Question
 My house sits 8 to 12 inches lower than my two neighbors with only about 16 to 20 feet distance between them and about half way down the street. A few times a year when flash floods come their water comes to my house. I put in drainage with a dry well in the back but it didn't completely solve the problem. I think I need to keep the water off the house because over the last 6 years I've seen the ground around it slowly erode. I'm starting to build flower beds on the sides and back to create a barrier, but I was told to not build the dirt up higher than the concrete foundation of my brick house. My house has no weep holes. What do I do? No. 1 Waterproof the brick and the wall of bed and not raise the height of the bed. NO. 2 Place plastic or some type of barrier between the brick wall and the raised bed. No. 3 Just water proof the wall of the bed, raise it, and not worry about it going above the concrete foundation. No. 4 Don't put any barrier up and burn a bag of bull crap at both my neighbors front doors for having higher property than mine. This problem has caused me a lot of stress the last few years cause I don't want my family's home to literally be washed away.

Answer
Hey, John.

If your drainage and dry well didn't completely solve the problem, one or the other might be undersized.

As far as your four choices go, you could do any of them, but ultimately they'd present more problems than they solve, especially #4 -- LOL.

Your neighbors are correct about not building up the dirt higher than the concrete foundation, especially with brick siding. Try to keep at least two inches between the bottom of the brick and the soil, preferably four inches. If I were in your situation, I'd build a 12-18 inch French drain right next to your foundation and then build your flower beds outside of that. A properly built French drain would also serve as a walkway around your house for regular maintenance.

Hope that helps.

Russel