Mums garden a mess after neighbour 'landscapes'

[TyredTony]

Good afternoon all,

Sadly I dont get to visit my mum as much as I'd like but when I've come here today, her garden is completely flooded. This never happened until her next door neighbour (with landlords permission) landscaped their garden, raising it around 3-5 inches.

Now my mums garden sits under 2-4 inches of water, the drain cannot cope. I'm concerned that it could potentially get under the floors in the house as it is not solid ground floor.

What options do I have here besides go crazy with concrete and basically seal in that side of the garden.

Mum doesnt like making a fuss but this amount of water cannot be good for the garden which she has looked after and the house. I will speak with the landlord myself, politely of course, but wanted to know options before I did this.

Thanks in advance

[Pica-Pica]

The only point I can make is that, as a parallel example, driveways have to me some sort of water drainage criteria. Have a word with local planning office, environmental protection agency, or similar.

[rgf100]

Is it possible they've actually blocked a drain?

[TyredTony]

I'll get onto the council but they added drains to the opposite side of the garden only. Our drain isnt blocked, it's trying it's best with it, cant tell if theirs is sadly.

Thanks for the responses

[Teddy Lop]

Is it worth having a landscaper look at it, its possible your mums side isn't built with the correct drainage in place and was draining to the neighbour.

[Randy Winkman]

Why is the water there? Is water now running from the neighbours property onto your Mum's? That's not allowed. Or did your Mum's property used to drain into theirs?

[RSTurboPaul]

Have you considered building a pond or attractive water feature?

[scottdm3]

Leaking water main?

[sherman]

Is the neighbours drain blocked and needing cleared after all that landscaping and extra weight on the drains.
Also have the broke the pipe if they had heavy machinery.

[samdale]

TyredTony said:

I will speak with the landlord myself, politely of course, but wanted to know options before I did this.

Not that I doubt your diplomacy skills, but it might be worth checking home insurance for legal cover if things escalate and it can't be resolved.

[Lotobear]

I'm a survyeor and have lost count of the number of times I've heard the complaint "it never flooded here until X did Y on their land" and, very often, it's nothing more than coincidence. I had one as recently as last Wednesday and that was, on investigation, bks

I'm not suggesting for a moment this is the case here but I would suggest that you really need to get to the bottom of the actual cause and determine whether it is in fact directly due to work your neighbour has done before you get involved in a potential dispute.

Also there's the doctrine of 'common enemy' which may be applicable in this case - may be worth a look up?

[Condi]

Might be worth looking at why your drain cannot cope. It doesnt look right that run off from an average sized domestic garden (which generally absorbs much of the rainfall anyway) would overwhelm a drain to the extent your mothers garden is inches deep in water.

EDIT - the amount of rainfall even made the BBC news, with flooding in some areas. Are you sure the water is there because of her neighbours actions, or is, umm, just heavy rain? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-4...

Edited by Condi on Monday 29th July 14:59

[0a]

I'm not sure where you are, but here in the Midlands the amount of rain was such that our lawn and patio were flooded for a while. A lot of rain came down in a short period.

[RC1807]

0a said:

I'm not sure where you are, but here in the Midlands the amount of rain was such that our lawn and patio were flooded for a while. A lot of rain came down in a short period.

^^^ gound hardened with recent lack of rain and high temperatures. Heavy rainfall increases risk of locallised flooding.

[MKnight702]

The builder behind my parents flooded the village by driving his JCBs over the flood bank, he denied all knowledge of the flood bank I mean who could have been expected to know that the raised banking that ran along side the river could be a floodbank?

Coupled with the planning permission granted for a 2 bed gardeners cottage that morphed into a 5 bed multi million pound property through repeated resubmission of plans within permitted increased footprint and building the house too close to the afore mentioned flood bank etc etc.

To top it off he then raised the ground level of the new house and garden by 2 feet, so if the river does ever flood again (hopefully not now the flood bank is reinstated) all the water will run off onto the surrounding houses.

What a lovely chap this builder was, naturally, he got off scot free when the villagers tried to hold him responsible for the flooding despite evidence that showed the river only cresting the flood bank where it had been compressed by JCBs, visible depressions in the flood bank, JCB tyre tracks visible leading up and over the bank, data from the Environment agency to show that previous flooding to the same river levels hadn't breached the flood bank before or since reinstatement. Nope, this chap was Teflon coated.

[blueg33]

The correct term for a floodbank is a Levee

You can also drive your Chevvy to one

[sgtBerbatov]

blueg33 said:

The correct term for a floodbank is a Levee

You can also drive your Chevvy to one

Only when it's dry though. A wet levee is no fun.

[james_TW]

sgtBerbatov said:

blueg33 said:

The correct term for a floodbank is a Levee

You can also drive your Chevvy to one

Only when it's dry though. A wet levee is no fun.

With whiskey and rye?

[blueg33]

sgtBerbatov said:

blueg33 said:

The correct term for a floodbank is a Levee

You can also drive your Chevvy to one

Only when it's dry though. A wet levee is no fun.

The lyric implies that he wanted it to be wet.

[Kuji]

I think your mum needs a soakaway channel dug along the fence line between the two proporties. If the water is coming that way or failing to drain in that direction, it will collect the lions share of the water.

A cheaper option is a deeper trench filled with large pebbles and decorative gravel on to.