Thank you for commenting. I had a camera inspection of the line and had at least 3 plumbers provide opinions. The first backup happened at the very end of the neighbor’s large construction project and the plumbers I consulted (some viewed the video — some did not) were all in agreement that is was certainly the construction that caused the back-up. The line is old, but the belly was new and there were some areas where the connection did not look right under my neighbors property that looked new. There ARE other issues with the sewer (roots, corrosion) that are probably more related to age and I was not asking the neighbor to address those immediately. I asked that they fix the damage caused by their construction and that we work on a plan to mutually address the issues with the age of the line. (Plumbers suggested a yearly maintenance plan for now that seemed very reasonable and seemed to be in both of our interests as it should prolong the amount of time between the immediate necessary fix and any other intervention).
I do not know for sure that the neighbor had the same issue as me. It would just fit with the timing and their pattern of evasion and lying over the past 2 years (I proactively shared info with them before I knew for sure that it was their construction that caused the issues because it is the right thing to do — I feel confident that most people would not want to put a neighbor through this even if their motivation was not to be a decent human and just to minimize the amount of exposure they would have).
I am sure you are right that they will try to blame me when we go to court. Fortunately, I saved every piece of documentation — their attempted encroachment (prior to plumbing issue), other damage and safety issues during construction, all of the plumbing issues and consultations with plumbers and of 7 months of ago — I had all of my interactions with plumbers looping them in. Including their lie to the last plumber that I had agreed to pay 75% for the back-up caused by them.
I know this probably seems impossible that a neighbor would be this nervy. I am still shocked that they would do this. Our proprieties are almost on top of each other. If I wanted to, I could make their lives very unpleasant, but I really don’t want to be like them.
I really hope that this is an unusual occurrence. They have been so awful, that I wanted to sell my home last year, but I couldn’t without taking a bit hit on price assuming someone would even want to buy my place with this issue. (I, for one, would not touch a property with this kind of issue).
