Please don't talk to me about your water problems

Shortly after we moved into our house a year ago, our neighbor approached us with an issue he had arising from our yard. Honestly, I am not even sure we had any conversation prior to him wanting to talk to us about this issue. He even had his nanny at the time tell us he was having the problem. That is when I sent my husband over to talk to him.

The problem was that the drain pipes off of our house were all directed to one pipe that let out at the fence line pouring right into his yard. My husband explained where the water was coming from. At this point our hands were tied but we told our neighbor we would try to come up with a fix. The neighbor has 2 dogs who have recently become more outdoor dogs than anything else. We understand the problem because we had a dog and dogs love to get dirty and then you really don't want them to come in the house.

In May, the contractor whom we hired to do our patio addition around the pool said he could fix the problem. We actually had a spot in our yard where the water collected as it had no where to drain. He would be able to fix this as well. He told us that the drainage had to be 10 feet from your neighbors yard, which at the time wasn't. We paid a lot of money to redirect the pipes from the house and add a french drain. The french drain goes around the pool and leads to the back part of our yard.

One more factor that is in play, our house is downhill from our other neighbor and the neighbor complaining is downhill from us. All of this water then drains into the houses behind my neighbor and there is a retention pond way behind those houses. So unless you are at the top of the hill you are having water drain into your yard.

We are the good neighbors right. We took care of our problem and fixed the drainage into our neighbor's yard. Imagine our surprise when he came over to complain again about the water and now it was at the back of his yard where his shed and firewood sit. My husband tried to explain that our water has to drain somewhere, it is within code and there is not much else we can do. When it rains heavily....you will see water in your yard.

When we have heavy rains we have to drain the water out of our pool. The pump drains it into the french drain. We have no other place to drain the water. We have had LOTS of rain lately also.

Yesterday we were at my other neighbors house (more on that later) and this neighbor happens to come over to drop off something he has had for a while. He looks at me and says I need to talk to your husband, perfect timing as the husband was walking in the door. He brings up this damn water thing again. I thought my husband's head was going to turn all the way around and fall off. I could see the fire burning in his eyes. He listened and said little and it ate at him all night.

So neighbor.....keep your water problems to yourself. We no longer want to hear how you backyard is so wet, guess what so is ours. We have standing water in our backyard when it rains just as you do. The ground has been frozen so it can't soak into the ground. We have done all we can to try to appease you and all our efforts have failed.