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AIBU?

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Neighbour furious that I didn't consult her before I cut back some bushes!

180 replies

mumof2littlemonsters · 29/06/2016 18:20

About a week ago I chopped down some (not all) bushes in my front garden. I moved a small half shed there (it holds a couple of child's bicycles) temporarily whilst we are having building work. My neighbour has just marched up to me very aggressively wanting to know what I have done with the garden. Why hadn't she been consulted? She had enjoyed a yellow rose on the corner for 10 years (we moved in about 18 months ago) - what had I done with it? We have a beautiful apple tree in our front garden which is still there. I have been told by her in the past that I should chop it down (more than once). She used to cut a lavender in our front garden (it wasn't overgrown). It's really bizarre but it's like she thinks our garden is an extension of her own. I wouldn't for a minute expect to be consulted if she wanted to change her garden/chop down a rose bush etc etc. I don't want to fall out with neighbours but I haven't a clue how to handle this woman. Has anyone had anything similar?

OP posts:
PerpendicularVincent · 29/06/2016 20:46

MN is ridiculous at the moment. Every single thread seems to get derailed to discuss meaningless crap in minute detail.

shillwheeler · 29/06/2016 20:50

Well said sessidesally.

OP, I suspect that your neighbour has a different view of life to yourself, and does indeed look upon our garden as "hers" - not in the legal sense but in the sense that she obviously enjoys looking at it and feels proprietorial towards it. She probably doesn't "do" change and may feel a little threatened by it. The building works may have increased this feeling.

Legally, of course, you are completely in the right and there is no reason on earth why (subject to complying with planning law etc.) you shouldn't do what you want in your own garden.

However, she is your neighbour. It may therefore be worth humouring her a little - just grin and bear it and say something along the lines of "yes they were nice but they had to go as we wanted to put our shed there" etc. You don't need to concede anything and do be firm that it's your garden but perhaps acknowledge her feelings?

Dealing with her assertion you should have consulted is a bit trickier as you don't want to get into a position in which you feel you have to ask for her "permission" to do something, when you don't. Perhaps side-step it, and say something like "It was tricky working out where we could put the shed, and we thought long and hard about it but decided this was the best option." If she pushes, you may have to just firmly say "It is our garden and we thought..."

Personally, it would bug me too. Previous owners of my old house were informed by neighbours I was uprooting their (I mean formerly their) conifers....and they turned up to liberate them before I tossed them in the skip. Very weird, especially as they had planted them about a foot away from the house and I had to "explain" that nice as they were (I lied) I wanted to keep my foundations.

People are very weird about "their" property though and I have seen enough boundary disputes to bite my tongue on occasion.

dementedma · 29/06/2016 20:55

We have a lovley tumbly Russian ViNE along our fence, mixed in with a climbing honeysuckle. It smells divine. Our neighbour hacks at it and throws it back over the fence. I am not remotely ageist. He is bald, fat and ugly though.

Horehound · 29/06/2016 21:12

And guess who it is reporting it all? FICBIA. Just as they did on the beetroot thread. It's like a troll for political correctness. The world has gone mad!

GreenShadow · 29/06/2016 21:14

demetedma I'm not surprised your neighbour hacks your Russian Vine back. Pretty as it is, it's a known pest. It's not known as 'Mile-a-minute' for nothing...

ficbia · 29/06/2016 21:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

JoffreyBaratheon · 29/06/2016 21:17

My chavvy neighbours bizarrely have a garden that looks like an army barracks. Mine is full of rampant flowers, plants and herbs. Saw them this week hacking at their side of my hedge in the front (at the moment it's buddleia, about to flower, honeysuckles, jasmine, wild roses - very pretty but not very 'Parks and Gardens'). I heard them furiously swearing in the past about "having to cut this shit!" So I have since planted a bit more in it.

Sod the neighbours, in other words. They thin everything their side (at the worst time of year for the plants)- which is actually thickening the plants up nicely. ;o)

That said, OP's neighbour would like my garden - it's a riot of colour right now. Neighbour's front garden is aggressively weeded but then not planted with anything - it looked better when it was overgrown.

If an elderly person got pleasure looking at my garden I'd plant them more pretty things to look at. But can fully understand OP - it's none of her neighbour's business.

Years ago an elderly neighbour approached me and asked if I'd give her the peony plant in my border. I thought it was a bit weird but said yes. And at the appropriate time of year split it in half and gave her half. Turned out that many years prior, long before we lived there, her mum had given the person in my house the plant. And she had always loved it. And wanted it in her garden to remember her mum. I think I got more pleasure giving this lady in her 90s the peony than I ever would have got looking at it!

Sometimes people do feel proprietorial about things not in their own gardens.

NavyAndWhite · 29/06/2016 21:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ficbia · 29/06/2016 21:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Horehound · 29/06/2016 21:25

Are you telling me MNHQ read every post and contacted you directly to tell them to report people?

Ficbia manages to derail threads so I expect from now on instead of highlighting all these racist/ageist and disability posts you don't have to bring it up on the thread to derail it, you just report it.

YvaineStormhold · 29/06/2016 21:25
Shock

Joffrey said 'chavvy'

Shock
JoffreyBaratheon · 29/06/2016 21:26

Oh heck yes. Let's amend 'chavvy' to 'Daily Mail reading'.

YvaineStormhold · 29/06/2016 21:29
Shock

That's Dailymailist.

Shock
Horehound · 29/06/2016 21:29

Lol!

PerpendicularVincent · 29/06/2016 21:30

Oh God Joffrey, what have you done ? Grin

Horehound · 29/06/2016 21:30

If i call myself an old bat is that ageist to myself?

Strokes beard

ficbia · 29/06/2016 21:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

YvaineStormhold · 29/06/2016 21:31

Horehound

Shock

In two posts you've been both Joffreyist and selfist.

Shock
dementedma · 29/06/2016 21:33

I know it's mile a minute but it dies back in autumn and does no harm. It provides shelter for birds and beasties, smells divine and looks pretty. Our garden is rambly wildlife haven: the grass is cut but flowering are honeysuckle, dog roses, foxgloves, iris, aquilegia, periwinkle, buddleia ....all in a joyous tangle. He has a snooker green lawn, small clumps of lobelia carefully spaced, and not much else. Boring.

Horehound · 29/06/2016 21:35

Ah so now you feel it's your job to monitor all of mumsnet.
Well there's a thread where the op states she just got rid of her arse hole dickhead boyfriend. Is that not descriptionist?

Horehound · 29/06/2016 21:36

I know yvaine. I'll be blocked any minute by mumsnets personal board trawler reporting me.

JoffreyBaratheon · 29/06/2016 21:38

I'm proud to be Dailymailist.

I wave my rainbow flag at the Daily Heil.

PerpendicularVincent · 29/06/2016 21:38

Is Joffreyist a thing, now?

JoffreyBaratheon · 29/06/2016 21:38

No-one should be Joffist. I'm still getting over that whole incident with the 'persons of restricted stature' and the wedding cake...

YvaineStormhold · 29/06/2016 21:53

I used to make my children say 'person with hychondroplaisia' instead of 'dwarf'.

I'm still not sure if 'dwarf' is ok, but they tell me to get the fuck over myself now Grin