Our phone line runs from the wall of my house, over my next-door neighbour's garden, to the telephone pole. Several other people's phone lines do the same, of course. Some of them run over our garden too.
The other day, the idiot neighbour decided to chop down a tree in his garden. Being an idiot, of course, he managed to snap my phone line whilst doing it. So, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth as I have to go without the internet for a few days, until BT sends someone round to fix it.
Today, the phone engineer comes, strings up a new cable, and everything's fine again. After the engineer has left, though, the idiot neighbour comes round here and tells me that he's spoken to his lawyer and is going to sue BT. He says it's illegal for them to string a cable up over his land like that. I point out that the cable was there for twenty years before he snapped it; he just says he didn't realise his rights until today.
Now, I can't imagine that he's actually right, because all around here BT string up phone cables to people's houses over other people's gardens. Does anyone have any clue as to a) whether he has any chance of getting any money out of them, or b) how I can stop him from being such a twat in future?
― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 16 July 2004 19:15 (twenty-one years ago)
a/ I think very little, though who knows?
b/ twat is as twat does, or something.
― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 16 July 2004 19:18 (twenty-one years ago)
Does he get upset about the sidewalk in his front yard? What about the cables and sewage pipes underneath his land? Is he going to sue the airport for letting airplanes fly over his house and ruin his television reception?
― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Friday, 16 July 2004 19:21 (twenty-one years ago)
Probably, if he thinks he can get some cash out of it.
― caitlin (caitlin), Friday, 16 July 2004 19:22 (twenty-one years ago)