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?

Next time say that you’re planning a week “or two” in London and would they be able to put you up for a few days and/ or take time to show you some local sights etc… see what happens?
( not suggesting you follow through on your threat btw, but would be interesting to see how warmly any invitation was given)

Try get them to organise something so they can be the ones leading it. Something that would help the community - a litter pick, for example. Then be away for it so your neighbour can make their own friends and give rather than take.

Did you send your kids to school there?

Speaking as someone who has moved overseas from suburbia in Britain to a very small rural village in Europe, the locals came knocking on our door first with gifts of local produce. That's just the custom here to anyone from anywhere moving in. In fact the only person who has never even said hello to us yet lives round the corner is an English guy! But he is not a bad person he has just had a lot of problems with other English people so keeps to himself.
When we first moved here I would never dream of knocking on people's doors, it's a bit overbearing imo. But over the past 4 years we have integrated with the locals and made the effort to learn the language. My pet hate is the expats who can't even be arsed to learn a little of the language but that's for another day!

Anyway these people are not thinking of the residents in how they are acting, its all for their own benefit. It would be different if they lived there full time, but 2nd homers just coming and going won't gain much respect I don't think. Stinks of entitlement.

The 2nd homers have been there for 2 years and spend a fifth of the year in that place. That’s not enough to integrate, it seems. What with their talk of theatre and gigs and restaurants. 🙄

There have been loads of suggestions, ideas and ways of handling this situation offered on here and the OP hasn't really responded to any of them, just entered into scratchy conflict and continued to complain about her neighbour.

She doesn't want a solution, she wants to complain.

My favourite bit in the OP was about 'one of the villagers was very pissed off'.

I think that villager is OP.

Whether the second homer is annoying/forward/whatever is neither here nor there. The OP can do nothing about that bar set boundaries she's happy with and choose a path that will make her happy. She doesn't seem interested in that.

OP could just ignore the neighbour but doesn't. I wonder if OP gets validation within the village, where she herself is very much an incomer, by stirring up feeling against and scape goating this second homer.

Either way...good luck to her. Lord knows what she wants from this thread. I asked and she didn't answer.

Your mistake was to indulge her.

The book club incident should have been a huge red flag.
She sounds pushy and vulgar, imposing on you.

I would simply be completely unavailable.

As for telling her visitors to knock on your door if they need anything.
Unhinged is my opinion.
I would give them bums rush sharpish.

There is nothing whatsoever in this relationship for you.
Just unpaid caretaker.
Mute her number permanently.

'Your mistake was to indulge her.'

Yes the op was probably overly helpful and the new neighbours now think it's a permanent thing.

Just got to establish some boundaries op. I'd have keys for neighbours but no chance would I be putting heating on etc.

Isn't there an app to let you turn on the heating remotely via the internet? You'd think them fancy Londoners would've heard of it.

Fancy Londoners?
I don't understand the envy.
Must be really unhappy with your life. Incidentally,
Op was a Londoner too one time.

Don't be silly. You've entirely misunderstood my post.

It would seem the obvious thing to install really rather than going to the trouble of contacting neighbours to turn the heating on. What next, will they be asking for the bedding to be laundered prior to their arrival.

The new neighbours are cf, but the op has allowed this situation to develop.

It's not. It's a good mix and there's someone for everyone here. But you have to live here, and meet a wide variety of people before you're likely to make good friends.

We were out to dinner with friends last night. One of them lives on Lewis in the Hebrides. I mentioned what I've said here and she said that when she first went to live there 30+ years ago no one wanted to get to know her for the first few years. She kept her head down, went to events, volunteered, got involved and after the fourth year people started to let her in. Someone later explained that in places like that they've become used to people blowing in for a year or two, getting fond of them, helping them fix up their houses or supporting them through their problems, and then suddenly they've gone, moved on to something new. She made the point that what places like hers need are commitment, not someone taking a gap year from their corporate lives. My village isn't remotely comparable, obviously, but the point about people opening their homes and hearts and welcoming newcomers and then feeling taken for granted made sense.

And if you'd read my posts you would see that I told them to install one of those systems and they asked me to get my heating engineer to do it.

Yes so did you say here's his number? Just step back op, don't answer their messages. I understand you want to be nice but for your own sanity have some boundaries.

@ExtraOnions
brilliant, love it!

Got it. Be lonely and miserable for a few years and then the locals might reward you by letting you in.

Do your neighbours need to do this if they move near you permanently OP, or will they have done their initial shunned stint by then?

Yes what a funny discussion. I wonder if the people who live on Lewis would verify this story.

There is a happy medium. We don't need to be ignoring people for 4yrs until we know they are staying nor do we need to be at their beck and call putting heating on etc. I find a wave and a chat suffices, I don't need commitment from a neighbour.

It’s also so weird the point you make about your Lewes friends being upset that their neighbours stay for a few years then move on. London is entirely like that. It hasn’t stopped me befriending the most wonderful people from all over the world. Sure I’ve been sad when they’ve moved back home, but on the plus side we have wonderful new countries to visit with a reason to go!

That example is actually horrendous. Imagine trudging through the miserable weather keeping your head down, being humble, earning a hello from a local.

It’s ok to say this woman rubbed you up the wrong way, but that might have happened anyway. You focus on her 2nd home status and being an outsider etc, when it might just be a personality clash.

Still, they brought some excitement with them. Gossiping amongst “the community”.

Makes me think how difficult it must be for some immigrants to integrate and why they stick to their own.

It's Lewis, an island in the Hebrides, not Lewes, the lovely and very expensive town near Brighton. Just in case you hadn't understood. To me it makes complete sense that people who live on relatively remote islands, in such a wild place with resources sometimes difficult to organise and a long history of needing to be able to rely on locals to for self-sufficiency, would be wary of incomers trying that kind of life out, who don't necessarily bring anything to the party (as it were) and then move on to something new. IMO you can't compare it to London, where transient people don't have so much of an impact.

Wary of newcomers perhaps. Leaving it 4yrs until they're welcomed and included, no.

100 this

Right? And yet somehow Londoners got the reputation for being unfriendly and not islanders/ villagers who'd make someone graft for 4 lonely years before they are deemed worthy of a scrap of friendship.