Thread: Some home improvements

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Damn JB, I thought I held a grudge......................

Originally Posted by NTFDAY

Damn JB, I thought I held a grudge......................

I'd better explain and let you lot decide whether I'm wrong or right.
He used to own the farm above me on the mountain side and wanted to drain a swamp, on the boundary fence a bit over a mile back, into my place.
I agreed; but told him he'd have to come about sixty feet into my place to where the swamp dropped about 8ft into a gully that became a creek about 15 ft inside a patch of bush.
He said that was okay.
I heard his contractor's drain-digger (back-hoe to you lot,) working, so went to have a look. The contractor had dug a hole in the swamp in my place and taken his fall from there, leaving a death-trap for my animals.
The contractor was by then several hundred yards up into David's place, I approached him and said he couldn't leave the mess he'd made in my place, he'd have to come back and remedy it.
He told me that David had told him that he wasn't going to pay to drain my property, and that was all there was to it.
"Well you can't leave it like that! I'm going to lose cattle in there! Go back and fix it."
He told me they have a minimum charge of $100, and that's what he'd have to charge me.
"Just do it! It can't be left like that." A beast at that time was worth about $500, and a death-trap like that could kill three or four in a year.
So he walked his machine back through the fence, flattened the 15ft of bush, and side dug from the hole to where the creek started.
Elapsed time of about 25 minutes, of which about 15 minutes was walking time.
I then approached David, but he was adamant; he wasn't going to pay to drain my land.
To say I was upset with him would be an understatement. I was bloody angry.
So I paid the contractor. It wasn't his fault; he was just doing what the customer told him to.

My own digger was parked about 3/4 of a mile away; about an hour's walking in each direction, or I would've done it myself.

Was I right to be annoyed with him or not?