To think I live in a fucking parallel universe?

[hungryhippo90]

I moved to a new build estate. I’ve never seen ANYTHING like it.

There’s a neighbourhood watch who put letters out on people’s cars if they’re parked in the estate. In fact a few cars got covered in tomato ketchup for being left here... not even specifically outside peoples houses. Some of the neighbours go out and moan at people parked anywhere near their house.

You get letters through the door if your bins aren’t in the back garden by 3pm the day they’re emptied (I don’t know what happens when you both work till 5pm!) there are a lot of moaning posts if it’s windy and bin day. One of the residents goes out and picks up litter, which is normal I guess but I’ve never seen it before.

There’s lots of moaning that there will be council accommodation on the estate and shock horror, the house prices!!

They currently have 3 different lawsuits ongoing with the housebuilder, the maintenance company who deals with the estates grass etc and I don’t even know who else.

One of the home owners asked the other day if the estate had security because they saw someone in a security outfit (there’s still buildingwork ongoing- there is security on that site nothing to do with the residents and FWIW it’s clear. This is answered by loads of ....maybe answers, and I start to think I don’t even live in this world. It’s clear we don’t have security! Who on earth would be paying for it? .....and one person pipes up with, ask to see their ID and their credentials (he wasn’t joking!)

Oh and there are pictures on the Facebook group - which you have to send your address to join by the way!) of every person they’ve ever seen walking through the estate.

Today someone posts a picture, someone posts a picture of two people, and one of them is out patrolling the estate for those not belonging here.

Please, please tell me I just live in a weird place and everywhere is not like this.

I find it beyond odc, a few of the other residents think it is beyond hilarious, and I used to laugh but it’s starting to bewilder me how grown ups who own houses, honestly believe our bog standard estate have security provided in the evenings.

I used to live somewhere like this. It was funny at first, then stifling, then just a nightmare.

All the paranoid security theatre actually made the place a target. The bores who made neighbourhood watch their full time job might as well have just put up a giant neon sign saying ‘we’re totally worth burgling’. One time the entire neighbourhood watch got burgled whilst marching about. They’d helpfully posted the times they’d be out and route they’d be taking on Facebook, the geniuses. Not just on the local Facebook page, but also on some kind of national neighbourhood watch page. They kept doing that afterwards, even after the police told them all it was a stupid thing to do.

They also made it so the police were apprehensive about calls from the area, having been out countless times because of nonsense like someone seeing a 12yr old in a hoody or a car driving by that they didnt immediately recognise. A whole bunch of takeaway places wouldn’t deliver to the neighbourhood because they’d gotten sick of people calling the cops on their drivers. It was insane.

I actually felt much safer living in much rougher areas, where people had the capacity to spot actual dodgy behaviour and distinguish it from...normal life.

It's the name of a weird/funny TV show. with lots of weird/funny characters in it.

@SaskaTchewan bless you, i read your posts on the public toilet theead as well. How do you ever get anything done what with all the toilet seat germs and visible wheelie bins?

You'd hate living near us then, we and most of our neighbours keep our bins in our front yard, visible to all and sundry. The horror!

If you really want to be bemused by an alien point of view, I grew up in another country, and was about 12 years old the first time I saw a terraced house. A friend of my fathers was driving me to catch the train to boarding school, and pointed at a new-build development on the horizon. "The slums of tomorrow", he said glumly. (Until that time planning had not allowed terraced houses. In my world there was no such thing as a "detached" house, a house is something that is surrounded on all sides by its garden, the aforementioned newbuilds were "townhouses", to distinguish them from proper houses.)

I recall a friend who had visited the UK on a school trip, and he recounted in a voice low with horror, that the houses were all joined together, with non-matching roofs and wall colours. (And it wasn't just him, I had a similar speech from someone else at a later date, describing with dismay the "slums" of Britain. I don't know what they actually saw, but as they were talking about the view from a train window, I'm guessing it was just the backs of terraced housing.)

Given that I've now live in London for 30 years, where a "townhouse" can cost tens of millions, I no longer hold my original views.

Having said that, when I'm Prime Minister there will be street committees who will have legal powers to maintain aesthetic standards on terraces, including maintaining fences, painting walls and maintaining gardens, where the owners fail to do so. If the owners have no money to refund the cost a charge will be put against the deeds so the comittee can recover the money when the house is sold.

My area is cheap @SaskaTchewan no point polishing a turd.

Is smugly displaying your bins like ostentatiously breastfeeding?

Bins look awful and it makes the whole area look cheap
Oh, you roaring snob.

lightoflaluna
I am flattered you are following me. Thankfully I live in a nice area where neighbours behave reasonably and hide their bins or rubbish without anyone needing to tell them to do so. Why would anyone want to lower the price of the properties in the area?

I am more worried that you are so interested in my behaviour in public toilets. is that really that interesting and worth remembering?

You all make my crazy neighborhood sound quite sane.

Fucking around with a bin pen yea alright. It's a bin it doesn't need its own Wendy house.

Yes op it sounds the same place. It sounds like it's got a bit better tbf 😐

hmc- youve hit a nail on the head there, it breeds people being on edge, its just so stupid. would you believe that upon seeing a person in the estate today, someone reccommended everyone put their yale alarms on? THIS WAS THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY.

It was funny, then it seemed silly. now its just, the kind of thing me and DH discuss when getting into bed- oh you wouldnt believe what happened today!!! Someone walked into the estate! .....Oh yeah i saw the facebook posts. Did someone call the police again? Haha, no I dont think so... ah well it kept em busy for a few hours. and we have a little giggle about it. We have both lived in worse areas (hes spent most of his life in a village- i grew up in various council estates all around ) and these people are genuinely scared it seems

someone did break into our garden a few months ago- i didnt want to put the neighbourhood on high alert so i didnt mention to any of the neighbours because the anxiety it would cause some of them would be unreal lol.

Maybe because you pay a maintenance fee they think it inclusive of security patrols not just grass cutting.

I’ve got a flat in a block which is totally the the other way our management fee is only 34 a year. Maintenance is the responsibility of the lease holders

They all moan that the flooring needs replacing but they haven’t realised that they have to pay for it, same with the gutters painting etc.
I don’t mind paying my share but I don’t think the others will want to.

We do have a ditty woman in the house next door that likes to keep an eye on comings and goings but then each to there own.

MichaelBendfaster
I chose to live in a place that was nice, why would I want to change it for the worst, and why would I possibly want to make it less appealing to potential buyers and lose money when I sell?

You have a weird concept of "snob"

There's a road with small and narrow terraced house that has recently been redeveloped. Instead of overgrown tiny front garden with bins and various rubbish, each house has been painted, and created mini gardens. The difference a little bit of green makes is amazing. Why would anyone chose to live in a tip is beyond me.

will someone tell me what royston vasey is please?

Google ‘the league of gentlemen’

The ‘road men’ ‘special stuff’ or ‘you’re my wife now Dave .’

It’s brilliant, and not a little disturbing

Haha wow! I live in a tiny village where everyone is a familiar face, we all know our neighbours etc. I've never witnessed anything quite like what you mention. It sounds quite over the top.

I'm guessing that new-builds are often bought by idealists/perfectionists. To them most of the world looks like a shit-hole, they believe the builders illustration of what the new-build will look like, move in, and fiercely defend their (pipe)dream as reality gradually imposes itsef.

People I know live on these types of estates. One estate is massive and basically a new village, if you drive round it on a Sunday all the men are either washing their range rovers, BMW’s or Mercs or mowing their 2 foot square patch of grass. No one else to be seen. Some other friends live on a much much smaller new estate. If they invite outside people over they get their neighbours popping in also and basically take over the night. Don’t think they are allowed outside friends.

It’s all well and good putting your bin in a small house/ornamental garden if you can get the lid up to bin stiff when it’s in there.

thanks Tartyflette!

Saska,

'You have a weird concept of "snob"'

No, I really don't. You have a weird concept of "things that matter that much".

They all sound utterly demented. Wtf do they do if someone dares to have a party? All those "strangers" turning up would have them bursting blood vessels.

I'd love to live somewhere like that, just for the fun of winding them up. My weeds would be left to attract the larvae of some rare moth or damselfly, I'd have a stack of wood in the front garden to attract beetles and hedgehogs, I wouldn't put my bin away and I'd have lots of visitors coming and going. DSS and his friends would be a great source of suspicious looking hoody-wearing young men. And our elderly and shabby motorhome would enrage them all just by being there.

What on earth makes people think that they have the right to dictate how people live? It's different if they're actually being anti-social, but this is just a way of trying to make everyone live like they do.

I heard a story about a friend's sibling being asked if he would refrain from cooking "foreign food" because the smell was noticeable all across the estate. I didn't believe it at the time, but having read about some of these people, I'm not so sure.

Mind you, the friend has moved into a house in a cul-de-sac in a village. We used to stay overnight in the motorhome in her drive when she lived in Sutton, but she's decided that it's not a good idea where she lives now because "the neighbours wouldn't like it".

@PurplePirate I have grammar shame! Sorry.  Damn you bear/bare. 

@SaskaTchewan those bin sheds are very nice but not everyone is going to be able to afford one. And I'd rather spend money on more exciting things. It doesn't bother me looking at my bins out of the window.

There was a suspicious man outside next door. I should have taken a photo. I'm sure it's nothing to do with the fact the house is currently To Let. (I bet the neighbours are putting everyone right off ) Maybe I should tell the landlord I need to vet any potential tenants. I'm sure it's my right!

My neighbour brings my bin in, I always thought she was being nice, now I'm wondering if it's because it offends her that it is still there after she gets home from work!

saska I live on a very fancy estate in Sweden. Houses probably 3-5 times the size of UK ones. It’s supposed to be the nicest and most expensive bit of the city. It’s flash, anyway (the girl done good...)

The bins are kept at the end of your drive, as a courtesy to the bin crews, who pick up and put back. As today they are doing that over a foot of snow, it’s polite to leave them at the end of the drive and would be the height of bad manners and unneighbourly behaviour to hide them. No one locks them in decorative boxes because the poor bin crews would have to get them out.

I can assure you it’s not affected house prices (which remain at the obscene end of stratospheric.)

Loves- when you say better, do you mean its improved or got worse? i know understanding English shouldnt be hard for me, but dear god i hope its getting a bit less mad as time goes on!

@SaskaTchewan i just noticed your name as I never believe that there are people who really bother themselves about this stuff, and you've proved me wrong twice in one afternoon.

I also live on a nice road where most people work, including my DH and I. So my bins get brought in and put away (in the back garden you'll be relieved to hear!) when we get home from work in the evening. And i think that's just fine.