It was pretty OK till about 5 years ago when the developer who built our development extended the parking lot about another 50ft, then things changed but we were in the middle of a drought so it took a while to show up. I went to the association president, got the old the 'we'll look into it' then he was not relected, since then we have had 3 different presidents and boards.
The developement has a pretty good ditch system and all properties are supposed to have drainage pipes of at least 12" at every driveway enterance, all the roads have 24" pipes. The developer neglected to put one in the street side of the rec area driveway. The rec area covers 5 rectangular acres across the 4 lots above it and the 4 lots below it, the bottom corner being mine, it has a drainage ditch all along the back footage but it all channels into that one in the back of the drivway that backs my property, thats where the water goes.
Physically my options are to cut a swath across the back of my propety, build a coffer dam angled to the road or the neighbors property, expensive and out of my pocket. Have the association cut a trench at the end of their drainage ditch to the one on the road, fast, cheap and easy to do. The question is how to twist their collective arms into doing it short of running for office this fall as a board member which I don't want to do. I hate getting the town involved or lawyers but it's starting to get expensive and tiring, we just moved 40 wheel barrows today and I'm tired.
I like the bentonite and chicken wire idea, no pipes to plug though that would do any good.
I think I'll start off with a registered letter and go from there. I have also gotten to know a few people on the town govt now that I'm on the chamber of commerce so I'll talk to them next meeting as well as the two lawyers that attend the the meetings.