Letter from neighbour

[CrispsAndChoc]

We’ve just had a letter saying that residents of my street are fed up with us and the disruption our work vans are causing. There’s no name or door number (it was delivered by the postman) so we can’t knock and apologise. It’s made me feel awful in our new home and I don’t know what to do!

For background-we moved in earlier this year to a very run down house down a road of lovely houses. Since we moved in, we’ve had lots of work done but it’s only been one van outside and no skips. A few (maybe 6) neighbours have commented on how lovely the house is looking and that they’ve never seen anything be done to it in years.

During The last few weeks, a few jobs have accidentally overlapped and there have been more vans and a skip on the drive meaning we can’t park on it. The vans are never parked over driveways but have occasionally been opposite one which can make it difficult (but not impossible) for people to get in and out of their drive. A couple of weeks ago, a neighbour had a go at me for parking opposite her driveway and I haven’t done so since despite it being a legal parking space that others have parked in since.

The majority of the work is now finished meaning there is only one van most days but the skip is still on the drive for a few more days.

I appreciate that it’s annoying when work is being done somewhere but my thoughts are that people should realise it’s only temporary and speak to us about problems they may have so we can rectify them rather than shout or send anonymous letters. AIBU

If they don't have the balls to put their name to it so you can talk & work out a solution then I wouldn't give it a second thought. I bet it's not all the neigbours just 1 grumpy arse. Carry om with the work & enjoy your new house.

Same.

As they haven't given their details, you've no way of knowing who it is and it would be unreasonable to do anything that would potentially involve a neighbour who has nothing to do with this.

TBH I'm not on FB at all - it's just everybody else in the world seemed to be - but obviously not.

I really really doubt multiple people are annoyed.

I always thought anonymous letters weren’t legal and constituted harassment.

Google seems to agree?

This. People are jealous cunts and dislike seeing someone making their home nicer.

Some neighbours are dicks as are some people on Mumsnet who want you to send a nice box of chocs to apologise for breathing. I'm surprised no one has suggested you send everyone on a spa day.

You said all the houses in the street are nice. If it was me I'd want the scruffy one to look nice too and accept that getting there will take the new owners some time and might cause me inconvenience.

Nothing you've said makes me think you will be a bad neighbour. Unfortunately there is one person, and i bet it is only one, who is a pain in the arse. I bet you'll soon find out who it is. My money is on the woman who had a go at you for parking perfectly legally in the road opposite her precious driveway.

As others have said, ignore the anonymous letter. Whatever you do don't commit to an end date. I'm sure you want it finished asap but building work often overruns. As long as it's being done within the council's agreed hours and the builders are not being inconsiderate, it's no one's business but yours.

I’d actually post it on the nearest lamppost with a message asking if anyone knows who wrote it?

Carry on.

I got an anonymous letter of complaint from a neighbour this year - first time ever!

I won't say what it was about - similar sort of thing - but I could sort of guess who it was but you never know for sure so you could end up suspecting all sorts, wrongly. However the person I suspected was all nice and cheery to me a few weeks later so I figured maybe they had a change of heart over it. So maybe not escalate things or hold it against anyone, esp if the work will be over soon.

This. Ignore them. You've done nothing wrong.

I'd bin the letter. Someone sounds jealous about what you are having done. Either that or they are so intolerant they have got themselves worked up over it.

Honestly I’d ignore it. I’d also continue to park my car wherever I could, if it was a legal place to park 🤷‍♀️
The work will be finished eventually, no matter how long it takes. No one should be interfering with your life or work - at some point neighbours may go through the same thing and get work done at theirs 🤷‍♀️

I wouldn’t respond to it but just be as careful as possible till the work is complete and then send a Christmas (or alternative if apt) apologising for disruption and thanking them for their patience to all neighbours who may have been affected. Maybe with a selection box if you can afford it too

Don't copy the letter or go around giving your neighbour's chocolates. If you were my neighbour I would think you were nuts. You are renovating your home. It takes time and it will be noisy and messy. Your neighbours will know this. The person who sent you this letter will be the neighbour that shows a lot of interest in you and your house.

I'm in this exact same situation and have been since end of July, and it's still ongoing.
The road I live in is very narrow with strips of pavement on each side, so the contractors' parked vehicles (between 6 and 10 per day) not only create parking difficulties for other residents' vehicles (ie, nowhere else to park) but also for pedestrians who are forced to walk in the middle of the road. It's straight opposite my house so I have to do very tight turns to get on and off my drive each day. Luckily I have a small car, I'd never be able to do it in an SUV.
In the early days my drive got blocked a lot, so I had to have words about that but the parking is more sensible now.
To be honest I'll be glad when it's finished and hope there are no more building works for a while, because that's the third one in close proximity to my house this year that has created a great deal of noise and disruption to me and other neighbours.🙄

PLEASE DON'T DO THIS!!
Otherwise you are putting the idea into the heads of all your neighbours when it might not have occurred to them, but they will read this and think someone complained and come to think of it there have been a lot of vans around here.. why invite more discussion about it.

Why pander to some crabby, bitchy moaner who hasn't had the decency to say who they are?

1. You've said that you are nearly finished with the work - so that's the end of it. 2)You've made an effort not to park in a way that blocks their drives and they can still get in and out.
2. People have said the house looks nice ( and I think people would rather someone did up the house than left it like the rotten tooth in the row)
3. Its no one else's business if you have a skip on your drive.
4. you can bet that another neighbour will have vans and work done sooner or later and you can be generous in turn.

Without mentioning the letter I'd keep in communication with neighbours on either side, but otherwise.
Ignore, Ignore, Ignore.
I had personal experience of this, so I know how upsetting it can be. We had work going on and I parked legally on a wide public road nowhere near anyone's drive and where people frequently parked, as a one-off because there was a delivery that day. I came back to find a really spiteful anonymous note on my car, complaining about our work and telling me never to park there again. (I'd parked legally, more than ten doors down on the other side of the road - so our work had nothing to do with them) .

I don't think anything you say will change their minds anyway. Its a bit like pleading for the whole road to approve of you and why should you have to? You've got every right to live in your house and do it up.

My guess is it's one plonker.

The rest will have the foresight to see it's temporary.
When works done id pop a gift to immediate neighbours (wine, token gift) and thank them for bearing with you.

A developer has bought a house on our road and constantly has vans in our over driveways etc...
I doubt anyone would send him a snotty letter, I doubt even further he'd dream of replying?! Would they rather your house be wrack and ruin on their street? I think forget it and smile brightly at all the neighbours!

Beware gifts. A neighbour gave me one once and it made me even more angry. We live in a Victorian terrace. He moved in and decided he wanted to pressure wash the front of his house to make it look brand new. I don't know why.

This meant his contractors showered my house and the house of the woman on the other side of him with about 170 years' worth of crap. Not only was his house's crap all over my walls and windows but there was six inches of sludge in the basement. That wasn't okay with me but was worse for the woman on the other side because it killed all the plants making her basement look pretty. I don't have plants, I just sweep and didn't appreciate having to sweep up his shit.

His response to our complaints was to give us an expensive cellophane-wrapped arrangement of fashionable ornamental cabbages. Me and the woman on the other side just wanted his contractors to have put up tarpaulins roof to floor to limit the fall out and to clean up. So his tasteful gift made us quite angry.

Anyone can make a mistake but it's how you deal with it that counts. He dealt with it poorly. The woman on the other side and I did not want his cabbages. Neither did we want a tub of Celebrations and a little note asking for our forbearance.

OP has not done anything as annoying as my neighbour but I'm just saying that when you've fucked up a little pressie doesn't cut it.

Me rip it up and bin it. If the vans or cars are parked legally on a public road, your neighbours need to get a life.

You're doing nothing wrong. If someone can't get on and off their driveway with a car parked opposite on an ordinary road where it's legal to park there, the issue is either with their driving or the size of their car, neither of which is your problem. People can't dictate who parks where on the road. You give a inch they take a mile with that type, start appeasing them and you'll be doing it forever, tiptoeing round their moods instead of living your life. Your response to someone rudely having a go at you for parking opposite their driveway in an ordinary legal space should have been "fuck off", then you wouldn't have got a very much not anonymous letter! Bin it and ignore, there's always one 🙄 . Or do as testina said and give everyone a laugh.

Yeah, because of this we've never taken any issue with vans parking near to our drive or skips being filled etc as we've known when the work is finishing so we're like "well, it will be done by next week!". Our neighbours even came round when they were having their shed painted incase the decorator's radio was too loud!!

We've also found it's good to say "please let us know if you have any problems with the workmen" - one of our neighbours used to go out to work all day whilst his builders came in to do renovations on his house. He'd popped round beforehand to say "this is what we're having done - please let me know if there's any issue".
Well, about three weeks into the work, the builders were having an ENORMOUS argument with each other out in the street, swearing and screaming and fighting in the middle of the day whilst I was trying to work from home, before they all left for the day at 1ish. He'd have been none the wiser about this 'fracas' and then early finish, but we told him what had happened and he was extremely grateful as he was paying most of them by the day!

I would buy a bunch of thank you cards, write a wee note thanking your neighbours for their patience, give an end date as suggested elsewhere. That way you are acknowledging the disruption caused to everyone, not just the one who write the note (am sure more than one will be hacked off).

you could even invite them over for drinks/nibbles when it’s finished depending on how many and how you feel about all of that sort of thing.

whatever you decide, it’s worth getting them back on side and smoothing over the disruption, good neighbours are worth their salt.

The opinion of a person who would send an anonymous letter to a neighbor (or anyone) is worth precisely zero. Definitely ignore!

It more than likely 💩in the builders sand which is why it had it on it’s feet…. I’d say your builder had more cause to complain!!

That's a good idea