to have not told her we're moving?

[tickleyourpickle]

We live on a very quiet road and have been here for 8 years.
All of our neighbours are elderly and lovely.

A new couple have moved in at the back of us, their garden backs onto ours.

Yesterday we were playing in the garden after school with my DS(5) and DD(3) when the new neighbour pops her head over the fence. I thought she was maybe popping her head over to say hello, but no.

The conversation went like this :
Hello, do you live here?
Yes, hi I'm tickle
I've just moved in, I thought this was a nice quiet road
Yes it is it's lovely
I wasn't expecting children

I came here for a quiet retirement I didn't expect to have noisy children playing at the back of my garden

I was literally speechless, I could have put her out of her misery and told her were moving house in 2 weeks, but I didn't.

And if you buy a house in a road with no children the next to sell may change that and it's JTB if it bothers you!

You should put a little note through her door saying that you've thought long and hard about her situation and have decided that in order to give her what she needs, you have decided to move out. Lay it on thick.... You don't know where you'll all go, kids won't have a home for a while.....homelessness etc. But that clearly, you can't possibly infringe on her quiet retirement.
Then she'll see you move out (make sure you always look sad, get the kids to cry a lot and say "but mummy, where will we go?") And then she'll forever feel terrible that she caused a family to be homeless.

My DDs are grown up now and I love hearing the children in neighbouring gardens play. It's a reminder of very happy days.

Mind you, when we first moved to this house it was a very different story - the house that backed on to ours had a large family ranging from 10-ish to about 3. They played out a lot, and they never stopped fighting so the air rang with screams of 'I'm telling Mum',, No, I'm telling Mum' and the howls of whichever one had just been kicked/knocked off the swing etc. Mum (middle class, educated) would come out and scream 'Just f off, you c little s*" or somesuch which they would enthusiastically repeat with variations until the next one got punched/stabbed/bitten by one of the two dogs. This went on for nearly three years and I have never been so relieved to see a Sale board go up. If I knew where they lived now Tickle, you could invite them over.

Incidentally, my husband got to know the grandad of this family as they often drank in a local pub. Grandad was very proud of his large family and would talk of them incessantly, saying what a wonderful, patient mother his DIL was, how with all the pressures on her, you never saw her stressed or upset. DH would just drink his pint and nod and smile.

genius birdling

Love birdlings idea!!! Please, please do that op

I would have told her she should have done her research if it was that important to her.

You know like knocking on all doors and doing a census

Or you could have told her you were moving, but a much larger family was moving in

I would have told her that if she wanted an area with no kids, she should have moved to a retirement village, cheeky woman.

Our kill-joy neighbours have been overheard complaining about the noise of our trampoline - no not shrieking or shouting - the "boing" of someone bouncing...

Unfortunately for them the youngest practices her moves out there a lot but since I found out they were miserly regarding DC even when they had their own I'm not going to limit her time out there just how early she starts and how late it gets!

My work colleague has a parrot that shrieks "Who the f**k is that" whenever anyone knocks at the door.......would you like to borrow him for the next two weeks? He is a noisy bugger so it might annoy you as much as you neighbour.

Ask the local chapter of bikers to come around for an axe throwing competition on the Bank Holiday
Love Birdlings idea though!

DurhamDurham . Doubly hilarious. That parrot and I would get on famously.

You need a big leaving party. As many family and friends as you can summon up, loads of children especially shrieky ones and outdoor games. If you could get people to park outside her house so much the better.

The kids in my street have a favourite game that they play a lot. Perhaps yours would enjoy it too? They form a crocodile then march up the street on one side then round the corner and up the lane at the back (terraced houses). While marching they scream. The one at the front screams first - proper lung busting, throat searing, I'm being murdered scream, until they run out of breath, then the next one picks it up and so on along the crocodile and back to the start. If there's enough of them it can go on for millenia ages.

I'm sure your DC and all of their friends would love that game.