To think this woman can't blame her neighbours

These must have been some enormous renovations! How could they have planning permission if such a degree of disruption would be caused?

Planning Permission isn’t the issue, the issue is that they broke the rules on what your builders are allowed to do and the hours they work.
The neighbours should have contacted the Council about the noisy builders and the damage done to the pavements. It’s a bit late to moan about it once it’s all finished.
The bungalow next to ours was knocked down and a huge house built in its place, I kept in touch with the builder, usually over the fence, about any issues I had , as they happened, rather than let it go and complain after he had gone,

Sorry

‘their’ builders

It is not possible for a planning authority to refuse to grant planning permission purely because of the temporary inconvenience that will be caused to neighbours during construction.

The planning permission can stipulate that building work can only take place within working hours (eg 8am - 5pm on Mondays to Fridays) .

Of course neither the owners or the people they employ should ever block neighbours' drives or disrupt their lives in other ways. The owners should have ensured that did not happen if they wanted good relationships with neighbours.

That’s an interesting two sided take which can be used in any dissent.
The newcomers complain about unfriendly neighbours, which on the face of it would probably be supported if posted here, but there will generally be another story/side which explains why.

This is why I hesitate to give opinions on many of the threads on forums such as this one. We only ever have one side of the story. Sometimes it may be valid, but also it may not be.

Giving opinions can then validate the poster's wrong impression (although they will not consider it wrong), and could make their situation more entrenched.

Replies and opinions, whether in person or online, should always be tentative until the whole picture is seen.

Each LA has their own rules about times of workmen starting and stopping. I don't think you can complain if they work within them. If not speaking to the workmen sometimes resolves it. They should have repaired the pavement but the neighbours can report things like that to the council to be repaired.
Parties - we don't have big parties or late parties. Some neighbours have late events but not frequently and short lived. Before I was married I remember having parties and inviting the neighbours/pre-warning them. We usually had an older brother as bouncer to keep things calm.
If it is often then they should note things down and maybe record on their phone the noise.
Must be awkward for you to have friends with different sides to the story and no it's not the best way to gain friends and influence people, however some older people can be very snotty and disapproving and curtain twitchers so again maybe two sides to the story.

It all sounds very convoluted. I wouldn’t get involved.

Oh I'm not getting involved. Just think it's interesting to hear the 2 sides. I think the couple did have to pay to get the pavement repaired but not for many months until the renovation work was done.

I think people's just gritted their teeth and put up with things as they didn't want to fall out with a new neighbou. But the late parties brought things to a head.

I had only lived in my (then rented) house for two weeks when I found my garden invaded by workmen who had come to do a job on next doors guttering.

When I went next door to speak to them about it they said they had "Asked my landlord" for permission and got it. I told them Ok we will call this a mis-communication. However if you need to use my property again you MUST ok it with me beforehand. The landlord has no say in the matter. Its my home and you must arrange access with me. Drop a note through my door and I will come around and discuss terms. The neighbour got snotty and said well you are only a tenant. I dont need your permission for anything.

The NDN then lost the opportunity by their arrogance to put the matter to rest. Had this happened to me I would have gone around next day with a bunch of flowers or chocolates. aplogised and promised that it would not happen again.

Since the initial incident the NDN has twice had workmen invade my garden such that I have had to threaten to call the police. They have fly tipped on my garden and constantly accused me to blocking their drains.

Eventually I was fourced to have my soliciter send them a scary letter threatening to sue for harassment. Since then they have kept their heads down and their mouths shut.

I dont give parties, keep a (barking) dog or a car which blocks access for others. However I am a private person and dont like unauthorised callers coming on my property without an up front arrangement in place.

My NDN lost a valuable opportunity to have a good (if distant) relationship with an ideal neighbour.

People do have such major works done on their houses. I sometimes wonder why they don't just buy a suitable property from the off. In our village there's one house that has has builders in for more than 2 years. The amount of concrete that has been poured into that house! The work is still ongoing as now they are concreting the outside space too.

Interesting Beswitched to know both sides of a story, we generally only know one side, don't we?. We had fairly big works done here on our house, but the builders were great, always swept the pavement and road when they left, and when we were finished, we sent all the neighbours a card inviting them in for a glass of wine as a thank you to them and apology from us. It is such a shame when people don't understand just how easy and easier it is to keep the peace, as Biglouis illustrated, a simple apology and a box of chocolates could have saved years of escalating irritation on both sides.

I had the experience of seeing both sides of a story when I was in work full time a few years ago.
I had 2 clients, neither of them ever suspected that I knew both of them and that I listened sympathetically to each side.
I was sorely tempted to put in my opinion but, thankfully, managed not to. I was hard not to.

Three nearby neighbours had extensive and lengthy renovations done. They told me when they would be happening and apologised in advance for the noise and mess, but nobody ever invited me in for a glass of wine. I think I am the only person in this road without an extension, and it does limit your conversation.
Never mind the wine, I would have loved to see what they had done!

PamelaJ1

I had the experience of seeing both sides of a story when I was in work full time a few years ago.
I had 2 clients, neither of them ever suspected that I knew both of them and that I listened sympathetically to each side.
I was sorely tempted to put in my opinion but, thankfully, managed not to. I was hard not to.

We have friends who had a lot of renovations done to their lovely old house and were upset by complaints from some neighbours whose garden backed on to theirs. They said the other couple were very unpleasant and unreasonable indeed.

Some time later DH got chatting to a friendly acquaintance with whom he is on a committee, who complained vociferously about his unreasonable neighbours' renovations.

Yes, it turns out we know both couples so we just stay out of it!

Wise move Callistemon hard to do though!

I used to go to meetings with my friend; her neighbour was there and my friend used to mutter "that's my horrible neighbour, we don't speak now"
Then I found myself sitting next to her horrible neighbour at a dinner and found her very pleasant.

We stay out of it!
They don't live that nearby.

Yes my friend keeps talking about her daughter's snobby unfriendly neighbours but seems to have little idea of how annoying and rude her daughter has been.
I just change the subject.

It all depends on how neighbours treat each other. We have a semi detached bungalow and last year our attached neighbours decided to have a rear extension built. They personally sent us the design (planning permission not required) and answered any queries we had.

The builders started in January 2021 and were completed by early April. Everytime they required access to our garden they asked in advance and cleared up as soon as they finished.

The owners sent us a large bottle of spirit half way through and presented us with an afternoon tea after the job was finished.

That is how building works should be done.

Neighbours I have had lovely ones who became friends and bad ones. I have come to the conclusion treat people the way they treat me. My husband is more tolerant than me but I have had more to do with neighbours than he has over the years.

I thought buying a detached house was a good idea but I was so wrong. We had planners from the local council knocking telling us our fence was too high. A neighbour was climbing over the fence cutting our trees down. The last straw was returning home to find a massive shed had been erected. Right outside our back door on the other side of the fence. Blocking the light and our view of the trees in the woods. I used to spend hour there watching the birds.

Now my view is a horrible shed so I do not have anything to do with NEIGHBOURS!!

Unfortunately you get a lot of entitled people in this world who think that no-one else is of any concern as long as they get what they want out of life. I find that ignoring them is the best way forward, by the way the hate to be ignored as everything they do is a 'look at me' situation. I think it is the world of social media that does this they have so many friends on facebook, whatsapp, snapchat, Instagram etc they think that they are actually important.

I'm having some work done in April, while it's internal only and won't impact on my neighbours directly, I've explained it to both and apologised in advance for any noise that may occur.

When it's over, I'll drop in a small 'thank you' ie cake / wine.

For me it's simply a case of good manners, relevant communication and common sense.

Sometimes I wish that I too gave large noisy parties, had a barking dog, or several cars to take up parking spaces. Just to annoy my whining NDN.

The only thing I do is to test the burglar alarm every 4 weeks for a few seconds - just to annoy my neighbours. Always during reasonable hours.

My nephews came to work on it during the first lockdown. Of course workpeople were allowed to do essential jobs. They were sitting in the garden with their children and grandchildren (breaking the lockdown) when I warned them politely that we were going to have to test the alarm. Their son had the cheek to tell my nephews they "shouldnt be here".

We only needed to test the alarm twice but we tested it 10 times over a 2 hour period.

There are some people that buy a house and then seem to think that no one exists outside their boundary!
They have their own place, so they can do what they like, right???
Fair enough that they wanted to renovate their new home, but it a courtesy either to pre-warn about the noise etc or at the very least, pop a card or note through doors apologising for the disruption.
Suggest that the friend's daughter drops a note through every door in the street or leaves a bunch of daffs on each doorstep with a note to apologise and her neighbours may well be a lot more friendlier !