Can you call the scavenger/garbage people and have them come pick up the nasty wood before he can do anything with it?

I can't decide if that's a serious suggestion or not. I'm cranky, and apparently I get passive-aggressive when I'm cranky.

I'm not sure of the law everywhere but generally His fence should be on His property and the nice side is to face away from his yard (that is, the front face of the fence faces your property). If it's not your landlord's fence, he CAN'T put it on your land/property and so you DO NOT have to maintain it. As far as the beauty of the fence goes, I don't think you can do anything about it. Sometimes we just have to put up with tacky neighbours. Someitmes, however, towns have regulations regarding spacific ruls governing fences. Good luck!

You already know what Robert Frost's neighbor thought about fences, right?

It's a tricky question. Technically, if he's building the fence on his property, it can be as ugly as he wants to make it. However, this FAQ by Nolo indicates that a half-rotten fence probably violates urban blight laws (in fact, I KNOW a half-rotten fence will violate urban blight laws, at least in some parts of California). I think this is something to discuss with your landlord.

Can you call the scavenger/garbage people and have them come pick up the nasty wood before he can do anything with it?

I don't think so. It's pretty clearly on private property.

I just talked to the neighbor on the other side. They're as frustrated with the Drama House as I am (maybe more so, because they have a teenaged daughter and they actually feel like they need to protect her from the Drama House Inhabitants). The woman assured me that they were with me and that her husband would talk to the slumlord. (He's putting a fence on their side too.)

Preview/update:

Took me so long to post this because I was talking to my landlord. She's going to call the city. The town has pretty strict nuisance laws, which include visual blight. Plus, he has a stop-work order posted to the door. Our assumption is he's planning on building the fence over the 3-day weekend because there won't be any city inspectors around to tell him not to.

And here's the crap I'm talking about:

≡ Click to see image ≡

≡ Click to see image ≡

You know, sometimes piles of shitty bug infested old dry-rot just catch fire. No one knows why. It just happens.

Seriously though, good news on the work hold and your landlord looking into nuisance laws. It's nice to know you two and your other neighbour are on the same page. There's power in numbers. I'm sending good vibes.

LOL

Hmm. I do happen to have a gas can....

You might check local building codes. Sometimes, in some areas, you have to get building permits even for privacy fences, and that could mean that materials have to pass muster. Probably a long shot, but contacting your city government and asking can't hurt.

I hate to be the naysayer, but that wood doesn't look so terrible to me. So long as the fence gets sturdily built, and not just thrown together, used materials like that can give a nice timeworn/rustic vibe.

Every grrrl dreams of a white picket fence, I've been told.

Make like Tom Sawyer and whitewash that shite, flea ridden fence. Charge for material and your time to your landlord [after discussing and getting the money up front from your landlord...]
Throw a Barbie[Q] party, arm everyone with a wide Tom Sawyer brush and it'll be done in a bottle or two.

Know what they say about lemons¿ make lemonade, is the solution, it'll look purrrty. Nay, it'll look awesome [on your side].

Problem:solved.

I don't think that would really look half-bad, whitewashed or painted, especially if he doesn't use the more rotted and broken bits.

Depends on the rest of the milieu, I guess. I'd let him put it up and if it's not up to code the city can sure as heck make him take it back down again. In the meantime, at least it's a visual screen.

And I sympathize. Next to our rental there's a couple of properties. One has a chain link fence, through which we get dandelion fluff and mosquitos because the tenants frequently pile up tires. Next to it is -- was -- an overgrown privet hedge. My mom and I have been working for years to chop it back into civilized shape, and we really felt like we were making headway. The tenants never knew or cared and the landlord certainly didn't. This year, though, the tenants have dogs and the dogs were getting into our property and pooping. We complained, because there was poop in the parking lot and OUR tenants complained.

So they ripped out most of the privet to put up chain link. The privet WE spent years maintaining because nobody over there would! And now we not only don't have a nice privet, you can see right through the fence. At least it's going to be a well-tended garden (and of course they make sure the dogs can't get in that).

On the OTHER side is a lower chainlink fence with a nice-ish guy who was trying to do a vegetable garden. He never liked us doing any weed spray remotely near his garden, and in 2006 he tried growing sunflowers. When the one near our property died, he blamed my weed spraying, and ripped out his entire garden. This marked the end of civilized relations. In 2007 his war against us took the form of an ivy that grew all over the fence and piled like kudzu over the trees and shrubs my mother had maintained for 10 years. It even crawled all the way up a telephone pole to an electrical box. Then, of course, because it's an annual, it died and left dead vines all over everything like a horror movie set.

So with fences, sometimes, it's best to count your blessings because it could always be worse.

"Sturdily built," "not using the more rotted and broken bits," and "slumlord" don't really seem to all fit together, to me...

I don't know. Given the guy's history, I don't think it's an overreaction to be worried that it's gonna be a crappy fence, used in careless ways by crappy neighbors, that you'll end up having to maintain if you don't want splintered wood and nails falling on top of your garden and your chickens.