People not showing pride in their homes

[Auburngal]

Talking about those who leave the front of their homes (owned) in a state.

For example there’s a house down my parents road who has an old fridge freezer on their driveway for 5 years! Don’t understand why people spend several hundred quid on white goods don’t buy them from a retailer who takes the old one for free or for £10. I paid the retailer £10 to take my old washer away and to recycle it accordingly.

Then there’s a house opposite me who had their bathroom replaced and left the old loo and other bits outside the home for several months. A decent bathroom fitter would take the old stuff away as part of the package.

Then another family down my parents road have old children’s toys in their garden- play house, sand pit etc. The kids are too old for these toys now.

Then are properties with hedges on the road and used as a ‘bin’. Unless the owners have mobility issues - then there’s no excuse to remove the rubbish from the hedge.

People spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on their homes but I hate it when they show no care.

People need to show pride.

I am a member of a community litter picking group.

I'm undoubtedly a bitch but not the kind of bitch who tanks the value of the houses around me by being a selfish grot waxing on about how I'm above the boredom of caring about the environment I share with others.

I must be a bitch too because I absolutely could not share an office with a smelly person.

It's not as if posters are expecting their neighbours to be aiming for a garden of the year award. Just for the gardens to not have junk in it.

I’m not sure that’s really the point. We are talking about neighbours FRONT gardens. The consensus seems to be it’s fine in the back garden and that how neat your front garden is is a source of pride/shame. I basically said it didn’t bother me. No amount of outrage is really going to impact my feelings on something so inconsequential.

@Desecratedcoconut why is it so hard for you to understand that this thing that is important to you isn’t to others?

How do you think your posts impact the environment here on MN?

So does your front garden have litter and white goods on it?

Oh please 🙄

I understand that you don't care, you have made it abundantly clear, I'm just telling you that I think it's grim and I pity your neighbours.

There's no middle point between these two opinions. You can't whine on until I'll agree that it isn't awful behaviour.

But why do you pity my neighbours? Because they need me to disapprove of them? What are you wittering on about?

See I think whining on about how other people live their lives is bad behaviour. Different opinions isn't it. (My front yard contains no white goods in case you think that makes me a more valid person to hold an opinion, by the way. It's none of your business but clearly you worry about it).

Housing prices are affected so it's definitely their business. We know a poorly maintained neighbourhood loses real estate value.

Lots of things impact the value of your house.

Scruffy neighbours come high up on the list.

But are mercifully beyond your control.

Yes, we know this.

I have lovely neighbours. One has a gardener and the other loves gardening. Our front is tidy with a few plants. The back is half and half as we are doing it up so part of it resembles a building site.

You never answer the question though - is your FRONT garden a mess?

I didn’t answer because it’s irrelevant.

This is an old post but you can have a busy interesting life and still make the time to tidy your front garden up. It's not a big job. Doesn't your partner care either?

@4610J I haven’t posted anything about my garden, or if I have a partner or not as that’s nothing to do with how I feel about my neighbours use of their property. Is it that you can’t believe that other people are uninvested in front gardens? It just never crosses my mind to fret about it, and it has no impact on my self esteem and causes no shame or pride. Gardens are for the people who own them.

There are two types of people who say "none of mine/your business, I don't mind the mess" ime.
That's 1-people who don't live near one such property and never had to deal with issues these may bring or 2-those who proudly sport washing machine by front door for last 6 years

@BeachBeerBbq in my experience there are lots of “types of people” and stereotyping the world to that extent is just silly. The people who disagree with you do so for a huge number of reasons. They don’t only disagree with you because they don’t experience what you do.

@TomeTome surely most parents keep their house to a certain standard so not to embarress their children.

I agree with you.

*Embarrass

i have no idea if that’s true, it would be an odd reason to drive your habits to me. At a guess I’d say most people clean and organise their homes to suit themselves or possibly their partner. I don’t think worrying about embarrassing your children, parents or partner is particularly healthy or common.

@TomeTome I'm not saying your house is like this but Children especially teenagers can be quite traumatised by not having a home that they don't feel embarrassed to invite their friends to. It's not how big the house is but how homely and presentable.

I suspect my children would laugh at your interpretation of “trauma” and also think it’s highly unlikely they would rate their friends on their parents houses or be particularly impressed by those that did.

It's like that where I live, used to be ok, a bit rough and ready but so many of the houses have now been bought by BTL landlords and are now unofficial HMO's so you can get up to 10 people living in a two up two down. I know this to be a fact as the house on one side of me is home to a large and shifting population. The landlord is an utter pig as far as I can make out, never does any repairs, the gutters are hanging off, the rendering is falling into the communal entry and could easily injure someone and the what fencing there is broken and collapsing. The people who live there have very limited English, they will likely not be aware that they have rights as tenants and I doubt they know how to assert those rights. They also have filled the back yard with piles of rubbish and lots of broken stuff. They lean out of the windows smoking and drop the fag ends all over the front pavement, they chuck rubbish out on the pavement and I have to regularly clean it all up. It never used to be like this, it is as if people have given up and the more mess there is, the less people feel bothered to care. There are some lovely people on my street but a minority are really dragging it down. I think landlords who are essentially getting their mortgages paid by their tenants should be forced to do repairs and to maintain their properties