Joining house problems...

Slackbladder07

Hi Guys,
So I bought a house 2 and a half years ago, and the neighbour hasn't always been the tidiest but it's now got to a point where the garden is so overgrown that a greenhouse that's down the back of their garden is completely over grown. She lets her dogs out into the garden and let them fowl everywhere and doesn't clean it up. I'm convinced the mice I'm getting in the house (I've caught 5 so far) are coming in from her back garden)

The house, which is attached to mine is also falling into disrepair. The outer coating of the wall and paint is falling away, a gutter is starting to collapse, and on the exposed end of her house theres bricks completely missing from the middle of the wall.

I'm a bit at my whits end about whether I should do/say anything, we've softly softly discussed things generally about the state of her house but since she's lost her husband the house has just fallen completely into disrepair, and her son who lives with her clearly doesn't lift a finger to do anything around the house.

I do have pictures but as I'm relatively new to the forum I can't post links yet

Any suggestions about what rights or anything that can be done about this?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Davesnave

You don't have any rights to interfere with the way others live, so long as it's not materially affecting you.

So, for example, if you shared a chimney that was falling down, or suffered due to that gutter that has failed, you'd have cause to be involved with the disrepair in an active way.

As it is, you may only be able to look on until a defect affects your house too. Even then, if the neighbours are uncooperative, it may be difficult to arrange repairs or payment for the same. If that does happen, your insurers may be able to assist, especially if you have legal cover in place.

Similarly, unless Environmental Health consider the garden to be a hazard, they will not be minded to take action. While it may be unkempt and full of weeds, many people in the countryside live next to that sort of land.

If mice are coming into your house, it's more likely to be directly from next door than from outdoors at this time of year.