Are you a good neighbor? Have you got that neighbor that tries to get in the way of every DIY project? Do you have a dispute with someone next door going on? We talk about some of the issues and how to prevent them with those people living next door. What projects should you bring your neighbor up to speed on before you start them? We talk about all this and more in this weeks first hour of Around the House!

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[00:00:08] Eric Goranson: Its Around the House. So we had teenagers in the house that were under 18. And if you went into the powder room, which was up against the shared wall, the next door neighbor below huge

[00:00:27] Caroline Blazovsky: coming up through the window.

[00:00:37] Eric Goranson: That's smoke. If I went in there and spent 10 minutes in the bathroom of that powder room,

[00:00:48] Eric Goranson: renovating your home, there is a lot to know we've got you covered. This is around the house. Welcome to around the house with Eric G and Caroline B [00:01:00] your source for home improvement. Every single. Thanks for joining us. Hello, Caroline.

[00:01:11] Eric Goranson: Everybody's doing great. I know everybody out there and radio and podcast land is doing awesome. And we're in here having a good time. We are going to take on a hot subject today. It's something that as a homeowner, everyone has one of these to some extent, right?

[00:01:36] Caroline Blazovsky: And when it goes badly, you're stuck with them for a, usually a pretty good period of

[00:01:58] Caroline Blazovsky: It could be the next door neighbor.

[00:02:18] Intro: a 16th of a

[00:02:20] Caroline Blazovsky: Oh my God. He's like a lead foot. So all the neighbors had to put up. Slow down signs, kids, kids at play. And they also had to put up this big corner mirror that sits on the corner so that they can see him coming down the road because they've told him to stop and he just keeps going. Crazy. And he's that guy

[00:02:51] Eric Goranson: Oh man. It's in those old neighbors, just like the young ones, just like everybody can be tough sometimes. So let me tell you the [00:03:00] story that I did and some of it starts out right? When you buy a piece of. Right. When I first put an offer in, on the piece of property, I wanted to figure out where the property lines were because things weren't marked out that great.

[00:03:35] Eric Goranson: One side of our house in his house is directly behind ours. Well, our driveway comes off the side of his flag lot and he owns that driveway, that 20 foot section going down the side of my house. That's his property. Well, I wanted to make sure there was an easement. Because I didn't want him someday. If I had a bad neighbor to come on, [00:04:00] decide to put a fence across my driveway and go my property, you're not driving on it.

[00:04:22] Eric Goranson: And I'm like, all right, cool. Got it. The city laws take care of it, but that was going to be an issue when I was buying the house because I wanted to have something that said, okay, you're either going to give us access or I'm going to have to cut a whole new driveway. And that was going to be.

[00:04:43] Caroline Blazovsky: So that's an issue with a flag lot, always, but it seems like they protect you there, which is nice.

[00:05:03] Eric Goranson: You know, it's gotta be already. You know, and so really the first thing, when I am having a dispute with a neighbor next door, 80% of the time, it's a property line issue. And you gotta be careful with that. Those are things don't you, Caroline don't, you have a, you've had some experience with this in a, in a minor way, right?

[00:05:32] Caroline Blazovsky: get kind of convoluted too, because I think, well, in, in my property, for example, we had to give some sort of access. They wanted to build a two car garage. Right. And he was a car collector. So he wanted to be able to build this huge garage that somehow came slightly over onto the property.

[00:06:08] Caroline Blazovsky: Like who's going to service the bushes because technically it's on our property, but he put it there and in generally he'll maintain it and he'll have once a year, somebody come out and just trim everything down. Cause they get really high they're large hedges that are, you know, I'd say 16 to 20 feet.

[00:06:48] Caroline Blazovsky: Maybe they, you know, you, they just. Relate well to them or you don't know them. So there's a lot of issues that come into play when you're dealing with.

[00:07:11] Eric Goranson: And we really had, you know, um, Hindu, we had really had some communication problems and we didn't have a problem getting along, but it was just trying to get it. I'm giving an understanding of what's going on, you know, and then of course, you know, there's always that thing where if you're a renter, you know what I mean?

[00:07:46] Caroline Blazovsky: Well, you haven't a lot of these townhouses in communities.

[00:08:09] Caroline Blazovsky: And, and sh she had a ring. My, my friend had a ring doorbell, so she saw the whole thing. So she's got it on the ring doorbell and she approaches her and say, Hey, listen, you put this dent in my car. And she says, no, It starts off with the lie and she's like, look, I saw it on the ring doorbell. I've got it on film.

[00:08:41] Caroline Blazovsky: I mean, not so much. I think with townhouses, um, dealing with property and bushes and things like that, because that's pretty much maintained with you, but then you've got to deal with the homeowners association, which that's not. Uh,

[00:08:57] Eric Goranson: I have my own rant on that one coming [00:09:00] up. It's hot really in the last minute, before we go out to break, I want to talk about here. Just getting your lot lines figured out and making sure that you know, what your property is that you know, what you can do. If you've got, you know, in the next hour, what I want to talk about is what happens when your neighbor has that dangerous tree or tree hanging over?

[00:09:32] Eric Goranson: You don't want your tree to fall down on the neighbors house. If it's not maintained well or vice versa, because that just never ends up really well. And I've got some stories with that. Let's talk about that. When we come back, we'll do that just as soon as around the house returns.[00:10:00]

[00:10:01] Eric Goranson: back to around the house with Eric G and Caroline B, where we were talking about being a good neighbor and all those kind of rules and regulations and common sense things about dealing with the people right next door.

[00:10:21] Caroline Blazovsky: So during hurricane Sandy was a perfect example. We had a very large. That was going to fall on our neighbor's car collection. And so we basically called the insurance company and they're like, look, it's your responsibility. You need to get somebody there immediately. Or you're going to have to accept the damage that ensues when this thing hits the garage.

[00:10:58] Caroline Blazovsky: So luckily it held [00:11:00]

[00:11:26] Eric Goranson: As soon as you recognize that you,

[00:11:41] Eric Goranson: was that during the storm?

[00:11:46] Eric Goranson: okay. Yeah. See, here's the thing.

[00:12:05] Eric Goranson: Still his problem. Now, if he would have before the storm sent you a certified letter in the mail that said you have a dangerous tree on your property and you need to get an inspected looked at and removed because I think it's going to fall on my house. He has now notified you of a dangerous condition and you would have been a responsible maybe for the damage on the house.

[00:12:52] Eric Goranson: If a storm would come to then and takes that tree down and knocks it over on the neighbors house. And there's been no discussion about trees. [00:13:00] Liability is usually on the person cause that's considered an act of God.

[00:13:08] Caroline Blazovsky: It was just a large tree that because of the storm, the bulb was weakened underneath and it started the lean and fall. So, but we did everything we could cause we were good neighbors and obviously we didn't want. Garage to be disrupted. I mean, that's horrible. So we did everything and thank God it worked out, but those are the types of things.

[00:13:35] Eric Goranson: Well, great example right now. On the side of my house. You might even hear a little bit while we're sitting here at work or not my neighbors over there with a tree care company and they are there for the next two or three days, and they are taking care of all the trimming and cleanup of his trees.

[00:14:06] Eric Goranson: It's on the property line. And we had a great discussion about it and that's super cool that worked out well, but that's where having that relationship with your neighbor is super awesome to have that discussion we have right now, I've got the best neighbors I've ever had. Every single neighbor around us as.

[00:14:38] Intro: the beauty of that,

[00:14:43] Caroline Blazovsky: You need done by her neighbor and maybe financially, they just can't do it. They're strapped or they're in economic times that, I mean, look, we were talking about trees prior to coming on the show. What's the cost to remove one of those giant trees. And you're saying, you know, $5,000, some people don't have access to that.

[00:15:12] Eric Goranson: can't. I have some conversations when in doubt, Coover, knock on your neighbor's door.

[00:15:23] Intro: that's a

[00:15:41] Eric Goranson: And as soon as they start tearing in our project, the neighbors calling the building department, even though they've got all their permits, they're doing everything by the book. They're probably one of the best contractors out there, but they're over there doing every little thing to make things difficult.

[00:15:58] Caroline Blazovsky: don't want it done. They just still want me to [00:16:00] disrupt disruption. I mean, what is the, why are they causing a new

[00:16:19] Eric Goranson: I have had. People sit in there, call the building department four or five and six times over what they think are alleged violations and things were done perfectly correct. Just because they're being jerks. Oh my

[00:16:33] Caroline Blazovsky: Well,

[00:16:48] Eric Goranson: We're doing it, right? Yeah. You know, it was all licensed. It was all part of the plan. Inspector shows up and goes, Hey, they're saying you're doing stuff out here illegally.

[00:17:02] Intro: flat. And this was in

[00:17:07] Eric Goranson: But yeah, you know, it, uh, and yes, by the way, all you Costco people, the headquarters of Costco is in Kirkland. So when you see things. That are Kirkland in Costco branding. That's just the city that they're based in FYI. The more, you know, so anyway, we're going to go out to break in a second, but I just want to make sure that you understand that a lot of these things can just be discussed and worked out between neighbors and, you know, maybe you've got in the problem that you run into as well as maybe things were done incorrectly years ago.

[00:17:59] Eric Goranson: And this has been [00:18:00] added over here. Why does, why do we have this. You know, triangle shaped, jogs, like pie slices out of the one property line once because the neighbor swapped some land. So he could put his garage in there and get the right clearances. So gave a little more here, took us up there and they did a lot line adjustment that works out really.

[00:18:34] Intro: house.[00:19:00]

[00:19:01] Eric Goranson: Angelina. If you're listening to around the

[00:19:04] Intro: with

[00:19:22] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to around the house with Eric G Caroline, be your source for home improvement every week. Thanks for joining us. Hey, make sure you head over and catch the podcast over the holidays here. We did podcasts every single week. No best of shows.

[00:19:56] Caroline Blazovsky: wrong person to ask about this because I get [00:20:00] this question probably I'd say at least every two months.

[00:20:22] Caroline Blazovsky: Because you think it's going to be maintenance-free and problem-free and believe it or not, it becomes more problems because now you share those problems and getting something done becomes so challenging because you have to deal with an HOA or somebody else. And you know, when there's too many cooks in the kitchen, what happens?

[00:21:11] Eric Goranson: And then generally for her size, a unit, which was one of the bigger ones. So you walked in the front door and had to walk a flight of a massive flight of stairs for a 10 feet ceiling below up to the top to get into the kitchen level and everything else. And then there was a kitchen powder room, living room, dining room on that floor and then three bedroom upstairs.

[00:21:55] Eric Goranson: Well, I had parked in the visitor parking lot. All it said is visitor parking. There was no signs, no [00:22:00] rules, no nothing. We've been dating for a few months. I get up at five o'clock in the morning to go to work. My car's not there. Like what is going on? Where is my truck? So I called the police to report it stolen and they're like, oh, it was toad toad for what?

[00:22:50] Eric Goranson: You've been a guest in that spot over 35 times a year. So when we catch you at 35, then. [00:23:00] We ended up towing your vehicle. I'm like, there are no signs posted. That's crazy, no signs posted. So this I had around the house. And so I'm like, you know, we're going to do a thing on condos. So I did a whole thing on condos.

[00:23:31] Eric Goranson: All of a sudden, my $400 in towing fees that I had to pay was refunded back to my debit card. Like within hours with an apology, they just give me an apology and said, yeah, we realized that wasn't posted. We're sorry, I can drive by that thing five years later. And they still haven't posted the rules up in the same towing signs there and the same predatory towers come in there, stag cars out of there.

[00:24:17] Eric Goranson: It's not good. But the thing I don't like about condo owners associations is sometimes you can get people in. Homeowner's association, condo association. I'm sorry. They are just like dictators in a third world country.

[00:24:46] Caroline Blazovsky: Problems right. Shared spaces. So you've got a neighbor above you that maybe doesn't maintain their shower or they don't maintain their toilet. And now I've got leaks coming down into your property, which can cause mold issues. I mean, I've seen it all now, whose problem is [00:25:00] it? It's within the wall. Now, the HOA is involved.

[00:25:21] Caroline Blazovsky: So now what he did is drop this

[00:25:39] Caroline Blazovsky: and said, that's a big one. I've seen that before coming up through the window

[00:25:45] Eric Goranson: There's no windows. It was an interior room powder room, no shower, no, nothing that smoke. If I went in there and spent 10 minutes in the bathroom in that powder room.

[00:26:01] Eric Goranson: I couldn't find where it was coming from. I couldn't find where I was coming from. Had no idea must've been coming through the duct someplace in there.

[00:26:19] Caroline Blazovsky: pressurization works. You know, traditionally you're bringing in negative pressure, so everything gets pulled in.

[00:26:41] Caroline Blazovsky: So don't think that you're going to be in a condo or a townhouse, and you're not going to smell your neighbor, or if they're using. You know, I've seen it all with pesticides. I've seen it with laundry, detergents, smoke, pot, um, cooking. Um, what other complaints have I've heard indoor air quality wise. I mean, I get,

[00:26:59] Eric Goranson: [00:27:00] Many times, many times the HPAC system isn't even yours. It's the buildings, right? Especially in condoms. You know, it's the buildings. And so you are sharing air with every other person out there and they could be having their air fresheners and their candles. And they're never really good at cleaning air coming in and you are breathing all of that trash.

[00:27:23] Caroline Blazovsky: lot like that. It's and buildings too. Like when you start to look at. New York city and also like brownstones and smaller apartment buildings. I've these are issues that I deal with all the time complaints of neighbors that say, look, I'm living in my house. I don't feel well because my neighbor is doing XYZ.

[00:27:41] Eric Goranson: See our problem here in the west coast, Pacific Northwest, especially in, you know, the four or five states in my region, 80% or more of the. Apartments have baseboard or a wall electric. Each is much better. No central system. [00:28:00] Exactly. So there's no air filtration. There's no air conditioning.

[00:28:22] Caroline Blazovsky: of apartments.

[00:28:26] Eric Goranson: Uh, permits, condos, all that stuff. Not my bag baby. No, absolutely. And I want to talk a little bit about being a good neighbor to your neighbors. We'll do that just as soon as around the house returns.[00:29:00]

[00:29:09] Eric Goranson: I'm Ari command from even novelas bam. And you're listening to around the house with.

[00:29:21] Eric Goranson: welcome back to around the house with Eric G and Caroline B. We've been talking today about neighbors being a good neighbor, what to do in dealing with your neighbors. What's right. What's wrong. And some of the tricks of the trade of keeping everybody be in. Cool. And you know, you live in a great neighborhood.

[00:29:53] Caroline Blazovsky: I think a lot of it is we help our neighbors like so if we see they're plowed in with snow, that's a huge one. We'll go over and [00:30:00] shovel the driveway out or snow, blow the driveway for them.

[00:30:15] Eric Goranson: that kind of stuff. Yeah. I've got a neighbor next door that I've, I've, uh, offered to take the, you know, when we've had power outages, Hey, I know you need to charge up your phones and stuff and you need a light or a space heater.

[00:30:48] Eric Goranson: But you know, being really good neighbors, I would love to see everyone out there in these times. We're in, and we're not going to make this negative at all. But I think being good neighbors to [00:31:00] everybody is something that we should kind of focus back in on again, and making sure that nobody in the neighborhood is.

[00:31:24] Caroline Blazovsky: Yes. Or even like, if somebody is sick or, you know, somebody like our neighbors across the street, she had COVID, you know, so bring something over, make cookies, you know, soup, anything.

[00:31:37] Eric Goranson: Yeah. You know, all of those things, you know, are, are super cool. I've got this big area in the front of my house up there. That's not landscaped yet. It's kind of like forest floor, but it's a nice level area. And like the tree guys are like, Hey, if you need to turn around or park in that area, go head.

[00:32:07] Eric Goranson: You know, one of the things that I think neighborhood cleanups are great. We've done that before where, you know, everybody's going to get rid of some. You know, and you're gonna go to the landfill or whatever. My buddy's got a great example. I got a friend, Sean, who lives up the street. He my realtor friend.

[00:32:38] Eric Goranson: Yeah. I got a couple, I've got a couple of things to throw away on that and it's going to cost him what, three or four bucks more. It's not that big. But we've got a good relationship that way. And the more you can do that with your neighborhood, the better you can, you know, some, when you get into older homes or farm communities or people with a little more property, you can do a, uh, [00:33:00] a cleanup that way.

[00:33:16] Eric Goranson: And people

[00:33:34] Eric Goranson: sure.

[00:33:55] Eric Goranson: There was no charge. I show him my driver's license and it was free [00:34:00] and it was awesome. Now it's truckloads 50 bucks. Yeah. Just to get her as we have in

[00:34:14] Eric Goranson: So, oh, wow. So you you're allowed. I, I could go there every day.

[00:34:20] Caroline Blazovsky: no, you pay for the pass and then you can go twice and then you have to get a new.

[00:34:41] Eric Goranson: I've left with a $90 dumbbell before. Cause it was having,

[00:34:52] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I've got to drive about 20, 25 minutes away to hit ours. But you know, [00:35:00] we, we've got an interesting thing here and we don't get into politics in the show, but we have, uh, an area, a government agency that is not elected, but it's what they call Metro here.

[00:35:25] Caroline Blazovsky: that correct. So they can come and stock you. Yeah,

[00:35:34] Eric Goranson: And, uh, you know, the rules are different as well, but really just being a good neighbor and helping clean up, um, you know, just making sure everybody's good, making sure that your neighborhood has a plan for a natural. Um, you know, if there's a tree down, broken down the road, who's gotten in the neighborhood, do you know if you're waiting for the city to show up, it might be days or, or an hour.

[00:36:16] Eric Goranson: So

[00:36:37] Caroline Blazovsky: So they had to share the. Make sure the stone that it was paved, that all of it was taken care of and they all had to work together. And there were a lot of problems when one person just didn't have the money and didn't want to pay for the stones to be replaced on it because it was a stone road, um, and different, um, things that had to be done, you know, grading and things like that.

[00:37:05] Eric Goranson: It's w it's really interesting how the. On your side of the country can be so different than the rules on my side of the country. You know what I mean? And that's on a lot of things.

[00:37:15] Caroline Blazovsky: it very interesting and diverse. Eric's west coast, I'm east coast. And, um, you know, I live in a very big metropolitan area. That's very built up right outside of New York city, but even so, I mean, there's country areas here and strange roads and things that are sort of not on the map and people have to operate them more like country living than they do city living.

[00:37:35] Eric Goranson: diverse while it's a great example, like, like here in my city and we're talking about right now, as I look out the window, that 15 feet away from me is this big tree service truck. That's doing the work on my neighbor's place. You know, for me to remove a tree in my yard, even if it's shared with the neighbor I have to take, it can take me a year to get permits through my area to do that.

[00:38:01] Caroline Blazovsky: why and explain to the audience why?

[00:38:27] Eric Goranson: Actually in the thirties and forties from Portland and it was so far away now it's in the Metro area and it's all built up. We still have that very kind of secluded quaint look to it with all the 200, 250 foot tree. That's what you're awesome. So they do a great job of protecting those, but there's a lot of hoops you have to deal with.

[00:39:10] Eric Goranson: And, uh, everybody at least gets a say in it, which is kind of interesting. All right, Caroline, I hear that music in the background. It's time to go. I'm Eric G. And you have been listening to Around the House .