Our garden is not the cause for the lack of sale

[maoiBYRD]

Neighbours have just blamed me because our garden is a mess. That’s why they can’t get their sale for the flat upstairs.

They are selling for 10 grand over the asking price. You can get a three bed in the next road for 5 grand less, they are going with an online estate agent and you have to do viewings yourself. We are in the middle of a pandemic and no one is buying at the moment.

I’m currently clearing the flower bed of the “jungle” of wild flowers, potatoes and garlic that I created with my little girl, and trying to find a scrap man to take away the bikes and scooters and wondering how how I “shape” a bush that we really want to keep because my mother planted it.

Would a neighbours garden really influence your purchase of a property?

Im digging up the unsightly veg bushes. I will clear the garden. We don’t have any rotting cars or rat nests. It was just a bit overgrown with wild flowers and veg. :(

@PostedTooSoon

I can’t really create a bug hotel

You can buy nice bug hotels that hang on your fence that don't look messy at all

Yes, we have one of these. Just make sure it is attached to the fence you own and not your neighbour's!

No bugs in ours yet though, sadly. It's been there all summer.

We discounted a really nice house recently as the neighbours garden looked like a dump.

If you need to book a scrap man, rather than putting the things out the front unattended for five minutes overnight with a poster saying 'FREE TO GOOD HOME' - it's you that's the problem.

Argh no. Our neighbours had a sofa plopped in their front garden with a “free to a good home” note on it and for weeks it just looked unslightly and messy until they finally just disposed of it. Just stop being lazy and take your rubbish to the tip/charity shop.

Yes it would. Especially if it's a garden under my flat. I would probably associate it with antisocial behaviour and carelessness. If I'm living above someone I want to think they're conscientious.

@LioneIRichTea

If you need to book a scrap man, rather than putting the things out the front unattended for five minutes overnight with a poster saying 'FREE TO GOOD HOME' - it's you that's the problem.

Argh no. Our neighbours had a sofa plopped in their front garden with a “free to a good home” note on it and for weeks it just looked unslightly and messy until they finally just disposed of it. Just stop being lazy and take your rubbish to the tip/charity shop.

With general crap I agree with you; but with scrap metal it’s different - even in my naice middle class village we have vans patrolling in the early hours to swiftly take metal off our hands

We keep the main bit flat so the kids can play out, so roughly every month. It gets long, (ankle height ish - it grows different lengths, short, long) then shortened by the mower.

The offensive bush is a “shrubby cinquefoil”. The wild flowers were mainly ladies thumb and grasses (wheat, common velvet - taken from the local park, we took some home, spread some seeds at the park). We have fuchsias as well.

I wouldn’t buy next door to a messy garden, it speaks volumes.

With general crap I agree with you; but with scrap metal it’s different - even in my naice middle class village we have vans patrolling in the early hours to swiftly take metal off our hands

Really?! I’ve never heard of this

YABU. If the flat is overlooking your mess, I wouldn't buy it. You should have sorted your garden out for yourself in any event, why have an unkempt bush and bikes all over the place? Some people just baffle me.

And you're completely wrong no one is buying right now, we're selling, there's lots of interest and our estate agent says the market is booming. It us true, the properties are indeed going very quickly. I think you're in denial, OP.

OP I think you're getting a hard time. Flats with no garden are not shifting at the moment. People want gardens. I highly doubt your veg growing is what's putting buyers off your neighbour's flat. I would be pretty annoyed if a neighbour had a go at me for growing veg and wildflowers!

Yes when buying a house I always look at how well the neighbours, maintain their properties and an overgrown messy garden next-door would definitely put me off.

My next door neighbour's house has become increasingly rundown and the garden is awful, so yes, it does affect those around you.

@LioneIRichTea yep we had no idea either - until we were having some work done and got woken up at some ungodly hour by some people rummaging through the skip!

We quickly learned that if we just left the metal by the side of the road rather than in the skip then they’d come pick it up and stop making so much noise so we wouldn’t get woken up

I think they have a point...

When looking at a house I would always check the neighbouring properties to get a feel of how well they are kept and who the people who live in it might be.

Unkempt gardens with a lot of junk 'dumped' in them would make me think that the neighbours don't really care about maintaining the place and might cause further problems in term of behaviour...

I really don't think you should have bikes and scooters that are meant for scrap in your garden for long periods of time.

Especially at a time when social distancing means you would have been spending a lot of time home and in your garden, there is little excuse not to have tidied it up.

Would it really be so time consuming for you to just clean this up? surely it will benefit you and your kids to to have a nice outdoor space...

Strugglingtodomybest - yay for meadows! I think they are the most beautiful of gardens! Lots of lovely varied, soft colour and treasures of surprise wildflowers. It depends a bit on where you are, the local climate & wildflowers, and which you want to encourage.

Good info here:

www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=436

www.plantlife.org.uk/uk/support-us/making-meadows

And the 'blue heart' rewilding scheme is nice.bluecampaignhub.com/about-us

Proper meadow cultivation/creation can be quite a lot of work. I've just gradually let the grass revert to a lovely mix of native grasses and wildflowers.

I mow early June, and again round about now, when the hawkweed is done and most of the other flowers have had a shot. So, September-ish. You will get a lot of dandelions early in the year, at which my DP freaked out, but they don't last more than a few weeks before they're over. Then other flowers come in - clover etc. Bird's foot trefoil is great for breaking up the dense mat of rye grass and making space for more diverse species.

It’s difficult to clear it up because I can’t get rid of stuff easily. Plus the kids are attached to the bikes. The scooters work, the bikes work. I don’t have a car to secretly dispose of them with. The dump is appointment only.

My dad requires constant care. I’m reluctant to fly tip. I had no free time during lockdown at all. All my time was taken up with feeding people, wiping bums, bedpans etc. I am limited to 8 items for £50 with the local council, so I have to choose carefully what to get rid of.

I am willing to clear out the junk, but the established bush stays.

Why the hell are you martyring yourself OP? If your garden is really as fine as you say it is, why not just roll your eyes at the neighbour’s batshit behaviour and ignore them?

Why wail on about getting rid of your children’s beloved bikes if they are still attached to them and they aren’t rusted old junk? Why not just tidy them up a bit, get rid of the old ones etc?

Why go on and on about ripping up a treasured plant when all you need to do is give it a trim?

Your reaction here is bizarre and way over the top.

@maoiBYRD

It’s difficult to clear it up because I can’t get rid of stuff easily. Plus the kids are attached to the bikes. The scooters work, the bikes work. I don’t have a car to secretly dispose of them with. The dump is appointment only.

My dad requires constant care. I’m reluctant to fly tip. I had no free time during lockdown at all. All my time was taken up with feeding people, wiping bums, bedpans etc. I am limited to 8 items for £50 with the local council, so I have to choose carefully what to get rid of.

I am willing to clear out the junk, but the established bush stays.

I would hire someone to come and take away the junk. Do it whilst the children are out for a walk with you or similar if necessary. As the scooters and bikes work, either sell them/give them away or else can you get a shed or similar to store them in?

Sorting out a garden that has overgrown can be a lot of work and expensive if you hire a gardener, but no reason why you can’t try to set aside an hour or so every few days to try to get on top of it.

Do you have any friends or neighbours who might take stuff to the tip for you in their cars?

I can’t imagine anyone will object to a bush, even if overgrown. It’s junk and what looks like unwanted and unused items that are abandoned that will put off buyers. Good luck.

Yes it would.

@LioneIRichTea me too! whenever I need to get rid of anything metally I just put it out by the bins and it's gone in two hours.

None of what you’re saying makes sense @maoiBYRD

If the garden is fine then why are you doing all of this? And I don’t think anyone suggested or even hinted at fly tipping.

It’s like you’re reading innocuous posts and completely overreacting.

If the bikes and scooters are neatly stacked in a corner, your lawn is mowed, and you’re tending to flower beds then why are you getting rid of everything?

Like I said; you’re making no sense.

OP, I'm glad that you came back to this thread - despite the hard time that so many of us have given you.

Your garden doesn't sound nearly as bad in the recent updates compared to the initial impression that your first posts gave. It sounds like a fairly normal, slightly untidy but well used garden. You sound much nicer too. Maybe you were a bit fed up when you first posted; I thought that you came across as being rather stroppy and passive aggressive. In this morning's updates, you seem much calmer, friendlier and more reasonable.

OP, what do you mean, “I’m reluctant to fly tip”. Fly tipping is never acceptable!

OP, I agree with OhCaptain. Your garden sounds fine, so stop playing martyr and just say 'no'. Why on earth would you get rid of bikes and scooters that are in use?

As they say on the feminism board, 'no' is a complete sentence. It's not your problem if the people upstairs are having trouble selling, or if they don't like your garden.

This thread needs pictures!! Very hard to tell whether your garden is slightly scruffy but normal, or overgrown eyesore, without pictures.

I agree with you OP that the pandemic, lack of outside space, and price are far more likely to be preventing a sale. A grotty garden in view (IF yours is, which i can’t tell) could definitely be a factor though

We had a messy garden next to our house. I always used to leave our bedroom until last to show people round because I knew the viewers would look out of that window and see the garden. It did put people off, it would put me off. Not a lot they can do about it though unless they offer to help you sort it 🤷🏼‍♀️