Property Owners Rights
We always talk about trespassers, whether hikers, dog walkers, or even poachers on private property outside of the city, but what about in the city?
While I grew up in Preston (Cambridge now), we left in 72, but returned to Cambridge over 20 years ago. We bought a home in Preston, not far from where I grew up as a child. The house is a very old home, one of the first on the street, and it needed a lot of work.
On the exterior grounds, the front area had been paved over and the previous owner just parked on the “front lawn”, such as it was. I excavated the asphalt, dumped in several loads of fill to bring the property up to the level of the street as the city had raised the road and sidewalk. I then topped the area with topsoil and put in grass. At the same time I put in a side drive where it should be. It took a long time but eventually I had a nice front lawn. I put in a hedge along the one side, and I had a nice rock garden at the end with lots of flowers, the place was starting to look pretty nice.
And the one day the city decided to replace one section of the sidewalk at the end of the hedge. To do this, the rolled the rocks back from my rock garden leaving them on top of the flowers that were planted there. I contacted the city at the time, they said tough luck. This was several years back now.
Last fall I came home to find locate lines painted all over my driveway and front lawn. I called the city, they said they knew nothing about it, advised I call the company that does the locates. I called them, they said “privacy laws” prevent them from saying who requested the locate on my property. Eventually I found out that Ramkey working on behalf Rogers Cable requested the locates. After several weeks, nothing had happened, but then I came home to find all the lines repainted. I contacted Ramkey and was told they would be doing directional drilling to replace some wiring. The assured me there would be no damage.
A few days later I came home to find a 4 foot deep 5 feet long and 3 feet wide dug in my front lawn. All the dirt and rocks were piled along the side of the trench on my lawn as well. This pit and all the rubble remained there for several weeks, once in a while the contractor would come around, have lunch, throw their trash in the pit, but didn’t do much else.
I called the city only to be told that they have that right as the city claims ownership of my front lawn almost to my front porch. I was also told that the contractor would be repairing any damages. The contractor’s idea was to shovel everything back in the pit, along with their trash from lunch, leaving all the rocks and gravel on the surface and dumping some weed seed on top. With all the rocks and debris on the surface, I certainly can’t take my lawn mower through there, and the city refuses to do anything about it. They say the work “is good enough”. So the area sits uncut, full of rocks and weeds.
Recently I bought a second property here in Preston for my son and his family. There is road construction going on a block away, not a big deal, but the other day when I went to pick up my granddaughter, the city had place a large construction sign, one of those that say this project to be completed July 2016 on the front of the property. One of those big wooden signs with sandbags to hold it in place. They decided the best spot for the sign was on top of a flower bed with the samd bags crushing the flowers and a rose bush. I called the public works department, the reply from them was “not their fault, contractors” but they would look into it. Nothing about the damage done, just that they would have it removed. There was lots of room where this sign could have gone, even the city owned parking lot across the street, but they had to put it on top of a flower garden.
Where do they hire these idiots?
So as a property owner, and a tax payer, where are my rights? The city allows contractors to destroy lawns and gardens and claim they have the right. And yet they demand that the property owners maintain the property, they demand that the home owner has to clear the snow. And when they destroy private property, they say the home owner is responsible for the repairs.
When I move here I put a lot of work into improving the property, I am not going to do it again without compensation. Where are my rights?
