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southern MN | You'll have to read all of it....
Dad put the tile in in the 1950's, it was all on our property but 7-8 feet from the co road right of way - on our side, on our property.
1990's the county rebuilt the tar road, and claimed an additional 10 feet of right of way. Putting the tile line in the right of way. Dad mentioned that repeatedly, and was assured all was fine, county was ok with it and no need to replace, it will be fine and unharmed there.
Somewhere in the late 2000's the phone co ran a deep (4 foot vibratory I believe) fiber optic and shallower copper wire down the right of way. As the went by, I stopped and realized one of the workers was a long-lost gradeschool classmate of mine, didn't even know he was back in the area, moved away in 3rd grade. We chatted and I said there is a tile parrallelling the road 'over there' for 100's of feet, he said he'll find it and stay more in the middle of the road ditch away from it. It was harvest time, I even took a round of corn away so they could work easier on the side of the farm they were on, and we all went about outr merry way.
Was a dry period for several years, then we had a wet spring and summer. I had a tile blow out by the proerty line, water comes down from the neighbor steep hill and flattens on my property. Tile fellas were installing tile, so I had them repair the blowout. We wondered about it, but assumed the wet year, the steep grade, and there was a juntion of tile there, blew out through the small crack.
The following summer again it blew out, tile guys came for some ither work, and I mentioned that spot blew out again. Huh. They went to fix it again when I wasn't there, and felt something wasn't right, so walked down the tile line a ways. He almost fell in, found a cave in 200 feet away, with a copper wire in the middle of some concrete rubble....
I realized for 2 wet years now, I lost a lot of crop to wet roots, as the water was flowing into 5 acres of my property threough the tile, instead of draining away. And that year was setting up as potentially another wet one, so I wanted this fixed sooner rather than later. I had _just_ planted the field to corn, wasn't up yet.
We called the phone co, and the same classmate came out, worked on it a bit, said boy that's bad, guess the phone co will be giving you a new tile line. But - he's a flunky of course. I actually posted a pic of that on here back when it happened, prob still somewhere in the archives. (here it is: http://talk.newagtalk.com/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=168152&posts=2... )
I had to chase after the higher ups at the phone co, talked to someone on the phone, he was willing to give me the cost of 2 tile or some such if they crossed a tile line, when he got to undersdtanding the deal was the phone line is down the center of my tile line for many 100's of feet, he became very concerned - about himself. All he could stammer at me was that he couldn't autherize anything that cost that much, it would cost him his job, and he and himself and his job and blah blah blah. He never did address the problem, never concerned one bit that they damaged my property. Was all about him.
At that point I knew I was going to need friends, so I called the county - because the tile was on county right of way at this point - and they sent out 2 workers and had a real nice chat with them. They were very helpful. I aslo called my county commisioner, he looked at it and I believe he worked hard for me as things unfolded. I also called the president of the board of directors of the phone co, which is a distant neighbor of sorts, bit of a bto farmer around here so knows what tile is. The phone co pres seemed confused but was having a board mreeting that week and guessed they would look at it and it would work out fine.
The county sent me some paperwork a week later and assumed everything was going ok, from what the phone co told them?
I went in to the phone co with that paperrork, and asked to see the fella that was worried about his job (I didn't word it like that...). The receptionist (whom I knew, he used to work at the next door coop elevator) talked to him on the phone, I could tell it wasn't going well, and hung up, and said to me he didn't want to see me.
?????? I asked if there was anyone else to se eabout this, and he shrugged his shoulders.
So, I called the county engineer, we had a nice chat, and he was surprised things were not taken care of. He said the county will put a hold on all permits the phone co could pull in the county until this matter is straightened out. (Wow - I was impporessed - I knew that didn't give me a licence to be a jerk, but that is something that has a little bit of weight behind it!)
I also contacted my lawyer, as I had other stuff going on so was in his office anyhow. He looked it over and said boy you're really gonna get screwed in the middle, we can persue it but it'll cost you most of what you get, whatdoyawannado? Had him write a letter to the phone co, what's going on what you gonna do? My lawyer was impressed, I had pictures and dates and names of things as they happened, so he had an easier job of putting things together. Without all that, woulda really been tough for him to move forward.
And then the heavens openned up, and there was water running down the road ditches, and a second washout of the tile line openned up 100's of feet away with phone line in the middle of it, and we got 6+ inches of rain, what a mess.
So 6 weeks later, I'm driving home and there is a construction crew packing up their equipment. Didn't hardly pay attention until I got well past - the phone co swooped in and 'repaired' the one small cave in, and that day told the county everything was fine, all repaired amnd good.
So, my lawyer had to write some more letters to the phone co and the county. He said I was _really_ upset when I came in that day, I was _not_ happy with the phone co messing with my tile line, and doing a botched repair of 20 feet worth of possibly 900 feet of damages and calling that 'good'. We sat down and we totalled it up and sent the phone co a bil for $30,000 to get their attention. Lost crops for a few years, new tile line, etc.
That at least got a meeting out along the road; me, several people from the phone co, the county engineer, and my tile guys (they are nice guys, and as much wanted to see how this was going to go 1st hand as anything...). The first thing the phone co people said is that they were nice enough to repair a tile juntion that was blown out, it appeared to be poorly done but they repaired it free - trying to get on my good side I guess? That pissed off the tile guys, as that is the juntion they fixed 2 times and kept blowing out because of the back pressure from the wrecked tile.
So, anyhow, I got some money from the phone co, and the county kicked in almost the same money _if_ we put in a nrew tile line fully on my property (which I wanted anyhow), and the neighbor and I split the difference on the remainder.
One of those learning experiences. :) I didn't talk about it much here, as I knew I was just mad, and things wouldn't come out well at the time.
So, was the tile main on my property or the county property? - Yes when installed, no later on....
I was really imnpressed with mny county tho, typically the govt is there to squash me or so it feels, in this case the county commisioner, the 2 road workers, and the county engineer were very easy to work with, and seemed genuinely concerned about getting things worked out fairly. Hats off to them.
So, there's the book. :)
--->Paul | |
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Landlord Wants To Hock On To Tile
