Village bullies - time to move?

[Joyjazz]

Aibu to sell a house I bought 8 months ago?

I bought a beautiful house in a village and have spent a lot of money renovating it and building an extension.

The only problem is the neighbours … I think they have a vendetta against me because I’m the newbie in the area. It started with some complaints about the builders’ noise which I could understand. I explained that the work would take x amount of time and there would still only be noise on weekdays 9-5pm. That passed.

Next it was about the parking. I have a drive and my visitors park on the road. Three neighbours have started blocking me in when a visitor’s car is on the unrestricted road. I tried to discuss it and it ended up escalating into an argument.

Next some mad neighbour reported me for running a food business from my property without a licence. I keep bees elsewhere and donated a few jars of honey to the village fete as raffle prizes . The neighbour used this as evidence that I run a food business illegally from my property.

I’ve spent a lot of money on the house. I won’t get it back if I sell any time soon. But I feel so stressed and miserable as the neighbours (4 in particular) really seem to be ganging up on me. if I move it would be back to the city which would mean a less beautiful and much smaller place.

For context, it’s just me and my child who is not yet at school.

Aibu to want to move? Wwud?

Just wondering if you actually read the bit in the OP's post where they donated honey from their bees to the village fete?

@Joyjazz - I think the people causing trouble are generally nosey, unhappy people so you have a few options open to you - ignore it entirely and don't pay any attention to it at all or to them, ignore what they are saying (as in don't take it to heart) but do make a note of it because if it carries on you could have a good case for harassment or you could take the bull by the horns here and see if there is any middle ground to be made between you?
You could start off by saying that you're clearly new to the village and you didn't want to upset people and you're sorry if you did (doesn't matter if you have to lie here) but you'd appreciate it if you could start afresh and if they could help you adjust to village life. Get them on-side if you will. They won't necessarily know if you're taking their advice or not but they will think they are God's Gift if you try this.

Don't move until you absolutely have to and at this stage, you don't really have to.

@Redgreenfroggy - that's blatant harassment there. Are the local police not stepping in here, perhaps a community liaison officer might be able to help smooth things over?

@Joyjazz for the bins. I would move them just out of sight of the bin men so the collections get missed. A few weeks of that and perhaps they'll learn their lesson. So rude isnt it.

OP many villagers are famously loopy. Sad to report that my mum worked in the library of the next village along, and all the old bat volunteers had a complete vendetta against her - they liked the previous manager, and basically thought my mum wasn't posh enough because she was from the next village along. Bullying, moving things so that they were in breach of health and safety, constant undermining. Sad to report that some villagers are just malicious curtain-twitchers. Just behave in a completely neutral way and ignore. You will make other friends. Bet many others think they are complete c*nts as well.

Builders noise all day isn't great. Then parking. Are your visitors parking so other folk can't park their own cars. But your neighbours don't sound very nice,

I would ride it out, don't let them bully you out. I have lived in a few villages and for some reason this happens to new people I just haven't fathomed out why.

Selling would be mad, but it's no fun if your neighbours don't like you. I'd kill them with kindness, take them some honey apologise for any misunderstandings and be super friendly and lovely. It's much more difficult to hate someone who is really nice.
I think you've moved into one of those villages where they like everything to look pristine and to be peaceful and nothing to ever change. I'd just keep that in mind if you want to keep them on side.

But she already did all of those things and it's egtting worse?

If any drink and drive, or take illegal drugs, I'd let the police know. Or even if known, their employer.

Hmm, tricky one.

Are there local people you are friendly with? (Translation: is everyone batshit?) I'm guessing you are not the only one who thinks they are bat shit and stick it out.

I would keep a diary of all this stuff, and quite openly take photos of bins blocking your gate etc. They might think it's really big and clever as they sniggeringly plan these stupid little annoyances but boy does it look petty and stupid if they think everyone else would find out. It might make them stop if they think you will report them, even if you're not planning to. And it might be useful evidence if things escalate.

They don’t tell you these things on Escape to the Country 😬

How long do you think youd have to stick it out for before being able to recoup your money on the house? Is there any way of being able to get tenants and live somewhere else?

In the meantime, i think you should be documenting everything. Keep a daily diary.

I don't think you should move. It's likely you could go through the whole process, lose money and end up with even worse neighbours.
People don't like change. I bet the neighbours have lived there for years and literally anything you do will be annoying. Give it time. Keep yourself to yourself and eventually they will forget about you.
I would say with parking however, if your friends are parking in front of their houses it might be annoying. I would report anything your can to 101 like the blocking in. Maybe also make sure you have a video doorbell. If they start lurking around your house and purposely moving their cars around to block you in, you have something to show the police. Now that would be embarrassing for them.

Call them out! If they say a random place on an unrestricted road belongs to "Alan", ask to see the deeds that outline this. To be honest if someone tried this shit with me I'd be parking there all the time.

Move the bins back in front of their houses EVERY DAMN TIME.

They'll soon get bored and move onto some other mundane thing to forth about.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. If it's not the done thing to park in the road, you should ask your guests to park on your drive.
I wouldn't stay in Royston Vasey though, life is too short to feel disliked in your own neighbourhood.

You have to consider the reason why you moved to this area. If one of the driving factors was for being part of a village community, it isn't working because the people you live around are toxic.

If the social element doesn't bother you, you have to be firm. They may own their houses, but they don't own the village.

Tell the person who moves your bins that it is unacceptable. Advise the people who complain about your visitors parking on an unrestricted road to speak to the councillor about the possibility of restricted parking being brought in. Either they wouldn't do it, or the councillor will tell them that they are being ridiculous.

you have a newborn OP?

you’ve been a single mum for a few weeks? well you were referring to your DH back in june 🤷

you have the very confusing postibg history

one week you’re a single parent of a newborn
next week your DH had gone back to work after maternity leave and your MIL is helping your out
today you’re single parent

and all in the last 2 months

@Redgreenfroggy

Absolute batshit behaviour. Village schools are gold dust and are being closed down due to lack of pupils and this village wanted to stop new pupils? Village shops are closing due to not making a living and they wanted to stop more customers to the shop? I expect if there is a pub they would want to ban the new people from there.

It would have been just deserts if the build hadn't gone ahead and the village had lost it's school and shop.

Absolute batshit (shakes head in despair)

I agree - this is just stirring for the sake of it - however if it is not I suspect the OP has entered a small community being a big show off and thinking she is the great 'I am' and looking down her nose at people who already live there

it’s all very weird

the op decided to have a baby alone
she had the baby alone back in May
6 weeks later she’s posting about her DH and MIL
and now this

I would love to hear the neighbours version of what’s going on

I will give a suggestion but with caution. It might be worth feeling out your parish council. My work puts me into contact with a lot of PCs and oftentimes they live up to all the negative assumptions we have about them but there are some really good parish councillors out there. The good ones are very happy to talk informally about all sorts of confidential or tricky things and will try to help. Or at least be aware of the issues and be able to advocate for you in the community without making a whole hullabaloo about it.

You could go to a a meeting just as a member of the public (that’s normal) see who’s there, how they appear and get a sense of if there’s one you might like to chat with sometime.

They sound like massive arseholes and you're not in the wrong at all. Having nice neighbours is really important. Mine are great and it makes a big difference to my life as a single mum, living in a street of decent people who look out for each other. So it depends on whether a) you can win them back round b) whether you actually need to - or want to, tbh.

It's so difficult - we had issues with our neighbours but honestly we feel like we could sell up and move and still have problem neighbours! So we have stuck it out, it's kind of randomly a problem, but for long stretches of times nothing happens, but I do feel on edge - ours is a parking dispute so anytime I drive home I feel anxious.
Our parking issue is that we have 2 cars, one parked on our driveway, the other on the road, which is obviously unrestricted parking. Very old next door neighbours used to park in front of their house and we parked in front of them (in front of our house), this worked because we both have small cars. No problems for several years but we were warned when we moved in that these neighbours viewed that space as their spot so don't park in it ever. Fine, not really an issue for us to just keep the peace.
They eventually became too old to drive so gave up their car - suddenly us parking in exactly the same place as we had for several years was a problem! They would literally wait for us to come out of our house and shout at us to move our car, that it was their space for their visitors.. who could park there easily as all they would have been slightly blocking with their bigger car was their own driveway! Which the visitors could also have just parked on!?
It was so unreasonable and if they weren't elderly we would have called the police because they were constantly watching us and waiting to come out and shout, even shouted out of their bedroom window when we arrived home late one night.
We tried to stay really calm about it and explain that we weren't doing anything wrong but they just did not seem to understand, so we went to ignoring them instead. My husband only lost it once when they shouted at me when I was holding our newborn who started crying.
It lasted for about 2 years and suddenly stopped, haven't heard a peep out of them about the parking since though I have still seen them watching out the window and we've had multiple people mention that when parking there to drop a card in or to pick us up (so a 5 minute stop), the old guys been watching through the window the whole time.
Some people are just absolutely insane. Honestly I don't want them to move though because parking on our road will become even more of an issue as the elderly people with 0-1 cars move out and younger people move in, likely to have 1-2 cars per household.
So frustrating but unless we could afford to move somewhere with 3+ private parking spaces, I think we'd still be liable to have issues.
The one off bad situations, I would try to move past, the regular issue, try to consider how it can be managed. Can you guests park a street over? That's what some of ours did when it was a big issue, just to make things less stressful. Obviously it shouldn't have to be that way but you don't want to lose out financially by moving due to some people moaning about parking.
I think you do need to list it as a dispute if you plan to sell, but many people don't unless there's been an official log of it for example to the police/council.

I grew up in a small village and there was definitely a social hierarchy that a noisy minority tried to impose on others. Because they had lived there for several generations they felt they had some kind of elevated status like minor royalty and that they had to be consulted on or have the final word on absolutely everything that went on in the village. They were nosey curtain twitching twats that most people ignored but my god they were meddlesome arseholes who would put in vexatious complaints to the local council on everything. They were particularly nasty to my mother and father who are Irish and they made it very clear they their sort were no wanted. My folks were very social though and made friends and after several months hosted a house warning garden party and invited everyone apart from these arseholes. They turned up anyway before being told in no uncertain terms that they were not invited and should leave. Some people are time rich miserable bastards.