That my neighbour’s paranoia is not my problem.

[Libertylawn]

I have lived in my house for 20 years and it’s got a loft conversion which was done originally as a granny flat, so little kitchen and bathroom, 2 bedrooms. We are semi rural but near a couple of major employers and a business park and so I started letting out the annex to contractors. They are all fully vetted and usually just down for a couple of weeks or so. The rooms overlook farmland and my garden and also my neighbour’s garden.

My neighbour when she found out about the lodgers went bananas and has tried to report me to anyone that will listen, because she firmly believes it isn’t safe and as a consequence she and her children won’t go in the garden AT ALL, in case my lodgers are watching her. Why the hell they would want to watch her or her kids is beyond me.

The neighbour has kids the same age as mine, and we have mutual friends. She has cried - tears crying - saying how worried she is and that I’m ruining her dream house. The houses are detached, there’s no shared drive etc so this is all on the basis of the chances of nutters watching her put her washing on the line. I’ve ignored her so far but this morning I got a card through the door from her begging that I stop letting out the annex to anyone “except maybe relatives.” I’ve tried talking to her but am getting nowhere. She’s crackers isn’t she?

Exactly this and keep the card.

We are currently in the midst of being harassed by a neighbour. Sadly DH binned the first 'anonymous' letter he shoved through our door. The rest were signed. We don't even open them now, just put them in our file. We ignore him completely as we don't want to escalate it, but we are keeping records.

“Unless you’d like to pay the rent they’re paying to keep the room empty, I will continue to rent it out for the profit it makes”.

Well yes, she is by all accounts over reacting. However, unfortunately she is causing you problems too now as you have to live next door to her. I would be tempted to have a calm chat with her to find out what is so triggering for her and see if it would help her if she met the contractors. I think that of you were subletting to a continual bunch of strangers it would be more disconcerting than a couple of long term lodgers. Perhaps lie and tell her that they are relatives to get her off your back.

How do the lodgers impact the neighbours life?

Tell her you are going to let the annex to a halfway house charity.

Definitely document every mention of this as PP suggest, it could escalate. If she brings it up again you could tell her that if she continues to harass you, you are thinking of moving elsewhere and letting the full house, where there would be a lot more people coming and going and no one keeping tabs on them.

She is 100% out of order here. The fact that she thinks that way makes her sound mentally unstable, but articulating it to you makes her sound proper batshit crazy. Of course a few MN crazies will agree with her, but I'm glad most people here are being sensible and giving good advice.

What do your mutual friends think? Can't any of them talk some sense into her?

Yes but they are 'lodgers', even lower on the social class than 'renters'. Let hope OP doesn't get some 'foreigners' or God forbid, 'refugees' because they are all paedophiles and rapists don't you know. Best to only live beside home owners who due to their property status are a superior breed with no moral corruptions.

Keep the note she popped through your door.

id not respond to her either verbally or in writing.

get a ring doorbell

then if she does call you’ll have it recorded

id make sure you have gas certificate etc for having a lodger- as that might be her next step, to report you for not having anything you should have to house a lodger

2 notes through the door and you have enough evidence for harassment.

you could contact private rental department at your local council to see if they could talk to her. Normally they deal with lodger and tenant disputes but they might have suggestions or chat to her to appease her

Well, unless she pegs out the washing whilst dressed inappropriately or totally naked she is being completely paranoid.
Up to you who you rent the annex out to and if they’re vetted, like you say, then there’s no issue.

The reasons she’s given as to why she doesn’t like the lodgers such as it being unsafe and being too unsafe to go outside when these lodgers have no access to her garden make her sound crazy, but I’m wondering if it’s really that her house is less enjoyable to live in now and the safety “concerns” may just be her trying to come up with a justifiable excuse for the objection to lodgers.

Let’s look at it a different way. Effectively your property is no longer a house it’s a house and a self contained flat, if you had relatives living in the annex it wouldn’t feel like that, it would feel more like one family house. This means your neighbour may feel like she’s living next to two properties not one (and two sets of neighbours).

Not only that but the “flat” is being rented out to different contractors all the time.

The annex is also an extra property effectively that looks over her garden and this was probably fine for years when it wasn’t being used but now it is. I don’t think this is a safety concern it’s more if a how pleasant and private it feels to use the garden concern especially when the people looking in are different each time.

I guess the houses are expensive because they are large detached houses that look over farmland which sounds lovely and like she says a dream home, the addition of this property (I.e. annex that was always there but is now being used as self contained accommodation for different contractors all the time) makes her property slightly less pleasant and enjoyable. I think this is the real problem here.

I would consider limiting the amount of time in the year you rent the annex, like just the winter months as a bit of a compromise perhaps?

This arrangement would hold absolutely no interest for social services or safeguarding professionals.
It’s a self contained unit - they’re no more than upstairs neighbours, like living in a maisonette!

I would consider limiting the amount of time in the year you rent the annex, like just the winter months as a bit of a compromise perhaps?

would you consider only eating on weekdays ?

the op might well need the money for living expenses- who knows why she is “letting” the annex

to suggest she only lets the annex in the winter months is possibly going to wreck the business she has set up/started. The company would possibly find other accommodation elsewhere that is 12 months of the year to recommend

She may be a past victim of abuse or have a violent ex or something. Her concerns aren't rational, no. But she does sound very worried, it must be hard to be her.

She does - a very miserable tense looking husband. I think she whines to him a lot. He does a lot of cycling. Away for days, with panniers. And the rest of the time is in the garage. Hardly surprising.

Sounds like she has a shit husband too. Yours and other posters' glee at this is a bit gross. No he isn't a "sensible man" as someone said above. He's a shit husband. She's being left with the kids.

You shouldn't have to change anything due to her concerns OP. People walk or drive past houses all the time and this seems no different from that. But I doubt she's getting this upset because she enjoys it. Not your problem, no. But some of the posts on this thread are just gleefully horrible.

Literally none of this is the OP’s problem. She is doing something perfectly within the law on her private property. If the neighbour doesn’t want to be impacted by neighbours acting legally - and not even anti-socially - on their own land she needs to buy a very large rural plot and plonk herself right in the middle of it.
It’s literally just some professionals making their tea and having a Kip before going to work the next day 🙄

Oh, racist AND crappy, bingo.

Paranoighbour

I think she's ridiculous for not letting her kids out in the garden.

However if she's had complete privacy from strangers for years I can see that it might be unsettling not knowing who might be watching them at any time.

(And thanks to this thread I've just realised that the room my neighbours of 20 years rent out through Airbnb could be the one overlooking my garden... I didn't even question it because it was the teenage daughter's room but I've just realised I haven't seen her for months.)

I think most people aren't 'banging on' about whether the guests should be fully vetted so much as pointing out that the OP herself claimed that she 'fully vetted' all guests and then refused to elaborate on what the full vetting process she offers includes, and instead started an argument that there was no need to vet.

If she hadn't made such a bizarre claim to start with, I doubt anyone would have raised it.

She sounds nuts but why say they're fully vetted if they aren't?

None of her business who you have in your house. She is crazy.

Perhaps when OP said fully vetted she meant they are from the local employers and will have been through some kind of pre-employment checks and/or the companies have verified their identity?

Agreed. Particularly when I saw the post

‘She does - a very miserable tense looking husband. I think she whines to him a lot. He does a lot of cycling. Away for days, with panniers. And the rest of the time is in the garage. Hardly surprising.’

Lovely.

Tell her you are going to let it as an AirB&B instead!!!!!

That's unfair and an immature attitude from you. A stream of Transient strangers in a semi rural setting who could be God knows where in two weeks could be a very legitimate concern for a parent.