What experiences have other people had of having "chemical gardeners" for neighbours?
I don't use chemicals on my garden and wouldnt do so even if it was a purely "ornamental" one. That is all the more the case because I am growing as much food as I can in my little garden - and it's organic of course.
I live in a small rural town now - so it's all the more necessary - because I've not got the level of shopping facilities I've had formerly and so it's also necessary in order to get as much variety as possible in my diet here (as the supermarkets here are very limited in what they stock and there's many fewer places to eat out here).
Next door neighbour is a chemical-sprayer and that's a bit worrying. Now an even nearer neighbour (in some ways) has turned out to be a chemical-sprayer and they just had someone out spraying on a bit of stolen-from-me-by-last-owner-of-their-house bit of my garden that I can still use for access to see to my fruit trees and my strawberries I have planted right next to it. Agh!!!!!! I'm scared they're going to poison my food - and the spraying still happened, despite me saying that.
When I could see what was happening - and that there is wind (as usual) today I was out there with my hosepipe watering my fruit trees and strawberries like mad in advance and watered like mad after the nasty chemicals had been sprayed nearby too. I am worried that happened near my organic food I'm growing and that they might do it again in the future.
I've tried to stop this and I've told the gardener they used that I've got food growing in my garden and will be eating it still - so I hope they don't poison me with their chemicals.
I'm understandably upset - especially as a large part of why I bought a house with a garden was to grow as much of my food as I can and I was here years before the "chemical neighbours".
What experiences have other people had of neighbours using chemicals near their garden - especially foodgrowing ones like mine? How did you/do you deal with it? I obviously want to stop that. At the very least I need to prevent them poisoning/ruining any of my food.
To me logic dictates "Be nice to a gardener growing food near you - as they might give you some if they have a surplus". That's the logical position imo. Well that obviously won't be happening now and so they'll be dipping out on getting any groceries for their larder.....and my mind is boggling they didn't seem to realise that would obviously happen....
Thinking about fencing you would normally have the “good” side facing the road and that side would be built from the road. If you did that on a boundary fence it would mean trampling the neighbours garden to do it.
Usually garden boundary fences are “larch lap” panels that are pretty much the same both sides so there should be no problems.
Don’t use a spray for preservative, wind drift will always be a
problem.
Summerlove
It’s not really your land anymore. You gave it away. Try to stop thinking of it as yours.
As long as what they are spraying is legal, again you have no say.
Are you okay OP?
Confused as to who it is that "gave land away"....
I've not done so myself ever. I have had that bit of my garden stolen off me....certainly not given it away that's for sure. The people who did the theft were the last owners of that house and the current owners know the last owners stole that bit off me.
That's what is puzzling me again - ie why they are spraying the chemicals they know I don't like...and near my foodgrowing (literally inches away from some of it) when they know in their heart of hearts it isn't theirs - because it was stolen off me.
I think I'm up against what I got told off about decades ago by a friend - when he said to me (about our mutual employer of the time) "The trouble with you is because you are a nice person - you think they (our mutual employer) will treat you the way you would treat you. You are wrong! They won't, They are not nice people".
He was perfectly correct about our employer and I saw them coming at ever step after that - as I first of all thought "What would I do? What should happen?" and then turned it on its head and thought "Right - now if I were in their position and I was a nasty person like they are - then what would I do instead?". That tactic worked like an absolute dream with them at every single stage - because every single time they did what I figured out a b&stard would do, instead of what I would have done in their position. Thinking like a b*stard like them had me being complimented on being "two steps ahead of them for anticipating what they'd do next".
I suspect these new neighbours don't actually care that that bit of garden is really mine/don't care I'm growing food/don't care that yep...I really really will keep eating it and, if it makes me ill = on their head be it - as they knew how things are. I hope I don't have to do another bit of "head spinning" of the "What they should do and what I would do is x - but let's assume they'll take the B*stard option instead of the correct option - and what does that mean they'll do instead of correct action?"
Jury still out on that at the moment and maybe just maybe they'll turn out to be nice and fairminded and intelligent etc etc. But I am starting to worry they will be yet more people that only care about themselves and will take the B*stard Option instead of the correct morally okay one. After all (even though I'm in my 70's now) and so had a lot of years of life - I've very very rarely indeed seen anyone with surplus income state that they have and give it away (eg to a good cause). I've met a couple - eg the Lord who had given away his mansion to the National Trust and picked me up in a very ordinary car to give me a lift we'd arranged etc and seemed to thoroughly enjoy the very ordinary lunch I'd made for us- but there's very few people that nice/fair/etc. Or the Labour Party activist that decided he earned a few thousand £s pa more than national average salary and so gave it away. These fairminded people are very few and far between unfortunately - and many are what I call "greedy grabbers".
So I must not be too optimistic they'll "do the right thing" - as so many people don't and they haven't started on the right foot...but you never know...there are some people that have a "road to Damascus" moment and start behaving decently....
It’s not really your land anymore. You gave it away. Try to stop thinking of it as yours.
As long as what they are spraying is legal, again you have no say.
Are you okay OP?
Astitchintime
CariadAgain
Astitchintime
One side of us is a keen gardener too so we don’t have any problems………he likes to take the organic alternately route rather than nasty chemicals.
The other side is a pain in the backside! He knows nothing about gardening whatsoever. Some months ago he constructed a wooden shed with an open front to use as a sheltered seating area for when he has a BBQ - I’ve not got a problem with that but I came back from holiday recently and he had sprayed the shed with wood stain and the overspray was all over my greenhouse ….. not only that, he had spray his side of MY fence and again the overspray had gone all over my window frames!
I know he can’t help the direction that the wind blows but he could have waited for a calmer day, when I was home and could have put dust sheets over the greenhouse ! He then proposed to jet wash the affected areas…….bloody moron!AGH!!!! I can well sympathise with that - I'd have hit the roof bigtime. The law doesn't allow painting your side of a neighbours fence.
As you say - he could have at least waited for a calm day. At the very least = if he'd made a genuine booboo of not realising the wind would spread it, then he should have come in and cleaned it off and then spoken to you when you got back and apologised profusely and said how he'd carefully tried to get it all off your property and "please to let him know" if he'd missed a bit. Quick bunch of flowers thrown in with the apology would not have gone amiss either.New fence going up next week as the old one is falling apart………if he even steps near it with wood stain I might lose my temper a tad! I’m now left with the decision…….do I give him to ‘ right or wrong side’ of the panels? I know it’s usual to have the wrong side to the owners side but he had seriously peed me off big time but I have to also consider his step grandchildren who might use the horizontal part of the panels as a climbing frame. What would you do?
It is indeed usual in some areas - eg my home area of South West England - to give the neighbour the good side of a fence one has put up. That's one of the things that I was surprised at/don't agree with here in the part of West Wales I'm in and I commented on it to a workman one time that it's antisocial to give the neighbour the wrong side and wondering why it happens here often - at which point (with him being local to this area) his response was "I've paid for it - and so I am going to get the benefit of the good side". !!!!
So - yep if he was a decent neighbour then you would certainly give him the good side - as per normal practice (presumably "normal practice" applies for most of the country??).
But, in the event, that he's been plain thoughtless and wrong (I mean - most people know the law states one can't paint your side of the neighbours fence) and asking other people and/or the Internet will soon tell people that fact if they care to find out (which he didnt - or he ignored it) =
I'd personally think "Well he has proven he doesnt care about me or following the law or anything -so I owe him nowt if he hasnt apologised and sorted it out properly - eg that bunch of flowers that would show he's truly contrite". So that lack of flowers (or chocolates or whatever else one gifts in those circumstances) and I'm presuming you didn't even get a quick verbal apology = I'd take the best side of my fence for myself. Basically "If he doesnt care about me - how come I'm supposed to care about him" is the lines my mind would be thinking along.
I gather the reason why most of us give the neighbour the good side in the first place is partly for the pragmatic reason of not having anyone (eg we're usually thinking "thieves" in that context) using the horizontal bar things to help them climb over our fence.. In your case I can see why you would wander whether his allied children would do that - though obviously it would be his responsibility to stop them doing that.
I wonder whether he is the sort of person who expects allied children to behave themselves or no? Difficult one - and it's still the case that many boys will misbehave more than a girl would (look at the proportion of teenagers/young adults that drive carelessly - and it's still got a tendency to be men even in this day and age). So I would bear in mind what the chances are as to whether those children have been brought up properly or no and try and figure that one out to know what to do for the best.
If they are potential "misbehavours" - what are the chances the adults will deal with it if they're reported for doing so? what are the chances they might damage your new fence and whether he'd cover his costs to put it right if so?
On balance - I'd be inclined to put it the right way round and tell myself "There's evidence for all to see that I know how to behave - if he doesnt"....
So - yep...quite a few factors to take into account on this one...
CariadAgain
Astitchintime
One side of us is a keen gardener too so we don’t have any problems………he likes to take the organic alternately route rather than nasty chemicals.
The other side is a pain in the backside! He knows nothing about gardening whatsoever. Some months ago he constructed a wooden shed with an open front to use as a sheltered seating area for when he has a BBQ - I’ve not got a problem with that but I came back from holiday recently and he had sprayed the shed with wood stain and the overspray was all over my greenhouse ….. not only that, he had spray his side of MY fence and again the overspray had gone all over my window frames!
I know he can’t help the direction that the wind blows but he could have waited for a calmer day, when I was home and could have put dust sheets over the greenhouse ! He then proposed to jet wash the affected areas…….bloody moron!AGH!!!! I can well sympathise with that - I'd have hit the roof bigtime. The law doesn't allow painting your side of a neighbours fence.
As you say - he could have at least waited for a calm day. At the very least = if he'd made a genuine booboo of not realising the wind would spread it, then he should have come in and cleaned it off and then spoken to you when you got back and apologised profusely and said how he'd carefully tried to get it all off your property and "please to let him know" if he'd missed a bit. Quick bunch of flowers thrown in with the apology would not have gone amiss either.
New fence going up next week as the old one is falling apart………if he even steps near it with wood stain I might lose my temper a tad! I’m now left with the decision…….do I give him to ‘ right or wrong side’ of the panels? I know it’s usual to have the wrong side to the owners side but he had seriously peed me off big time but I have to also consider his step grandchildren who might use the horizontal part of the panels as a climbing frame. What would you do?
Well, like I said before that’s town living.
N a town you live in close proximity to your neighbours and they won’t always live the way you do or change their life to suit yours.
Very few people live next door to people who are exactly like them.
I don’t like my neighbours cats coming in my garden so I cover my beds with chicken wire so they can’t dig. I don’t expect her to get rid of them.
On my left s a jungle. I cut down the stuff when it encroaches.
At the back they have lots of Summer parties. I close the windows or go out or just think Summer will soon be over.
This is what living in a town involves. You can’t make other people conform to your life style.
I can’t see a solution other than to move given all your neighbour difficulties.
Astitchintime
One side of us is a keen gardener too so we don’t have any problems………he likes to take the organic alternately route rather than nasty chemicals.
The other side is a pain in the backside! He knows nothing about gardening whatsoever. Some months ago he constructed a wooden shed with an open front to use as a sheltered seating area for when he has a BBQ - I’ve not got a problem with that but I came back from holiday recently and he had sprayed the shed with wood stain and the overspray was all over my greenhouse ….. not only that, he had spray his side of MY fence and again the overspray had gone all over my window frames!
I know he can’t help the direction that the wind blows but he could have waited for a calmer day, when I was home and could have put dust sheets over the greenhouse ! He then proposed to jet wash the affected areas…….bloody moron!
AGH!!!! I can well sympathise with that - I'd have hit the roof bigtime. The law doesn't allow painting your side of a neighbours fence.
As you say - he could have at least waited for a calm day. At the very least = if he'd made a genuine booboo of not realising the wind would spread it, then he should have come in and cleaned it off and then spoken to you when you got back and apologised profusely and said how he'd carefully tried to get it all off your property and "please to let him know" if he'd missed a bit. Quick bunch of flowers thrown in with the apology would not have gone amiss either.
petra
CariadAgain
Has it ever crossed your mind that your not suited to being a neighbour 🤷♀️
I think you ve hit the nail on the on the head Petra 😀
One side of us is a keen gardener too so we don’t have any problems………he likes to take the organic alternately route rather than nasty chemicals.
The other side is a pain in the backside! He knows nothing about gardening whatsoever. Some months ago he constructed a wooden shed with an open front to use as a sheltered seating area for when he has a BBQ - I’ve not got a problem with that but I came back from holiday recently and he had sprayed the shed with wood stain and the overspray was all over my greenhouse ….. not only that, he had spray his side of MY fence and again the overspray had gone all over my window frames!
I know he can’t help the direction that the wind blows but he could have waited for a calmer day, when I was home and could have put dust sheets over the greenhouse ! He then proposed to jet wash the affected areas…….bloody moron!
The scaremongering over chemicals is massive, they have all been tested and approved, even glyphosate which has been available for 60 yrs still has not been proved to have harmed anything.
However a neighbour is not allowed to affect your property and you could take action to stop him, on the other hand if your “wild” garden is spreading weed seeds across his property he might be equally aggrieved.
We moved home three weeks ago and inherited a lawn that had not been cared for.
I spent two days weeding it by hand, I was sore and stiff but the lawn is starting to look lovely!
Unfortunately not many people have the time, inclination or physical fitness to make such an effort and I understand this.
I think your neighbours can do what they wish in their garden.
I am being cynical here
I think you are!
Thinks maybe bad neighbours are the ones that don't have neighbour problems themselves
We don't have neighbour problems. 🤞
I don't think we're bad neighbours either.
Hmmmm....LOL....in that case maybe I'd better become noisy, dishonest, neglect my house, have noisy disruptive pets, generally make a mess of my house and my life.
Thinks maybe bad neighbours are the ones that don't have neighbour problems themselves - as people know they're baddies and steer a million miles away from them.
Quiet, honest, well-behaved neighbours with no pets and that do necessary renovation work on the house (but only in workhours) may get a worse deal themselves in neighbours - because we don't scare people like the bad neighbours do....
Thinks...where can I find a course on how to be noisy/neglectful/dishonest then?
I am being cynical here - thinking a lot of neighbours would be glad of one like me - and I'm even prepared to water gardens/take in post/feed pets when they're away. Maybe I've got it all wrong - and it doesnt pay to be a decent neighbour oneself - as others think they can walk over you? Hmmm....
Maybe I'm being too soft and, what with being a woman on my own, am coming over as a walkover for any passing would-be troublemaker.......hmmm...
Selfish neighbours. No chemicals of any sort it in my garden.
CariadAgain
Has it ever crossed your mind that your not suited to being a neighbour 🤷♀️
BlueBelle
But you wrote about a next door lady parking on your garden last autumn Cariad And all the trouble she was causing you is that the same neighbour as the one causing you trouble
now ?
The next door woman was trying to park on my garden (that house is to the side of my house).
It's the house below my house that I am referring to.
Yep.....two trouble houses in the same road.
Nowt wrong with the house per se (well I'd like a bigger/better-planned one etc) - but overall the house itself is okay. But the neighbours in two of the houses are the problem here. Sideways house - parking. Frontways house - garden theft by last occupant, followed by chemical spraying by current occupant.
It's location problems - with two different houses.
But you wrote about a next door lady parking on your garden last autumn Cariad And all the trouble she was causing you is that the same neighbour as the one causing you trouble
now ?
merlotgran
You’ve lost me now. I thought this thread was about spraying.
It is about spraying.
I'm saying what the position is re the land they are spraying on - that it's legally theirs (and why that is the case), but actually mine and very close (bang beside) another part of my garden that is still legally mine (as well as actually mine iyswim). If they were only spraying in their own garden - then it would be nowhere near my garden. But it is bang beside the rest of my garden - because it's a bit of my garden that has been stolen off me by the previous owner of their house.
BlueBelle
But you ve had neighbours that you ve written about before that have stolen off you wasn’t one a Chinese lady ?
I guess you're thinking of a lodger I had - and that was in my last house. There was two Chinese girls at a time staying with me there as lodgers. The theft was that one stole off a company (as, in that era, British companies would sometimes send goods on order and without expecting upfront payment first - as they do these days).
Totally different scenario with totally different people in totally different house/different part of the country.
But you ve had neighbours that you ve written about before that have stolen off you wasn’t one a Chinese lady ?
You’ve lost me now. I thought this thread was about spraying.
M0nica
I think you are exagerating the danger of having weed and bug killing sprays affectng your crops.
The vast amjority of the food we eat has at sometime in the process been treated with chemicals, from fresh fruit and veg in shops and markets tonthe ingredients in packaged food, yet people are not keeling over clutching their throats nor is average life span plummitting.
Do not get me wrong. I too made every effort to have an organic garden and grow organic fruit and vegetables, so I do understand where you are coming from. But nowadays the strength of the herbicides and pesticides sold to the general public would be hard pushed to kill anything when used neat, let alone diluted as told - and professional gardeners need to earn their living all year round, so cannot let things like wind get in their way!
Why not cover your crops with fleeces when you see the sprayer come out. There will only be a problem if they have a big back pack sprayer. and are widely sprayingsomething like a lawn. If it is a small spray bottle being used on specific plants or weeds you should not have much to worry about.
It was a backpack sprayer and not a little bottle.
Though, goodness knows, the (new) owners of that house know that bit of land is a bone of contention anyway - ie it's really mine and is on my title plan made over 20 years ago (a fact I wasnt aware of to start with and thought it was communal).
The reason they can legally spray my land is the previous owner of their house nicked it off me and had it put on their title plan instead!!! Yep...they know they bought that house more cheaply because there'd been a legal dispute when I found out previous owner was trying to say it's theirs and the Land Registry swopped the Title Plan it's on (ie took it off mine of more than 20 years ago and put it on theirs - being made for the first time). So the new owners of that house are aware it's "really" mine and I only stopped with the solicitor because it's the top of a retaining wall that's several feet wide and I said to my solicitor at end of stage 1 of proceedings "My wall needs some very expensive repair or replacement - what would happen if I stop at this point? Whose bill would that be?" and she shrugged and burst out laughing. I got the point - if I left it at that then that house would get that bill and not mine...or I would possibly have carried on fighting. I've been told the bill will likely be well up into 5 figures when it has to be done...
Hence why that bit of land is SO close to my garden - ie because it is really mine and right next to it (yep mine is the upper house - ie the one that usually owns retaining walls). They know all that and that my strawberries are trailing on the ground literally only inches from where they've been there - with a backpack and in a wind and spraying.
The only darn blessing to this is that previous owner of their house was looking to steal even more of my garden than that - as I caught him in the act literally walking through from my back garden into my front garden at 7 a.m. in the morning (presumably doing guesstimate measurements to see just how much of my garden he figured he might be able to manage to steal). First he lied when I said I'd heard his footsteps/seen his silhouette through my curtains - and then he admitted it some weeks later and said they were "concerned for my welfare and so had to come to check I was okay for my benefit" - at 7 a.m. in the morning in the garden of a woman living on her own and whose doorbell works perfectly well to ring it..............hmmm....
I think you are exagerating the danger of having weed and bug killing sprays affectng your crops.
The vast amjority of the food we eat has at sometime in the process been treated with chemicals, from fresh fruit and veg in shops and markets tonthe ingredients in packaged food, yet people are not keeling over clutching their throats nor is average life span plummitting.
Do not get me wrong. I too made every effort to have an organic garden and grow organic fruit and vegetables, so I do understand where you are coming from. But nowadays the strength of the herbicides and pesticides sold to the general public would be hard pushed to kill anything when used neat, let alone diluted as told - and professional gardeners need to earn their living all year round, so cannot let things like wind get in their way!
Why not cover your crops with fleeces when you see the sprayer come out. There will only be a problem if they have a big back pack sprayer. and are widely sprayingsomething like a lawn. If it is a small spray bottle being used on specific plants or weeds you should not have much to worry about.
Salt, petrol and cement are all chemicals.
I thought glyphosphate is applied to individual leaves such as bramble, docks, or nettle. I can't imagine why anyone would want to spray it broadcast
Glyphosate is a systemic, broad leaf weed killer which means it reaches all parts of the plant once the leaves have been sprayed.
Most gardeners use the paint on gel version if they only want to target one particular plant.
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