Stalker house buyers

[Lozgal24]

Slightly exaggerated title 😂

We are selling our house and the family buying it are buying their first house in the UK. I’m starting to feel a little irritated as on an average evening they walk past our house and look I the windows approximately 5-6 times. It’s really invasive. They don’t come right up to the windows but the street is only 1-2 m from the windows and they do a really slow walk past. It drives our dog nuts who barks repeatedly as they are close and essentially staring in the living room and squinting past the gauze blind. They sometimes wave- probably twice a night. This happens 5 ish nights a week. They are not en route to anywhere. We have another two months till completion.

They have four kids, they also walk past approx 2-3 time an eve between 7-10, separate to their parents and slow walk past. They openly stare. They are from a different culture so I’m not sure of this is the norm where they are from? It seems odd by anyones standards.

AIBU to think this in invasive? Just ask to view it again? We’ve offered but it’s getting silly now.

Would you say something and risk sale or just deal with it?

Sounds weird, but frankly, I would have no idea if my buyers had done similar or not.

I am not looking by the window all evening, people can't see inside my house from the street, complete non issue.

They sound like they are over-excited and can't wait. If someone walking in front of your house is disturbing your privacy, you need to put curtains up or something, it's not normal.

If I were going to buy a house I would probably do the same thing, it’s a natural thing to want to inspect/observe/peek an item you’re going to spend an incredible amount on money on. They’re in a public place and have the right to stare at your house as much as they want. Get over it. You sound a bit like a curtain twitcher type.

Perhaps that's just as they know they've been clocked by OP so it seems polite to greet with a wave than ignore.

It does seem an excessive amount to go past, but maybe they used to walk circuits from their house and have just changed the route with the excitement. Its probably better to talk to them just to mention the dog gets upset as they go by and perhaps they'll offer an explanation or have been hoping to catch you outside to chat with you about sale given were so helpful before.

Can stick up some of that opaque privacy film up or close blind/curtain and hope once the dogs view is blocked they stop barking and you can both ignore the family visits.

Creepy AF.

Draw the curtains …sorted

Agree, and you don’t have to watch them pass …Draw the curtains

I have to say when we bought our house I started to walk past it in the evenings during my dog walk. Mainly because I was excited as I never thought we'd be able to buy our own home, but partly because I grew up a road away and this road had a bad reputation back then. I just wanted to see what it was like on an average night.
But I didn't stare the house or through the windows and I didn't stop to chat to the owners. They probably didn't even recognise us as we only met briefly during the viewing.

I've frequently driven past every house I've ever bought, prior to the sale going through. I've always tried to be discreet and hoped the owners haven't noticed me but I've wanted to see the area at different times and also reassuring myself about what I'm buying. I've also had buyers that I've never heard from and it's been a real worry whether they are going to back out. I'd put up with this, what harm are they doing? At least you know they are keen and not likely to back out of buying. I'd see it as a positive.

I went by at different times and days to see if the area was ok. Schools and weekends change the atmosphere and parking levels. Sadly just deal with it you are moving soon

Before we moved into our new place, I kept driving past every so often mainly to check what the noise was like at different times like a previous comment mentioned, but I certainly didn’t look in the windows 😳 that’s very strange behaviour and I have to say I would be super annoyed by that too. Maybe not enough to ruin the house sale, depends how desperate you are to sell I suppose.

Personally I would either just draw the curtains or like someone else said you could get the mirror screens so they can’t see anything, hopefully that would put them off if they aren’t getting anything out of walking past and staring in! I know drawing the curtains is annoying and you absolutely shouldn’t have to, but If it’s only another two months it might be worth just doing until they get the hint!

another option I suppose would be putting a sign up somewhere and trying to make it look like it’s aimed at everyone not just them, but something along the lines of “Notice to public: please don’t stop outside our home and look through the windows, it makes the dog bark” 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yes, pretty minor in the scheme of this I think. And finite. They are excited, try to think of it as something nice?

“Notice to public: please don’t stop outside our home and look through the windows, it makes the dog bark”

It's a public street, people stop wherever they please
but a sign like that will guarantee that everyone will stop and look 😂

Yep this would be me to! I could not cope with this, my husband would be trying keep me calm! I’d have at least closed the curtains to stop them!

I have a neighbour who does this multiple times a day with her dog just to be nosy, not for any other reason, so only having to put up with it for a few more weeks sounds like heaven to me because we've been living with it for years and she's a few cm away from our windows rather than a metre.

We got shutters and closed them (tops are still open so she can't see in and we get light). You just need to shut your curtains a bit earlier in the evening.

genuinely puzzled, WHY would your husband have to "keep you calm" because of people walking in the street?

If you are that bothered about privacy, keep blinds or curtains? I do, no-one can see inside my house from the outside.

Ah just leave it, house sales are precious! Like you say they're not from the UK so it might be the norm for where they've come from and they're obviously excited! When we were buying the house we lived in now we already lived in the area but were so excited for our kids to have their own big bedrooms we walked past twice and on the 2nd time the owners invited us in, the kids were beside themselves. Just take it as a compliment that your house is so nice they can't stop looking at it. Put some voiles up if you're desperate for privacy until you leave.

a thoought.....you might ask them why they are doing it?

Oh bless them they're obviously excited (at least they're not bringing damp meters or decibel readers round). Other cultures are much happier being direct, so they probably think if you had an issue you'd just have said. You could either just pop out and say "is it alright if you don't come past so often, it sets the dog off" or ask your estate agent to gently explain they need to arrange visits via them and not just pop past whenever they want

My DP used to deliberately drive a slightly longer route to work so he could admire our new house while we were waiting to complete. Luckily for the sellers, he only went to the office once a week. It was a seriously upgrade from a tiny existing house and we were really excited

😂😂😂

This.

I'd be popping out to ask them if they were okay.

I would roll with it and be happy that they are clearly excited, which hopefully means they won’t pull out.

And waving at you!? Sounds like something out of a horror movie. It might be the norm in their home country though lol

Oh, for goodness' sake! They're excited about their new home. They visit it every day just to check they aren't dreaming! It's doing you no real harm.

We had buyers like this except they didn't walk past loads, but they wrote various demands and had expectations of us as sellers as though we were their landlords. We did think maybe a differing culture and being first time buyers contributed, but they were fully demanding and self centred and then eventually tried to ask for £5k several weeks after they moved in, for a new bathroom because they found evidence of new leak under the flooring (that we would not have known about). They were very entitled all the way through and it was quite stressful.

Hopefully that's not your buyers and they are just super excited!