Warm weather and the neighbor fixed my wall

Well spring is in the air finally after a long winter. We survived after some hiccups getting the heating system up and running. Luckily it wasn't until last month that one of my radiator pipes started leaking and it was in the bedroom that I sleep in. I've been monitoring it until I can get it repaired when the system is finally able to be turned off for summer. In combination with losing about 5 pints a day from this leak, I also discovered that my tenant in 203#2's hot water handle in the shower was leaking when my water bill ended up $300 above average. It was an easy fix, but money that could have stayed in my pocket if he'd simply told me about it. It's caused me to take finding a way to sub-meter my units a little more seriously, so that I can pass the cost on to them instead of being on the hook when they're idiots like this. One of my coworker's dad works for Ion Energy Solutions and apparently they have smart meters that can even alert you when there are leaks. It costs a bit up front, but could payback in less than a year based on what I'm paying for water now, so it's on my to-do list this summer. I'll have to work it into my tenants' leases next renewal.

I got a text from my next door neighbor that he was going to have some guys come tuckpoint the wall that was falling down between our properties. It was probably a remnant of a building on my back lot, but currently serves as a sort of screen for my neighbor's backyard area between his house and workshop areas. It had continued to deteriorate, but wasn't very high up my priority list to fix.

I offered to help pay for it, but he was adamant that it was on his property so whatever. Upon looking at the property records it appears he's right and that the awkward sliver between our properties is actually cut into two parts: his part being this wall. I'll probably never understand how these land parcels came to be, but they don't make things easy...

So here's the wall after they'd finished:

They rebuilt the part that was failing the most (and the part that screens his yard) with a new block wall and then reinforced the stone foundations. He says that he's going to stain the block on his side to look better and probably will do mine too. I'm skeptical that it will look very good, so eventually I'll probably just build a brick facade to cover the block on my side. He wants me to put up some sort of hedge in this corner so that "kids won't be tempted to climb this small wall". Given the 15-20 foot drop on my neighbor's side I think it's unlikely, but I was planning on landscaping back there anyways. I think I'll probably do it after I get some tuckpointing done this summer on this side of my building.

Here's the rest of the wall that basically is redundant backing up to his workshop wall. They reinforced the stone foundation. They were pretty sloppy, but there wasn't much to start with there for them. I'll probably clean up the brickwork and make the stone foundation a little more finished looking at some point in the future.

Either way, this has been the most visible progress in a while and hopefully just the start of more to come. Stay tuned for a bunch of work in 205#2. When I get back from Vegas, it's time for work.