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?

I have flip flopped while reading the comments and this I think has swung it for me! I’d be irritated about this - quite rude to shoehorn your way into your neighbour’s social/personal moments whether in the country or the city. I don’t think this is necc about country/city but more her approach which if the book club invite is anything to go by I would find a bit intrusive wherever I lived. I’m city and love my neighbours, such great community here, but also love boundaries and being able to feel anonymous in my back garden when I need to retreat. If I were you I’d maybe be much more straightforward with her when she does this, as a soft no or subtlety doesn’t work. ‘Actually this is my book group and my personal social life so I’m going to go alone, but it’s great you want to be involved in village life - there’s a church service happening on this date and they’re keen for flower arrangers, perhaps you’d like to come along to that?’ Obvs the above is badly put but something that draws a line around your personal life clearly to her, and points to genuine avenues for her to get involved. I think that often in life straightforward communication is the key and more loving. So you probably need to have a good think about what your own boundaries are, again not a city/country thing but just personalities and living/life thing, and just spell that out clearly to her. You’ll prob feel much better after setting the relationship in a way that’s comfortable for you, and she’ll prob integrate much better if she finds her own way in the usual way through making connections in more public life rather than sort of piggybacking on individuals’ social calendars.

Op is not their local tourist guide, I think that's the point of the post. If the neighbour wants to be involved they quite capable of doing a bit of research and getting themselves involved rather than asking op what's on.

OP, just give them their key back when they're next visiting, tell them that you're just not able to commit to being the keyholder and that there are a number of home care agencies in the nearest town who would no doubt be delighted to add them to their books. They can pay someone to let builders and painters etc in. That's an easy fix.

The friendship thing is different. It's really difficult when you feel your private and social life is being invaded. My own sister did it to me when she moved to my area. Suddenly, my friends were also her best friends, and it caused a lot of tension as she crossed boundaries and got some way towards pushing me to the side and out, unintentionally, before it all settled. I hated her for a while and deeply regretted not just letting her find her own way. She's capable, it was just easier to tag onto my life for the first year or two.

The fact that you seem to feel she's using you to gain access the easy way is what I'd find irritating. You don't even know her well, certainly not well enough yourself to be her "free pass" into all the activities you do. One or two, fair enough. Introduce her to a few folk at the pub quiz night. Lovely. Point her towards the community council membership, or the local environmental group, or the volunteer beach clean group. Even better. But be expected to invite her to dinner parties with your friends when you hardly know her yourself? Hard no from me.

Thank you, but I can't imagine doing any of that. I go to London fairly regularly. Work meetings most months and conferences at least three times a year. I always extend my stay there for a day or two at my own expense and go to the theatre and concerts etc. I don't know what I've said to give the impression that I'm so hard up I can't afford to go to London under my own steam. I can, and I'm not the kind of person who's always on the lookout for a freebie. And of course if I accepted her hospitality I'd feel under an obligation to do more, see her more and take on more responsibility for her when she's here.

OP you have admirable patience in dealing with "helpful suggestions" which are maybe meant in a jokey way but are really no help.
I wouldn't like people knocking on my door asking for help either. Could you get one of those door signs saying No Cold Callers or similar? (realise they might think it doesn't apply to them, but on the other hand might make them think twice about doing it?)

No, because I'm not the kind of person who would ever have one of those signs. Sorry if that seems blunt, but we rarely get cold-callers, secondly I'm not the kind of person who has that 'repel all boarders' view of my home, and thirdly my part-time neighbours and their friends and family don't regard themselves as cold-callers. I appreciate the thought, though.

OP I promise I wasn't suggesting that you are hard up, or gave the impression that you are. I was suggesting that you make it clear to her that she's getting loads of freebie help from you and it's all one way which isn't fair. She sounds awful!

Op you come across as entitled

Entitled to behave like you own the beautiful area you so fortunately live in

Entitled to behave any different to someone else who does not share in your fortune

Entitled to be slating people behind their backs

This woman sounds like she just wants a friend. Why behave like you are at school discluding someone, just because you can

Just try being nice

Thank you, @ChocolateTelephone and the others who've written in similar vein.

Last night my part-time neighbour sent a message to ask whether Storm Bert had done any damage and also to say she wasn't sure they'd be coming for Christmas or not: they'd previously said they would and had asked if I might be available to accept a food delivery the day before they arrived. I said it all depended on date and time and to get back to me. Now they're thinking they might go to Goa or Kerala. She wanted to know what was going on in the village — what Christmas activities were planned. I don't know of anything planned in the village hall or pub. Apart from going to the pub we don't really expect activities to be held. I think along the coast they have a Boxing Day sea swim thing but I've never been.

Your comment about me being positioned as the Holiday Camp director seems very apt. It just underlined that we will be here, at home, for the Christmas holiday, but they will be away from home on holiday for the Christmas holiday, whether here or in Goa or wherever they end up.

Well, that's me told! Thanks for making me smile.

Gawd. Mostly you folks sound like total bum-wipes.

Would you prefer neighbors who are:
noisy with bunch of kids & a trampoline next to your house.
Neighbors who are not at all friendly & play loud thumping music
Neighbors doing noisy renovations for next 4 years
Neighbors who install bright motion sensor lights that are triggered all night
Neighbors that have busy religious meeting in house or back garden every weekend with loads of cars and people talking loudly
Neighbors who rent to local council to house “difficult to house” people
Squatters ….
A lunatic who sits outside in a folding garden chair every day, smoking and saying inappropriate things
A grow house
A county lines trap house
A person running a small business from home with loads of deliveries and visitors knocking on your door if leaving parcels.
A person running a childcare business with loads of outdoor screaming
A person who practices a noisy hobby all day
A person who parks an RV, rusting caravan or boat where you see it every day

You are lucky to have quiet most of the time … you might get unlucky if they move. Karma could be on its way to you right now.

It just underlined that we will be here, at home, for the Christmas holiday, but they will be away from home on holiday for the Christmas holiday, whether here or in Goa or wherever they end up.

Oh come on - you’re really pushing it now. You do know that people who don’t own holiday homes can still go on holiday, right? Even at Christmas? You’re just hunting for things to dislike about them now.

Cheeky bastards. Can they not just have their shopping delivered when they're there! Do you have to unload it all and put it away for them, too?

You don't need to accept people's groceries. You don't need to keep up to date in village activities to tell them. It sounds like you have made this into a problem yourself. Just be less available and less helpful. They may be a bit pushy, but you are enabling them.

You've misunderstood my point. I'm saying that it's highlighted the fact that this is not their home. Their home is in London. They will come here, on holiday, for Christmas — and if they decide not to come here they will go on holiday somewhere else. There has to be fantastic weather or something interesting happening, or friends or family wanting to come here, to tempt them away from their home.

I'm not on holiday, I just live here. Bad weather, good weather, things going on, boring weeks, sad events: this is where I live.

I'm not on holiday, I just live here. Bad weather, good weather, things going on, boring weeks, sad events: this is where I live.

Welcome to life.

OP, ignore the obtuse posters 🙄.
You are not a holiday home service.

I have a second home on the coast and the idea of bothering the permanent neighbours living there, and imposing on them as you have been, is both unfathomably and preposterous.

I would simply stop responding to them.
Many people with second homes have the self awareness not to behave as she does.

I wouldn't respond to that last text.
If she ever queries why not, remind her that you're not her personal assistant. And give her that bloody key back.

I have 2nd home owners neighbours who are good friends of 40 years, and even they forget on occassion that my life is also busy. I once got a text asking me to pop over and turn their heating on, as they were driving up next day.
Sadly for them, we were 500 miles away.
They shrugged, lit a fire the moment they arrived and suffered the chill for a day till the house warmed up.
Even excellent relationships don't always mean us residents will be available when required. We have lives too.

You could always invite them to the community gathering where you will discuss the proposal for the lack of housing available to local people because of 2nd home owners buying up available properties and leaving them empty for weeks on end or advertising them as AirBNB...

or is that passive aggressive 🤔

Seriously, read all of your posts and I'd be pissed off too. You're not their help, I wont just pop round to do your household activities like organising plumbers, or checking storm damage (and obviously sorting repairs when youve found damage), accepting their Christmas food shop (!), turning on the fkin heating! Dk off.

You're not an NPC in their Holiday game, the helpful yocal with all the answers and a polite disposition. 😉

'Last night my part-time neighbour sent a message to ask whether Storm Bert had done any damage and also to say she wasn't sure they'd be coming for Christmas or not: they'd previously said they would and had asked if I might be available to accept a food delivery the day before they arrived. I said it all depended on date and time and to get back to me'

Why say it depends on the date and time? Next time say no sorry I'll be busy I wouldn't like to agree then be out. Just say no, stop engaging with them.

I guess it's swings and roundabouts?

A few second homers and you still have a community.

What happens as people die and/or sell up?

The second homers become the community.

So I'd be including them personally so the sense of community you have now is continued.

But obviously you don't have to if you don't want too.

@Foodie333 makes a decent point. It could be a hell of a lot worse. I'd love to live next to people who weren't there 40 weeks per year.

That said, you don't have to be their unpaid servant. Next time they are there give back the keys and say your life is pretty hectic and you can't take the ongoing responsibility. OR, as I suggested above, start a business as a holiday home caretaker and charge them for all services rendered. You don't feel neighbourly toward them so why bother doing all of these favours?

She just sounds really extra - she probably a needy pain the arse at home as well. If she lived next door full time would you suddenly want to be hat best mate? Probably not. The issue is that you don’t like her - not that she’s a townie. Make your excuses and get on with your life.

I would absolutely not be accepting shopping deliveries, arranging for repairs or letting them know about social events.

OP I completely understand your feelings on this matter.

I would just stop being available for any of it. They can pay for this service like other second home owners do.