row with neighbour

[domeafavour]

please go easy, cos I am crying and shaking, but I do need to know if I am out of order, and what you would expect.

Neighbour has just knocked on the door, and very snippily asked me if I had water. I said "OMG the plumbers have switched your water off too, I'm really sorry, I told them where to switch the water off so it was just my house"
She said could you just sort it.
So plumbers were right in the middle of fitting sink, said they would be half an hour.
So I went to tell her, and apologise, and she just laid into me.

she said, I haven't told her anything that has been happening with the building, all I was interested in was her signature on party wall agreement and I haven't kept her up to date with anything else, the scaffolding went on to her property(!!!) and there was rubbish on her path.
and since we moved in she feels like i have ignored her and not been very neighbourly, I ignore her in the street(!)

I just kept apologising, and said why didn't you come and say something, you are really angry now, it didn't need to get to this point.
She told me not to tell her when to get angry, and she is still really angry
I told her I was mortified (I am) and I left because I started to cry.

this building project has been a nightmare from start to finish, but they actually haven't done anything for months, although the scaffolding has been up.

From what I can gather, her main arguments are that I didn't keep her posted on what was happening, the scaffolding encroached onto her property(not sure about this, cos it has been taken down now) but it certainly didn't cause any shade or cover her windows.
and that she had rubbish on her path, I can't imagine the builders actually put rubbish on her path, so presumably she is talking about dust?

so should I have told her that we were having a nightmare with the builders and it was delayed, that we ran out of money, could have actually lost the house, money was that big an issue, that we nearly got divorced(still might)

I haven't ignored her, and neither has DH, as far as I am aware. Why would I be ignoring her?
help please?

See, you don't know what she was in the middle of when her water was cut off. If I was at the 'shampoo on hair, about to rince' stage, i'd be more annoyed than 'pootling round the kitchen, oh look the tap doesn't work'. Did she have the look of a woman who's half hour soak in the bath had just been cancelled?

Perhaps you could have kept her more informed, however, she's being completely out of order. Perhaps she's bottled it up - that's her fault not yours.

The stuff about being un-neighbourly is tosh - there is no duty to be friends with your neighbours!

YANBU.

Hope you feel better soon. Have a non-mumsnetty hug.

Also agree with pagwatch. The water sounds very much like the straw that broke the camel's back.

perhaps she kept thinking it can't get worse - then it did when the water went off...

Oh gosh I really do feel for you as I have been in exactly the same position. We had a long spell of building work and many major upsets because of it with our (touchy, hypersensitive) neighbours who even went as far as to complain vociferously to us about dusty footprints on the pavement infront of their house! It must have been pretty awful for them, to be honest, but when you live cheek by jowl with everyone in a city I am afraid these things are going to happen. If you want peace and quiet, go and live in the middle of the highlands!! They were an older couple and it must have looked to them like we simply swanned in and did all the things to our house in one go that they had worked hard for and done over the years (ignoring all the hard work and stress that we had to endure too). Have a large glass of wine and, just for today, flick a restorative two fingers up at them. Then when you feel a little less upset and she has calmed down perhaps you can broach the subject and aim for a better relationship. The one thing to keep in mind that this is not your fault and you did not mean to upset anyone. Good luck and I hope that the shakes you have no doubt got right now go soon!

The people over our road are having work done and to be honest the amount of rubbish that has flown off their skip with the wind and ended up on our drive - it's v annoying. Every morning we return ready meal boxes/cement bags/goodness knows what to their skip. I can see why she's cheesed off if it's proper rubbish although it's no one's fault exactly, it's just part of living near other people.

You don't have any idea what she was doing but I can imagine losing your water - washing in the machine? giant turd? about to have a shower? almost anything really - she shouldn't have to explain why she wants to use her water supply to a neighbour. And if your plumber said "oh it'll be about half an hour" she's thinking it's going to be much longer which probably made her more angry. If there is a way of switching off your water without affecting hers then I don't see why you couldn't say to the plumbers in the plural that one of them needed to sort it out now; and if there isn't, then I can see why she's hacked off that her water has been cut off without any notice.

Having said all that the ranting about not being neighbourly is just odd, that's entirely her issue not yours. There is no point telling her all the details of what a nightmare this has been for you - she won't care about your money worries or your relationship. But I would go round again when you are feeling up to it and say you're sorry for the inconvenience, make sure she knows what the end date is and importantly that she should come and speak to you in future to avoid this kind of thing.

no, she looked like maybe she was making a cup of tea. dressed and dry
i agree, having your water switched off with no notice is not on.
The builder told me that the water would be off, and I specifically showed him where the stopcock was.
stupid git went and switched it off from outside anyway.. cos stopcock didn't look strong enough.!!!

i want to run away
and never come back

aww don't be daft, it will blow over. Drop her a card that says sorry and be done with it:)there is no need to feel this bad about it. The work will be finished soon and everyone will feel less stressed

Sorry but this IS domeafavour's fault. What matters here is the neighbour's feelings. If you're having building work done it is your responsibility to keep anyone affected informed, and to manage the builders, their parking, dust and fag ends.

You definitely don't deserve to have strips torn off you, and I fully appreciate how stressful any kind of building work is, but unless the neighbour is generally a total nutcase and shouting at you for the fun of it, then you have to accept she is upset for a reason.

I would take it on the chin, make peace and sort it out.

My neighbour's building work is annoying the hell out of me. But I don't want to cause an issue or appear un-neighbourly by makinga fuss about it so I shut up and put up (mostly) and grit my teeth a lot.

That was until her builder started loud drilling at 7am on a saturday. Then I went round and complained loudly about it all the other annoying things I'd put up with and how this was really too much now.

So sounds to me like your neighbour has been putting up with stuff but now really the water thing is too much and she's let out all this pent up annoyance and frustration..

You don't have to tell her what work is going on and when, but it would be polite if it is affecting her (noise, dust etc). How would you feel if it was the other way round?

You say you haven't seen any mess on her path. Well I've picked up all kinds of broken bricks and wood and stuff that have found their way over the fence and simply thrown them back. She may well have been doing the same.
And the number of times I've had washing out and they've not thought to knock and warn me their going to do 5 mins of drilling into brick and the like, which showers my garden in dust and means that I have to rewash everything. I do not own a tumble drier, it is a huge pita and extremely rude and unthoughtful of her and her builders.

My neighbour came round with flowers after my rant in my nighty, (for the inconvienence) and I explained to her that 7am was too early, pointing out it was an hour before the regulations allow, and that if she had thought to come and tell me the night before when she knew it was going to be that early and it was a one of 'emergency' thing it could have been different.
She looked genuinely stunned at the thought of coming over to explain and discuss with me. It clearly hadn't even entered her head to discuss with me.

I took the oportunity to also asked her how much longer it would be going on and what else they were planning to do. She basically said it was just the kitchen to go in. Yet a week later my wall was being drilled into and chisselled as her new central heating was being installed. And no she didn't bother telling me and I've had no third party wall requests what so ever.

My guess is she didn't bother to tell me so she doesn't give me cause to complain in advance and make requests re starting times etc. When I posted about this before another person said they had insisted their neighbour's builders didn't start before 9am and gave them warning of noisy work and dust etc. I was amazed that you could ask for such things. I wouldn't even know how to go about insisting on this with my neighbour. She clearly doesn't care, just wants her work done to her schedule.

I thought after saying something to her she would be more reasonable. Not a bit of it. So instead I find myslef on the phone to the CAB asking about my rights while she and her builders do what they like. They basically tell me that even if she should have requested third party wall permission, there's not much I can do once she's started doing it...
Extremly rude of her.

So tell me why exactly should it be your neighbour who comes round and ask what's going on? Why should she be put in a possition of facing possibly hostility and aggression (she doesn't know you yet presumably), especially given that you didn't bother going round to speak to her in the first place.

Yes I know the water thing was unintentional, but she didn't know that. And given that she already thinks she's put up with quite a lot can you not see how her perceived rudeness of you and your builders has now tipped her over the edge with this incident and forced her to declare all the annoyances she's put up with so you don't think she's mad/ott for complaining at a simple mistake over the water.
Because you would have thought her a bit strange for having a go at you about the water situation if it was just that one incident now wouldn't you. So that should give you some idea of just how annoyed she is and how much she thinks she's put up with already.

A bunch of flowers and a bit of a chat and telling her she should come to you with any issues straight away as you weren't aware she'd had problems with the builders may go some way to bridging the problems.
Don't ignore her, and don't blame her for getting angry. Ok so she should of come round and spoken to you, but it really isn't that easy when you're trying to be a good neighbour and don't want to come across as a pita or a trouble maker.

She may well have been biting her tongue about the things that happened before today because she didn't want to get in an arguement with her neighbour.

TBH I would be pissed off if my water went off without warning. She may have had things to do that required water.

Probably a combination of everything that had gone on previously and having a bad day tipped her over the edge. She shouldn't have reduced you to tears but sometimes we all find it hard to stop when the floodgates are open and we get on a rant. You have had a tough time recently but maybe she has too iyswim.

Bottle of wine and chocolates as a peace offering is probably in order. If she gets into a habit of coming round and ranting then you will have to take a step back and accept she's a bad neighbour but I wouldn't give up on having a cordial relationship because of this one incident.

I can sort of see both sides I think

we've had a lot of work done to our house

before that we had neighbours who moved in next door had very little to do with us (or anyone else in the street) and proceeded to knock half their internal walls down (they didn't warn us. Well they did- they said "we'll be doing a bit of work so it might be quite noisy" )

unfortunately the guy did the work himself in his free time- which happened to be our free time. grrrrr.

We're pretty easy going but a couple of times I did get nearly to the point your neighbour's just got to. You have to remember it's not just about water or mess or scaffolding; it's about noise and disruption lasting for weeks when you've no idea what's going on or how long it'll take. It can make you feel really helpless.

I think you should wait till you've both cooled off a bit then go round bearing gifts and say sorry (I had to do the same with my other neighbour after our builder had- without me knowing- spent two days in the street outside his bedroom window cutting tiles. The neighbour works nights. screeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!)

It sounds a bit bossy of me to say this- but I think everyone has to realise that their own building works inconvenience but ultimately benefit them- but they only inconvenience neighbours iykwim...

I feel sorry for your neighbour, she's probably been desperately trying not to complain then this was the last straw and she blew. And yes you shouldn't have kept her in the loop. She's living next door to all of this!

But you didn't mean to offend, def go round there with wine/flowers and say sorry and make peace.

sorry domeafavour- I know you're feeling raw. didn't mean to x posts with everyone else saying much the same thing

((((hugs))))

PawMum

I agree with you. Polite greetings is often the best way with neighbours. It often goes wrong if you get too deeply involved.

this is what I am trying to say, I don't know what inconvenience she is talking about!!
there has been no mess, drilling, skips, parking, fag ends, hanging about outside, since March.
the scaffolding has been up,and tiler last week who made no noise, and plumbers today

gotta go, cos gas man here now to sort the leak.
oh jesus he is knocking on the walls next to her!!

if you don't know what she's talking about praps it'd be a good idea to go and ask her?- in a conciliatory non confrontational flower bearing way!

...have never heard of a Quiet Tiler

But there was before march...
And the scaffolding has been iritating her every time she sees it...
And now the water...

Just because you don't know what has been iritating her doesn't mean she hasn't been and isn't currently irritated.

And seeing the building work starting up again probably made her think it was going to be back to the major annoyances she had before. And then you start off by turning off her water with no notice to confirm that for her...

We've been doing a lot of work over the past year and I know it gets on our neighbours' nerves from time to time - as someone said earlier, it gets on our nerves and they are not even getting any benefit from it.

We've tried to keep them informed and had party wall agreements prohibiting work in evenings, weekends etc, but occasionally you'll get something that seems really petty but is obviously pissing them off.

We've dealt with it by bitching a bit in private to get it off our chests but being nice and reasonable to their faces.

Like us, presumably you are having this work done on your home because you want to stay there. You don't have to be best mates with your neighbours but it's best to be civil - you might need her to take a delivery for you or feed your cat one day. So I think you need to swallow your hurt and build some bridges. You can always slag her off when you get back home.

that made me roffle

...it was a joke

(at least I think it was)

...sorry- that was to maryz

Go Tescos and buy her some flowers, decent bunch, that should smooth things over. Just think she could be useful someday, when you need a favour, worth keeping on good side.

what pag said, please read her post again.

thh facts that you almost got bankrupt, and divorced are neither here nor there. The fact that it was more stressful for you than for her is not the point!

You chose to do it. It is for YOUR benefit.

She only gets the trouble.

A weekly update is or wasn`t necessary, but you obviously got a bit wrapped up in your own feelings.

I would say YABU, a bit.