I'm wondering where we stand with an uphill neighbour who's been renovating next to our IP for three years and who has no stormwater in place. Stormwater flows everywhere, makes the small patch of grass between the driveways soggy, and that creates a slow release of water (and slime) over our driveway. Our tenant has slipped once, reported it to the PM. We cleaned the slime, using the uphill neighbour's power and water (probably about $1 worth), but he's since refused to allow me to do it a second time without calling him first, and won't give me his number. Neighbour says this issue will be gone once he finishes his own driveway and directs his stormwater elsewhere, but this could take many months, as he seems to be renovating only on weekends. I've photographed and documented before and after both cleaning jobs. Uphill neighbour knows that our tenant has slipped. I prefer not to have to ask our tenant for use of her power and water every few weeks to clean up something that we believe should be addressed by the neighbour causing the issue. We removed some grass close to the fence line and replaced it with gravel and could replace the rest of the grass with gravel, but we don't want to do something that might cause someone to slip on slimy gravel or uneven ground (on council's footpath). We've tried to play nice. No response. Would BCC get involved in this?
Council will direct them to prevent water from leaving their property - straw bales, sand bags, gravity retaining wall etc.
Suggest you contact council. You cannot do much about rain that falls on someone’s yard then comes on to your property (water flows downhill), but stormwater (from down pipes or roof runoff) cannot legally be directed to a neighbouring property.
We have someone working on this for us. We want to stay out of this due to the uncooperative neighbour and not feeling good about "poking the bear". Council has to come out to look at something else very soon, and the issue will be raised at that time. Meanwhile I googled "pressure wash Brisbane" today and called a local guy to see if he could pressure wash it without having to use our tenant's power or water. He called around, cleaned it while he was there, said we need chlorine before pressure washing it to keep the slime factor down. He gave me a price to do this as it needs doing, to save us carting our own pressure washer over. We would have to arrange water with our tenant (assume the neighbour is not going to allow us to use his water) but that should be ok, as we will send a gift box or box of wine to the tenant. I know this is not our problem to fix, but we've already had someone slip on this, and we need to protect our backsides. The pressure washer business is Mount Gravatt Pressure Cleaning and I wanted to recommend David for the help he gave us today. We will get him to do some work for us as our houses and/or driveways need cleaning. Mount Gravatt Pressure Cleaning
I think I'd be a poking the bear, to be honest. Notify Council, and if that doesn't do any good I'd be sending him a nicely worded letter from a lawyer, stating that should the tenant hurt themselves, they will have a claim against him.
I think you're wasting your time with council as they specifically say they don't get involved with neighbour stormwater disputes.. Stormwater pollution, runoff and drainage complaints I would; Get a letter drafter from a lawyer to put them on notice regarding risk of injury to you tenant. Install a temporary spoon drain adjacent to the driveway and include in the quote removal of spoon drain, then have the driveway cleaned. Take all invoices to the small claims tribunal. Document as much stuff along the way like your tenant's record of a fall and have lots of photos.
Thanks for the ideas. I've sent a link to this thread to the people looking into this for us and will see what comes of it. I'll report back.
