Neighbour complaining about dripping sound

[Ihategroutwhatisthepoint]

Posting on behalf of friend.

Friend lives on a well to do cul de sac. The cul de sac was built in the 70s. Most residents are people who bought back in the 70s with children that have grown up and left. The houses have large front and back gardens. Friend is among one of the only new, young families to have moved on to the close.

Pre -Covid friend and her husband were well off and had a relative who helped with the garden. But Covid left them in debt as they borrowed personal loans to keep business afloat: Friends’ mental health took a deep dive but they carried on looking after their young children and their various extra curricular stuff. Relative who helped with garden moved away.

Friend does not have the capacity to deal with gardens. Which has pissed some neighbours off. The street takes a lot of pride in the front gardens as most residents are retirees - often up at 7am mowing lawns at weekends. Friend swill spend one weekend doing a massive job in the garden (poor tools) but it’s not something they mainatain so within 2 months it can look shit again.

Friend’s next door neighbour has complained to them about a dripping noise that is leaking from friends’ pipe onto friends’ garage. It is literally one drip per second. Friends cannot afford plumber and pipe is in precarious position (garage roof is not strong enough to stand on). Neighbour says it annoys him when he is in his garden. His garden is his life must be outside and 10 hours a day.

Friends’ solution is to chuck towels underneath to stop noise but this only works for a day or two.

Friends can’t move due to mortgage set up. They would never be able to afford this size of house in probably one of the best cul de sacs in this commuter town.

Who is being unreasonable?

Why doesn’t friend tell annoying neighbours they can have free rein on the front garden to get it to their standards no problems.

With the drip find out what’s causing it as it might be an easy fix but a drip every second onto plastic roofing will
sound horrible.

The state of their garden is irrelevant. Nobody has to keep their garden looking smart if they don't want to.

The leaking pipe is a different matter, though, and they should be making at least some attempt to deal with it. It's incredibly annoying and probably an easy fix. Have they at least tried to diagnose the problem and figure out where the water's coming from?

They have less than no money. Bailiffs are being managed. Each month they have to prioritise which bills can be paid. It’s a nightmare scenario for them.

They've taken on a home which, unfortunately, they can no longer afford to maintain. I appreciate that's because of changed circumstances, but they need to accept that if they're fighting off bailiffs and can't afford to fix a leak, then they need to look at selling up. Whatever their mortgage set-up, the alternative is that the house is repossessed, which would be a lot worse.

Local window cleaner might be happy to have a look and do a minor fix. Post on facebook and ask.

Friends can’t move due to mortgage set up. They would never be able to afford this size of house in probably one of the best cul de sacs in this commuter town.

Unfortunately it sounds like they can't actually afford to live there now if they can't do basic repairs to the property/keep the outside areas in order.

As said there's nothing the neighbours can do to make your friend tidy their garden but you do say in your post its one of the "best cul de sacs" so maybe the neighbours see it as your friend moving in a turning that "best cul de sac" into an eye sore.

Can they hang a metal chain that the water will cling to on its way down, to prevent a louder drip noise from happening?

Use metallic tape and tape hole up.

If it's the water overflow from tank/toilet and they are on a meter it's literally money running down the drain.

A quick cheap fix.