To think my neighbour's Halloween decorations epitomise how abusurd their setup is? (Pic attached)

Could your mother be experiencing some mental health issues? I say this because my aunty started saying things like that about her neighbours. It started small, saying they didn't like her, then saying they watching her, then saying they were sending her messages, then saying they were trying to kill her. She accused them of running a drug ring, using their house as a grow house. She said they were saying things about her through the walls, complaining when she opened her bathroom window or put her heating on. None of things were substantiated and I would stay with her sometimes to check, there was nothing happening. She would say 'you can't hear that?' - I couldn't hear a thing. She's since moved out as she felt 'pushed out' and is now saying they're following her and sending her 'voice notes' but the voicenotes aren't coming from a device, they're coming from thin air. She's hearing voices essentially.

But it all started with her being way too invested in what her neighbours were doing and applying a targeted, negative intention to the things they did.

Totally agree

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Love it!

If you're all going to come up with plots/criminal housing rings/house flippers, then use your imagination in a bit more practical way.

Have you considered they may have had changed circumstances? A divorce? Life-changing illness? Redundancy? Maybe they ran out of money or can't get a loan?

House flipping is nothing new, although I agree it's a shame if this keeps people out of affordable mortgages. But from all your complaints, your family is looking for something to be angry or worried about. The Halloween decorations are a threat? All of you need to keep calm and lose the dramatic exaggerations. They bought the property and unless it's a hazard, it's no one else's business if they decorate or why they haven't moved in.

Why are you saying they don't live there and probably never will? Tell your mum to stop monitoring their house to see who is or isn't there.

It's just Halloween decor. What threat could it be? From people you claim don't even live there and never will? Which begs the question why did they buy the house?

I don't see how neighbours can be both a nuisance and completely absent? Building work is annoying but it's part of life living anywhere near other people. Or not as the case may be...

I suggest you don't let this disturb your uni studies in the way it did your A levels. Tell your mum you don't need regular updates regarding this neighbour.

It’s for nosey people like you did you enjoy it!? Hahah

But where does her twin go?

Even so the decorations that millions of people use shouldn’t be in case a randomer walking past is recent bereaved and finds a cartoon style gravestone upsetting? Catch yourself on!

I think its a bit weird but nothing you van do about it.

It’s Halloween. Dead stuff everywhere. I don’t see much consideration in general to people who have been recently-bereaved in October, not just these next door neighbours.

Perhaps they were having a party in the house? Who knows. We aren’t there. Like I’ve said, the OP is far too invested in their mums neighbour and what they are doing. They sound a little be on the paranoid side too with these housing schemes that no one has ever heard of.

I can’t imagine a 21(?) year old university student of my acquaintance (and I actually know quite a few) would give a single shiny shit what their parents’ neighbours were up to. Which uni are you at, OP? Is it Cambridge by any chance?

Even so…

I mean, you've pretty much just described living in Chelsea, which we did for a decade. People buy houses, renovate them, move in briefly or never move in, and flip them. Or they intend to move in and their job changes, they get transferred to somewhere else and don't. Whatever. Hard to see anything more nefarious than wealthy people making money off real estate which is a trope as old as time. And if they work for JP Morgan, as a PP said, they'd have to be bonkers to be money laundering through a house, which could get them barred for life for what could be quite small potatoes.

Why is it odd if an 8 year old wants some decorations at their new house? We put a wreath and some lights in front while ours was being renovated (which took 4 years, by the way).

I'd really advise you to step away from your Mum's conspiracy theories - a property laundering ring, or whatever you said, makes literally no sense - how would it work? Why? - and go enjoy uni, OP. I'm not even sure that spending a lot of time on FWR is ideal for someone your age. If you were my DD I'd urge you to step away from a forum mostly populated by people much older than you and encourage you to go live your life.

My DM does a lot of complaining about the building of extensions and the extensive redoing of several houses near her, the fact that there are no children out playing any more, and the fact that all the younger peoole who have moved in are all out working all the hours. I generally just tune it all out, because I've explained to her the income level needed to get a mortgage for the €€€€€€€€€€€ the local houses now sell for and that this means the children are in after school programmes or childminders all day, but she hasn't really taken that in.

I suggest you try to tune out too, OP, when your DM starts on this topic. Repeating the 'property ring' theory as if it might have some merit makes me wonder if you have taken on too many of your mum's concerns, and whether there's a family dynamic centered around anxiety or other feelings of one particular member. Why is the lifestyle of the area in the 1970s relevant to you?

There's definitely a wider conversation to be had about availability of affordable housing, but you've muddied the issue considerably in your posts.

They are bog standard Halloween decorations.

I wouldn’t like that next door. How do you think recently-bereaved people might feel if they saw it? And that covers a lot of people.

Especially if they’re not actually in residence- that’s really weird.

I live on the edge of a "naice" area - there's a big house backing onto our road which was rebuilt c. 20 years ago.
It's huge, probably worth well over £1.5m and nobody has ever lived in it....
And yet a pupil in my child's year was registered there (I found out later) and attended the very hard to get into local school.
It's clear that it's not being lived in - the front garden is still a building site, there are still metal fences all the way round, we can see the house clearly and there are never any lights on, and the unkempt back garden has foxes living in it (which is fine by us).
We don't know whether other children have attended local schools by claiming to be living at the empty house...

If your neighbours have a child coming up to secondary school age and you live in the catchment area of a good school, this might be what they're doing - having the house next to you as a registered address to get her into the school, then they'll sell it once she's in secondary school.....

🤣

Do you live in a really posh area? Where I live no-one would have enough money to keep renovating and not move in. It does sound annoying - though be careful what you wish for, perhaps neighbours who actually move in would be worse!

I've never heard of a property trading ring. I don't understand the logic. If this were to do with money laundering surely they wouldn't do any renovating and just keep selling it on in its original state? And would criminals want a paper trail? And why spend tens of thousands of pounds (or possibly hundreds of thousands) or whatever denomination it is in your country? In an area with expensive properties it's likely that any building work is also going to be expensive. I just don't get it.

I think the Halloween decorations is a separate issue. I think it looks funny but I wouldn't particularly llke them kept them out forever but there wouldn't be a lot I could do about it and I wouldn't get overly het up about it.

Is a "property trading ring" all about going on Rightmove and to estate agents and house viewings and stuff? So dodgy.

While the Halloween gravestone and the property trading ring are indeed scary, the real stuff of nightmares is the line "we've owned this house since the 30s". It sounds like you're the type of neighbour that drops this into any conversation with other neighbours because they think it's a trump card. It's really not. It doesn't matter when you bought your house. It doesn't give you more rights. It just makes you sound entitled. Ask me how I know...

If she’s got dementia and moved in with family to be cared for, the house will be exempt from council tax, so no need to consider grassing anyone up: just enjoy the peace and quiet.