When will it be my house?

We have lived in our house for 33 years but people still ask whether we live at the house with the boat in the garden. The people we bought it from built it around 1970 and parked a boat on the front.

Guilty as charged. Two neighbours homes are referred to by us and everyone who knew them by their previous, now deceased, owners names.

The (only) previous owner of our home used to breed cage birds, after ten years we still have people knock on the door asking if we have any young birds. We’ve never dared ask folk who remember him how they refer to our home, although one does refer to us as the people who live in the naughty corner .

We bought the "Kennedy's house" from Mrs Kennedy, complete with some furniture as she, now widowed, was downsizing. The Kennedys bought it new in 1938.
Now I live in the "Cowan's" house. They moved out in 1952 but are well known in the town to this day. The original Cowan family moved in about 1830.
What with the Kennedy's furniture, including the bath whose taps are dated 1938 we brought with us I don't think I would yet describe the house as mine
I've been here 43 years
That'll be for those future people.

We lived in our first house for nine years and were still known as "the new people down the road."
I did wonder how long it would take for that to change!

I haven't experience of this (but have loved reading your stories) so my tale is a bit off-piste. The nearest bus stop to me for our local town bus, used by residents all the time, is still referred to as 'Can you stop outside Argos please?' Argos moved out years ago and the premises are empty with no signage. It's still referred to as the Argos bus stop in the printed timetable.

I just realised I might not like it if my home was (say) previously the slaughterhouse...

I lived near a small new build group of homes (fancy ones) which incorporated one of those once. We locals referred to them as the "slaughterhouses"

We are very friendly with a couple who live at the "Turkey Farm", it's not called that and the turkey farmer left 20 years ago but to us it is still the Turkey Farm.

Baggs

We've lived in "Oh! TheMcGonagalls' (name changed) old house!" for 17 years now. It has had several other owners between the end of the McGs' stint and us. But I quite like this way of recognising where people are – it connects you to the history of a place. All the old local families know which is the McGonagalls' Old House 😁

I think I'm like you with this one.
Some of us love that connection Baggs.
I know I'm my own person but I tread the same earth as those that went before. I like to feel this continuity.

Baggs

We've lived in "Oh! TheMcGonagalls' (name changed) old house!" for 17 years now. It has had several other owners between the end of the McGs' stint and us. But I quite like this way of recognising where people are – it connects you to the history of a place. All the old local families know which is the McGonagalls' Old House 😁

I love that continuity too, baggs.

Our previous house had been let out for a number of years and we kept meeting people who’d lived in it as a rental. It had been decorated in a slightly offbeat manner and it was a bit surreal as people kept asking if we still had X decor in Y room and so on. (Answer was NO!)

Strangely, we never met the people we bought it from, they’d moved abroad.

We've lived in "Oh! TheMcGonagalls' (name changed) old house!" for 17 years now. It has had several other owners between the end of the McGs' stint and us. But I quite like this way of recognising where people are – it connects you to the history of a place. All the old local families know which is the McGonagalls' Old House 😁

Some day soon, perhaps in forty years, there will be no one alive who has ever known me. That's when I will be truly dead - when I exist in no one's memory. I thought a lot about how someone very old is the last living individual to have known some person or cluster of people. When that person dies, the whole cluster dies, too, vanishes from the living memory. I wonder who that person will be for me. Whose death will make me truly dead? ― Irvin D. Yalom, Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy

Is that what has to happen? The last person who remembers Richard and Jenny has to die or move away?

My Gran lived in her house for over fifty years - when she was describing places she always used a description that was more relevant to her early years there. The local shop was known as 'Mary's' and as children we would often be asked to go to Mary's for 10 Woodbine for my grandfather. I was 19 before I found out that Mary had moved out before I was even born but to this day it is still Mary's.

Someone we all loved here has moved away now, but his house will forever be Norman's house, whoever lives there. He was a wonderful character.
(not his real name)

Children in law*

Lollin

kittylister I would love to look around my old school but never dare approach the owners. I imagine it is wonderful inside. Do you mind people approaching you? Do they go on about their school memories? Does it bore you now? Apologies to sago!

No, we don't mind at all. I feel as though we are only borrowing it.

It's interesting ro hear different recollections about it. Two of our children in laws went to school here and they have entirely different recollections despite only being 2 years apart in age. The best people for remembering are old teachers (only 1 left that we know of) and mums who helped with reading etc.

We nearly bought a house with no actual name in rural Ireland years ago.

We would have just called it "Jenny Murphy's" after the elderly lady whose house it was. It fell through eventually but I loved that house and still think of it 30 years later.

I think it's nice. It will be your house eventually. It's a continuum.

Oops kittylester not lister

kittylister I would love to look around my old school but never dare approach the owners. I imagine it is wonderful inside. Do you mind people approaching you? Do they go on about their school memories? Does it bore you now? Apologies to sago!

We've lived in our current house for 42 years. For about 20 years, if we needed to describe where we lived it would be "Paddy Murphy's" but eventually the generation who would have known him had died out, so now it's probably known by our name.
So if you stay long enough - over 20 years- it might become yours!

Oooh! We are guilty of that too.

Next door but one has had 2 different families in since Chris and Debbie moved but it is still their house even though we go to their new house.

Ours is called The Old School House by all and sundry (not us). It was called Truants by the people before us. We have had people who went to school here knock at the door and ask to look round. I doubt it will ever truly be ours.

Mind you, we lived in our previous house for 33 years- and it is now a children's nursery. And I know peope now call it 'our house + name + childrens' names'.

I’m guilty of the same thing I’m afraid. When we moved here over 20 yrs ago all of our neighbours were retired ( I worked) but I saw a lot of them at the weekends.
Now we are retired the old neighbours have died and their homes are now occupied by younger families who all work, I rarely see them, don’t know them to speak too, high hedges ensure that, so in my head the houses are the old peoples houses.
Strange to think that I’m now one of the old people!

I recently met people along our road who have lived there for 45 years. When I was explaining where I live, the reponse was “oh, you mean, Enid’s house” (name changed). She must have moved early 2000s, the previous occupants were here at least 10 years and we’ve lived here 13 years!

But then Sago perhaps it's only because they've just met you, that they thought of the house as Richard and Jenny's who may only have been there five years but could have made a big impact within their social circle.

A 'come-back' I can think of is that you narrow your eyes in a mock-evil way and say, "It's my house now" with an evil cackle - they'll remember you then!