putting in a privacy fence when the house next door is overgrown

[PrincessMommy]

Help me think out loud.

We've been fighting a losing battle against overgrown weeds and vines on our back property line.  Both the house behind us and the previous owner of our house just let it go to seed.   I want to put in a privacy fence for several reasons.  I've been trying my hardest to keep the weeds and vines at bay, but once summer hit I just couldn't tackle it anymore.   Once again the weight of vines and weeds have pulled down the rusting old wire mesh fence and the dog was getting out.  The house behind us is on a main road, so I want the dog to be safe. 

My plan is/was to take out the wire mesh fence, clean up all the vines/weeds on our side and put in a 6 foot privacy fence.  But, now I'm realizing that I can't just go up to the edge of our property line because of the tangle of weeds and vines on both sides.   If I put up a privacy fence and the neighbors just continue as usual, won't that ruin my fence?  

Oh, the neighbors behind us are renters.  I hear the owner sometimes sleeps over there in the room above the garage.  I don't know what's going on really.  It's pretty run down house, with lots of items all over the yard (from old chairs and lawn furniture to big tractors)  There's about 4-5 college-aged men with just about as many dogs.  

Has anyone had a privacy fence where the adjoining property was not kept up?  

Edited September 30, 2018 by PrincessMommy

[PrincessMommy]

That is one possibility I have considered.  It would work okay, except for the hassle factor (getting around to that part of the property.).  

[Valley Girl]

Can you put a gate in the fence that locks on your side but will allow you to access the other side for mowing? That's assuming the owner of the property on the other side is OK with your coming into his/her yard to do so.

[PrincessMommy]

That's a good idea about the gate.  The thing is the vines are all the way up in trees and pulling them down.  It's not just weeds and overgrown grass. 

This somewhat of an exaggeration, but something similar to this problem.  Mine's not all kudzo  but it's also there. 

https://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/invasive-plant-swallowing-us-rate-50000-baseball-fields-year.html

 

 

Edited September 30, 2018 by PrincessMommy

[Selkie]

Could you strip out the dirt along the fence line in a swath that is several feet wide and replace it with gravel? That would stop or slow down the rate of weeds taking root along the fence.

[TechWife]

I think the new fence would eventually be ruined as well unless you keep the vines off of it.

I'm battling vines from two neighbor's houses right now and it's awful. You have my sympathy.

[SamanthaCarter]

We had similar conditions with our next door neighbor when we rented. She was single with a teen girl, worked full time. She only mowed to middle of the backyard, which hadn’t filled in with the brush, vines and trees. I couldn’t put in privacy fence since the house wasn’t mine, but I was brutal and the neighbor didn’t mind. I cut off all the viney tree branches that bent over my yard and when I cleared off the chain link, I went inside her yard cutting back a foot or so away and spraying poison ivy. That was usually good for the summer. I would have loved a privacy fence. 

Edited September 30, 2018 by SamanthaCarter

[displace]

Only one caution about fence off of property lines by a couple feet: if they eventually install their own fence on their property line, you will have a weird space between fences.  

It can happen ?

[KungFuPanda]

I spent the day battling English Ivy on my fence. I had to go in my neighbors yard to get to some of it, but we get along and nobody cares. I think it could get bad quickly if it’s out of sight. If you’re going to protect your new fence, you may need to put it a few feet into your property and keep a strip between you and the neighbors that you can maintain. You probably want to as wide as your mower. The gate idea was a good one. 

We’ve been ignoring the ivy for 15 years. Now that I’m interested in gardening, I’m battling it a little bit at a time. I mowed it down, pulled out the exposed vines with my hands (they do NOT go in my compost) and I put down heavy black plastic. Hopefully by spring that area will have cooked enough to be inhospitable to ivy. I’ve torn it out in other areas and maintaining the perimeter isn’t as hard as the initial removal; it’s just constant. Honestly, poison ivy is MUCH easier to get rid of, but you have to be careful to protect yourself. 

I feel your overgrown landscaping pain. 

[scbusf]

Similar situation here, but not quite as extreme. Our next door neighbors don't keep up their property or house. In the 12 years we have lived in this house, those neighbors have mowed their backyard less than 5 times. They have old cars back there, a shed that's literally in pieces. 

We have a wood privacy fence and it's been fine. Yes, some vines and weeds grow through the slats, but we keep our yard pretty nice, so it's not too much work to deal with it each week.

[Katy]

A privacy fence seems like an expensive solution when you could start by knocking on their front door and asking if they mind you spraying the fence with vine killer. That's what we did when we got what I thought were chiggers but turned out to be deer ticks (and Lyme disease) working in our yard near a Virginia creeper covered fence that we shared with a neighbor.  They didn't mind at all, and actually helped us get the vine down.  We became friends after that.

The part of me that cared about keeping my lawn organic died the day multiple bullseye rashes appeared.

[kiwik]

I have the other side.  My new neighbours would like me to get rid of the trampoline and swing because they are untidy.

[KungFuPanda]

38 minutes ago, kiwik said:

I have the other side.  My new neighbours would like me to get rid of the trampoline and swing because they are untidy.

WTF?!?? What would look “tidy?” No evidence of children?

[J-rap]

Can you keep up the wire fence, then build your privacy fence maybe 6 inches inside of that?  In the area in-between, can you lay stones?

[mom@shiloh]

9 hours ago, texasmom33 said:

Just a side note- Boiling water kills weeds. And anything else it touches. If you have an outdoor cooker and a big crawfish boiling pot or something (excuse me if my southern is showing by assuming people everywhere have those!) you can boil the water pretty fast and have it close to where you need to pour it. I don't know if that will beautify the area as you want, but it will definitely take out the growth for the foreseeable future. 

I've tried "natural" weed killers such as this, and they only seem to work for a short while.  They kill the weed that's there, but I need to do it again in a couple of weeks.  In addition to the boiling water one, I've used this:  one gallon white vinegar, two cups  Epsom salts (some people just use table salt and say it works fine) and 1/4 cup of Dawn dish soap. Put it in a pressure sprayer and spray. Most weeds will die in a few hours, but some of the bigger, tougher weeds, such as thistles might need to be sprayed again. Apparently, if you do this often enough, the vinegar kills anything that's there and the salt leaches into the soil and makes it sterile over time. I've done it around the perimeter of my garden at least six times though, and the weeds still come back. 

[PrincessMommy]

13 hours ago, Katy said:

A privacy fence seems like an expensive solution when you could start by knocking on their front door and asking if they mind you spraying the fence with vine killer. That's what we did when we got what I thought were chiggers but turned out to be deer ticks (and Lyme disease) working in our yard near a Virginia creeper covered fence that we shared with a neighbor.  They didn't mind at all, and actually helped us get the vine down.  We became friends after that.

The part of me that cared about keeping my lawn organic died the day multiple bullseye rashes appeared.

The privacy fence is so we can't hear/see the main road.  It's not just because of the neighbors.  We actually cant see much of their property because of the vines hanging down from the trees.  ? 

[PrincessMommy]

14 hours ago, Katy said:

A privacy fence seems like an expensive solution when you could start by knocking on their front door and asking if they mind you spraying the fence with vine killer. That's what we did when we got what I thought were chiggers but turned out to be deer ticks (and Lyme disease) working in our yard near a Virginia creeper covered fence that we shared with a neighbor.  They didn't mind at all, and actually helped us get the vine down.  We became friends after that.

The part of me that cared about keeping my lawn organic died the day multiple bullseye rashes appeared.

I used this in early spring  and a few days later started pulling and chopping.  I did it again sometime in May. 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D0JHB5K/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

It worked, but didn't exactly kill to the root because it's all come back.   We also had a very rainy spring/summer.   I read in one of the reviews that it's best to do it toward the end of the season (now).    I'll be doing it again in the next week.. and then once it dies (again) I'll start pulling.  It's hard to get the stuff that is all the way up in trees down though. 

edited to add: yes, I did actually spray over into the neighbor's property.  

Edited October 1, 2018 by PrincessMommy

[May]

I feel you pain:( Our neighbor’s fence is falling down. We have planted shrubs and other tall things to try and block the view. We may be selling next summer and I hope it’s not an issue.

[Amy in NH]

On 9/30/2018 at 8:06 PM, texasmom33 said:

I would see about fencing slightly inside the property line- make sure you have a survey before you put in the fence. If you get the fence put in, they're/you're going to have to clear it to get the fence installed anyway. After it's up, what I would suggest is getting some bales of hay and laying the hay along the outer perimeter of the fence, then cover it with landscaping rock. That will help keep anything from easily growing over it. Depending on how far you set your fence back, I'd shoot for a two-foot wide rock perimeter, and then you can trench the ground in front of the rocks with a heavy duty weed eater. Does that make sense? It will give you a defined line for later up-keep. Don't trench under your fence or your dogs will get out. After you have the rocks in, you should just need to spray with Round-Up or a similar type of weed killer periodically and it *should* keep the vines/weeds away. Overgrowth is hell on a fence- if you can't keep it under control it will make it a bad investment because fencing is expensive. 

 

Hay will eventually compost down to dirt and become weed food.  I'd put down landscaping plastic, old carpet on top of that, and then the crushed stone.

[kiwik]

On 10/1/2018 at 5:36 PM, KungFuPanda said:

WTF?!?? What would look “tidy?” No evidence of children?

They are a lesbian couple with no children (unless they are adult) so maybe.