About 3 years ago, we noticed our side fence slanting outward. It is like the leaning tower of Pisa. It is the fence that separates our property from the vacant lot. Since it can damage the front fence and the gate if it crashes so we had to have it repaired. The engineer we consulted recommended to demolish the fence and build a new one so the foundation will be correct this time. The expenses reached $1,500. Whew, we thought it was easy to have the fence rebuilt. And come to think of it, why do some houses in other villages have no fence?
I never liked fences. Unless you are keeping something in...or out, they are unnecessary. Privacy fences are usually ugly. A fence means money and maintenance, and should be avoided. However, I felt it was necessary to put a split rail fence on our bad bend, to serve as a guide rail.
Fences aren't required here. Some people have them, some don't. We have one, but it was here when we bought the house. There is a gate leading to my neighbor's yard for some reason, so I left it that way. We are on very good terms, and my cats spend as much time in his yard as my own when they are outdoors, I think. It's hard to teach boundaries to a cat. Since losing a couple of cats to a fox, I am becoming more concerned about them when they are outside and am either with them when they are out, or I check on them regularly. If I had the money, I think I'd put up a higher fence that would keep my cats in the yard and some of the more dangerous critters out (foxes, coyotes), while still allowing squirrels and chipmunks to come and go. The only danger to them then would be raccoons, since it's nearly impossible to deny access to a raccoon that wants to get somewhere, but they are generally seen only at night.
Living in the city having fences is a sure way to have privacy, keep things in and out, and set boundaries. There is a privacy fence on one side of our house and I'm an so glad now because the owner of the house next door has abandoned it and the backyard is like a miniature forest. If the fence was not there to block the overgrowth it would probably creep over into our backyard. My fear now is how long before it pushes against the fence. Should that happen I have my chainsaw ready.
We have a fence on both sides of our yard but the neighbor's kid peeled off the privacy-stripping from the fence on that side. We don't have a fence in the front or back. Previously that hadn't been a big problem, but since the railroad quit running trains to our closed paper mill, it has been used as a hiking trail. People who use hiking trails around here are almost entirely transplants from Massachusetts, otherwise known as Massholes. Last summer, someone complained about my compost pile. I knew it wasn't one my neighbors, because they'd have simply told me if they had a problem with it, so I used a source who worked in the code enforcement office and found out that it was, indeed, someone who had recently moved here, and had seen the compost pile while walking on the tracks. The code enforcement officer didn't see a problem with my compost pile so nothing was done about it, but he wouldn't tell me who had complained, which is why I had to use another source for that. Nevertheless, it's annoying and if the raccoons were to spread stuff around one day before I had a chance to clean it up, there could be a problem. No one can see anything in my backyard from the street. As I see it, I have two options. I am tempted to put up a small barrier behind each compost pile, facing the tracks, like this: That would be fun, but the other option is to end any future problems by putting a fence up the length of the back of the yard. That would solve another problem that occurs once in a while. Sometimes people hiking on the railroad hiking trail seem to think that it's okay to take a shortcut through my yard to the street. It doesn't make it okay, but I can understand a kid doing that since kids don't always understand or appreciate property lines but I sometimes see adults walking past my window through my yard to the street, and I can't understand how any adult could think that's okay. Every once in a while I'll lose something like a shovel that I had left out or, once, a roof rake, and these are probably taken by people who have taken a shortcut across my lawn. I'm leaning toward fencing in the whole backyard but I don't want to spend a lot of money on it. A chain-link type fence wouldn't work because you can easily see through them. It would have to be something high enough so that no one could see into my yard easily. I don't think it would have to be particularly sturdy, as I doubt that anyone would break it down. Just something that keeps people from seeing into my backyard and which makes it clear that my yard is not a throughway. I'm thinking of bamboo, as it solves the problems and it's relatively cheap.
Haha, that picture is hilarious. "They" must have told that guy he had to hide his trash can or something. We live in a suburban subdivision on the river and the HOA requires fences, though we'd have one even if they didn't. We've always had a dog and we have an in-ground pool so a fence keeps the dog in and uninvited "guests" out. We've lived here since 1994 and I believe our 7' cedar fence has been rebuilt 3 times due to hurricanes, high winds, etc. Luckily, my husband is quite handy and he repairs/rebuilds the fence when necessary.
@Beth Gallagher Is your pool fenced separately, or is the cedar fence specifically intended to provide pool safety? I ask in reference to our tiny above-ground pool, in which a toddler COULD drown, if he/she managed to get up and over the 30-inch high side. It is not fenced. Frank
I built this fence while taking a woodworking course and paid someone to install the fence posts. It's several years old in this photo. Really wish I had a photo when it was new and freshly painted. The fence went all the way around the front yard, stopping at the driveway. I made a trough in the garage from cement blocks and a tarp and soaked kerfed top and bottom rails, to have a curved section instead of a corner. @Ken Anderson: We are on very good terms, and my cats spend as much time in his yard as my own when they are outdoors, I think. Since I’ve lived in Delaware, the people who used to live across the street inherited (someone dropped it off) a beautiful gray cat. He/she would sit in the chair on my front porch and once left a dead mouse at the bottom of the steps. I really appreciated him catching the mouse, and enjoyed watching him roam the yard. Recently, there have been two others at different times - the cats here are especially likable.
No, the pool is not fenced separately. The perimeter of our back yard is fenced, with only a single gate to enter on the side of the house. That gate is locked except on Wednesday mornings when the lawn crew mows and trims.
I don't know why but fences around homes seem to be pretty much standard in the Southern US. Here in the Northeast not so much it seems. Possibly because the Northeast has always been "fence in" while the South and West were "Fence out/"
We have a fence. The tenant behind and a couple of plots over has a fence too. He is a professional fence builder. Out dogs do not get out. The professional fence builder’s dogs constantly get out and congregate at the back of our fence. Our dogs like to bark at the other dogs when they get out of their fence, which is frequently. At 5:30 this morning, I let the dogs out and bark bark, the other dogs were out too and woke up the entire neighborhood. I was angry because I hadn’t had my first cup of coffee when I went outside in my shorts to get our dogs away from the fence and back inside to their kennels. Sometimes, I get angry in the morning because I haven’t had my first cup of coffee and the other dogs get out of the professional fence builder’s fence to come visit me on the front porch. Bad dogs! Bad! Bad tenant! Bad! Tonight is rent night for the tenant and I am the person he pays the rent to. Bobby is going to have a talk with the professional fence builder because his fence sucks. Bobby will be happy. Happy happy Bobby!
My cat (Ella) has no problem jumping fences and going into other people's backyards but she sure gets upset if another cat intrudes on "her" yard.
I am pretty sure that the neighbor behind us must let his dogs sleep outside, or he gets up really early to let them out to run around. “Gator” is a really friendly old pit bull, and he just loves to come and visit with us, tail wagging and the whole bit, when he gets here. Since dogs have such good sniffers, I am sure that he smells Bobby’s morning coffee, and says to himself , “Wow, my friend , Bobby, is up and going to be sitting out there on the porch with his coffee. I just LOVE that man, and I am going to climb over this fence and go visit with him right now...... Bobby will be so happy to see me, and maybe he will even take me on a morning walk back home again “. Sure enough, our dogs were out there raising all kinds of a ruckus this morning, and Gator came happily trotting up the front steps and onto the porch, thoroughly pleased to see that both Bobby and I were out there today. I can see that this is a definite problem, and needs to be solved; but I feel sorry for poor old Gator, who is just trying to be social, and maybe get a dog biscuit when he visits. The owner......not so much !
Update on the fencing situation at our house. The guy behind us with the dogs has moved out, and the new people are a family with several boys who run through the lot behind us, the neighbor yard beside us, and into our front yard sometimes. After the trees beside our house were cut down this spring by the owner of the house next to us , there is still a lot of log chunks lying next to the chain link fence between the neighbor house and ours. The kids from beside of us and the ones from behind us , climb up on the log piles and hang over our fence. While they are not an actual problem (and are really nice little kids) , we prefer to have privacy in the back yard, and especially when we are trying to relax outside in the pool. So..... Bobby has started a new project, and has been putting up a tall wooden privacy fence along the side of the house where the kids congregate. Once he is finished with that , we should have total privacy from the house next door, and they will have privacy from us. Since the chain link fence is staying up, and just has the wooden fence added on to it, we are going to plant blackberries along the inside of the fence , and the blackberry vines can grow along the chain link fencing, and hide that. Eventually (hopefully, anyway) we will have a tall privacy fence with a blackberry hedge on the inside. Then all we have to do is get to the berries before the birds and squirrels eat them. Here is how it is looking thus far, and you can see where the fence has yet to be finished. It will make a real difference !