How much have your neighbours cost you?

Lived in 6 abodes and had good neighbours. Current abode still goid neighbours bit they are the ones that cost money. Our properties have conditions on them prohibiting any business to be run from or on them. Next door decided to become a childminder- a business.. In the summer and especially Covid times when travel was retricted the noise from the kids was horrendous. All of them were mainly up on a patio right at back of house. We had to turn our Alexa off as what the kids were
yelling often activated the system indoors. No luck trying to get the noise reduced. Contacted the Inspection agency having read tge conditions to be approved as childminder- must not have any restrictions on running a business. No action taken. We ended up building a summerhouse at the bottom of the garden where we could escape some of the noise. £6000. Then the next year stopped childminding as too much paperwork apparently

therustyfairy

The question was 'How Much Has Your Neighbour Cost You' - Gransnet members were not asked 'How nice is your neighbour' Like CariadAgain my neighbours have cost me financially as well as precious time and also caused disruption, dispair and distress. It is a serious problem not taken with the gravitas deserved. Neither is it helpful when Gransnet members respond and share their 'Nice Neighbour Narratives', it negates the problem raised and, fails to recognize the author's dilemma.

No it doesn’t.
It answers the question . We were not asked to empathise with OP or come up with a four-figure sum to compare with her experience. One can feel sympathy but not empathy if one’s experience is the opposite.
You can’t ask a question to which there is only one type of answer - ie damning.
If my neighbours have not only cost me nothing but also have been worth their weight in gold- that is my legitimate answer.

The question was 'How Much Has Your Neighbour Cost You' - Gransnet members were not asked 'How nice is your neighbour' Like CariadAgain my neighbours have cost me financially as well as precious time and also caused disruption, dispair and distress. It is a serious problem not taken with the gravitas deserved. Neither is it helpful when Gransnet members respond and share their 'Nice Neighbour Narratives', it negates the problem raised and, fails to recognize the author's dilemma.

We moved into our house 4 months ago. We have hundreds, if not thousands of neighbours. Unfortunately they are all dead as we live directly opposite the parish church, built in the 13th century.

We only really have one living neighbour - and she clearly doesn't want to know us. She has stonewalled us ever since we moved in. So thats that.

Ours pales into insignificance compared to the OP.
But, our neighbour saw us painting our adjoining fence and insisted that we were legally required to paint her side too?
Not because any paint had ‘leaked over’ but because she said it’s our fence so we have to paint both sides!
She’s not very bright and over eighty so we meekly did as we were told.

Grandmotherto8

£0. I have nothing to do with my neighbours bar a 'hello' from across the road. Even neighbours who seem ok can turn into the devil's spawn.

I can imagine a scenario, for instance, where the neighbours start by seeming okay - but then they decide they want an extension that will land up involving your house or windows put up in a loft that look down into your private back garden (not any longer - thanks to them - and cue for seeing if you can get planning permission refused (in order to keep your garden private).

£0. I have nothing to do with my neighbours bar a 'hello' from across the road. Even neighbours who seem ok can turn into the devil's spawn.

Zero. I don't particularly like my neighbours but I'm glad they're here.

£0. We get on well

one of our neighbours did all our joinery, new doors skirtings and banisters, another fixed the electrics, all at a very cheap price, really good neighbours, they're there if we need anything.

I'm very sorry for those who have horrible neighbours It must be very stressful and must spoil your enjoyment of your own house.

Our neighbours have cost us a certain amount. There were Christmas presents for one lot when their children were small, plus recently some books for their grandchildren. On the other side, they have cost us for the presents we brought them home to say thank you for looking after our hens and keeping an eye on our house when we were on holiday - is that cancelled out by the times when we took in their post and looked after their fish when they were away? We know that we are very fortunate in our neighbours.

On the other hand, as for the people across the road who have a large dog which barks every time we go into our own garden...

horsetail trees - sycamore trees.

I'm a bit of a forager. So I'd been looking round my homecity for Japanese Knotweed (amongst other stuff) and never found it - though I'd have had 40 fits if I'd found it anywhere remotely near my house and it was nice to know it was something that just didn't have to be taken into consideration at all when buying a house (as I'd never even heard of anyone local having problems with it).

Here - I could sit down and tell you where there are various patches I've noticed and some of them are walking distance away from my home!!!! I began to understand why because every time I spotted some I'd look out for the owner to tell them the "bad news" that they'd got a problem needing dealing with - and every time they knew already!!!!!! - and they weren't doing anything! I don't understand that - especially as neighbours can now "have a go" legally at any nearby culprit they have (and I certainly would.....). So it was/is beyond me why they just shrugged and put one of "those" expressions on their faces.

I was also shocked when I got told about the fact there had been a locals getting together and running an eradication programme on it - because it was in so many gardens in that area. The shock not being the joint approach - as I was thinking "That's good" when I heard that. Nope - the shock was when a "leading light" from that former programme was saying that "Someone bought one of those houses subsequently, dug in their garden and complained there was JK there!!!!" Errr....hello! But I thought the whole idea was they'd got rid of it all - and so why had they only done a "surface level" job...but not a thorough job and she seemed to think new house-owner was most unreasonable to complain they had some!!! Wow - just wow! Of course you're going to dig in your garden and expect to dig down however far you please and not encounter any particularly bad problems (I was surprised enough to encounter three separate anti-witch items - ie a witches bottle etc) when I dug down in mine and up they came and some odd huge stones/bricks that should have gone when the house was built in the 1970s.

So - to me it looks like a large part of the reason it's pretty frequent round here is a lacksadaisical approach to getting rid of it. I would expect to be sued if I'd let that happen to my garden and I couldnt keep a straight face if the claimant told me I was in the wrong - because I'd know I would be/they'd be perfectly correct and I'd be guilty as charged and wouldnt even hang around waiting for an incoming solicitors letter about it.

I'd like to try some - provided I didn't have the worry of having picked it from near my house - as I'd gathered it's similar taste to rhubarb and chances are I'd like it. But I leave it be when I spot it - in case someone has been responsible and poisoned it. I've never really been able to see why it doesn't get leapt on instantly when spotted - ie because it would be so easy when it had only just started and there was just an odd stalk or two to deal with. It would be gone in the blink of an eye the second it was spotted.

The "greenery" problem I've had here has been that there are sycamore trees nearby and so I keep an eye on my garden for seedlings from that and they are dead easy to just pull out when they are only a few inches tall - end of problem. Five minutes later and I'll have pulled up half a dozen would-be horsetail trees and they're gone. One time too I spotted another weed (tries to think of name - horsetail? maybe) and it was just a tiny little patch in between previous paving stones - a couple of inches wide and a couple of inches tall. Cue for down on my knees with manicure scissors and chopping it literally down to an nth of an inch as short as I could, pour boiling hot water over it a couple of times, put spare paving stones on top to block it from receiving any sun. Repeat again a few weeks later - and job done....end of problem.

I do believe re loss of house value from having it - as I wondered why people were talking about the nerve someone I used to know here had to pay someone else only the same price for their house as owner no. 1 had paid years back. Then I checked back what owner no. 1 had paid 8?-10? years previous for the house and owner no. 2 bought it off her for the exact same price all those years later. They'd both long known the JK was there - and it constantly puzzled me why owner no. 1 didnt get onto the farmer next door about it (as it was his fault - it had started in his field). Though I'm assuming it was a case of incomer "female" type female and local (male) farmer and she preferred a quiet life - so let him get away with it.!!!!

Neighbours in a rental, or their babysitter - probably/possibly, they say it was her - put wetwipes down the lav which blocked the drain.
No-one else sharing that drain has small children but we all had to share the cost of having it cleared.

£80,000! Plus a bit more.

Victorian semi. All the boundaries were owned by the neighbours. The fence blew down on the left. Neighbour would not replace it. I have dogs, so I had to do it. Also, he would not remove his encroaching brambles and bindweed.

On the right, the owners (a large and well known charitable organisation), would not maintain their boundary of trees, even though it was written into the deeds that they were obliged to do this. I had to employ a tree surgeon.

The icing on the cake was that they had Japanese Knotweed, on their side of the back fence, which they had not addressed. Because of its presence within X metres of our property, we lost £80,000 on the sale.

IMMO, there is far too much scaremongering about the weed. Just eat it! Apparently, it tastes like spinach!

CariadAgain

Allira

she went off to her friends and told them "Vendor has got a buyer. You'd better stop pretending not to be interested after all and playing a waiting game waiting for him to reduce the price" and that vendor was back to me only two weeks later when I said I'd found my own buyer and demanding an extra £2,000 (because he could see there was competition for the house).

How do you know the NDN went off and told her friends that? Do you know her friends?

Sorry, is it just me who is confused about what happened?

There were enough clues to work it out - including all the glares from the would-be buyers who'd just let the house "sit there" apparently unwanted for months, when they werent trying to park in my garden or blocking it.

All confirmed to me recently by a local I'm friends with/supportive of her enterprises she does who knows absolutely everyone here it seems - and she's confirmed it. She tells me a lot about how things work round here (usually along the lines of "Don't use any of the solicitors here - they all meet up on the golf course and tell each other every confidential thing they know"). She doesn't miss much....her family have been here since Year Dot....

I think I'd move back to that lovely city CariadAgain!!

Nothing.

petra

CariadAgain
It’s obvious that you and your neighbours didn’t get on from the off.
I’m not surprised that they didn’t offer you the use of their bathrooms.
There was no need for you to be without a toilet for over a day, ie use a bucket until the new one is in situ.

That was what I had to do at that point - and hope none of my workmen walked in....

I got straight on with renovating the house - as it was so desperately in need of major work that I got on instantly with the electrics and the central heating.

I had hoped things would work out with them and was surprised/bit concerned when I'd done nothing outside the odds at all and was generally being considerate re how much disruption the workmen were causing (no noise outside workhours/all rubbish and parking kept to my garden/etc). So I was both horrified and surprised when I finally got invited in by next door and she was straight out with telling me - in pretty much those words at that - that I must do as she wanted OR ELSE. Gobsmacked at being told "Do as I want or you're for it" and it was in pretty much those words and the trespassing started up within weeks too. I'd never even heard of that sort of thing happening with neighbours. Though, over the succeeding years, I got told about quite a bit of "trouble" and land-nicking/garden-nicking happens a lot in this area (all I'd ever noticed of that prior to my move was I could see a house nowhere near me was clearly trying to "make a bid" for a little bit of land outside its boundary - and I then saw that someone soon put a stop to that). It was basically very much unknown in my area - hence my astonishment. You'd be in a conversation with someone here you were friendly with and out she'd come telling you a tale of how her parents lent a bit of their large garden to the neighbours and never managed to get it back again when they decided to. By the time I'd heard umpteen tales of land-grabbing here/there/all sorts of places I felt it explained the neighbours assumptions they could trespass into my garden/park in my garden/etc - and checked to make sure they had no legal rights for any of that and put a stop to it. Definitely gobsmacked when that would even happen whilst I could see my garden clearly - and they could see I could - and yet still did so.

I think one of the things that got me most was having so many people (neighbours/workmen) treat me like a "woman" and I'd been treated as a "person" (no question of trying to step on me just because of the sex of my body) for about the last 30 years and then up came this thing from the history books (not the only "historical" thing to happen by any manner of means). I got the idea when I looked at a photo of women going off for an all female group outing straight out of the 1950s by the way they were dressed/posed - and it stated by it that this group outing was actually in the 1980s and I did a doubletake. "Hats" !!! "Gloves" !!!

Only one neighbour and only because of trees. They planted a row of conifers right along the fence so they half grew over our side. They eventually broke the guttering and fascia around our roof. They didn't want to do anything about cutting them back (they didn't like the idea of seeing the side of our house for some reason) so it has cost us thousands over the years keeping them trimmed back to the fence.

Our side actually looks really green and thick but because they never cut their side back they have ended up with just long sparse branches. Thankfully they have gone now and the new neighbour is lovely. He cut the trees down by half so that his gardener could manage them more easily and it's easy to keep them trimmed back ourselves now.

We have a hedge on one side of our garden which we have had to cut back & some had to be removed as was dead & some with huge spikes. Our neighbour has a very large, powerful dog which has come in to our garden several times running amok over furniture, plants and myself. I can't let the grandchildren out in the garden because of this dog. We put a temporary fabric fence up 3 years ago to contain the dog which cost £80 but the neighbour seems to have no intention of putting up a secure fence, although he has promised to do so several times. Not a huge monetary cost but costly on my stress levels.

Good grief Cariad you poor thing, that’s awful!

Very little, just Christmas cards, birthday cards for the three lovely children who used to live on one side of us and a Christmas present for the neighbours on the other side, usually biscuits or chocolates; during the recent spell of snow and ice that neighbour knocked the door and offered to do shopping for us or clear our drive and the previous neighbours with three children used to clear our drive for us if it snowed. They have been replaced with a family with a little boy who put a hand made Christmas card in our post box with a message thanking us for always smiling and waving to him. We are very fortunate with our immediate neighbors and others we have got to know in the neighborhood through walking our dog and it is why we don’t want to downsize even though we are finding the house and garden difficult to manage now.

CariadAgain
It’s obvious that you and your neighbours didn’t get on from the off.
I’m not surprised that they didn’t offer you the use of their bathrooms.
There was no need for you to be without a toilet for over a day, ie use a bucket until the new one is in situ.

Sorry to hear that Madeleine. I hate "anally retentive" gardeners too and I can well understand you wanted/needed to draw solace from your garden with that health issue going on.

Imo - he could have just left it be....even if it was his side of the fence. Not a big deal.

In my starter house I knew the wall in between my house and the uphill neighbour was mine (the solicitor had told me so clearly when I bought the house) and I didn't like the fact that the wife out of the 2nd set of neighbours in that house had put a cheap plastic container with bogstandard flowers in up on top of my wall and would have been well within my rights to remove it and give it back to her. But I knew she was seriously ill (dying in her case) and so just winced to myself and left it there and just removed it when he moved come the time she was no longer around.

They must have felt I was okay to them - as I knew exactly what their income situation was (he told me!) and he told me what amount the DWP had decided to give her come the time she'd had to give up her job. I knew - at that point - she'd be dead within the week (ie that low income would be last straw) and went out and bought a bottle of brandy for when he did - and there he was ringing my doorbell a few days later telling me she just had. Cue for I got out that brandy and a glass and started pouring saying "Tell me when to stop....". So we got on okay - and I'd turned that blind eye to plants/container I didnt like. I felt she had enough to cope with - so I wasnt going to be doing anything about her plants and container. Even tiny things can affect how one feels if in an upsetting situation anyway...

M0nica

Over 57 years and six houses, not a penny.

Nearly 30 years and 6 houses.
Same.