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?

happily I live in one of the UK crown dependancies where this could never happen due to our housing regulations. I am very glad!

I dont doubt we would be inundated otherwise

@IMustConfess It kinda sounds like they think you should view them as some sort of exotic creatures who pop in and enhance your bumpkin lives for a bit. And IME the people who bang on the most about being "part of the community" are the ones who do the least amount to contribute to it.

Bollocks are they just being friendly. They're using the OP, plain and simple. That's not being friendly, it's just being a CF.

Love how people try to dress up entitled behaviour as just being friendly 😂

This is a great plan. Get that energy and perhaps new funds directed towards local projects. But of course you know you will be roped in!!

I bet this kind of thing only happens in the U.K. where everyone likes to moan no matter what you do 🙃 damned if you try to make an effort, damned if you don’t.

What could be friendlier than asking a near stranger to water your garden or arrange to have your gutters cleaned?! 🤔

Yep. I know exactly the type of program your referring to. It's just so patronising. Feels like they're going to the zoo to gawk at the locals and pat them on the head.

I was hanging out washing in the garden. She was in her garden. We had a little hello, how's things chat. My phone rang and it was someone from my book group wanting confirmation of what time we were meeting the following day. Neighbour asked what we were reading, I told her. She said she'd read it, she'd love to come and meet the other book group members, it sounded fun (we meet in a pub). I said oooh, not sure, would have to check with the others. She said oh, surely it would be okay, I could vouch for her, she'd behave, hahaha, she could come with me and if it wasn't okay she'd sit in the pub while we had our meeting... Next day she came round to ask what time we'd be leaving for book group and was I driving or should she. She's not someone who takes a soft no.

Hello. I can see where you’re coming from to some extent but as someone else said, they are a bit damned if they do and damned if they don’t. You seem to be suggesting that that they seem to just want to ‘take’ from the community and not ‘give’. I’m not exactly sure what it is you want them to ‘give’. To me it looks like they are trying to say they want to be part of things and are offering friendship of sorts. I imagine them ‘giving’ in terms of trying to do practical things in the community would be taken as being annoying as what do they know? And creating anything new like a new club would be similarly frostily received as who do they think they are? Take out the fact they have a second home, isn’t this really just about people trying to find a way of getting on and setting limits as you would with people you get to know anywhere. Some people are cheeky. Some people are over imposing. Some people are just not your cup of tea. But there doesn’t need to he a drama about it and you can try navigate it as you would whenever meeting new people. I don’t think so much weight has to given to the second home backstory. Anyway, I appreciate there’s only a snapshot of things here and there may be more to it, but just my thoughts. Best wishes.

Agree! You've cracked the stereotypical British "We're so polite" code. This is where most people want to act a certain way to your face (usually positive) but expect you to read their mind and realise they actually mean something totally opposite (usually negative).

OP show her in words and/or actions what you want her to know. As simple as that. She can't hear the gossip behind their backs.

You’re going a bit overboard now op. Probably because everyone is pointing out that you seem quite mean

Not necessarily true - the part of London that I live in is very friendly. I socialise with several of my neighbours and we have a very active What’sApp street group where there is a lot of community support - this is replicated all over the local area.
if you don’t want to be friends with your neighbours, just go into your previous London mode and be cordially polite and leave it at that, however you may be glad of their support/friendship one day!

Londoners don’t care that’s the point. Of course people want second homes here it’s one of the visited cities in the world.

Good point. I must try being friendlier with the second home owners, maybe they'll reciprocate? I have some windows that need washing and could do with clearing out the gutters. Do you think they'd help?

I honestly had one a couple of weeks back who tried to get me to organise a quote for work they needed doing. They'd assumed I'd be happy to organise and coordinate the work and they would just pay the bill. I'm not even kidding.

They sound completely overbearing and you sound snobby & too focused on some insiders vs outsiders dynamic. Great stuff all around.

Err no. Not everyone is pointing out the OP is mean.

Many of us are agreeing with her!

If they did nothing to get to know the local community, I imagine that would be wrong too!

I was a truly horrible teen in an exceptionally touristy village.
I invited 2nd homeowners to dinner, parties at the homes of anyone local who I disliked. It amused me more than it should (see: obnoxious teen behaviour, bored, Buckfast). They gaily trotted off on their sociable evening with the bottle of Mateus Rose & shit flowers with no idea which teen belonged in which family /house.
I'm not saying it was a kind, maturecand meaningful pastime. But, ffs, if you cant match the teenager to the parent /house...

Lots of my friends have 2nd homes.
I think this is 'damned if you do and damned if you don't'- to a point.

One friend has a house on the coast and their intention was to get involved in the community so they wouldn't look like 'those posh 2nd homers who waltz in and out a few times a year'.

I think this is good in principle BUT I also think your neighbour is being OTT and imposing herself on you.

The idea of wanting to be invited for meals etc made me cringe.

There's a happy medium between not 'integrating' and being so overbearing that locals feel they are there to 'look after you' or stroke your ego.

My advice is you gently pull back and become more vague about what's happening. You don't need to be unpleasant, just a bit more detached and not so easy to pin down.

In practise, newcomers get to know people by joining in events maybe as volunteers (my village does a litter-pick a few times a year) or offering to help out a fetes, etc.

This is why I will never move out of London. I'd crassly invite people over to my home. And also obliviously attempt to join the book club. I might even send food to my neigbours!

Are you Daisy May Cooper? 🤣😂

Love her and Kurt 😜

She's not someone who takes a soft no.

Be a bit more assertive.

You could have said 'we have/might have a waiting list and I will let you know if there are any spaces.'

Fucking hell, I couldn't deal with village life. All that genuflecting require to ingratiate yourself in the way The Locals expect of you.
It sounds like they can't win here. If they just visited from time to time and didn't try to make friends or get involved with anything then they'd be slagged for that too. They've thrown a BBQ, asked about events, asked to join a book club. How are they meant to know about fetes and shit like that without a bit of overly enthusiastic attempts to make friends with their new (part time) neighbours.

They're not awful: it could be far worse. But they're over familiar and don't seem to see those of us who live here full-time as real, if that makes any sense. I feel at times as if I'm some kind of Platonic idea of the country village neighbour rather than a person in my own right. I was wondering whether it's just them or whether this was a thing — particularly in light of what other people have said about AirBnB renters who treat neighbours as resources. We're not, we live here 24/7 and we work and have lives. That's the thing. When my neighbours are here they're in their holiday home. I'm at home.

Maybe spend more than 10 weeks a year there?

Not hard really is it.