How’s this for a whole new level of cheeky fuckery - someone has token our allotment!

[YaMuvva]

Moved into our new house in January. Bought off a lovely lady who was a widow and something of a popular figure in the street (relevant).

We were pleasantly surprised to find that in the deeds it came with a garage across the road (which we’d seen at the viewing but it wasn’t clear it belonged to the house) and an allotment plot. We’ve actually been on an allotment waiting list for years so it was nice news.

We’ve already had aggro with the garage - when we got the keys we went to open it and found that it was rammed full of full boxes! I called previous owner directly as she gave us her number (as assumed they were hers) and she said she allowed our next door neighbour for years to use it. He was most put out when we told him to clear his stuff as we needed to use it. This was 3 months ago, and only last week did he finally clear it out, and only did so when we had to get shitty with him and say if he didn’t clear the garage we would do it for him (don’t want to get off an a bad foot with the neighbours but he was taking the piss).

Anyway we have never checked out the allotment before now (it’s not far about a 10 min walk from here) just because of time constraints and illnesses and crappy weather but decided to finally today go and find it as the sun is shining here.

Anyway, when we got there we looked on the sheet of paper we’d been given and found the plot - and a person sitting next to a full and lush patch sitting on a chair having a cuppa! There is also a shed full of tools coffee cups newspapers etc in it too . We asked the person if we’d got it wrong as we are new owners of number 8 on X Street and thought this was our new allotment.

Apparently she is our neighbour down the road (never yet met her) and yes whilst it is the allotment belonging to number 8, the previous owner (a “very dear friend” of hers apparently) let her use it, she’s been using it for 10 years.

My DH, still stinging from the garage debacle, said well I’m afraid your very dear friend doesn’t live in no 8 any more we do and we are reclaiming the allotment, thank you for looking after it but it is OURS to enjoy.

She bloody said no! And that she’s cultivated this patch for several years, she grows all her veggies here and it’s her sanctuary so if we want it we will ‘have to fight for it’! She also said she paid for the shed.

DH said that’s fine, expect a fight then, and we shuffled away in shock. I then rang the old owner and she said “Oh yes it’s Barbara’s plot really she was good to take it off my hands and it would be awful to take it off her”. To be clear - the plot has NOT been sold to Barbara.

I just can’t believe the piss takery of this. DH thinks we should just go and take down the shed, leave it at her front door and dig up everything and chuck it all in a bin.

I feel like the neighbours just took the piss out of the old owner and think they genuinely have a claim to the stuff she was kind enough to let them borrow.

If she is using it for friendship then that means she has friends with plots. She can go and hang out with them on THEIR plots.

Honestly, I truly feel sorry for her. I know many people who have allotments, and it is their favourite place and a true lifeline in so so many ways- including the friendships with other allotment keepers. They probably love her to bits and won't make you feel very welcome, to say the least- if they realise, as said above, that you have been true dicks and very unpleasant to her

It’s not an allotment!! It’s colloquially referred to as an ‘allotment’ but it’s just a plot of land separate from the garden. There are a number of them round here. They are NOT official council-run allotments and Barbara doesn’t have any rights whatsoever over the land. It’s not hers, she has her own garden.

Thinking more on this, OP, I’m changing my previous advice and I now think it’s very possible that Barbara sat there enjoying the sun, knowing you’d be popping down and hoping to put you off by ‘claiming’ it. Her ‘not without a fight’ comment is very combative. She has zero right to be on your land. You have the deeds. I’d be sending her a solicitor’s letter and asking her to vacate the land within 7 days. She’s a CF and I simply don’t believe the person you bought your house from never mentioned she was selling. I expect Barbara thought this was a good opportunity to stake her claim by playing dumb and being bloody minded.

Sorry your ‘nice lady’ seller is very stupid.
send everyone to her with complaints if they have issues

With the greatest of respect, that’s not our problem. I posted this in another thread the other day - My DH has MH issues. He was in the army on the frontline and watched several friends die in front of him, and has some serious bouts of depressions as a result. One thing he has been advised to do is get a hobby that is time consuming and enriching because it does help with the depression. It was a big part of why I was so happy about the allotment as he’d wanted one for ages and I do think on a sunny day when he’s feeling low it would be good therapy for him. If Barbara also has MH issues that’s awful and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, but my priority in that respect is with DH.

well we know what the piece of land means to the owner....My experience of the CF brigade is that the rest of the community are waiting for someone to deal with them because their CFery doesn't just extend in one direction. the particular couple I had to deal with were nice as pie to everyone else until they realised that I was no meat of theirs...then one by one they tried to bully the other neighbours. I have been lonely, bereaved, depressed but I didn'gt take over other people's property and use it as an excuse.

Precisely.

Problem solved.

I'm sorry but this really is just so wrong on so many levels.

Please have a read of the thread. Did you not even read in the OP that they had been on a waiting list for an allotment for years?

Did you bother to read any of her later posts?

If she's on what is now OP's property for friendship and community, let her open her own garden up to others instead of trying a land-grab with OP.

But it's not cheeky fuckery! She was invited to cultivate the plot and has done so. This is how wars start: ignoring the rights of those who are already there. Try diplomacy and negotiation.

The allotment has been tended. That's why you want it. Imagine what it would be like it had been neglected instead.Would you prefer to have to clear brambles and nettles, broken glass and rubbish?

You are going to live in this community. Earn some kudos for handling a tricky situation well.

If she won't use her own land to grow veg, could you suggest to her that, in exchange for the allotment, she arranges for the deeds for an equal area of her garden to be made over to you, together with access onto it? 😁

'And without any attempt to try and understand how their behaviour would impact their relationship with the other allotment owners and users. They have very close social links and friendships. They will probably be very unpleasant and possibly worse, if they feel their friend Barbara has been badly and nastily treated. Very easy to cause all sorts of unpleasantness.'

If this happens OP get your revenge by paving over the allotment, stringing up some wildlife unfriendly lights and plonking a hot tub on it

Gardening is a huge benefit to people suffering with mental health issues, the peace and monotony is like meditation, the fresh air is great and there are studies proving that getting your hands in the soil releases beneficial chemicals.

Just remove her, like you would if she was in your garden/kitchen, don't feel bad.

What 'rights' are being ignored?

she has no rights....and if she wanted diplomacy why did she start by refusing to move and offering to fight?

@Probablyfinebutworried

"She's not a CF. She's an old lady who has cultivated some land and didn't realise she would be booted off"

Hey, I'm in my 60s as just as capable of being CF as any person decades younger than I, thank you very much!

But I'm not a CF, so if I were caught in Barbara's situation I certainly wouldn't give the stink eye and say, in effect, "Make me!!!". She knows she's in the wrong. I'd try to work out some type of compromise as far as my current crop was concerned, maybe ask if they wanted to work on the allotment cooperatively for now, share the harvest, and then I'd vacate when the crop was done. But if not, I'd accept that my days there were done and vacate, maybe taking with me what I could transplant into my own garden.

So then show some compassion. Many people are lonely and depressed. We don't know what they've been through.

That's just the state of the world these days. Many people are hurting.

You can ask her to leave but you could be kind about it instead of thinking of tearing her shed down and dumping it on her doorstep.

What sort of people are you?

It's also maybe a little naive to assume that land not used for 10 years would have lain fallow for all that time. Land is desired as you know so to expect a ready to use plot to be magically available is...?

Anyway, good luck to you and your DH. I hope you find a kind, personable and reasonable way forward that takes account of everyone's needs.

But it's not cheeky fuckery! She was invited to cultivate the plot and has done so

Yes, but by the previous owner! Maybe the previous owner let Barbara sit in her lounge for 2hrs every afternoon and in return Barbara put the hoover round and made the lounge look nice - but that’s all irrelevant as that lounge/plot of land has changed ownership! She has no right to be there now!

we know what the OP's husband has been through

And we don't know what Barbara has been through do we?

Really! What's your advice then?

we know she started the argument

Barbara is not the OP's responsibility.

We've only heard one side of the story... and she said they were already bruised from the garage interactions...

Hopefully by July, Babs will be very familiar with the law, and the fact that it is the OP's land and not Babs'