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?

Yes and it is not beyond governments to address that, that is literally the point of a government, maybe not I your neo liberal world of economics but it's in no way a given.

What is funny is that these places you talk of as culturally interesting aren't that at all anymore, in fact large swathes of London are a bit boring as the culturally interesting people, the creative people have gone as can't afford to live there. Camden market is a good example of that, it is somewhere I frequented as a teenager in late 90s and now is a corporation owned by a billionaire, the whole market, thoroughly spoilt!

Are you both really native North Londoners and you honestly think it is better now!

@Goldenbear Yes and it is not beyond governments to address that, that is literally the point of a government, maybe not I your neo liberal world of economics but it's in no way a given.

What did the non-neo liberal Conservatives do to address it in the 14 years they've just had in power?

What do you mean, the Conservative government were all Neo liberals and have been since Thatcher!

They did nothing about it and looks like the Labour party feels the same, focusing on Farmers won't even touch the sides of this problem!

People who rent get pushed out in all parts of the country, not just villages, that’s the nature of a rising market and being a tenant. These rises benefit most home owners, even ones in villages. If you want to address the inequality of this in your village, ask vendors to price down properties to sell to yocals?

Good luck with that last bit, @80smonster; unsurprisingly the concept never goes down well with those for whom it's always got to be "the outsiders' fault"

FWIW I don't blame folk for trying to get the best price for their property; anyone would do the same, but then there's little point in others moaning about the consequences

Why do these threads always degenerate into London vs rural bunfights?

My family were working class Londoners on both sides. People doing the jobs my grandparents did nowadays wouldn't be able to live in the houses they lived in from the 1940s to the 1990s.

I lived in Hackney in the 1990s- it was a friendly, diverse community, and I left because gentrification was destroying it.

I have lived in Cornwall for 25 years, it is a friendly, reasonably diverse community, and second homes are endangering it (our village is a few miles from the coast, so not so badly affected as some).

The property and banking millionaires who have made fortunes out of rising house prices, growing inequality and housing insecurity must be laughing to see us turning on each other, rather than them.

In Islington and other central London areas, it's normal for middle class (as well as working class) people to live in council and social housing. Camden and Islington were over 50% council and H/A homes until recently and lots of professionals and key workers lived and still live in them. We need more affordable housing like that across Britain. Too much has been sold off.

My response would be to be happy to introduce such a couple to local events, once they had sold any other house they owned and were living full time as a neighbour.

Otherwise I would only be helping in a medical or other real emergency.

I live in the actual Roysten Vasey (Hadfield) and it's very friendly, even to us londoners. Never had any grief for being a blow in. And we even have some people of colour these days! Not a second home, though.

Unfortunately the butchers shut down, so no more special stuff.

Well then it clearly is ‘beyond governments’ (both Tory & Labour), naff all has been done to remedy the issue in 3 decades. The UK is stoney broke and we’re borrowing billions to fix basic infrastructure like hospitals and schools. Despite Labour’s chatter about taxing the super rich and redistributing wealth, little looks set to change.

If the middle classes are slowly becoming the only people who can afford council property it’s unlikely any government will rush to build more. Similarly to the help to buy scheme, it largely benefited people who could afford to buy, not those who couldn’t.

Crouch End - born and raised. I don’t think I said either area was ‘better’? Arguably I am sad that I cannot live there and raise my child in the area I grew up in. Do I think Islington, CE and Camden have become more exclusive? Yes, I do.

Well it isn't is it, clearly governments can do something about it, like they do in Denmark but there seems no attempt at addressing an issue that is like the Elephant in the room!

…

You just need to retreat a bit. Whether they are there 10 weeks or full time is irrelevant imo, they clearly expect a lot from their neighbours so just stop being available and stop being an unofficial caretaker.

Just learn to say no and go back to friendly waves and polite chit chat.

I thought you said it was culturally diverse but what does that actually mean as it is not culturally diverse if the culture is the streets are paved with gold! It is all a bit boring now, I regularly visit family still there and it is completely lacking in the excitement that it once possessed!

This is why I left a rural village after 20 years of striving to be part of it, including having young children at school. Now I live cheek by jowl in a big city and don’t miss the bitchiness.

Exactly, I can’t see the merit in being angry at the outsider who could afford the house price. If there was any benefit to accepting lesser prices from bonafide locals, I guess that’s for each villager vendor to decide? Personally I would find that approach cliquey and narrow, but if villagers feel that way, they should pull together and see what can be done to best protect their collective interests. Getting the best price is the way the property market works up and down the country, that’s how families upsize/downsize - so is an issue that many face. Anyway, I’m off to see if I can find a Crouch Ender who only wants to sell their house to another, let’s see if a 200k discount would work for them! 😂

This is bizarre. I blew in from London in 2009 and after a couple of years I'd made friends and connections and was accepted. People are friendly here. I'm friendly. I live here, this is my home. I'm committed.

I think this is influencing your attitude to this couple. You feel like you’re the incomer who “did it right” and put in all the effort; these people aren’t doing what you did and you resent it, and feel defensive at the idea of being placed in the same bracket. Because you’re proud of how you integrated, you want to be seen as a nice community-minded neighbour, which is why you agreed to take their key to put on the heating, let the man in to do the guttering etc. - but now you’re peeved that they actually think you are happy to do this.

They’re definitely taking the piss with expecting you to play guide to visitors and to pay tradesmen in their absence. But as you’ve said yourself, you need to get better at saying no to them. You don’t need to get into an argument - keep it simple with a firm message. “Sadie, I’d really prefer it if you didn’t give my number to people using the house while you’re not there. I’ll help out in an emergency, but I’ve got too much to do to be acting as your property manager”.

As for the barbeque, I think you’re being a bit disingenuous to claim you’re “astonished” to hear they were expecting return invites. They were pretty upfront that it was a getting to know you event! I doubt they thought it was a case of meeting everyone once, giving them a burger and then never seeing them again.

What absolute nonsense. When did you last visit these areas? All of London is culturally diverse IMO. Where are you based, you haven’t said?

I live in a rural area and we got an influx of people moving here from cities after the lockdowns. They’re very eager to get stuck in. Some of them have even started up new activity and interest groups for things that previously weren’t available here.

I think fair play to them. They’re taking an active interest and bringing something new to the community.

I don’t think the issue is she wants to interact, it’s how she’s expecting you to join in and facilitate this. If she wants to know what’s going on she can find out on the local Facebook page or whatever surely, not expect you to do all the work for her to fleet in and out? How on earth does anyone find out what’s going on. They use the internet surely 🤦🏻‍♀️

You could try finding them an irritating job to do locally, say litter picking?

A month ago as I have close family still there! I think you are the one talking nonsense, culturally diverse includes wealth diversity and that is more and more not something that is a feature of North London. So patronising and ridiculous to counter argue that somehow gentrification of these places is a mythical fairytale. That's why I am questioning your North London Native roots. Absolutely bizarre understanding of the changing/changed beyond recognition landscape!