Why would you abandon your house for 4 years?

[Tomatosoupandbread]

We live in a little hamlet. The largest house in the village had a lovely 50’s/60’s couple living in it. In 2020 they stayed there less and less, and we presumed they were isolating or caring for relatives. Since then they have come back to the house once for 2 days. The garden is obviously cared for, and nothing looks dilapidated, and there are still jackets on the backs of chairs, sun cream by the side of the kitchen window, it looks like they have just stepped out to go to the supermarket. What would the reason be for just upping and leaving your house, and 4 years later still not renting it, selling it or coming home for your belongings? I am so curious!

Maybe the house only belonged to one of the couple and the other one was just living with them. Then something bad happened to the homeowner (dead/in a coma/in prison?) and the non home owning partner felt they couldn’t stay living in the house and moved out.

I feel like I must find out immediately if they are dead 😱. The only thing that doesn’t give kudos to the death theory is that they returned for a weekend about 2 years ago and still had the same cars. They were definitely back because they had the garage door open and were pottering around on the drive and in the front garden. I’m going to have to ask the next door neighbours the next time I see them, the need to know has overridden the embarrassment of asking!

You are a stalker of the worst kind. Why does it matter to you if they live there all the time? Or if they live elsewhere?

Report it to the Council so it gets taxed as a second home. That might get them out of the woodwork.

If there is a body in the house there will be flies.

Intriguing! You need to strike up a convo with the neighbours OP

@Mum2jenny , you clearly a) have never had a stalker of the worst kind, b) don’t live in a rural hamlet and c) don’t pay much attention to your neighbours 😂😂

A drive big enough for at least two cars and yet you’ve happened to accidentally see in the windows as you’re walking past 😂

And just to clarify, I moved here BECAUSE of the nosy neighbours, so some people want that in their lives. We moved from a home in the city where not a single neighbour noticed or cared when DD’s father beat me in the street and left me unconscious in the road, to a hamlet where the neighbours send you a text to tell you your flower pot has blown over. I feel safe and happy because everyone here knows everyone else’s car, family members, friends and acquaintances, even the handymen, so if anything is untoward it is reported. We have a saying-“you’ll leave within 6 months or stay forever” 😂.

My friends brother and his wife have a yacht and go sailing for months and months at a time - my friend says they've hardly been at home for the last ten years.

Ooh @larkstar , that would be an awesome reason!

There's always one

It's not just you that needs to know now! Please update when you find out.

There is a house at the end of my road that was empty when we first moved here 11 years ago but not up for sale. The gardens were very overgrown and the whole house looked shabby. Then in 2019 I saw someone had moved in and it turns out she has always owned it but lived elsewhere - no idea why. She had all the gardens cut back and for 6 months I saw her regularly although she was very stand-offish and not interested in talking to anyone. Since then I have never seen her - I think she is still there but noone ever sees her go in or out and her car disappeared and never showed up again. Bailiffs were knocking and she answered to them at one point apparently. I've seen a man go in twice. The bins are never out. Sometimes a light is on. It is very weird.

Living overseas for work? A friend of a friend of a friend has a london flat and a country house but has been working in Hong Kong for the past 3 years. He comes home for long weekends but always stays in London because that's where his family is and it would take too long to get to the country house before he had to fly back.

There is a house on my road that has been empty for around 15 years. It still has full furniture inside, curtains and vases in the window etc. In the summer a man shows up and mows the lawn every 3 weeks. The neighbour to that house is outside all the time playing loud music, shouting and mending his motorbikes. I’ll often have a chat with him, but would hate to live next door to him. I asked what had happened to his neighbour and he told me that she had been sectioned in a local hospital and never returned. He told me they had fallen out prior to that but didn’t go into detail. Now the neighbour with the bikes has been handed a notice of eviction and needs to move out by the end of this year. I wonder whether the absent neighbour will return, when he leaves..

And this is why I would never live in a hamlet/village (grew up in one, bloody suffocating)

They have a second home that they moved to during Covid and decided they preferred the lifestyle there so would live there full time.

I live in a rural village but fortunately I don’t have ppl upset if I’m not living at home all the time. I find it more convenient to stay nearer my workplace during the week.

@Mum2jenny i dont think op is upset
just curious

Have you asked everyone else in the hamlet? Having lived in a similar place most of my adult life, I would be very surprised if, in 4 years, some other nosy rural neighbour hasn’t snooped and worked out the answer. Someone will absolutely know! If they don’t know, they will know whether they need to ask Mary at the next coffee morning or Melvin down at the pub and eventually report back.

OP - I don't want to worry you, but I think you have stumbled into a hole in the space time continuum, and you are now in a different alternative dimension.

Was that the strange case where doors and windows were nailed shut from the inside?

They've been in prison?

The house next door to ours has been abandoned for a year now. The man who rented it for many years died, apparently the landlord is very old and not up to letting it out again. So empty it sits. Our cats go into the back garden and lie there like they own the place though.

That's the one I was thinking on, the details reported on Irish news at the time suggested a deterioration in both their physical and mental healths. Such a sad case.