Removing it isn't enough. For the garden statuary alone, I vote death by torture:

≡ Click to see image ≡

Where are the rocks? I thought it's meant to be a rock garden.

The commonness of the tragedy...

It looks to be covered in those red lava rocks, goo. I don't know that it qualifies as a "rock garden," really. It does look a bit involved to be sitting on public space--it's not like she planted a few flowers and set up a park bench.

Though I am a bit torn on this. When our neighbor recently had her property surveyed, she found out that the back half of her, and of our, yard is actually city property. Our yards are huge by area standards, but still quite small--13 feet wide by 100 feet long. We bought the place because of the yard, and all the yards on our block are fenced in. If we lost half the yard, we'd be very sad.

Our yards are huge by area standards, but still quite small--13 feet wide by 100 feet long. We bought the place because of the yard, and all the yards on our block are fenced in. If we lost half the yard, we'd be very sad.

I Am Not A Lawyer. Even if I were, I Am Not Your Lawyer.

That said, I remember reading somewhere about a provision in U.S. law saying, in so many words, that if you've been maintaining someone else's property for X number of years, it becomes your property.

For private citizens, it's like, five years. For governments, I think it's twenty or thirty years. If the previous owner was there for a while, and maintaining it, it might be worth your while to talk to a local lawyer.

Yeah, jason, we've heard such things, too. One of the issues is that our house was vacant for 35 years before we got it (and it's not the only house on the block for which that's true), so we have a few years to go before we can prove that we've been maintaining it for 7, or even 5, years, if such a thing is even more than a rumor, anyway. We're mostly just hoping no one notices.

see adverse possession.

That's not what I'd call a rock garden. And I'm with taz, the statuary has got to go; it's cheesy and not in a good way. Remove the statuary, the rocks and the bricks, leave the trees, re-sod it and call it done. The trees, even if not of the "approved" variety can only help with the water drainage.

mrmoonpie: are you sure it's not just an easement? Are there power lines running through it? It could just be an easement for access. That was quite often the case in the properties I did loans on in the States.

quonsar, "adverse possession" was, indeed, the search term I needed. Turns out it's 15 years in DC, and I have to have paid taxes on the property during that time. I guess I need to make sure that I'm, in fact, paying taxes on the land. We pretty clearly satisfy the other requirements ("actual, open, notorious, exclusive, hostile, under cover of claim or right").

actual, open, notorious, exclusive, hostile, under cover of claim or right

Well, you've actually fenced in that land. Seems pretty open and notorious to me.

But a lawyer would know better than I would.

Thanks mrmoonpie - rock gardens should have some boulders and moss, imho. Good luck with keeping your yard!