My neighbours and their astonishing sense of entitlement

[VelvetSpoon]

I'll start by saying i appreciate this falls far short of one of those neighbours from hell situations you see on tv but nonetheless they are driving me mad...

Neighbors have 4 kids in a tiny 2 bed. I have 2 teens, and live in a house more than twice the size of theirs. Not a boast, but I do think some of their twatty behavior is partly jealousy.

I have posted before about them letting their kids climb in my garden to fetch their toys (I've had to tell them to get out of my garden at least 10 times), said kids also kicking balls over my fence all the time, knocking for them back and expecting an instant response, throwing stones in my garden, kicking ball against my fence (theyve kicked a hole on the panel), constantly screaming and shouting at each other in the garden from 7.30am and calling out to us if we're in the garden. Always just kids as parents are indoors leaving them to own devices. Culminating in eldest kid telling me (when my fence was broken) her dad said i needed to fix it. I told her if he wanted to speak to me he should do it directly. I have since fixed the fence but in my own time and only cheaply (as longer term I want to put up a 6ft fence but as there are about 15 panels Im not able to do it immediately).

Last year i had a skip. They put a load of their stuff in it. I dumped it on their drive (I knew it was theirs as Id seen it in their garden)

Their bins constantly overflow. They have a car each but are too lazy or thick to go to the council tip (1.5 miles away!) and instead leave their bins piled up attracting foxes and rats. On occasion they also put stuff in my bin. This hasnt happened for about a year, since i moved my bin away from the wall between our houses. Come home tonight...fucking bin bag in there. I know it's theirs as a) no one else would have the front to walk into my garden and put their crap in my bin and b) they use a fairly distinctive type of binbag. I've left it on their drive.

I've also chucked a blind they keep putting on my garden wall back in their front garden.

Aibu to have done this? I dont think so, I have had enough of their shit, I really have.

How about one of these? www.binpin.co.uk/wheelie-bin-lid-locks/wheelie-bin-universal-lid-lock?gclid=CI2jqe_93dUCFc-6GwodrYYPZg

Threads like this make me realise that getting a detached house instead of a flat will not solve my hatred of neighbours...

Don't waste your time on complaining to the council or police. All you will do is raise your own blood pressure when you realise how shite they are at dealing with this sort of thing.

Summary justice is the only way - dump their bin bags back on their doorstep and yes, oh dear, the bag has split. That sort of thing.

I can see that you're annoyed but you do sound very territorial. Where we are you would put an extra bin bag in the neighbours bin if yours was full (though you'd ask first!) Kids calling out over the fence is being friendly (assuming they are young and not teens being abusive or something). Agree the parents should intervene if they pester you though. Maybe I have a really high tolerance for other people and I don't have a nice garden either

mission having a bigger house than your neighbour isn't something you can really call tit for tat. OP didn't decide to have a bugger house just to piss her neighbour off. It's just a bigger house. Mine is bigger than my neighbour's; it has another bedroom and is ever so slightly wider. Doesn't mean anything other than it being a bigger house.

Chicken "Threads like this make me realise that getting a detached house instead of a flat will not solve my hatred of neighbours..."

yes, me too. Well, not that I hate my neighbours, they are sweet, I just always wanted a house and garden. And at least we have a management company I can moan to if anything does go wrong. Coming on MN has been an eye opener.

Dr Coconut, I feel like you didn't read the OP!

I think she read it, but has never had hours and hours of annoying kids kicking at your fence. Not an hour in the afternoon - but all day long. Constant meet kids because their parents don't pay them any attention.

The expectation that you are at their beck and call for the ball

If mine kick a ball over they are allowed to nip and ask once, I make them ask, because they then realise they are being a pain.

If they do it again they can't ask until the following day unless we here them about

The bins, also polite to ask and not assume you can just use another's bin

FWIW we sometime use a neiboirs bin, I sometimes take their stuff to the tip. Good relations are key.

They sound horrendous.

Get a bin lock asap. Get a massive fence asap. And if you think the kids will still climb over, get a whole array of very thorny shrubs to plant along your side of the fence. Wild roses are vicious.

How bloody rude of them. YANBU.

Reading about all these dreadful people is making me feel very nervous. We are just coming to the end of having a house renovated with a view to letting it. I would not want to inflict any of the awful people on the neighbours of the house as we have got to know some of them over the last couple of months.

We have already had to say a firm no to one woman who apparently had been very rude, and swearing at the letting agent.
She was a woman on her own with a couple of children, whose husband had run off with someone else. I don't blame the man!

My NN's like to:

Put all sorts of shit in my recycling bin (I put it back when I see it, even if it means walking up their drive with obvious rubbish in hand and firing it in their bin)
Reported me to council for having a mess of a garden. It was just coming out of winter and I hadn't had it cut since late autumn so yes, it needed cut but they know I have a gardener who calls every 3 weeks from spring to late autumn so they were just being cunts and taking any opportunity. Council said it was just grass in need of a cut so no sanction. Their garden is waste high in weeds and they haven't cut it all summer. Privately owned so nothing I can say.
Smoke weed on their front steps, the wind wafts it to us if we're out there.
Have parties during the week and all weekend. They even started one at 1am last week and it went on all through the night. They aren't ravers, it's just random crap music from years ago.
Snub us one minute then try to strike up conversation the next.
Throw cigarette butts in our garden.
Painted our side of the fence to match their house
Brought us presents when DD was born (not an awful thing to do but this is what they do, be nice one minute then act like they own the place the next).

They are exhausting! But I think the rest of the street knows this too as not one of the neighbours say hello to them when passing.

Apologies for not coming back to the thread sooner....

It feels better (and yet worse too) to know I'm not alone. The poster who said about the nappies, yes we've had that too (at one point next door had 2 in nappies and finding one in my garden half chewed by foxes was a regular occurrence...

Bin lock is a great idea, i will definitely invest in one of those. Unfortunately i can't put one on the bin yet as the council refuse collectors broke the lid off my bin (and lost it) a couple of weeks ago. I am currently using a bit of plywood held down with a brick! When the new bin arrives I'll definitely be locking it though.

If they'd asked to put stuff in my skip Id probably have said ok. The bin is different, as we only have fortnightly collections. I try not to overfill my bin so the lid (when it had one) stays closed and i don't end up with maggots. So although now, several days before bin collection there is space in my bin, that space is for the binbag that I have indoors and which is half full..if i let them have their bag in there, there's then no room for mine.

They would never ask though as they don't speak to me.

The blind got on my wick too. They've chucked out a crappy old blind. Fine - so put it in the bin. Or next to the bin. No, they've put it on top of my wall!

My bf is pretty reasonable, even he thinks they're twats (he didn't until he caught all their kids on the garden and when he asked them to leave they just stood there. And then said they were getting a ball).

Oh, i think someone asked if they rent/ own. The latter. Their house can't be extended and is openplan downstairs so there's no way to create another bedroom, hence i am hoping at some point (please god) they will move. It's really not a house for 6 people.

Velvetspoon your neighbours are trailer Park trash

kids play out and of course they play out in the garden without a parent there all the time...
speak to environmental health

Our council are pretty lax about stuff. They have no interest in people with overflowing bins, I know because a friend had a similar problem.

I have children. I understand children play outside. However leaving your 4 kids outside unsupervised for hours when they are all under 8, and cannot play sensibly (climbing my fence, throwing stones over, banging their ball against the fence, fighting with each other, screaming etc) is probably not the best idea. Of ourselves if they moved to a bigger house the kids wouldn't have to be outside all the time. One day...

As a family of 6 they may be eligible for bigger bins at no cost - that is how it works in our area. Appreciate it doesnt solve all the issues but may reduce at least one source of annoyance