--the mayor of this town and the police chief even told us that this family is very well known to city officials for being nothing but trouble makers). Lucky us. Living here has been a peach. A few of the neighbors already had privacy fences, my husband got permission to connect and we did so. Those people were all very nice and still are. I don't know if I'm explaining it very well or not. Acreage and larger lots so I may not be painting a good picture. As far as the neighbor behind us connecting, we don't care (we are very easygoing people and mind our own business--it isn't hurting us that he connected to our fence--we just thought it was 'funny' that he didn't want a fence when we were building--when he was balling me out about the fence, I did ask him if he would like to pay half of the fence and he just went about his crazy rant, ha ha). Hope that makes more sense.

We did not expect any neighbors to offer to help us pay for the fence. I simply said that because we are just the type of people that have always at least offered to split the cost, or my husband has at least offered to help build, etc, in the previous residence we lived in. We just found it strange that the men would come out and get their lawn chair and watch my husband and I build the fence (in 100 degree weather most of the summer), with our 3small children running around the yard. You'd at least think some of these guys would have offered to carry the heavy posts, etc. I know my husband wouldn't be comfortable sitting in his lawn chair while a neighbor's wife was building us a nice new fence, ya know? That was what I was trying to get across I guess.

genichols, you could be right. Maybe we should have approached the few neighbors that we didn't about a fence. Maybe they would have surprised us and been nice people to deal with. Who knows. We just pretty much left them alone because we got the message early on that they wanted nothing to do with us; I'm sure it was just a 'change' thing.