House beside a body of water- thoughts/ questions?

[Want4nothing]

We are looking to move to a more rural area. A house has come on the market but it’s right beside a giant pond/ lake. Not man made. According to the listing it is not higher than waist high at any point. We cannot decide whether it would be worth going to see and it might be a nice feature with wildlife or whether it would be full of midges. Obviously there’s flooding to consider. Does anyone live right beside water and have any pros/ cons? Is home insurance a problem? Any good questions to ask of the estate agents or owners?

First thoughts are as follows:
Danger to small children.
Humid.
Rats
Mosquitoes.

Rats!! Bloody hell hadn’t thought of rats!

I'm with IndecentCakes. Pretty from a distance, would not want to live there.

Came on just to say rats. 30 years in housing... rats.

We live next to the Thames. We did a lot of research into history of local flooding and to find evidence or documentation of the house itself being flooded. The house is early Victorian and built up with an elevated ground floor so you have a flight of 8 steps to get to the front door. The basement would and has flooded but not the main body of the house. House insurance wasn’t a problem because the house wasn’t flooded in 1947. The other consideration is safety where children are concerned.

We have a house right next to a river. We had rats under the neighbours decking but they were only outside and the neighbour replaced the decking and they disappeared. On the plus side we also have kingfishers, otters, seals (tidal river), swans, leaping salmon etc. Its so peaceful and beautiful sitting out overlooking the water. The house is built high so as pp weve never had flooding of the house in 20 years.

My dh used to live next to one, and once woke up to find a stag beetle in his bed

We have a house with a river running through the land but it’s a good 500m from the house and at a much lower level so no flood risk.

It sounds very similar to where we live plus we have a stream running the whole length of the garden too. We checked with the environmental Agency before buying, to see if there was a risk of flooding, the risk was very low and the insurance isn’t affected.

Its breathtaking to look out of the windows and see the lake, wouldn’t swap it for anything. We see deer, Swans and kingfishers regularly. As for rats- I’ve seen more rats whilst walking around London than I’ve seen here.

We live far from rivers & still get the odd rat (cats mostly deter them, though).
I seem to remember there are flood risk maps OP could consult.

We are about 2m from our stream at the closest point and the insurance is limited - it's not flooded in ages and we don't have issues with rats or midges. But enjoy the kingfisher and swans and ducks etc. We fenced it when the kids were little. And loose balls in it all the time.
In think it's a nice feature but does come with some considerations.

We used to have a huge pond. No problem apart from rats but our terrier dealt with them. Then we had a house with a stream running through the garden. No problem except rats, but our terrier dealt with them. Our neighbours on the other hand, had a big issue with rats and the wife left home for weeks while rentokil dealt with them and they pulled up and replaced all of their decking with slabs.

My aunt lived in a converted barn with a small stream running through their land but it was well away from the house and only about 5 foot across and normally about 3 foot deep but it rose to about 5 foot deep quite often ( about once a month in the winter ) but they loved it and so did I as a kid .
they had herons , kingfishers , loads of toads , and stoats .
the only slight down side was they were responsible forth the stretch of banks on their land and nobody had done anything with them for years so that took a lot of sorting out .

I have a river at the bottom of the garden. It's walled with a gate for safety - but it's a very old wall. Also rural. No problems, but the property is also old and they knew how far the river might rise long ago. No chance of flooding. Lovely view, lovely wildlife. It's rural so more mice than rats - but you do know that rats are more likely to be in urban areas? You jus haven't noticed how close you are to them!

We have a holiday house beside a lake, there's good and bad. There is lovely wildlife like dragon flies, pine martens, bats, squirrels. And there is annoying wildlife like little bitey flies, we have insect screens on any windows that need to be opened. We don't seem to have rats, at least I've never seen them, we've had plagues of wasps some summers after a warm winter though.

The lake is known to flood so getting insurance was interesting even though the house is about 5 meters above normal lake level. I had to give them map coordinates so that they could check the topography of our garden. I did offer to exclude lake flooding from our cover but in the end they weren't too worried about it. The last time it flooded was about a fortnight after we'd had someone come in and reseed the lawn, so that had to be done again, but I think we were just unlucky there.

AlanthePig of this parish has a natural pond in her garden, OP. Check out her thread.I'm sure she'll address any concerns you have
She also has an ongoing blog A Year on The Pond - it's my favourite thread.

I've lived very close to a canal for 15 years and I've never see a rat but there are some mosquitos in the summer. There are railings to stop children falling in and the land on the other side is lower so no chance of flooding. I love it.

Thanks all! @AliceSprings123 I will check that out

What is a giant pond?

My brother does t even live that close to water but because of measured distance to a small river their home insurance is extortionate.

The flood risk would be my first concern. We back on to a railway line, and often get rats in our garden, and are used to it.

DH is very allergic to mosquito bites, so that would also be a major consideration for us.

It depends upon the body of water tbh. I live fairly close to a largish pond and there are no negatives whatsoever - it is lovely. There is no flooding risk associated with it and insurance is available as standard.

I would perhaps check out the insurance cover and the EA flooding maps.

@NoMackerelInSwindon

What is a giant pond?

Now THAT image is something to pond(see what I did there?)er over... Fe,splash, Fi,splash, Fo,splash, Fum,splash, I see the bod of an Englishman! Shall I eat him for dinner Or maybe for tea? Oh, lucky, lucky, lucky me!

Terrifying, really

Where does the water come from?
Where does it drain too?
Who is responsible for it?
Where is it in relationship to the water table.
How often and how badly does it flood?
Have the electric sockets been repositioned indicating a regular problem?
Where is the nearest river?
Where does the surface water running off to?
What is the geology and soul make up of the area?
flood-map-for-planning.service.gov.uk

Have you checked the postcode for insurance? My downstairs neighbours can’t get any because the river floods.