I’ve namechanged for this as I don’t want it linked to my other posts.
The neighbours where we live are very much appearances focused. But not in a 5mm high grass/picket fence way, just in an endlessly changing things in a noticeable way. Each to their own.
We bought a doer upper, but life has pretty much thrown us every curve ball going and it’s meant our doer upper has become more of a money pit where there is no money for fancy things (and not much money for the other things since the pandemic/COLC). We are fine with that, it doesn’t bother us, we are just glad to have our own home and a roof over our heads.
Our neighbour however tore a strip off us on the street, basically accused us of being losers - hit everything from the way our house looks (it’s not bad, it’s painted externally, no mess or anything externally, it’s just not fancy and looks basic), accused us of being lazy, accused us of being unemployed and told us if we worked we’d be able to afford for it to look better (we Do work but WFH, but assumptions have been made), also it was implied it makes us shit parents and we should be ashamed (bear in mind the whole house works and is fully functional, just dated). What hurt was on a street where I thought we belonged, the neighbours who were outside agreed. We obviously reacted to all of these accusations (firmly setting them straight) and now the neighbour who tore a strip off us is playing the victim and all of the neighbours in our corner of the street are ignoring us and one even laughed in our face.
What the hell are we supposed to do? I now feel the judgement of everyone and feel embarrassed because it did make me angry, but at the same time I don’t understand it.
If there was something obvious like piled up rubbish or things externally falling apart or it looked dishevelled I would understand, but there really isn’t. It just purely doesn’t have the fancier features that others have like external lights, hanging baskets and little finishing touches. It just looks basic and dated compared to the others in the street.
They also said we need to be quieter, even though we are the type to be in bed by 10pm and the house is silent in the day because we WFH. They on the other hand are all quite inconsiderate. I feel embarrassed and completely gaslit and don’t feel comfortable in my own home and we have lived here 10 years. I feel embarrassed because I matched the anger, and hurt that they view us this way and probably always secretly have.
Bare in mind this is an average terraced street in a fairly rubbish town and we cannot afford to move.
WWYD?