The holidaymakers next door

[mindutopia]

Just a rant really, I know I’m not being at all unreasonable. We live in a very rural area that is somewhere people like to visit. It’s pretty and remote and lovely. The only house within about a mile or more is a holiday let. Owners are lovely and actually bought the property back that their grandparents used to own 60 years ago. We have no issues with them. We also have no issues with 95% of their guests. They are usually very quiet and respectful and all that.

We had a family arrive yesterday for the week, with a 5 & 10 year old (we have a 4 & 9 year old, so great we thought!). They came over to play yesterday afternoon, fine.

I woke up this morning to their 5 year old in our lounge (we have like 5 doors, it’s a big old farmhouse, we don’t lock them usually at night as literally no one bothers us down here). I returned him to his family.

They attempted to come over several times today but I sent them back as we were having an Easter egg hunt in the garden and also having lunch. They finally came over again in the afternoon (I was in the house tidying up after lunch). We live on a farm so I can’t really see much from the kitchen, or else if I’d seen them, I would have intervened.

The 5 year old got into our chicken pen, let all the chickens out, threw about £5 worth of food and grit everywhere, and then appeared in my lounge (I was tidying up toys) and chucked 4 eggs on the floor (thankfully didn’t break!). I’m over it.

I only discovered the chickens let out (for foxes to eat) and food thrown everywhere just now as I went to tidy up outside for the evening. I went to knock on holiday let’s door but was dark inside downstairs and I could hear kids in bathroom upstairs so they are obviously doing bath and bedtime now.

I’ll speak with them tomorrow, but I just needed to rant. We’ve had so many people traveling to our lovely part of the country the past couple years and it does provide income for many local people (not Dh and I, we work in careers totally unrelated to tourism). But these are the first CF we’ve had in a long time and it just irritates me. Every time I’ve returned their children to them, they’ve just been in the kitchen, drinking, and oblivious. We had a bonfire burning today. We have a river with deep fast flowing water. We also had our puppy out this afternoon, who is lovely but very big and jumpy, which is why we are careful to only have her off lead on our own farm. She definitely could have injured one on these kids in excitement if we hadn’t known they were wondering around our land. And also just the damage and expense to our livestock. I’ve had to clean out the duck and chicken houses because they filled them with pellets and they can choke without access to water. They’re here 5 more days! I will go have a word in the morning, but in the meantime, just arghhhh!

Do you think sometimes people who aren’t from the countryside just go into auto pilot and assume they are completely safe when in a rural area as you don’t have typical urban issues like crossing the roads and strangers?
I grew up in the countryside and farming family on both sides and you have to be very cautious from a young age, you can’t just wander off and be safe, rivers and streams to fall into, cliffs to fall off, plants to sting and poison you, etc,
And on farms, they are lethal!!! Have a long list of friends as kids being injured, nearly losing an eye on a harrow, splitting head open running round a hay barn. A really sad story of a toddler drowning in the duck pond on their farm.
Children who grow up in the country are aware of the dangers but I think for those who didn’t they can think it’s all lovely and safe.
you grow up and will know at least one person who has a farm related injury, someone missing a finger etc so when your granny tells you that you’ll lose an eye you take it seriously, you have it drummed into you to watch out.
Lucky this boy hasn’t been injured yet, hope the parents get the message and without been morbid they are lucky their son hasn’t been seriously injured or killed with their attitude.

And we’re lucky that we have good careers that support us being able to still live in this beautiful part of the country, on a farm, and keep livestock for our own food and enjoyment. What’s odd about that?

Nothing @mindutopia it's the way I was brought up as well - we had what locals called a 'hobby farm' in an area of small holdings and surrounded by retired farmers. We had a house cow, sheep, hens and ducks, and loads of horses. WE had a gardener who made the most wonderful vegetable patch on the area surrounding the septic tank overflow (no actual raw sewage, people!), and watertanks, and solar panels. So we were pretty self-sufficient in milk, eggs, lamb meat, sweetcorn, tomatoes, strawberries, plums, and cherries.

I work in a very urban desk-bound job now, but if my brain ever goes, I now I could earn my keep by stable work or milking!

Laughing a bit to myself about the horror of not locking doors. I live in darkest Somerset and we don't lock ours either. In fact our front door is open most of the day. We've been known to forget to shut it at night. Our neighbours lost the key to their front door years ago. It gets locked from the inside if they're away on holiday and that's it!

lol child care would have been much cheaper

Out of interest
is you neighbour a holiday let with high turnover of guests throughout the year?
do you have a farming business on site with expensive equipment, to the extent you have had CCTV installed?

I live in a similarly remote rural area. We also leave doors unlocked routinely. Because it's far too much effort to schlep out here and start burgling perfectly ordinary houses for the sort of stuff that the town thieves depend upon lifting. Instead, the large stately home/manor house type properties are burgled to order. By a quite different sort of burglar who has taken time to work out how to disable the alarm system and knows what's in the house to make a professional robbery worthwhile. The other rural thefts are agricultural machinery/livestock/generators and the like and these are well protected. You simply can't compare rural crime with the urban equivalent.

However, regardless of where you live, 5 year olds shouldn't be wandering around unsupervised letting themselves into other people's houses or even onto their gardens or land (assuming that the houses are locked to city standards!) and it certainly isn't @mindutopia's fault that the parents of these children are so careless of their safety. I see no mixed messages either. Surely people realise that an invitation to play is precisely that? Not an invitation to move in for the week and trash the place!

Yep and besides livestock, fish, machinery, bikes, tools, oil, batteries, etc thieves would be more interested in the OUTside of any buildings - stealing copper, iron and the like. They go round ripping it off rural churches. I think some people have little concept of just how safe rural parts of England are. I don't lock up either. And no, the risk of violent crime is extraordinary low (!) Some replies itt are just silly.

In similar vein....

As a kid my parents always took me to a friends holiday home in a rural area, where Dad would do odd jobs in exchange for the stay. There was a let up the road but you rarely saw anyone there.

This particular morning I'd been sat in the conservatory listening to the records the family had whilst Dad pottered doing a few odd jobs. I walked into the hall and there was Dad, sorting out a light fitting on a pair of ladders, whilst behind him, watching him intently, was a boy of about 8.

The conversation went along the lines of:

Dad, who's the kid?
"Bugger off nameless I'm busy"
Yeah, but who's the kid?
"You're not funny you know"

This went on for far longer than it should have, when eventually he turned around and spotted the boy and finally realised I wasn't winding him up.
Turned out he was a lovely kid with SN who'd wandered from the holiday home up the road. He became a bit of a regular visitor that week, helping Dad with odd jobs and walking to the farm for milk with me. His parents were frantic for a while though 😂

You are so not being unreasonable. We went on holiday in a farm holiday let as kids and yes we did play with the owners kids and feed a lamb but it was supervised by our parents who had properly introduced themselves to the owners. What you’re describing is crap parenting of the highest order!

Typical mn, people become fascinated by a small detail and miss the entire point. They are CFers OP and I hope they get a rollocking off the owners.

Absolutely! I live in a completely rural location and if a small child turned up either in my house or had been in the chickens, let them out, thrown food around etc I would be furious! Just because my door is unlocked doesn’t mean it’s ok in any way shape or form - just as it’s not ok for some drunk git or yobbo to enter my house because my doors were simply unlocked!!
Hopefully this has been resolved op as I think I’m only halfway through reading a thread about you not locking your doors 😅

What on earth is going on today,?can’t log on under my usual name and it keeps rejecting my password? Help needed as I don’t want to lose my past history?
Tablet message button not working at all grrrrrrrrrr

Reported my thread as it was showing as a new post
FFS get this sorted !!!!
apologies everyone

Why aren't you locking your doors ? Leaving doors unlocked invalidates your home insurance. I also live rurally but I know criminal gangs from towns actively target rural properties because they know there's a good chance it will be unlocked and poorly guarded. The parents are cfers just have a word they will probably be mortified.

I think you need to keep boundaries in place! Don’t let them play and lock doors etc!

YANBU

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Fuck me.

What is it with people on MN who get hung up on one tiny aspect of a post, refuse to read the whole thread then bang on and on and fucking on endlessly about that one tiny point.

If you can’t be bothered to read the whole thread, at least read the OP’s posts.

You see the bookmark right at the bottom of each post, right? It negates the need to fill a thread up by posting a single full stop. Perhaps you could try using it.

@Inklingpot

You see the bookmark right at the bottom of each post, right? It negates the need to fill a thread up by posting a single full stop. Perhaps you could try using it.

The bookmark function isn't working in the app since the update last night.

Thanks for your insight. Think I preferred the non judgemental full stop though...

Really? I’ve been using it all day and it’s worked. My bad then if it’s glitchy for some.

I do think posting . and F on threads though is pretty shit. You’re basically saying that you have no input, can’t be bothered to come up with a semi-thoughtful post and can’t manage to use bookmark but really want to know what happens.

Agreed. Having been here on and off since 2003 I can say the bookmark function is a thing of joy compared to scrolling of yore.

The F and . are annoying when there's loads but I think that's the first one on this thread.

Far less annoying that the multitude of comments about not locking doors when you live up a farm track in rural Devon and are adult enough to have assessed the risks and can show CCTV to police if needs be. If someone is determined to steal your belongings a bloody locked door won't stop them whether you're in a city or a hamlet.

Townies who blunder into the countryside & don't treat it sensibly are asking for trouble - if they're lucky they don't find it, if they do it's always someone else's fault...