Neighbour sandblasted house, left sand all over my car etc..

jasper27

Hi
I'm posting this for a friend of mine, basically the property next door is empty but the owner has had some workmen round today and sandblasted it (I think it's made of Yorkshire stone).

They never put any screening up and my friend arrived home from work to find his garden/window/guttering etc covered in sand.

Also his car which was parked in his back yard is also covered in sand, the channel at the bottom of the windscreen is full. They had also been in his yard and moved things to get better access and left his double gates open.

Also the other neighbour who is a childminder had a houseful of children, he apparently went round to tell her they would be starting the work in the next half hour so she had to take the children out for the day, and remove all the toys from the back garden because of the noise and the sand.

What rights does my friend have? He hardly sees the neighbour as he doesn't actually live there and nobody knows the name of the workmen who did the sandblasting.

Thank you.

I_have_spoken

What rights does my friend have?

Could report to the bizzies for criminal damage and trespass.

More realistically tot up the costs of clearing house/car of grit and repairing paintwork, then send bill to neighbour.

somethingcorporate

Is there any actual damage?

This one may just not be worth prusuing if you want to retain reasonable relations with the neighbour. I agree they've been totally inconsiderate but any dispute will need to be declared if you ever want to sell the property and if there is no real harm aside from a bit of sand on the car etc then probably just best to clean it and get on with your life.

evoke

This would be very annoying. Sand has a habit of getting into every nook and cranny. Enough of it at the bottom of the windscreen could actually cause problems with your car. What happens when you operate the wipers and your windscreen gets scratched because of bits of sand that are swept up by the wipers? You could also get air intake problems for the aircon, for example.

Then there's the house itself - the sand will linger all over the house and the garden for months.

The workmen should have put up screens.

I would definitely mention it to the neighbour, perhaps asking if they've had a load of sand delivered or something similar recently. They'll admit to the sandblasting and you could just say that explains the sand on the car and the garden, and then see what they say.

Who knows, they may feel guilty and offer to have the car valeted and the garden swept?

Personally I would be horrified if workmen came to my house and then proceeded to deposit sand over my neighbours property and cars. I'd immediately put things right and then make sure the workmen were questioned about it.

At the very least the neighbour who had the work done should offer to have the car valeted and the guttering cleaned out.

jasper27

Thanks for all your replies...

I agree that the sand will most likely cause some damage especially to the car.

I will pass on all your comments, I've already told him to take some photos and he was going to wash the car down tonight, so that it doesn't cause any further damage.

I'm not sure if there is any actual damage as such, but it's possible it could cause some internal damage.

He was on about writing a letter and putting it through the letter box, not quite sure of the content, but I think the neighbour definitely needs to know it's not fair what's happened.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

maybe the neighbour is not aware of how the workmen tackled the job.

He may think that house was screened off, but workmen did a 'quickie' as he wasn't there to supervise.

So maybe he would be interested to know how the job was done.

maninthestreet

Are you sure it was sand? According to the link below, sand is banned as an abrasive:

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/guidance/wl20.pdf

jasper27

maninthestreet wrote: »

Are you sure it was sand? According to the link below, sand is banned as an abrasive:

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/guidance/wl20.pdf

Ahhh right... I'm not sure what they used, but the buildings are made of sandstone bricks, so some of that must have been blasted away..?!


Spoke to my friend today and he's decided that with all the heavy rain we're having today there'll be very little evidence left now and as he very rarely see's his neighbour, he is just going to leave it this time.

I'm a bit miffed as I would've definitely persued it, but I respect his choice.

Thanks for all your comments everyone, much appreciated.

DigForVictory

When this happened when our house was cleaned, the neighbours were onto me as soon as I'd parked my car & I was onto the builders one minute later. They came the next morning to clean up & make their apologies.
Polite clear words, in person, as soon as possible. Give the builders a chance to make such reparations as they deem fit.

Gloomendoom

Sand or not, they will have had to have used some equally abrasive grit.

NVRAM

If all it took was a bit rain to fix it I think someone was overreacting somewhat