You’ve bought the family summer vacation home you always dreamed of, and are looking forward to quiet, stress-free weekends spent sipping wine on the deck overlooking the lake. You arrive for the July 4th weekend to discover that the house next door also has new owners. You soon discover your new neighbors’ idea of a good time is riding noisy dirt bikes around the property all day, followed by all night parties with blaring music and bright lights. When you politely ask them to tone it down a bit, their reaction is to turn the music up louder and ride the dirt bikes even closer to your property. After you complain to the police, the neighbors pile junk along your common property line and throw their trash on top of it so the prevailing winds bring the stench of rotten garbage across your deck. They next put up outdoor surveillance cameras pointing at your deck, and stand at the property line and glare at you. After you return from a trip to town, you find your windows facing the evil neighbors’ house have been shot out. Finally, they dam up the stream on their property, causing the lake level to fall, turning your beach into a mud hole so you can no longer swim or fish. Your dream home is a nightmare. Do you have any legal recourse?
Although the events in the above hypothetical may sound extreme, they are a combination of facts from two Illinois cases involving disputes between neighbors. The opinions of the Illinois appellate courts reviewing these two cases provide guidance on the recourse the family in our hypothetical may have.
One cause of action is private nuisance, which is the substantial invasion of the interest of another person in the use of his or her land. The invasion must be substantial – whether intentional or negligent – and unreasonable. The shooting out of the windows would constitute an actual invasion of your property by the neighbors, but what about the other activities, which certainly cause disturbances without the neighbors actually coming onto you land? In our hypothetical, the courts would likely find the noisy dirt bikes, the loud music, the junk and garbage piles to be an “invasion” of your property even though there was no actual physical invasion by the neighbors onto your property, given that your interest in the use and enjoyment of your land has been substantially affected. If the court also found that a person of ordinary sensibilities would find the neighbors’ activities to be objectionable, then the court could order the neighbors to pay actual and punitive damages and could enjoin the neighbors from continuing the objectionable activities and direct the neighbors to remove the trash piles and remove the dam so the lake could fill up again.
Another cause of action might be intrusion on seclusion, which is the intentional intrusion, physically or otherwise, on the solitude or seclusion of another person or his or her private affairs if the intrusion would be highly offensive to a reasonable person. This claim was asserted in a dispute between adjoining property owners where one party installed 24-hour video cameras directed at the neighbors’ home and driveway, and then frequently stood at the property line glaring at his neighbors while they worked in their yard or attempted to relax outdoors. In this case, the court held the element of an intrusion was not present because the defendants did not trespass onto the plaintiffs’ property nor did they have any reasonable expectation of seclusion or privacy in their own yard – the video cameras could not display anything that a person walking down the street could see. Thus, in the above hypothetical, the summer homeowner probably would not be able to obtain an injunction against the use of the surveillance cameras pointed at his property.
If you are having legal issues related to the enjoyment of property you own, please telephone a member of the firm for advice.