Oops.

Here at chez Brilliant, we have a neighbor next door with whom we don't get along. Said neighbor is always polite to Mr. Brilliant, perhaps because he's seen Mr. B. practicing Tiger and Dragon forms on the back patio on weekend mornings and because Mr. B. is at least a head taller than he is. But where I'm concerned, said neighbor is the kind of whom the expression "gratuitous asshole" was invented. We're talking pull-the-child-into-the-house-for-no-reason-when-I'm-outside kind of assholery. We all used to be cordial, if not friendly, but the day I refused to allow him to cut down a tree on our property because it blocks the sun to his new pool, that cordiality ended.

There is a privet hedge that creates a barrier between our properties. Every couple of months, my tree guys come out and spray it with some organic something-or-other for "scale" and it still looks like crap. At this point I'm wondering if we should just yank it and put up a fence -- except that we'd have to pay to have the property staked should we decide to do that, because if we didn't, and the fence overlapped his property even by an inch, the same guy who went ahead and cut branches on my tree back to the trunk -- against local ordinances -- would sue me for every penny I may ever have.

But if I need to put up a fence, it'd be worth the few hundred dollars to determine where the property line is.

The Federal government doesn't think this way, however, and it seems that a 1-1/2 mile stretch of border fence was constructed on Mexican soil and it's going to cost us a few million dollars to straighten it out:

The barrier was part of more than 15 miles of border fence built in 2000, stretching from the town of Columbus to an onion farm and cattle ranch.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman said the vertical metal tubes were sunk into the ground and filled with cement along what officials firmly believed was the border. But a routine aerial survey in March revealed that the barrier protrudes into Mexico by 1 to 6 feet.

James Johnson, whose onion farm is in the disputed area, said he thinks his forefathers may have started the confusion in the 19th century by placing a barbed-wire fence south of the border. No one discovered their error, and crews erecting the barrier may have used that fence as a guideline.

"It was a mistake made in the 1800s," Johnson said. "It is very difficult to make a straight line between two points in rugged and mountainous areas that are about two miles apart."

The Mexican government was notified and did what any landowner would do: They sent a note politely insisting that Mexico get its land back.

"Our country will continue insisting for the removal (of the fence) to be done as quickly as possible," the Foreign Relations Department said in a diplomatic missive to Washington.

When the barrier was built in 2000, the project was believed to cost about $500,000 a mile. Estimates to uproot and replace it range from $2.5 million to $3.5 million.

Michael Friel, the spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, said the barrier was "built on what was known to be the international boundary at the time." He acknowledged the method used was "less precise than it is today."

The International Boundary and Water Commission, a joint Mexican-American group that administers the 2,000-mile border, said the border has never changed and is marked every few miles by tall concrete or metal markers.

Sally Spener, a commission spokeswoman in El Paso, said the agency is generally consulted for construction projects to ensure that treaties are followed. The commission is working with the Department of Homeland Security "to develop a standardized protocol" for building fences and barriers.

"We just want to make sure those things are clear now," Spener said.

(h/t: Lynn)