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Irritating neighbours

Sporadic Sparkly

Do you have neighbours who annoy the heck out of you?

Back in the summer, I received an unexpected visit from my council housing officer and one of her colleagues. The reason being that a complaint had been made to the council about the state of my garden. Furthermore, the complainant had also contacted the MP for my area, which had resulted in the MP putting pressure on the council to get their tenant (me) to sort out their neglected and overgrown eyesore of a garden.

My son had been with me when this visit took place. Although the housing officer could not tell us who the complainant was, my son and I were both 99.9% sure that the complainant was a particular neighbour of ours who has a reputation for being a bit of a bully.

Fortunately for me, my local council know that I can struggle physically. It was made clear that if I was perfectly able-bodied, the pressure being applied by the MP would have resulted in the council pursuing the legal route and taking me to court. That said, if I was perfectly able-bodied, it's unlikely that I would have allowed my garden to end up becoming an eyesore.

It wasn't the complaint as such that irked me, but the fact that the complainant had not considered the option of sharing their concerns about my garden with me first. I'm not an unreasonable person, or at least I don't think I am. 

I have what I consider to be a good rapport with the rest of my neighbours, but it seems like this one particular neighbour seems to take great delight in trying to antagonise and intimidate anyone and everyone to get what he wants. As my son said, if the state of my garden was causing the neighbour distress, there was nothing stopping them from going down the neighbourly route and offering to help me get it sorted.

Parents

  • I think every street has a Tin Pot Hitler who thinks they have the right to enforce their will and what they consider right and proper on everybody else.

    If you get more complaints you could say you have a wildlife garden! If your neighbour's that bothered about it, then why not offer to help you?

  • in reply to TheCatWoman
    TheCatWoman said:
    If you get more complaints you could say you have a wildlife garden!

    If I'm honest, I'm inclined to think this might well have been what had driven the neighbour to make the complaint... the fear that my garden might attract the wrong kind of wildlife.

    Part-way through the course of last year, a number of us had been having issues with rats in our lofts. The Pest Control person who had visited my nightmare neighbour was of the opinion that the rats were getting in through my loft.

    My house is an end-terrace, and my back garden partially wraps around the side of my house. Much to my frustration (and the nightmare neighbour), I have self-seeding trees in my garden that grow like wildfire, with some that are hard to access.

    Whilst the Pest Control person who had visited me last year could find no signs of an entry point, the nightmare neighbour's opinion was that the rats were using the trees in my garden to gain access to my loft and the other neighbours' lofts.

    If I could afford the eye-watering cost, I would enlist the services of a tree surgeon to fell the trees in my garden, or at least get them to a height that my son could realistically manage. 

  • in reply to Sporadic Sparkly

    Rats are everywhere in our towns and cities, I think there are more urban ones than rural ones. They're far more likely to be attracted by food waste than accessability to your loft, how often do the council collect rubbish? Are there fast food outlets nearby that don't have enough bins, do people who use them chuck their leftovers on the pavement?

  • in reply to TheCatWoman

    Where I live, general waste (which currently includes food waste) is collected weekly. I live in an urban area approximately 1 mile away from the nearest town, with a convenience store less than ½ a mile away. There has (sadly) always been an issue with litter due to people being too lazy to dispose of it in a public bin, or take their rubbish home with them.

    There is a public pathway that runs past the back of my garden, which links up with one that runs past the side of my house and the footpath outside the front of my house. I'm forever having to pick up litter off my drive, and dispose of drink cans and bottles that have been chucked over my garden fence by thoughtless idiots who just don't care.

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  • in reply to TheCatWoman

    Where I live, general waste (which currently includes food waste) is collected weekly. I live in an urban area approximately 1 mile away from the nearest town, with a convenience store less than ½ a mile away. There has (sadly) always been an issue with litter due to people being too lazy to dispose of it in a public bin, or take their rubbish home with them.

    There is a public pathway that runs past the back of my garden, which links up with one that runs past the side of my house and the footpath outside the front of my house. I'm forever having to pick up litter off my drive, and dispose of drink cans and bottles that have been chucked over my garden fence by thoughtless idiots who just don't care.

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