To not accommodate Very Important Neighbour's new home office?

[Knitwit101]

We've lived next door to these neighbours for years. Know each other well enough to say hi, put bins out on holiday, but we're not friends. We've been using our garden in the same way for years. No changes on our side, nothing new.

We've come back from holiday to find neighbour has re-organised his home office and he now sits at a massive (open) window right on the boundary between our gardens. That must have been a spare bedroom before maybe, I don't know. We never saw anyone in it.

I sat outside at our patio table this morning to have a coffee and I could hear every word he said through his open window, could hear every word his colleagues said on their online meetings. He might as well have been sitting at the table with me. Not sure there's much I can do about that, he can use his house however he likes.

Ds10 and his pals are sitting outside at the table trading Pokemom cards. There's 4 of them, they are laughing and chatting but they're not shouting or being silly. And it's a sunny afternoon in the school holidays, they can be outside laughing in the garden if they want to be.

Neighbour has just come to the door to ask me if I can take them inside because he has a full afternoon of work meetings and their noise is distracting him.

I said "what, the whole afternoon? You want them to stay indoors all afternoon?"

He said completely straight-faced "I'll be working till 6.30pm"

I laughed and said "well no, that won't be possible".

At this point he said in a very slow, careful, mansplaining voice just in case I couldn't follow him "I don't think you understand. I have a Very Important Job. These are very important meetings. I negotiate multi-million dollar contracts every day, I need to be able to concentrate."

Seriously? I always though he was a bit of a twat but who talks like this? Who actually says "Very Important" like that? Twice? He has no idea what my job is or how important dh or I might be.

I just said "no, we'll carry on using our garden as we always have. Maybe you could close your window when you're needing to concentrate. And just so you're aware, I can hear you and your colleagues when your window is open, I hope you're not saying anything confidential. I must get on, thanks for doing the bins while we were away" then shut the door.

He's gone, I can hear him on his Very Important Meeting. I could join in, I can hear every word on both sides. I suspect he'll be back, probably when dh is back from work so they can talk man to man.

He's unsettled me though, he was so self-confident when he came to the door, so sure that he would get exactly what he wanted. How do you get that kind of confidence? I wish I had it. Or is it arrogance? He made me think I was in the wrong at first.

We love our garden, we use it all the time. I'm not sure how we'll deal with this one, but I wasn't BU by refusing to bring the kids inside, was I? He's the one who has made the change, not us. I don't think wfh is new for him, he was just somewhere else in his house before I guess. Now he's on top of our patio with his big booming voice. I feel quite sad about it, if he's there all day every day it's going to be awful.

Stop being pedantic, you know what she was getting at.

well I don’t actually!

I haven't read all posts so someone might have already shared a similar opinion, but I do think you should have instantly been more aware of important neighbours meeting. You absolutely should have waited until very important meeting was a few minutes in then taught those noisy naughty kids a lesson. Nice cold hose chased around the garden should do it.

He is clearly unreasonable. Working from home has many advantages but also means it’s a residential space with children playing a normal thing. If that’s an issue, he’ll have to find somewhere else. Your home is being a home. Well done on making that clear (and I say this as someone who works from home often).

It won’t last OP.
Your ndn will be clamouring to return to the office when the energy bills shoot up in October.
I think JRM has planned this energy price rise all along.

I work from home in my garden office, and have invested in a cracking pair of noise cancelling headphones for all my online calls. I no longer have to listen to mowers, dog’s barking, kids playing and neighbours arguing….and they don’t have to listen to my confidential calls, everyone’s a winner! Tell him Sony are pretty good! 😂

Well done for handling that so well and standing your ground. You said it perfectly. I work from home and just have to accept that neighbours can be noisy and have every right to be in their own homes. Your children should be able to have fun and enjoy themselves in their own garden. They sound lovely btw - they’re only young once. If your neighbour’s job is so important that he has to handle multi million pound contracts then he needs to take it more seriously and hire an office! The cheek of the man.

Love your response OP and you are quite right about confidentiality. Sounds like a delightful man

Exactly. Or he could just swap rooms, get a bit of building work done indoors to make a different space suitable for him, or build an extension. But he does not own the use of your garden. What a knobhead.

What’s a bloody sauce I would get a couple of dogs loads more kids and politely tell him to F off. I am fed up with people telling others what they can do in their own gardens, kids have been told to be quite for too long Women explain to him perhaps get an office unit for the summer holidays as my kids not going anywhere crumbs this has incensed me

What’s a bloody sauce I would get a couple of dogs loads more kids and politely tell him to F off. I am fed up with people telling others what they can do in their own gardens, kids have been told to be quite for too long Women explain to him perhaps get an office unit for the summer holidays as my kids not going anywhere crumbs this has incensed me .

Last time my child was abused verbally by a neighbour for being noisy playing football alone (!) I gave them a recorder and told them to blow on it as loud as possible whenever the man started shouting. Neighbour soon stopped.

Sit there taking notes, and let him see you ...

Not being unreasonable at all. I f it's so important and multi-million pounds at stake suggest he gets an office elsewhere!

In terms of the big open window, perhaps you could put up some sort of cheap bamboo screen on your side of the fence to give you some privacy? In terms of the noise, there's a degree of reasonable day-to-day activity that has to be accepted on both sides. It seems you've made the decision to tolerate the noise he makes, which I think is the best approach, although it's probably not easy. But it's not unreasonable for your kids to make their own noise as long as it's not above and beyond normal behaviour (eg, banging tunes out of a stereo for hours on end). So perhaps continue with your day to day lives, don't kick up a fuss (you haven't) and wait for him to come to his own conclusion to move away from the window or at the very least, close it.

Sounds like a self entitled egotistic twat with a VERY IMPORTANT JOB!! The crux of the matter is its your garden not his, your kids are allowed to play in it, it is HIS choice where he works in HIS house, nothing to do with you - so he can just bog off!!

Ok so I never invite DS2s friends for play dates. In this situation I’d be inviting the whole class 🤣

yanbu he’s a twat obviously. BBQ trampolines games you name it 24/7 if it was me! I fear for dh if he undermines you too.

I’d encourage the kids to play outside very loudly all day. If you are out there having a coffee have the radio on very loudly. Or find the most confidential part of a meeting and ask him about it next time he complains and then suggest he goes back to working where he was before.

🤣🤣🤣

I am always surprised that so many MNers know what's in the Mail especially considering that it's considered such a No No !

If he says anything else, I would tell him his very important meetings are ruining your peaceful time, relaxing in your garden. How selfish is he! What a total bellend. Laughable.

I can sympathise with this living opposite pompous loud booming voice people !!!!
i suggest carry on as usual and up the activity with a kids party and some music everyday oh and a few barbecue lunches for the kids !!!

What-a-prick. That's not confidence, it's self-entitlement.
You did the right thing, and I wish I had your assertiveness. Don't give up one inch.

Don’t you need planning permission for out side living / business use buildings. Worth checking 😈