We bought an apartment last year at the ground floor with a small garden. During winter, we notice our neighbour (above us) would clean their balcony with water+soap. By design, they have a small drainage directed on our garden.

Two questions:
1- Is it allowed to use soap/detergents? This basically destroys the garden so no incentive for me to take care of it. Also we have a small dog so we want to avoid any issues.

2- Are there any solutions I can install to prevent this? For example, a tent on top of my garden?

We are not against the neighbours cleaning their balcony, rather we want to also be able to enjoy our garden.

Any other thoughts appreciated.

Water drainage from neighbour onto my garden
by u/Ed_Salem in belgium

21 comments

  1. Drainage pipe connected to the sewer would be the best solution.

    Stuff for building meeting (or whatever it’s called)

  2. The better solution is to talk to your neighbors, say you have a problem and come to a solution together (e.g: connect to pipe to the sewer).

  4. Petty solution: fix a gas funnel with a flexible hose under it and redirect it to their garden. Technically there’s nothing you’re doing wrong and it’s not a permanent thing, so you could use it until they fix their drainage.

  7. Talk to them, present it at the building meeting, talk to the syndicus of the building, aaalll things to do before talking to US, strangers on the internet.

  8. First talk to them and then it needs to be connected to sewage in Belgium. And each house is responsible for their water drainage and what local laws apply for filtration.

    So with an older building you need to talk and find a solution together. Otherwise you can look at making a sewage connection by yourself or go to court.

  9. Is their balcony sheltered from rain? I’m pretty sure those small drains that just dump onto the floor below are supposed to be for exceptional situations. If their balcony regularly gets wet, it’s supposed to have a proper drain.

  10. On the last 0.5s there seems to be a drainage pipe. Why don’t they use that ? U are not showing us anything useful. People need to take care of their own drainage water, if it is ‘by design’ that it is just dumped over to the neighbors garden. Then that might just be installed wrong

  12. And what if you catch it and divert it back in their bushes?

    Or keep the water in a huge drum for your plants/garden in the summer?

  15. Stuff like this is pretty well regulated, and in this case totally forbidden unless you bought your house with some sort of erfdienstbaarheid for the neighbours water drainage.

    Talk to them. If that doesn’t work, any vrederechter will make short work of it and entitle you some damages too.

  17. Just catch it in a rain barrel and come summer you are golden and will thank your neighbor. I think you will notice that rainfall in the last year in Europe is not enough to offset the effects of the 2022 drought. In several regions, rivers are low, groundwater table recharge is slow and soils remain dry. Last year I was helping my aged neighbor in his truck garden and he told me that if you dig deeper the soil is dried out. He is an old farmer so knows what he is talking about.

  20. Can you make a pit, connected to the sewer, like they have on campsites beneath a tap water. So it will collect the water?

  21. Most balconys have a drainage connected to the sewer and a “noodspuwer”. The noodspuwer’s funtion is to divert the water in case the drainage to the sewer is clogged. This way the balcony doesn’t hold all the water like a bathtub, cus that may cause trouble (weight of all the water etc). I hope this is bit clear cus i don’t know how to explain it very well in english. Anyways 8/10 chance there is another drainage hidden under your neighbours balconys planks or tiles and it’s clogged. He needs to clean it.

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