Second-homer wanting to be part of the community

[IMustConfess]

I live in a village on the coast in a semi-rural area. It's a place where people come to live for a relatively quiet life with great walks, fresh air and unspoiled beaches. Lots of artists and writers and gardeners.

Two years ago a couple from London bought the small detached property next door to me. It's a holiday home for them and their friends and family. They're in their 50s, clearly used to a busy lifestyle in London. Lots of talk of theatre and gigs and nice restaurants. They moved in and invited a few locals to dinner and said they wanted to get involved with whatever's going on. They clearly expected to be invited back to eat with everyone and were surprised when some didn't reciprocate. 'But we were told there was a great community here!' They went round knocking on lots of doors and introducing themselves and saying how much they wanted to be involved, but they're probably only here for 10 weeks of the year max. One of my neighbours was really pissed off by it. She said it was like they had an idea of country life they'd got from a TV drama.

When their families come down independently they knock on my door and introduce themselves and say how wonderful that we're all such good friends/ such a lovely community and seem to expect to be invited in and given tea and told what's on. If there's something happening they want me to take them along. They've clearly been told I'll be happy to include them.

This year the husband's been working away a lot and so the wife has been coming down on her own. She always messages me a day or two before she's due to arrive and announces she's coming and wants to know what's on in 'the community'. She messages me when she's arrived so I know she's arrived safely. 😱She expects to be included in anything I've got going on. I took her to my book group when she was down in the summer, and now she expects to be included and tries to get us to schedule our meet-ups for when she's here.

When I moved here I got to know people slowly and worked out who I got on with. My neighbours seem to think friendship comes on a plate and everyone loves them. We have friends who live next door to an AirBnB and say something similar: many of the people who rent the place want to talk to them as if they're friends and happy to spend half an hour telling them which coastal walk is most scenic or which local pub does the best beer. We live here: we're not tourist information or rent-a-mate.

Are we the unreasonable ones? What's going on with people that they think they can just waltz into a new area and everyone'll love them?

They are most certainly free to buy.
They can't afford it. That is the problem.
It's not nice, but that's the nature of the housing market.

If there were regulations preventing outsiders from buying homes in certain areas, then the OP wouldn't have been able to buy there in the first place.

People generally hate second home owners where I live. They bring very little to the economy, Take up housing from people who are local born and want to stay local, but can't because these morons have pushed up house prices, then the 2nders fuck right off back to the mainland. Wish they's stay there.

What they need is to pay a local cleaner/housekeeper and handyman. I don’t know anyone with a second home who doesn’t have this or know that you can’t ask the neighbours to be your unpaid house manager.

They’re overbearing and you’re a pushover. Instead of quietly seething just be firm with your boundaries.

If you need to spell out to them that they should pay a housekeeper to be responsible for all the things they expect of you, then do so.

Agree with this. Obviously it's sad for people to have to move away to afford a house but this happens all the time in London and noone feels sorry for londoners. My kids have lost so many friends for this reason. It's no different to it happening in Wales or Devon.

Indeed, @oakleaffy . I like your gif 😄

The fact they treat you this way and not your neighbours is because you made yourself too available early on and have continued. How did you end up in a position where they ring you to ask you to put the heating on before they arrive if they are just your part-time neighbours?
It doesn’t help that you talk about living your daily life like you’re out toiling the fields but your commitment list sounds like you live at Centre Parcs. I think that’s where the confusion has come from. They are fitting in with the community - except their holiday is 10 weeks not 52.

Maybe residents of these coastal towns should take a leaf out of League of Gentlemen’s books to try to put these second homers off 😂

Cotswolds/Oxfordshire is completely different kettle of fish. High % of umc who live there but have a flat in London or abroad and lots of second homes.

Completely different from Cornwall or Lincolnshire.

Thank you (genuinely) for the answer, Oneforsorrowtwoforjoy; it's the first one I've seen to this, and while I agree about the impact of selling the homes of the deceased, I wouldn't have thought (though could be wrong) that there were enough of these to have tipped the market so far

Not, I'm afraid, about the low wages/second homers necessarily putting prices beyond locals' reach though. Obviously it happens, but wouldn't if they hadn't been sold to tthem in the first place

It's also true that some newbies can be impossible, but why assume bad faith with this one when the evidence just isn't there yet - even if, in the expected style of the unwelcoming, OP kept adding things when folk pointed this out.
They may or may not realise that some things can't be done in 10 weeks, but the locals will never know if they don't include them and find out

It's a massive problem in London, so many communities affected, schools closing, generations having to live in the same house or flat because it's unaffordable to move out, lack of family support meaning charities and social services have to take on the roles extended family might have in the past, small businesses disappearing.

It's the blessed locals who are selling their properties at inflated prices who are 'pushing up house prices'.

Obviously they prefer to do this rather than donning their sackcloth and mask of piety and nobly refusing to deal with anybody who wasn't born within half a mile for a fraction of the cash. That's what you'd do, right?

@StillTryingToKeepGoing They were probably offended that you didn't remember them because when they go to a hotel once a year the staff "remember" them. But they don't. The hotel staff makes notes about the guests so that they can make the guests feel more welcome next time. Your neighbours expect you to act as service minded as paid staff.

The real issue here is that OP is massively two faced. Clearly all smiles such that these people feel comfortable enough to make requests etc and invite around to dinner but then moaning and bltching in the background, and passive aggressively seething with envy at their theatre activity and nice lives.

OP self confessedly blew in from london in 2009 so is a newbie in rural terms herself. In my rural experience, it is the newbies who most violently guard access to the community. The ‘real locals’ are usually friendly and probably sold us the property. And where I live these communities would not survive unless there were holiday makers and second home owners as there sure as hell isn’t the farming or other industry to support any kind of job market

Its quite possible they intend to retire to this cottage one day

Who knows, @HappyTwo - though if so they may well be having second thoughts now

I meant to add to my PP that I recall going to an event at a nearby village and noting the usual moaning about newcomers ... until a shopkeeper said "Who do you think is running most of the stalls, now many locals are too elderly to manage?"
It put an interesting slant on things which I hadn't though of ...

Well said, @SocksAndTheCity

We own a second home in the lakes that has been in my family for 86 years. We are more "local" in that neighbourhood than all the locals. And we take better care of our property than most do, too.

Londoner here / and no way would they be asking their next door neighbours in the big smoke to be going in to trim their heating on when they’re a couple of hours away!

it’s ok to draw boundaries - next time they ask say you can’t help but x is a housemaid/handyman and might be able to take them on. That way it supports local employment and they’ll stop seeing you as unpaid staff/ sending the annoying messages. They can use that person for a contact when others come too.

A cooling or slowing of replies on other matters might help calm them down a bit.

Someone moaning on the local FB page that the cottage airbnb they rented last year for xmas is now a permanent rent....

No pleasing people.

But does second home ownership in London have the same negative effect as it does in small communities? Do the schools close because there aren't enough children living there to warrant them? Do the local shops close because there aren't enough people living there full time to make a living from them?

How did I put myself in the situation where they phone me and ask me to put the heating on? Well, because I'm a decent neighbour, when they asked for my phone number as a contact in case of emergencies I gave it to them. When they asked if I'd look after a set of keys for them in case of emergencies I agreed. I have keys for various friends and neighbours in the village and local town because I'm a reasonable, reliable sort of person whom people seem to trust, despite the fact that I blew in from London 15 years ago. A couple of people hold my keys just in case, too.

They then phoned me during a cold spell and asked me to put their heating on and being a decent neighbour, and because I was at home and it was no great trouble, I did. After that they did it again, at which point suggested that as it was unlikely I would always be around to put the heating on for them, they ought to have a hive-type remote system installed. I gave them the number for my heating engineer and they arranged for him to do the work when they weren't there, so I let him in and locked up after he'd done it.

It doesn’t help that you talk about living your daily life like you’re out toiling the fields but your commitment list sounds like you live at Centre Parcs.

No idea what you mean by this. I have a life that includes two part-time jobs and a modest social life. Never been to Centre Parks. Please clarify.

Of course it does! Londoners (as in born and raised) are moving out of London for the same reasons people move out of any community - they can't afford it and crime rates are rising.

This is a big part of it - instead of bequeathing/transferring ownership of their properties to the younger generation (ie their children) many of my friend’s parents who live in Devon/cornwall are selling up at extortionate prices/downsizing, and swanning off on cruises etc (and not even offering a bit of money towards deposits/mortgage offsets for their kids). They are then not available to help their children/grandchildren with childcare even in school holidays as they’ve downsized, are quick to take umbrage in later years when they are no longer mobile/healthy and their children who live in other/cheaper parts of the country cannot drop everything to help them, and they’ve frittered away a large chunk of the sale proceeds on those cruises/travel etc and can’t afford to transfer into assisted living homes near their children.

There seems to be a lack of family orientated financial planning because the kids can sort themselves out. Our kids have SEN needs so we’ve always planned as an extended family around making sure they are financially secure when we’re gone, but many retirees don’t do this. Until recently the housing market and the expectation of owning your property rather than renting meant it wasn’t really something they needed to think about though,

I live in a small town and my neighbours and I help each other out feeding hens when people go away, watering the greenhouse when they're on holiday, passing on the names of trades people. I'm a gardener and always happy to help out in gardens and really appreciate my neighbour, an electrician, helping me when the lights go pop.

That is friendly and, if the OP could engage and set boundaries that she's happy with (as most functioning adults do) she could have a happy quid pro quo thing going on with her neighbour.

Some villages just reject the outsider whatever.

You announce your arrival with a jar of home made jam and a knock on the door = too forward.
You don't want to arrive in a blaze of showing off so you keep your head down and quietly go about your business, smiling when you meet people = aloof, superior, DFL.

They're not free to do something if they cannot afford it. 🫣

It's Porlock, Exmoor.