Not all good fences make good neighbours
Dispute over property line leads to criminal charges against homeowner
As feuds between neighbours go, this one was pretty ugly. It started in late 2011 after surveyors found that Ron and Gail Gaudreau’s neighbour, Steve Bentivoglio, was encroaching on their backyard on Glenmanor Drive, near the Merivale Mall.
Though they say they had no immediate plans to reclaim their land — a long, substantial strip down the south side of their backyard — Bentivoglio, who lived around the corner on Hillmount Crescent, suspected they would. He went to their home, and angrily claimed the land was his and threatened to sue the couple if they tried anything smart. Bentivoglio’s wife, Dianne, went to the Gaudreau home later that day. She, too, was in attack mode, the Gaudreaus recall.
They were stunned by this sudden accusatory demeanour, especially as they thought they were friends. Bentivoglio would not let up, so Gaudreau says they eventually changed their minds. They took back their land, removed some ratty-looking cedar hedges that were there when they bought the house 10 years ago, and, last June, put up a new fence.
But before all that happened, Joseph Griffiths, the lawyer representing Bentivoglio, told the Gaudreaus in a May 2012 letter that his client was claiming adverse property rights as he had been using the land as his own for more than 10 years. But that claim did not seem to hold much weight against a 1988 agreement, included with Griffiths’s letter, and signed by the Bentivoglios and a former owner of the Gaudreau home. The document acknowledged the encroachment and allowed for it to continue until the rightful owner wanted it back.
Griffiths said this week that as far as the Bentivoglios were concerned, they just wanted to make sure the new fence was “placed in the proper location and done without damage to my client’s property.” He asked the Gaudreaus in an April 2012 letter that they provide a copy of the survey they commissioned so that “we can verify that the property line has been accurately identified.”
Griffiths also accused the couple of behaviour “intended to spark controversy and acrimony with our clients.” He said that could have been avoided had they “made any reasonable attempt to communicate their intentions.”
After the encroachment was discovered in 2011, many complaints were made to Ottawa bylaw services about the Gaudreau property. Most were unfounded. Gaudreau says the calls were so frequent that he and one of the bylaw officers got to know each on a first-name basis.
Meanwhile, the Gaudreaus say they complained to Ottawa police on a number of occasions about Bentivoglio. However, for a while, police were very hesitant to get involved as they felt the dispute was a civil matter. Even when Gail Gaudreau snapped a photo of Bentivoglio with a stake removed from the property line in his hand, police were not convinced the picture proved anything.
The hesitancy shown by police convinced the couple to hire a private investigator. They began to suspect that hundreds of phone calls, mostly to Gaudreau’s cellphone and his work number, were being made by Bentivoglio from pay phones in different parts of the city. Usually, the caller hung up by the time Gaudreau picked up the phone. But a payphone number would appear on Gaudreau’s call display.
The private investigator followed Bentivoglio for three days and videotaped him making calls from pay phones in Little Italy, on Catherine Street and at the Lincoln Fields and Westgate shopping centres. Police also tailed the neighbour after the private investigator handed his findings to the couple, and watched him make calls from pay phones. Bentivoglio was charged last fall with mischief and making harassing phone calls. He is to appear in court on March 11.
The Gaudreaus are hardly gloating. In fact, they say they will eventually move because of the bad blood. The couple, both federal public servants, say the phone calls continue despite the charges and police warnings to Bentivoglio that he not communicate with them. Even more frustrating is that police say there is a chance that the Crown attorney’s office might drop the charges because Bentivoglio is elderly.
They say they worry what the spring and summer will bring. He would come out of his home whenever they were in the backyard last year, watch them and launch into tirades. A few were particularly nasty. Gail Gaudreau says he told her, “You smell like a skunk,” as she was walking the dog one evening. Gaudreau says he was the recipient of some inappropriate gestures.
Bentivoglio has also installed a security camera in his backyard. “This is no way to live,” says Gaudreau.
Bentivoglio has also filed a complaint with the professional standards office of the Ottawa police force, against the investigating officer, Const. Troy Forgie. Bentivoglio told The Public Citizen this week that “the policeman is a friend of (the Gaudreaus). Did he tell you that?” He also said I was Gaudreau’s friend.
Bentivoglio seemed unrepentant. He said he has the right to remove his neighbours’ fence. He says the pins and stakes placed by the surveyors prove nothing about who owns the land in question.
“I have lived here for 34 years, sir. I don’t have an enemy in hell. And (Gaudreau) has two enemies. (His) other neighbour is an enemy to him and I am an enemy to him.” Bentivoglio ended the conversation by saying, “I’m going to report you.”
When the Gaudreaus hired the surveyors in 2011, they did so because they planned to widen their driveway on the side of their other neighbour. They wanted the property lines defined as they didn’t have a survey for their land. The wider driveway and a new fence didn’t go down well with that neighbour.
But they had no idea of the reaction they were going to face from Bentivoglio. Even the surveyors were harassed, says Gaudreau.
Gaudreau says the moral of their story is for prospective homebuyers to ask the seller for a survey. If one can’t be produced, then make sure a new survey is done and that all issues are resolved before buying.