My House and I need to vent...

[IamBelle]

My neighbors behind me have this large trench that they own, but instead of filling it, they decided to clean it. They cleaned it by pulling out all of the weeds, that was okay. But, for the past 2 days, they were burning the whole trench to get rid of the other things growing in it! To make things worse they were burning on days that were very windy! The flame was very close to my fence and I was so afraid that it would go into my yard. The smoke was getting into my house with all the windows closed, so I went over to politely ask them to stop. When I asked them, they said "Why should you be complaining, the smoke isn't even going near your house?" I was surprised, because they are usually nice, but they were just plain rude. Now, when I am home, they don't burn, but yesterday, I left my house for 5 minutes to go to the store and when I came back, they were burning again!! UHHH, THIS IS SO DISGUSTING!!

[laprana]

I totally understand where you're coming from! We have neighbors who are about 1 step below being pyromaniacs...they set everything on fire! Dead leaves, tree branches, entire trees they have chopped down from their yard, and they even try to burn fresh cut grass clippings (yeah, they're THAT smart!) And I am not kidding when I say that they go around to our other neighbors and collect their yard waste, bring it to their backyard and set it on fire. There have been several occasions when their fires have spread into our yard or when the wind kicks up and blows flaming embers or sticks up to our house. It gets really dangerous because once they set their fire, they don't monitor it at all, and sometimes they leave their house all together! :mad: Meanwhile, our house fills up with smoke and we feel like we can't leave in case their fire gets out of control! It's so frustrating! We've asked them many times to keep their burning more contained and to monitor their fires, but it hasn't done any good. A few times, they've let their fires burn and smolder for days, and we've even gone so far as to take our hose and douse their fires ourselves. Does your town or municipality have any ordinances on burning? That might be something to check out if the problem continues. I'm really sorry you have to deal with this and hope it gets resolved soon!! :pixie:

[Gooftroop5]

You can call the local fire department especially if they are not watching it. Right now in NYS they are is a no burn warning for some counties & no uncontained fires. It is really dry here. We can't burn where we live cause there is no open fire law. We can use an enclosed fireplace which we do but what your neighbor is doing would be illegal here. They enforce it too.

My parents live in the country & they can burn but can get in trouble & fined -the fines are the cost of the fire department to respond that can add up- if they don't alert the fire department for larger burns. A burn barrel they are ok burning in. (my dad is an assistant fire chief) When we rented near our parents our neighbors managed to catch the corn field behind us on fire while we were away on vacay. That was scary to find out that the place we were living could've gone up in flames. Of course even worse when the farmer came & chewed me out. He got an earful back don't mess with a very tired 7 moth pregnant woman.

Anyways I would check local laws & if you are really concerned that your fence will catch on fire then call the police or firedepartment. They will force him to stop. Even if he is allowed to burn I'm sure though he has to be a certain distance away from a structure. Good luck!!!!

[gardenia]

In my city, and many others, it's completely ILLEGAL to start a fire on your property at any time! It happened once with contractors working on a house down the street from us, who decided they would burn some scrap wood instead of hauling it to the dump. I called the fire department because of the smoke and the proximity to other homes, and they came and put it out and warned the firebugs not to do this, within about 5 minutes.