A very positive development: as noted, we called Verizon and Comcast yesterday and told them we suspected that their lines were imposing on our property as well as causing a serious hazard to contractors conducting on going repairs to our home-basically the message was if the repairs ruin your wires, or if they cut them to avoid falling off the roof, don't come around asking to put them back.

Well, today Verizon sent someone out for inspection and removed all their cables themselves. Apparently they are obsolete and have been hanging around for no good reason.

Hope this is of help to anyone else suffering janky wiring all over their property.

Thanks everyone for your responses. The wires are currently posing a serious hazard to our contractors as they work on our property. I don't want someone breaking their neck on this job. We have called up and informed all cable companies that we will not tolerate our contractors tripping on our property due to the way they have slung the wires, and that we have given the workers instructions to protect themselves as needed. That's the first step, we'll worry about the rest later.

Well, this is an old sore subject for me. I've had Comcast clowns trespass on my property climbing over fences, using a ladder I had in my yard, and stringing their wires at head height over my patio. Once, reaching over from the corner outside the fence they dropped the box on my garbage can, ripping open the steel top like a can opener! I eventually did cut down the low cable when that tenant moved out and told Comcast to stuff it when they said they needed to run the cable to the neighbors back house from the box on mine. I said if they want service they can run it through their own property. They ended up running it in over the property line at about 10 ft, still illegally low, they need to be 18'. But at least it's not over my yard.

Just cut them and see what happens.

Anything that invades your property / boundary line needs your permission - YOU chose if you want a phone line, cable or electricity - ANYONE else needs to seek your permission and you can even request compensation or fee. Your contractor is correct and it is a fire safety and general safety issue (lines rubbing against tree branches or even a structure) and many sub-contracting utility services like Verizon, will take short-cuts over other people's property so they have less work - they are known to piggy-backing off your line or simply use a line of sight principle to instal and hang lines all over the place.

I'd be double checking any bills coming in from cable / line services to see if anyone isn't getting a free ride at your expense!

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Well.. he did. He was very proud of it as well. It doesn't matter now since I think every wire from the back is just old copper phone lines. Power, cable, and Fios all come from the street now.

He can't refuse them access, they are property of pse&g.

Some of the properties on the East side of Palisade Ave have the phone lines coming in from the back. PSE&G / Verizon have poles running through the backyards.

I have this situation on my building North of Congress. A utility crew came by to remove the poles and bring in everything from the front. However, my idiot neighbor at the time refused access to the crew. So all the phone wires still come in from the back. Though I think most of them aren't used anymore since Verizon pretty much wired the area with fiber.

We're having the roof on our home completely redone and our contractor (S&S/Seymond) told us that he thinks that the multiple wires crossing our deck and strung across our roof are basically infringing on our property and a potential fire hazard to boot. They're not electric wires, they seem to be cable or something along those lines. This is a single family carriage home in the Heights.

How does one check to see whether all this janky wiring required our permission to string across our property? Is there a particular city office I could contact? We already called Verizon and they weren't very helpful.

I tried searching for the thread on the ducts hanging over the property line but it seems to have been erased during the big data crash-the one slung across our deck is particularly fug, irritating and potentially dangerous to us. It's low enough that a tall person could probably graze it with his head. And the contractor says they're not very well insulated.

Sometimes I stare down Palisade Ave in the Heights and I'm reminded of Indian telephone poles.