If two homes are standing on two opposite sides of a public domain, both owners must make a fence of four amot (about 6 feet) high across half of their roof. The fences must not be directly opposite each other. Instead, each must cover the adjoining side, preventing his neighbor from looking directly into his roof and preventing him from looking into his neighbor's roof. Furthermore, the fences must be slightly longer than half the roof, thus further obstructing the view.It would be impractical for each owner to build a fence and unenforceable to require only one owner to do so.
Even though one owner can say, "What difference does my fence make? The public sees you anyway?" - the other one can reply, "I can hide from the public by doing my private acts at night, but I can't hide from you."
Art: Rooftops in Naples by Thomas Jones
2 comments:
Very interesting. And what if the building on the opposite side of the street is an extra story taller? This is the situation I encountered when, climbing up to my roof on a recent evening, hoping for some privacy, I noticed that neighbors from across the street could peer straight at me from their windows. Not that I was doing anything "private" ;)
Very interesting question. The Shulchan Aruch qualifies this:
*only if the roof was made habitable;
*only if the roof was not slanted and this not visible from the street.
This is because most roofs at the time of the Mishna were habitable, so the Mishna assumes it, but we should not.
The second qualification is also clear - if the roof is open to a passerby anyway, his neighbor's fence would not help.
So I guess your question qualifies for both exceptions. People today don't live on the roofs and don't expect privacy there :( Your roof, open to the windows from above would have the same law as the one open to people from the street. So no help.
There are more people in this community for the same material, so if you want to post there, you may have more people to talk to.
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