Hi,
In the previous post, I covered some of the background about why the land is eroding under all of the back fences on my side of our cul-de-sac. This post is about what I went through to try to fix the problem permanently.
In 2016, a year after we believe the ditch behind our fenceline was dug, we lost an eight-foot section of our (only-five-years-old at the time, but already outward-leaning) fence. It happened during a rainstorm. A crossbeam snapped, and that section just fell into the ditch. I asked our HOA if they would replace the section since it was a perimeter fence, and had to explain the meaning of a perimeter to them when they refused. After some back and forth and continued refusal to see my point of view, I hired a company to replace the section.
In June 2023, a major storm hit Houston. Some wind gusts approached 100 mph. There were power outages across the city and lots of downed trees (ours stayed upright, fortunately). A lot of homes in our neighborhood lost all or part of their fences. We lost one 8-foot section (a different section than before), but it could have been worse. The damage from this wasn’t related to the erosion, but having an already weakened and sagging fence probably didn’t help. I hired the same company to replace that section too.
A year or so later, nearly the whole back fence fell into the ditch. I tried to hire the same company again, and to do the side fences too. The sides were stable but were nearly 15 years old by then and were showing a lot of wear. When I applied to our HOA for permission (a requirement), they said that the fence had to be on the exact same line as all the other fences, and the slats had to be made from treated pine. That fence company only worked with cedar at that time, so I hired a new company, and they rebuilt all of our fences. I explained about the erosion, so they added a second rot board underneath to give the fence a more solid structure. It was better, but within a few months I saw the fence was leaning outward again by a few degrees. It wasn’t going to last very long.
After that storm is 2023, I started trying to find out who owned the ditch and who was responsible for digging it in the first place. I spoke with our HOA. They had no idea. I called all sorts of city and county offices and got nowhere. I spoke with the owner of the RV lot and the fire department that were behind our houses. No one seemed to know anything about the ditch’s origin or ownership. It seemed I was on my own.
When I applied to the HOA to have this fence rebuilt, I had also asked for permission to have five metal poles installed next to each of the wooden fence posts, thinking I could fasten the wooden posts to the poles for added stability. The HOA granted permission for that, but I didn’t have it done then. In early-August 2024, though, when I noticed the new fence leaning outward, I called the fence company and asked them to come install the metal poles. Their estimator said that putting them on the inside of the fence wouldn’t work. They would have to be installed on the ditch side, and at an angle (or the weight of the fence would just cause the poles to lean outward along with the fence). I agreed to have them do that. I had to do something.
Their installer arrived (August 18, 2024) to sink the poles. I went back inside to wait for a call from him so I could snake a water hose over the fence so he could mix the cement. Within a half hour he called, but not about the cement. He had just finished embedding three of the five poles in the dirt, and had attached each of them to their respective fence posts when an employee of the RV lot accosted him, saying he might as well stop installing the poles, because as soon as the installer was done, he would just rip them out with his Bobcat. The RV lot owner (his boss) owned the land behind our houses.
We said we would stop installing the posts if he would agree to not tear them down until I could get my HOA and his boss together to discuss what to do. A six-month or so negotiation between me, the HOA and the RV lot owner followed. Eventually the HOA agreed to pay for the cost of fixing the erosion problem (because it affected at least ten of the homes in the community), and the RV lot owner gave the HOA permission to create some sort of berm on his land, up against our fences, to secure the soil in our yards. The owner also said he didn’t dig the ditch, and (like me) hadn’t been able to find out who did.
The next part of this story consumed the rest of 2024, all of 2025, and (so far) the first half of 2026. I originally thought this was going to be a three-part set of posts, but I’m going to have to expand it to four. The next one will be about how I finally got my fence secured, and the last one will be about the ultimate solution to the erosion problem itself (if it’s been resolved by the time I post #4).
See you then,
Michael
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