By Scott Wong

Despite the arid landscape of Los Altos Hills, 60-year resident Ruth McMahon said she hasn’t seen a dry day in three years.

Because her Burke Lane property sits on a slight slope, dark, brackish pools of water appear from under her neighbor’s fence and collect in low areas on her property.

Everywhere in the Hills, residents are tearing up rustic back yards and putting in extravagant landscapes and swimming pools that are affecting neighbors, the 81-year-old widow said.

Last year, McMahon stayed up all night watching over her 30-year-old pony and moving wood shavings to the stall as water seeped under the fence and flooded out her corral and storage barn. The wood shavings prevented the horse from having to stand in water all night.

When the contractor of neighbor Ashok Narasimhan piped leach lines to her property, directing septic tank drainage into her rain swell, which passes through the back of a second corral, McMahon had to build a wire fence along it so her horse and pony wouldn’t drink from the water, she said.

The city forced the contractor to remove those pipes, citing an ordinance violation, and Narasimhan has since sued the contractor over the pipes and other breeches of their contract. However, water from an unknown source still trickles, even during the hottest of days.

McMahon was encouraged to speak up about her water problems after reading about another resident, Mildred Gallo, who became the focus of local media attention two years ago after claiming that her neighbor’s irrigation and swimming pool water was imposing and sitting stagnant on her abutting La Lanne Court property.

Though his family “loves Ruth,” Narasimhan said the water issue is clearly exhausted.

“(McMahon) does tend to get extremely carried away,” said Narasimhan, whose family has lived next to McMahon for 14 years. “She has some ideas in her head and finds it difficult to let go of those ideas.”

Everything the city and county have requested of him has been adhered to, according to Narasimhan.

“Our land has always traditionally been wet,” he said. “If there is water seepage, it’s related to the way the ground slopes.”

City officials confirmed that the Narasimhans have complied with city codes and their neighbor’s request.

Garcia, who has been over to investigate both properties on many occasions, said the water coming from under the fence is most likely from irrigation.

“They are doing a lot of watering,” he said. “It’s a large amount of property and a lot of ground cover and shrubs that they have to water to grow and stay healthy.”

But in April, McMahon received results from tests she had taken of the water that came back positive for chlorine and E. coli bacteria, she said. Also, when the water on her property becomes stagnant, it provides a wonderful breeding ground for mosquitoes.

“The Health Department said they would spray chemicals every week,” McMahon said. “But we have animals and elderly around here, so we just put up with the mosquitoes.”

Garcia said there is no indication that any of the water is unhealthy or unsafe.

“There’s nothing dangerous about the water — it’s just plain old water,” he said.