Ok, I didn't actually use the words "sod off", but more politely & calmly said "sorry, but no..."
Story about the long post but don't want to dripfeed:
Bought our house several months ago. We're FTB's and bought a doer-upper. It's just your average small 3-bed semi, but lots of work to be done, including a shit-hole of a garden. It was a former rental property and previous tenants hadn't looked after it.
We saved up hard over 9 months to get the garden completely overhauled as it really needed just digging up and starting from scratch. This included very old rickety fencing. Our neighbour owns one side of the boundary between us, however she's unemployed, lives alone and says she's unable to afford to have her side of the fencing replaced.
We understand her situation but didn't want to spend thousands on a new garden for one side to still be unstable and unattractive, so we went round and offered to pay for her side to be done. And done better than originally with concrete posts and gravel boards to ensure it was more structurally sound. The only catch was that as we were paying we would like to have the 'nice side' of the fencing facing into our garden. She accepted gleefully and laughed with "well if you're fucking paying for it, whatever!"
Our neighbour is an alcoholic btw. Not judging, I like a tipple myself. But it's a fact, and relevant. She goes through phases of going dry for a few weeks and then falling massively off the wagon and going through several weeks of bingeing and causing mayhem to all and sundry.
She's well-known to emergency services for being a nuisance who abuses 999. Her mother has all but disowned her and her daughter has gone completely NC. She often calls the kids playing out on the street "fucking little bastards!" for no reason. She's on tag for assaulting a police officer and she's been disqualified from driving as she ran someone over when under the influence. She's turned up on our doorstep in drunken stupors more than once, including xmas eve when we were doing the whole santa thing for our 6 yr old.
Due to her unpredictability though, we're always civil with her, always say a friendly "hi" if we see her, still have a friendly chat now and then, take her bins out for her on bin day & put them back, walk her back to her own house when she turns up drunk and make sure she's back in safely. We've never been anything but nice.
Our original discussion, where we offered to pay for the fencing, was specifically timed when she was dry and sober, to ensure she was totally compos mentis and she understood us. And prior to the work beginning we went round another two times to check she was still ok with it, reiterated what work was being done and reminded her of the date the work was starting. No probs, she was still ok and happy with it. Couldn't wait to have a nice new fence.
The new fencing has gone up and was completed yesterday. Done brilliantly - very sturdy, secure, straight, neat and looks good. A damn sight better than the one it's replaced by a longshot!
Neighbour came round today all aggressive & confrontational, wreaking of booze completely off her face shouting and balling "come and have a look at what your fucking builders have done in my garden, it's a fucking disgrace! I ain't fucking having it!!!"
She's clearly fallen off the wagon again and is now pissed off that we have the nice side of the fence.
"That's my side ffs, I should have the nice side of the fucking fence!" she's screeching. "AAAND! they've fucked up my gate, it don't fucking shut now, look at it!" while wrenching it back & forth and slamming it against the frame.
The gate has been 'fucked' for a while. She told us so herself that it's been like it for years when we chatted to her about the work we planned. She even showed us how it wouldn't shut. And over the months of living here we've seen her struggling and faffing with it. Ours was exactly the same because it hasn't been built properly as a whole structure by the original housing developers. It's just cheap B&Q stuff. We agreed that ours was just as crap, and was why we wanted to replace everything.
We managed to diffuse her angry episode with calm gentle talking and reminding her we had discussed this with her several times already, that it's far better than it was and that she had agreed because we paid for the lot and hadn't asked her for a penny. By the time we left she was laughing with us and being overly and uncomfortably affectionate, then waving us off cheerily. But we ignored the gate comment.
However, as we were walking away and just entering our own house she went to close her gate she shouted again and turned in an instant with "see, my fucking gate won't fucking shut now because of your fucking cowboy builders!" and started slamming it again.
We just went in.
I said to DH to just ask the fencing guys to sort her gate out, at our expense, just to shut her up. But DH says no out of principle. She's obviously a drunk CFer who's also trying to get a free gate as well as fencing. If we agree to the gates as well she's going to try to get more out of us.
But I'm worried if we don't she'll start causing trouble, kicking off at the builders who are still doing other landscaping work over the next few days and potentially calling out the police because she doesn't have "the fucking nice side!" of the fence (that we've paid for!)
Where do we stand legally if she causes a fuss? Will we have to give her the nice side at our expense if she decides to pursue it? I'm stressing now...