My neighbour is showing all the signs of being a PITA

[TheWayTheLightFalls]

All v minor at the moment but a faint alarm bell is starting to ring and I wonder if IABU.

Moved house in January (detached house but in a busy, built up bit of London). This neighbour lives next door. Came to introduce herself and told us that she’d lived here for 20 years and that it was a very peaceful area <hard stare>. Peaceful. Just kept reiterating it. It isn’t a particularly peaceful area (we moved from two minutes away), but I got the message. We were about to start building works but I apologised for any noise and explained we’d do our best to minimise disruption.

At some point she seemed to think we were away (we weren’t, our car was) and started parking across our garage. After the second day of this I left a note on the car - “Hey neighbour, please don’t block our garage - we need access for our works. Thanks!”

The blocking stops, but she started to park so close to the garage that it’s practically quite difficult to use. I don’t say anything.

A month passes. She knocks on our door and says, “You know that note you left on my car? Well your builder is blocking me in” and points to a van that I’ve never seen before. I explain that our builder has a van with his logo all over it and I have no idea whose van that is but it isn’t ours/our trademens’. She glares at me for a few minutes while I talk and then stomps off, no apology. She stops parking badly though.

Today she knocked again. Our builder threw a dismantled shed away, and in doing so revealed a missing fence panel between our houses. She’s not happy and wants it replaced. (To be clear our builder didn’t detach anything- the bit of shed wall had just hidden the missing bit of fence from our side, but would always have been obvious to her.) I agreed without thinking too much - the builder is here anyway and it’s two minutes’ work, plus she is, above stuff aside, putting up with about four months and counting of hammering, drilling etc and I don’t want to be petty.

But now I’m thinking about this and getting a bit grumpy. It’s her fence afaics (as in, she has the face of it). The missing panel isn’t my problem. And I’m getting pain the ass vibes.

Wwyd? I’m minded to swallow this but then be rather less accommodating with whatever the next thing is.

True,DD's voice was 100% outdoor 100% of the time.

That sounds horrendous and would drive me bonkers.

I am blessed with my "keep to themselves" neighbours and I do like them.

Unfortunately though I think killing with kindness PITA neighbours, rarely works IMO.

They often become more entitled and demanding of you and think you can be dominated.

Polite and distant has served me very well over the decades.

I would happily help anyone in an emergency but I like my privacy.

My friend lives in a small terraced house and tried to humour her neighbour for years.

She came back from 3 weeks holidays to an extension using the boundary wall and a loo extractor blowing into her garden, pipes and guttering hanging over her side.

She had kept her husband on a tight leash😁for years but he was done.

He took photos of what they had done and ripped the pipes off, ripped the guttering off and threw it over the wall.

Apparently she had told the builders they had permission.

The builders apologised.

They had murder over it, but her husband wouldn't negotiate with them and insisted the work be redone.

They no longer speak and my friend prefers it.

Get one of these from Wickes only £5 and nail it on, job done, oh and also Do Not exchange numbers worst idea ever you don’t want her to have your number I know from experience. https://www.wickes.co.uk/Wickes-Feather-Edge-Fence-Board---150-x-11mm-x-2-4m/p/548022

This seems a sensible resolution. It's going above and beyond your legal responsibility but morally going some way towards balancing out the disruption you are causing. It also manages expectations and makes it clear what responsibility you accept.

A few weeks? My neighbour has been at it for 5 years now and is still not finished… At one point it was 7 days a week and he was doing groundworks until dark one summer. We have months of no activity and then he starts again. I absolutely hate him as I have no idea when he’ll be working or have contractors on. Lockdown was hell as we couldn’t use the garden for weeks on end from he noise and debris blowing over

Once you have a neighbour like mine you might understand why many of us hate the thought of building works next door.

Just be polite and friendly. It may be that yes she's a PITA but you are exhausted with three little ones so less resilient than you would normally be about difficult people.

She can't actually do very much and you sound like you are handling her well but petty conflicts like this can grind you down when you're already busy so try and ignore as best you can.

Life's too short. Take her a box of chocolates, apologise for the noise of the building works. Fix the fence properly. Thank her for her patience with the parking, etc and make the point that you are being as considerate to her as you can. Tell her you really appreciate her parking away from your garage as you want this work over just as much as she does.

We had one of these. She couldn’t stop bothering us - it was as if she just wanted some kind of impact or involvement and couldn’t just be nice, she had to tell us what to do and be annoying to try to get a rise out of us. I thought I managed her ok until I didn’t - she managed to really rile me by trying to bully me into giving her a spare key and I had an argument with her in the street (! It was the talk of the neighbourhood) and then had to avoid her until we moved.

To be honest XP managed her better by totally ignoring and blanking her!

However I would replace the fence - it’s a small price to pay, she’s putting up with building works and although it’s technically her responsibility, you don’t want a gap in the fence that neighbours her garden. And it gives you the moral high ground.

4 months of building work.

let me tell you OP, when my neighbour was doing building work I was grumpy too.

TBF she said literally anything, so she wasn’t being fussy. She just wanted the gap gone which isn’t unreasonable.

You really don’t want to fall out. Be civil, smile but be fairly standoffish. She has had to put up with all the building work so a couple of small gestures like the fence or a bottle of wine to say sorry for all the building inconvenience, doesn’t cost you a lot but will buy an awful lot of goodwill from her.

@TheWayTheLightFalls

You aren't acknowledging at all that you might be creating noise & disruption. You seem to think neighbours should just accept it. Surely you can see that your noise & extra vehicles & skips etc are more disruptive than your neighbour being awkward and parking quite close up. You sound quite selfish 🤷🏻‍♀️

Building work is a fact of life, and not unexpected in London, or elsewhere.
I am having building work at the moment and it is driving ME mad.
However, building work is finite.
It isn't at all similar to constantly loud music, inconsiderate noise in garden, etc, which can be a forever feature of some neighbours.
You warned your neighbours, you've apologised, the work is being carried out at reasonable times of the day by non profane builders.
I think you've done enough.
Furthermore, I think you should not have replaced the fence panels, because this sort of serial complainer needs no encouragement.
But should she complain about something else, I wouldn't hesitate to snide back at her : “I've already replaced two panels on YOUR fence, what more do you want,” sort of thing.

What are people supposed to do?

Houses get old and need updating.

I hate having builders in and haven't for many many years but I live among older houses and them being renovated when the sell is a fact of life.

I wouldn't tolerate noise all night and roads being blocked etc., but that hasn't ever happened around here.🤞

Don't give her the time of day. Stop answering the door to her. Make it very clear you won't tolerate this or it will escalate.

“Hey neighbour".

Being "heyed" triggers me a little. If someone does it to me, I'll do what I can to ruin their day. That's probably just me though. All other under 40s probably love it.

And this is the reason why my appalling neighbours and those of someone else I know in the village got away with their shot for so long, and now feel entitled to behave like bullies/savages.

nip this stuff in the bud and be cool/distant from now on.

*shit

@TheWayTheLightFalls has done enough and the kill with kindness doesn’t work with people petty enough to park over drives deliberately to make a point

Lol I replaced all of the fences in my garden, I have all the nice sides in return.

just fix the fence,
your builder made the hole

Actually, this new road I live in only has 4 houses, and we all have under 5s, including an ASD lad and one with ADHD. One of the neighbours is actually doing our building work :)

Never been a ‘neighbour’ person but this is like bloody Ramsey Street. We all get on, the kids all play together, my next door neighbour and I have a gate between our gardens and we share a hot tub and play equipment lol.

Its all a bit Disney but lovely!

Just replace the panel now you’ve agreed to it. She sounds a pain, though.

One thing is that I’d have knocked on her door and asked her (very nicely obv!) to not park in front of my garage. Notes on cars always seem passive aggressive.

They do don’t they.

Is “fix the fence” the new “cancel the cheque”?

No I disagree with most people. Just because you're having building work done doesn't mean you have to pander to her. It means being as respectful as you can and having the work done Monday to Friday in standard working hours and ensuring the area is clean and tidy afterwards and any damage rectified. She also needs to relise that its not permant noise and it will end and it could be her needed you to be patient and putting up with stuff one day. Ask yourself this, would she pander to you if it was roles reversed. Doubt it! Do not replace any fence panel until you know who the fence belongs to. If it's yours replace it. Replace the whole fence with the highest you can go! If its hers she replaces it. Just because you're having work done and being annoying for a few months doesn't mean you have to replace her fence which has clearly been broke for ages because you're causing an inconvenience. If you replace it and its her fence, she's got the upper hand and before you know it you'll be swapping garages at her request to make her life easier then as icing on the cake you'll have a 2k solicitors bill as a thank you! I'm speaking from experience here. Do not let some one who you wouldn't care if they fell off the face of the earth push you around. I learnt the hard way, I ended up with a smaller garage, further away from my house and I paid for it aswell. Non of it was any benefit to me and I was out of pocket to the tune of 2k!