Can people really be this lazy..ignorant?

[.22-10-45]

Winter of 2013-2014 was brutal..late winter ice storms/heavy rain thru Spring. I live on a hill so was really surprised when I couldn't mow an area of lawn as late as mid-July ground was so saturated...never had seen the like in the 30 years lived here. Started looking around...neighbor had what looked like a spring next to foundation..could hear sump pump start & see water welling up and over his yard..which was flooded with stagnant water. Showed him problem & explained how he was flooding my yard..He tried to argue it was normal due to heavy rains.I told him it wasn't doing his basement block walls any good..and definately NOT normal! I finally had to contact TWP. before any action was taken..nearly into Sept! Well, this year hasn't been too wet..but we had a doozy first of week..my sump pump was running pretty hard when I got home from work..took a look around house and same spot of lawn had quite a bit of water standing (we had landscaped a swale draining out to ditch last fall) swale was full. I checked his sump outlet in ditch..plugged solid with last years leaves where they had raked and left them...Yup..another flowing "spring" right next to his foundation! Contacted him next morning..he again wanted to argue saying it was normal due to heavy rain! Told him if that water surging up & down washed the backfill from his block walls it would make that leaking sump line look like childs play..he thanked me and said he would get right on it..well nothing so far. The swale drained all the water by next day..but heavy rains can come... especially in fall..and I sure don't want my pump having to push his water out as well. I figure I'll wait a few weeks and if nothing..contact the TWP. They come right out if theres a complaint. But what boggles my mind is how can someone sleep knowing their pumping the same water in and out..and probably washing away..or at least fully saturating their backfill! I guess when his basement wall caves in it will get his attention!

[GoodOlBoy]

Dunno what a backfill, or a sump pump is. Here our water table is at around 4' or so unless we are in a drought so there are no basements. We are also technically below sea level, but we are at least out of the 100 year flood plain for the neches river... Sounds bad though. Hope whatever a TWP is they get the guy straightened out for you.

GoodOlBoy

[Plate plinker]

Seems as if he is stuck on stupid.

[BrassMagnet]

Seems as if he is stuck on stupid.


Or too lazy to care until it actually collapses, and then he will want your help to fix it.

[Wayne Smith]

No, then he will make a claim to his insurance to fix it. Until then, it's up to him.

[oneokie]

Dunno what a backfill, or a sump pump is. Here our water table is at around 4' or so unless we are in a drought so there are no basements. We are also technically below sea level, but we are at least out of the 100 year flood plain for the neches river... Sounds bad though. Hope whatever a TWP is they get the guy straightened out for you.

GoodOlBoy
Swag,,,,,,TWP=Township..... Another layer of .gov bureaucracy.

[mold maker]

Not everyone has the capacity to understand a problem before it smacks them in the face. Then it's "Oh woe is me, what will I ever do".
Builders get away with, leaving unsuspecting owners, with potential problems, and are nowhere to be found.
Here, building inspectors are the only defense, but are woefully ignorant of many such problems, and can be beholding to the builders, not the potential owner.
Sometimes there are problems that no code covers, so the inspectors are left to make blind decisions.
The old saying "Buyer be Ware" is in play here.

[knfmn]

People really suck to deal with. Thank your lucky stars that you don't have an HOA or condo association to deal with. My wife and I currently live in a condo complex and spend half our time gritting our teeth over the neighbors. The dumb stuff that people pull staggers me.

[WILCO]

The dumb stuff that people pull staggers me.

How about a story or two?

[white eagle]

My BIL is like that
he will acknowledge the problem but does not have the faculties to make a repair
basically mechanically inept.
Might be your neighbor is aware of the problem but just does not know how to remedy
the the reoccurred water problem.

[knfmn]

How about a story or two?
Most of mine have to do with the "maintenance" guys who do the work around the property. It's like watching a 3 stooges film. One of my favorites was when they put up a new privacy fence near our back yard. It was up for a month or so and then I was near it and happened to brush up against it. The entire center panel fell out. I scratched my head and took a look at the panel and realized they had attached it to the uprights with nails that were so short they only had about 1/16" actually sticking into the uprights. There are people who can't be bothered to clean up after their dogs after they let them roam freely on the property. Mr. Carpenter a couple of units down who loves dragging his table saw out and getting started at 7am on Sunday mornings. The latest was the woman who came over to visit a neighbor of ours and parked her car exactly centered across the end of our driveway. It literally made a T out of our driveway. She couldn't figure out why I was furious when I went over to tell her to move.

[JonB_in_Glencoe]

snip...
But what boggles my mind is how can someone sleep knowing their pumping the same water in and out..and probably washing away..or at least fully saturating their backfill! I guess when his basement wall caves in it will get his attention!
His electric rate must be cheap ? lol :veryconfu

[.22-10-45]

When I last contacted the township, they came out & inspected and told him it was a code violation..that same day I heard him yelling on phone " I got to..I got to fix it!" next day a plumbing company came out and repaired line. Last time I spoke to him..I suggested he call that company to find out if work done was still under warranty. But I still believe that until TWP. serves him with violation papers..he will do nothing.

[MaryB]

Glad I live on high ground! Water table here is 40 or 50 feet and that is minimal.

[Frank46]

I have a bayou fronting the back section of my property and with the rains we have been getting it isn't unusual to see the overflow by as much as 40 feet. I'm a good 850 feet from the bayou and there is a section that slopes down towards the bayou. It would have to be the second coming to get anywhere my house. New guy buys the property next to me. Had his land lazer surveyed and right now where he has his fun house there is close to 8 feet difference between him and me. His is the lower of the two. We met one day and I told him if he puts a house anywhere near the bayou then I showed him the high water mark on one of the pecan tree. So what does he do?, puts his house about 30 feet from the bayou and on the top of a rise he had built for the house. Last rash of storms had water right up to his front door. He spent $250,000 for a prefabricated concrete fence all around his property and big iron gates. You just can't fix stupid. Frank

[blackthorn]

Well---years ago I worked the graveyard shift. Got home one morning at 8:30 AM and there was a car parked inside my fenced yard, right up against the wood shed. Wife said the guy opened the gate, drove up to the shed and went to jump the fence to go into the neighbors yard/house. She yelled at him and told him to move out of there and he basically ignored her. I went next door and told him to get his car out of my yard and he got real snotty. I gave him 5 minutes to move and he said "or what?" I went home, waited 5 minutes and then drove my car right up against his back bumper, went in the house and went to bed. About a half hour later he knocked on the door and demanded my car be moved so he could get out. Wife said I was asleep, she did not drive and he could come pick up his car after I got up at 5 PM. She also told him that he was welcome to call the cops if he wanted but that would result in me laying a trespass charge against him and that when he came back we would expect an apology, respectfully given. Sure was a different attitude when he came back after 5 PM!!

[Char-Gar]

We have no basements, backfill and sump pumps in my part of the world, but we do have lots of stupid ignorant people.

[Echo]

Remember Sanford's Axiom - "Half the people in the world are below average in intelligence".

[TXGunNut]

I have very little experience with below-grade construction but all the rain this year has made it interesting, to say the least. I suspect it will take a basement wall repair bill to get this guy's attention. A good segment of our economy is supported by folks that are too lazy, stupid or ignorant to take care of what they have.

[mold maker]

Likely the product of college educated idiots. Brilliant in one field while totally lacking in common sense, and life experience.
You have to look at where many college professors were taught. They are only capable of passing it on.

[MaryB]

I used to get to train kids right of of tech school when I worked at the casino. Electronics technicians supposedly... had one come to me one day and ask me what kind of a screw is this as he pointed at a philips on the back of a monitor chassis... yeah he didn't last long. 40% of being an electronics technician is mechanical aptitude! Simple stuff should be known, if it was some odd duck security screw I could have seen the question. And he wasn't the only one who had zero common sense... like the guy who asked "what is that wire on the top of the picture tube as he sticks a finger into 40,000 volts! Monitor was running... common sense...

[dtknowles]

Likely the product of college educated idiots. Brilliant in one field while totally lacking in common sense, and life experience.
You have to look at where many college professors were taught. They are only capable of passing it on.

Generally collage professors are PHD's, I am talking about the professors not the grad students who might teach some less challenging courses. To receive a PHD it is typical that you have to do some research and create new knowledge. Yes, some professors are lacking in common sense and people skills but it is not the norm, just a stereotype propagated by the media. No, I don't have a PHD, I don't even have a Masters degree. The research I did and do was independent of any University so educational credit was not earned. When I have collaborated with University and Government research agencies I have worked with many PHD's who were very practical and socially proper. Now understand that the PHD's I worked with were engineers and scientists can't really talk about those from the Arts and Literature.

Tim

[Nicholas]

Likely the product of college educated idiots. Brilliant in one field while totally lacking in common sense, and life experience.
You have to look at where many college professors were taught. They are only capable of passing it on.

I take exception to this comment. It smacks of the b word, bias, to be polite. If we all knew and did the same stuff, it would be a primitive civilization. My college professors in the vast majority were competent individuals. My PhD in Geology wasn't a walk in the park, involving 6 years of post graduate studies. I became a professor and continued to learn throughout my career. Our majors have done well in the field. I readily admit that there are vast stores of knowledge and skills that I do not have; that is a hallmark of having an education. However, my education has enabled me to have the financial security to mitigate these deficiencies and to partake in other interesting areas.

As an intellectual activity, survey the immediate surroundings. Geologists played a part in developing most of it. Not many people understand or even think about the processes involved. And they generally do not need to in a diverse and successful society. The sump pump fiasco is an exception, of course. Ignoring high water marks in the bayou, even more so.

[Char-Gar]

Advanced degrees does not make you either intelligent or impracticable. You brings those things to school with you. Advanced degrees do give you advanced knowledge and build skills in research. Nobody is transformed into something they are were not by the process.

Idiots are idiots and educated idiots were idiots before they were educated.

There are plenty of highly intelligent and successful people without degrees advanced or otherwise. Although myself, wife and children all have advanced degrees, I am not an educational snob. I have close friends all up and down the educational graph.

However, I have noticed that those who are the quickest to ridicule the utility of higher education are those who don't have any.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

Quite by chance I once met an electrical engineer. He was also a very good machinist. The man not only had the degrees but he could do the job. I am no stranger to electronics myself. I spent over 37 years building telephone central offices, both electro mechanical and solid state computer controlled. I was changing the control switch on my lathe one day and I just couldn't make it work. It was one of those jobs with about seven contacts stacked one above the other. I took the switch to the engineer and he quickly pointed out what I was doing wrong. It was so obvious I felt like a fool for not seeing the problem. I had overlooked common wiring. Sometimes we can't see the forest for the trees. You can never get too much education. I do think that many young people are getting degrees in fields for which there are no jobs. What a shame.

[mold maker]

It appears what I said was painting with too broad a brush. I had no intention to infer that all who were educated were idiots. Only that some I had direct experience with, were.
One at 34 was still in school on someone else's dime. He lost his first job in less than a year as city manager in a town of <6000. Another was a history encyclopedia but planted grass like corn, in neat little rows.
One of my professors may have been a genus, but couldn't teach Willy how to wet his pants.
Education is only valuable if put to use. Otherwise it is only a reference point.

[GOPHER SLAYER]

mold maker, I know exactly how you feel and what you mean. Far too many collage classrooms have been taken over by left wing ding bats who are determined to fill every students head with the same socialist nonsense that they believe and any opposing idea is crushed. Can you imagine that Bill Ayers was in the weather underground and even drove the getaway car in a bank robbery and retired after teaching collage in Chicago for many years. I saw him being interviewed on the Kelly File and it was obvious the mans head was as empty as my wallet. In my previous post I said students entering collage should chose a major that could help them find gainful employment when they graduate. A degree in ethnic studies will not do it.

[leeggen]

Man why are you worried what happens to the neighbors house as long as it doesn't effect you? You suggested to him and he didn't listen so "OH WELL", He is on his own. He is an adult that doesn't care about his place. You can only suggest and not order neighbors to do things right. Take care of yours and all will be fine.
CD

[dkf]

Man why are you worried what happens to the neighbors house as long as it doesn't effect you? You suggested to him and he didn't listen so "OH WELL", He is on his own. He is an adult that doesn't care about his place. You can only suggest and not order neighbors to do things right. Take care of yours and all will be fine.
CD

It is common these days. Someone sees something a neighbor is doing that they don't like (regardless if legal, illegal, violation or no violation) will go crying to the nearest government agency to get them out to "fix" it.(god forbid they work it out amongst themselves) Even call the cops if need be. Often times these same people will then complain about why their taxes are so high, why government is always sticking their nose in everything, how the HOA is out of their mind and etc. It is part of the reason we have such a massive amount of crippling rules, regulations, zoning and etc.... To the point it is crippling our country.

[MaryB]

Zoning where I live is marginally enforced. Get a building permit, standard inspections of course but beyond that they don't have a fit if you build a storage shed etc. I built my deck without a permit for example.

And yes to many kids are getting worthless liberal arts degrees that are good for flipping burgers. More need to do 2 year tech schools and get this country back on a stable footing where we have those who do the manual things so many look down on.

I was self taught in electronics(plus 3 years of High school electronics where I pretty much did my own thing and the teacher shook his head and didn't have a clue.He was from the tube era and I was using IC's) and went into electronic repair right out of high school. Many looked down on me because I did not have a degree and got my hands dirty. At least until their stuff broke and I fixed it for them!

[Wayne Smith]

Around here there is no slope. Consequently all of our sewers are pumped pressure mains. Our son, with his degree in Mechanical Engineering, had a job with the state evaluating building plans. He told us of one plan for an apartment building that had the sewage pumps installed backwards! These are from Engineers and Architects with degrees.

[Edward]

Every one lives above or below someone and most states that I worked in ,(on the east coast anyways)have ruled that it"s permissable to pipe your drainage to your property line and it is up to the person below to pipe the drainage thru their property line . Every one lives downhill from someone and you by law cannot block that drainage ,just carry it thru. If you live in a low area , water has to be pumped uphill ( your living in a bowl) ,in other words gravity says you will be circulating your drainage , That is a fact !

[6mm win lee]

I used to get to train kids right of of tech school when I worked at the casino. Electronics technicians supposedly... had one come to me one day and ask me what kind of a screw is this as he pointed at a philips on the back of a monitor chassis... yeah he didn't last long. 40% of being an electronics technician is mechanical aptitude! Simple stuff should be known, if it was some odd duck security screw I could have seen the question. And he wasn't the only one who had zero common sense... like the guy who asked "what is that wire on the top of the picture tube as he sticks a finger into 40,000 volts! Monitor was running... common sense...

I've run into a couple of that type. I learned one thing over the years. Never help anyone who is supposed to have a certain background or experience level as myself. Young guy straight out of high school who wants to learn? No problem. Old guy, my age, who supposedly has the same background but does not know basic electronics troubleshooting? Go to *%^.

[.22-10-45]

"Man why are you what happens to to the neighbors house as long as it doesn't effect you?" The fact is it does effect me..his leaking sump line is causing water to pool in my yard. All homes along road run s.p. lines out to ditch..county re-graded ditches 2 years ago to insure proper drainage. Township code violation..remember..this same problem happened 1 year ago & Township forced him to repair line..I guess some people are just hard headed.

[ascast]

"pumps installed backwards! These are from Engineers and Architects with degrees." I'd be willing to bet they were not installed by Engineers or Architects. Most likely somebody's nephew or girl friends kid, or some other MOB candidate.