to be fed up of neighbour telling me my house is small

[m0therofdragons]

She's retired and has a different style house to mine. Hers is a standard 3 bed new build where as ours is a town house. Both 3 bed rooms but my master bedroom is big. My kitchen is smaller than hers but actually has more work surface and cupboards just less floor space. Overall I think the square footage is similar. Her garden is bigger and she has a garage... She paid £20,000 more than us so fair enough.
Anyway she is constantly remarking about our small house - which we actually love, can afford, and are really happy in even though having had twins as my second pg means they have to share a bedroom. Today's comment, "your always out and about with your dds... mind you I supposed you get too crowded in that small house."
I'm seriously losing patience. It's not a mansion and has a small garden, but I hate garden type jobs and bigger house means more cleaning. Don't want to upset an old lady/neighbour but polite responses aren't working!

Does she live alone? She is probably jealous of you and your busy household.

My next door neighbor used to constantly tell me my house was lowering the tone of the neighborhood :o

We dont talk any more

Sounds jealous. Is her family grown up

How incredibly rude.

I would say something. People like this need pulling up on it otherwise they get away with upsetting people and think they have the right to be rude. Your house sounds lovely. I wish people would just mind their own business.

I can't think of a clever retort at the moment but I'm sure someone will.

I would avoid her, she doesn't care about upsetting you OP.

Oh she criticised my garden when we'd pulled up all the shrubs (they had a fungal thing) but team out of time so only got half of it to the tip. Took a week before dh managed to take the rest. Apparently it was ghastly and unsightly... On that occasion I told her it wasn't a priority and would have to wait but she was welcome to take it if she wanted. Dh delayed a couple of days extra.

Maybe just reply with "That could be quite rude and I'm sure you don't mean it that way."

She somehow does it in a way that sounds like she's being friendly. Yes her grandchildren are also in late teens and abroad.

Just tell her you bought the smaller house as you holiday at your Italian vineyard and that one estate to manage is quite enough.

She's laying the groundwork for a house swap. She's hoping you're going to make a retort about her rattling around in her 2sq ft bigger house so she can start hinting that she'd be willing to swap.
(Taps nose), jealousy, that's the root of this.

Tell her that her mind is too small.

And say it every time she mentions your house.

Actually, on second thoughts, I'd be tempted to take her to one side and, smiling throughout, tell her that you looked at her plot when choosing but decided against it as you, frankly, just didn't like the crass style and layout.

How rude! I had something a bit similar. A neighbour was living next door for a short while, before moving to a much bigger and nicer house. She kept saying how she couldn't imagine living there for any longer than a few months because it was so poky, etc. - knowing full well that for me it wasn't temporary.

And don't feel bad about having twins in one room! It seems natural to me.

you need to start hinting about your extensive and luxurious basement complex. just drop in the words "cinema", "pool", "sauna", "squash court", "night club"

you get the idea

I've looked on rightmove and don't even like the bigger houses. I have had to look around my house to remember how much I like it. We actually have a conservatory so an extra room to her Grrrr.

She sounds rude and tactless - she might not even realise that she's doing it (or she's old and knows she can get away with it). Maybe pull her up on it?

My MIL is like this - tactless and rude in the extreme. Example: she came over recently and looked at our fridge which had a wedding thank you card stuck to it, which was a picture of a couple who are friends of ours. "They're very fat aren't they! Someone needs to teach them about food!" [she thinks she's a food expert] "Gosh they're huge! She's fatter than he is!". which would be bad enough except this is the THIRD time she has made those exact comments about that exact picture.

DH said "yes alright mum we get your point, there's no need to rudely remark on them every time you come over." She pretended to be was genuinely shocked when he pointed it out and claimed said that she didn't realise she'd commented on it before.

It's all about the pounds per square foot these days y'know Margaret...

We go out because people keep asking me to pop round for advice on their decor

I have no issue with dds sharing, although apparently we'll have to move once they're a bit older (quite a few people have told me this). I find it ridiculous. We'd rather they share and we go on nice holidays.

Just wait until you next see her and she starts and say smiling ' Vera ( or whatever she's called- she sounds like a Vera ) Can I just stop you. Are you aware how often you comment on how small you seem to think our house is? If you are not aware of it, you do it very often. Please would you stop as we know exactly how big it is, we live in it every day and are very happy with it.'
Smile and say it politely but firmly, looking her in the eye, and then either change the subject or say you are on the way somewhere and say goodbye.

How rude!! We have something similar but not as bad. Our neighbor keeps telling us her children could go to a school like ds' if they 'had bought a split level' Ours happens to be a split level :). It's jealousy plain and simple.

I love having low mortgage payments, we did the big house and I agree I'd much rather have money to travel.

I'd play injured. "Vera, you've hurt my feelings...we love our house" and be mournful. If she has any amount of guilt that will shut her up. As for me, my neighbor has apologized in a way for what she's said. Knowing its jealousy really makes a difference.

I've also told her that we all make our own choices (after she bought a caravan and guiltily said it cost less than our ds' tuition).

what is a split level and what has that got to do with schools?

Tell her she is a pass-remarkable baggage who needs to get out more. Or, tell her to fuck off. Either, or possibly only the latter way, she'll not speak to you again; problem solved.

Ignore. Not a relative or friend. So no big impact or emotional baggage. Just good ignoring practice. Use it as an opportunity to practice tolerance. And laughing. People like that can be very funny.

This is the kind of thing my MIL would say and she honestly wouldn't mean to be rude, although it definitely can appear to be. Mine would say it as she would be worried about you. When I was pg with DC4, she marched into our (beautiful, much loved) Victorian terrace and cried, "If you don't put this little house on the market soon, I'll buy your children a house myself!" Bless her. I love that Crazy Ass Bitch.

This reminds me of the woman who, whenever she saw me with my two little ones who happened to be very close in age used to say "I don't know how you cope, I didn't work AND I had an au pair when mine were small". At first it used to upset me then I came to the conclusion she didn't have much else going on in her life and I just felt sorry for her.