Farewell, Pool – The End of the Border Wars [VIDEO]

We fought the battle, and lost...by 69 inches. 

In case you haven't been playing the at-home version of the game, here's the scoop:

Our subdivision was bare bones, until a developer came in and bought all of the empty lots and started building. The lot next to us has been empty for years, but it was fenced off by a low-standing black tarp. So, when we placed our above-ground pool, we thought that the tarp was the property line. Apparently, we were wrong.

They started building the house next to us in May, and we built a deck up against our pool in June. In August, we got a letter from the developer saying that our pool is over the property line (which they claim, in the letter, that they've known for months but just decided to tell us now), and that we had until September 28th to move it. We paid to have our lot surveyed and found that, in fact, we were over the line by a few feet.

We went to the city and acquired the paperwork to buy the few feet of land (which, the city said, they've had a lot of people from our neighborhood do). The developer had to sign off on it, and after numerous phone calls and emails, we didn't hear anything for three weeks. Then, we got a knock on our door: they had filed a complaint against us with the city. Literally an hour after that, we got an email from the developer, saying that there would "be no land purchase" and that we must move the pool.

The developer informed us that our future neighbors were NOT aware that any of this was going on. We asked them to talk to the future owners of the house, to see if they'd be on board with us buying the land.They said no.

Occupational hazard of being a homeowner.

As of right now, we're like Alaska: we have a bridge to nowhere. Border wars: first world problems.