I've had a pretty restless night.

I could be heading for neighbour problems and I'm not sure how I approach it...
My right hand neighbour is taking the biscuit and I've now almost come to the stage of
ringing the housing association to complain...the only problem is that it may get tit for tat...and I have 5 dogs...
so you can imagine I'm keen to avoid any neighbour troubles..
When he first moved in it wasn't too bad...slowly now he's built a shed that takes up one third of his garden which isn't a problem
it's at least a foot away from my boundary fences, although the lady at the end of the terrace isn't happy as she can see it too...
Then he moved in a boat on a trailer. It's not a small boat and for the last two weeks it's been parked and goes over my back gate :(
I've asked him twice to move it forward (I think he takes advantage as we don't use the gate that often) it's longer than his allocated
parking space so goes over my path and accross my gate. So we'd have to struggle to get through the undergrwoth to try and reach
my gate plus hop over the things that stick out from the back of the boat.

Yesterday lunchtime was the 2nd time I asked him to move his boat forward (as we do want to get our aerial changed so the aerial man needs access to our back garden with ladders etc). Then when I get home from work yesterday he's building another frame in his garden. This time one side is fixed to my boundary fence :(  the other to his boundary fence and it looks like it will have an apex roof, where the water is going to run straight off into my garden and onto my fence :( This means he will only have 7ft of 34ft ish garden that isn't covered by buildings. The 7ft is a deck area.

I'm very unhappy about this new 'structure' being fixed to my fence (I know it's my fence as I've looked at my deeds), our property is partly owned by our housing association as I believe his is too. Now looking on their website it says he must get permissions to have commercial vehicles (he has a transit van along with a people carrier and his boat and he only has two allocated parking spaces so parks one vehicle in the visitors parking), boats, garden sheds etc and that he has to adhere to conditions for garden sheds. Now I'm quite sure he probably hasn't got the required permissions especially for the sheds (when we got permission for a 8x10 shed it had to be away from the boundary fence by at least a foot!).

Now what do I do? If I go to the housing association it could antagonise the neighbour to start complaining about my dogs, in the 10years I've been here
I've not had any complaints. I'm of the mind that as he's ignored my requests to move his boat forward so far, he won't listen about my request to move
the frame he has stapled to my fence at least a foot away from my boundary fence.

My dogs were getting pretty wound up yesterday with him and his friends attaching stuff to my fence. So we had to keep them in and as my living room backs on to the back garden. It did cause me to row with the OH who refused to tackle the neighbour about this 'structure' saying that I made all the decisions about the house...GRRRR and it was him that the neighbour asked about his boat and he promised not to park it over our gate!! And OH agreed ARRGGHH.
Give the neighbour an inch and he takes a mile it seems!!

What would you do???
I know the lady at the end would support me, my other n-d-n is a strange person, and has some horrid habits like peeing in his back garden.
Again I've not approached the housing association as I didn't want to antagonise the neighbour, but I do shout out everytime I hear him weeing
in the garden late at night :( yukky habit...and he's probably not all there due to alcohol if you get my drift.
I'm hyper careful about the dogs not causing a nuisance and the lady at the end says she knows they only bark when someone comes to the door(she has a small dog herself and has her noisy little grandson comes over during the days but once the dogs get used to him they don't bark in the garden.
They do bark at 'strange' noises they can hear until I tell them to be quiet. I've told her the grandson is fine and told her that I hope my dogs don't make a nuisance when they bark and she's said no she doesn't think they are a nuisance to me) My garden is fenced with 6ft high closeboard panels.
The new structure is higher by 3-4 inches, the apex bit is higher.

They can be a little noisy when playing in the garden but I bring them in quickly if I think it's too noisy.

Can you not just ask the housing people to come out for a visit, just a friendly house checking type of visit? That way they can see the problem for themselves, but you haven't actually complained. You could bring up your concerns then.

As to the parking problem, my neighbours were consistently parking across my driveway (don't know if yours is just a garden gate, or driveway gate) and we eventually fell out (again ;-) ) over it. I threatened them with the police next time they did it. They now park as close as they can, but without actually parking across. This makes it difficult sometimes to get out. Though it does tend to be more him than her that does it.

ETA: Isn't there a law that states that if you are going to cover a certain %age of yuor garden you need planning permission? Your local council office would be able to tell you.

I would go to the housing association, at the end of the day you are entitled to enjoy your home without someone that inconsiderate spoiling it for you. As for worrying about them complaining about your dogs, although I don't claim to know very much about it I would have thought if they complained about noise they would have to have some sort of proof?

I know how frustrating it is to have neighbours you don't get on with :-(

:-)

I've never had problems with him previously.

It's just since the boat has arrived that he seems to be slowly taking more and more advantage of our good nature.
We aren't people that like to cause a fuss over anything.

He's ordinarily very nice, no load music etc, his kids are only normally here at weekends and in the holidays.
They are normally well behaved only had a couple of times where they've kicked their ball over. But I have explained to them
that if they kick their balls over into the garden my dogs will pop them unless I get there first. They seem to understand this
and are normally really good about things. I used to tell my friends how lucky we are as it's normally so quiet and nice where
we live with good neghbours...erm perhaps I spoke to soon?

I just worry about approaching this new situation. As I said to OH if it was a temporary thing then no probs but it looks more
permanent. Plus he has a huge cedar tree in the garden and I worry if it's root system is covered by buildings it will weaken it.
My garden is down to shingle and patio, mainly shingle so it should get some moisture through my side..
The fact he hasn't moved his boat forward despite being asked twice to do so by myself gives me no confidence that if I approached
him re this structure that he would move it away from my fence.

I then worry if I have complained it will open the door and I'll get complained about re my dogs, catch 22..but to my knowledge I've
not been complained about before (never had letters etc) so hopefully the housing association would take that into consideration if they suddenly start getting
complaints from one person?

I think you are right he is taking advantage of your good nature so I think you may have to get HA involved. If you do and he suddenly starts to complain about dogs it's going to look a bit suspicious!!

Feel for you as it isn't nice to have issues with neighbours

Yes there is a law but it is for permanent structures - ie concrete garage's but a timber shed is not considered permenant.

This is something that happens often I have another case simular. Now if you have no clause that you cannot have dogs you are ok. Again you can have a letter from your neighbour (the nice one) to say your doggies are not noisey and one cancells the other one out!!  should your neighbour complain basically. Re parking, if there is a clause re commercial parking report it to your local parish council they can complain on your behalf for you!
(Im a p/t clerk have been for 23 years!! so i do the work for my parishioners when it could cause neighbourly issues.)
Re your gate ditto housing association can be approached to write to remind tenants of their obligations - a visit from one of them could be arranged, and photo's. I have photos on record from a person and I added them to my letter to HAssoc. It can be managed but I suspect as you are the NDN he will know its you behind it. The parish council is there to assist with things like this and they can write to your neighbour direct and ask him to be considerate and they can approach the mans (commercial) employer and state their vehicle is a nusciance.

You could ask the HA to come out to visit YOU, rather than the neighbour, that way you haven't actually complained, but they will be able to see the situation, and meet your lovely doggies at the same time.:-)

>Now what do I do? If I go to the housing association it could antagonise the neighbour to start complaining about my dogs, in the 10years I've been here I've not had any complaints. I'm of the mind that as he's ignored my requests to move his boat forward so far, he won't listen about my request to move the frame he has stapled to my fence at least a foot away from my boundary fence.

How many dogs are you allowed to have? I'm in a housing association house, we're  allowed 2 dogs.
If you are allowed 5 dogs then yes, complain all you like about him fixing stuff to the boundry fence & parking over your gate, but if you have more dogs than you are supposed to ,be very carefull about him complaining back - if you want to insist your neighbour sticks to the rules you must be sticking to them too.

OP is a part owner of the property so the number of dogs may be irrelevant

Just checked something and if your neighbour is storing commercial materials for his job, then he does require planning!! a quick phone call top your local District Council enforcement Officer will get them on site to check what he is up to.
BUT, they may wounder if you are operating a kennels with 5 dogs which is also commercial! I say IF 'cause I think 5 dogs is still not enough but some people do beg to differ!!!!

Thankfully it's turned out ok, the neighbour actually approached me this morning saying that the structure
is temporary (the frame has now just got tarpaulin over it). Also on returning from work this evening the boat has been moved from across my back gate.
To say that I'm releived is an understatement.

So I don't have to approach the HA.
My faith in my n-d-n has been restored :)

As a PS 2 of the 5 dogs are spayed already, 1 is due to be spayed (when she's midway between seasons - just finished one) the other two are pups.
But yes sometimes commonsense doesn't prevail and you do get labelled as something you aren't.

Thanks to all that suggested I am very grateful for your thoughts.
A much calmer Boxacrazy :) 

ah, glad you had an easy resolution :)

So am I - it's daft isn't it when you don't have much sleep you get really 'silly'
and can't see the logic nor common sense...

I've been so worried about this issue and feel so much happier.
As I say we've never really had any problems before (other than Mr Strange on the other side and we don't report him either
can't see the point as it's just him being drunk that causes the urination in his back garden and normally he's not too bad)

:)

Don't suppose any of this can be seen from the public highway can it?  If it can, then an anonymous passer by can call the council to inform them.  I think it would be a breach of planning if nothing else by sounds of things.

You've tried asking the guy nicely, you may have to get your other neighbour to do the dirty work for you if you think the guy's going to get nasty about the dogs.

As for the weeing in the garden, sadly you might have to put up with that one for a bit longer.  Or if you've got kids you can get them to embarrass the hell out of him by making one of their oh so timely & loud comments like my kids do ;-)  (sadly if it was my ds he would be joining in but then he's only 4!)

Glad its ok. If I get a problem I am ususlly wander around the house at 2am! You go through hell trying different conversations out in your mind. When you do broach a subject they say "O.K" and you wonder what on earth you were so worried about.
We have two dogs and Im itching to make it three, when I am at home full time it will be more!!