To think my neighbour's Halloween decorations epitomise how abusurd their setup is? (Pic attached)

[Carla786]

My 'next-door neighbours' have still not moved in, 3 years after they claimed to be arriving in their forever home. There's been a recurrent pattern with the house next to me where it gets redone by the latest buyer, elaborately & noisily & then gets sold on. No one has ever lived there for much longer than a year. (We suspect there is some kind of property-trading ring going on : our house was bought by my grandmother's parents in the 30s when prices were lower, but obvs have skyrocketed since. It seems criminal when there are so many people waiting for homes. Several other houses on the street are the same, it feels a bit ghost-town & def not neighbourly)
It was the same with this neighbour. They did heavy building works for a new basement & granny flat, among other big changes -noisy & very dusty, which was bad for several of our family who have asthma. Not to mention that I was doing my A levels then . And these are still nowhere near complete 3 years after they started. They haven't moved in : OK, it's not finished yet, but I suspect they'll follow the same pattern as previous owners.
But ofc they wanted to put these lovely decorations up, at the house they've never yet lived in & probably won't- and they're still up today.
My mother sent the pic (I'm at uni)- she's a bit of a conspiracy theorist & thinks the gravestone messages are a threat. I definitely don't go that far, though it feels bad taste. I love Halloween but have never liked gravestone decor, esp as the local cemetery is round the corner & we often visit my grandfather's grave.
MN verdict? Are the neighbours CFs, with this as the icing on the cake? Or are we overreacting?

TLDR : Neighbours who have taken 3 years to move in due to noisy dusty building work for a supposed forever home have decided to put up gravestones on the front lawn of a house they've never lived in and probably never will. Gravestones went up before Halloween & are still here today.

Thank you! I think a lot of people are ignoring the weird property issues or just think it's a windup bc of my age (I originally came on here bc I'm GC and mainly read FWR) .

That's interesting: these neighbours aren't decorators (they seem to be French Canadians & are presumably in Canada rn) but they are probs similar in that they like to have second or third bases for investment maybe? A lot of people on the street seem to treat their houses here as investments/ second homes they live in very sporadically.

And yes, it is rather sad. Most of my friends live in a different area of London anyway, but it does seem a shame that my mum experienced a very different street with other kids, neighbours who actually lived there & were friendly etc

Yes! I think that's it, unluckily....or something weird.

We did have neighbours when I was very young who my mum suspected were into drugs. I'm not totally sure why & she is a bit over suspicious often but it does seem overall dodgy.

Property section? That sounds much better, thank you. We did consider some kind of action when the building got really bad. We'd rather not & it seems to have calmed down now but info would be good.

Can I please ask what gc is and fwr?

Yes. I gave the info about my grandmother bc my family are not super-rich or anything. But it's relevant that NOW the area is quite different. Apparently my street has some of the highest house prices in the area, one recently set a local record when it sold for 5 .4 million.
It's a nice quiet, green area & has very low crime so this obviously attracts people. Which makes it even more of a shame that people are blocking good potential homes during a housing crisis.

Hmm.. I was thinking along the same lines.

A little off topic , Op, but is that photo identifying for you and your mother as well as the detail you have given, or do you mind. Just saying as this is a very traffic heavy well known site.

GC = Gender Critical (Gender steeotypes do not define who a woman is, biology does. So transwomen are not women)
FWR = the old name for the feminist boards, back when they were 1 board called Feminism And Women's Rights.

Good point. Perhaps I will take this down fairly soon & repost on property board without photo.
How common are grave & skull decorations? I've seen plenty of skeletons but rarely graves.

There’s literally no context. Your neighbours put Halloween decorations up.

It's more the written detail and then you have the pic on top of it. but I'm probably over thinking.

Ok. I get you. Im with you on that one. 👍

The whole OP gives the context, please don't be deliberately obtuse.

Hmm...no I think it could potentially be outing with the subsequent detail. Will keep up a bit longer & then take down.

Most of the neighbours who are here haven't got kids, though ofc someone else could see it - & people without kids use MN too.

I seem to remember watching a film years ago where someone ( possibly Kevin Bacon) kept seeing the ghost of a young girl and spent months digging up his basement

I get that ..thus is different though, no one ever stays, constant redevelopment. If they just left it fully empty it would be a shame but the developing is particularly an issue

But the context is meaningless. They did building works and didn’t move in yet. So now the Halloween decorations are some sort of terrible oddity that never should have been allowed. You’re at uni, it’s a Friday night. GO OUT.

I’m finding it really hard to picture this road with all these big houses in that nobody ever lives in. Not doubting what you’re saying, I just can’t imagine it. I agree it doesn’t sound very much like a community but I think if my house was worth several million I’d just sell up and go and live somewhere else.

Ha,,you may be right.. 🤣

Poor little girl, I hope not. Ofc in Amityville Horror they have a little girl...

I don’t understand. Unless there’s something illegal going on then I don’t see how there’s any issue at all here.

Your issue seems to be that you’re allowing your curtain twitching tin foil hat mother to make you similarly unhinged.

It would seem odd to me to bother decorating a house I'm not living in. When people travel, they tend not to decorate the house they actually do live in most of the time, so I don't know why anyone would spend time and money on this. Still, it's their time and money, I guess.

It’s absolutely none of your business. Or your family’s business.

Ikwym. It is a shame....otoh I love my house & garden a lot...I love my area too, I wouldn't want to leave it & houses are very hard to buy here, though I get what you mean re selling & using the money to buy elsewhere.

Anyway, rn my gran (& mum who's full-time caring for her) are staying put, I'll have to decide later

It does definitely sound as if something dodgy is going on there. I'm inclined to think along the same lines as your mum.
In the context of what you've observed, that particular choice of Halloween decoration might indicate something more sinister. A warning to heed perhaps...

Also agree, constant banging and drilling, not to mention builders dust flying over the fence can drive you mad. Been there.

As an aside, I hate feeling forced to rush through all the wonderful festivities of the year.
I for one, will NOT be taking down my Halloween window lights until it is time for me to dazzle the neighbours with my spectacular array of Christmas lights.... .. in a couple of weeks time!! (Also, I can't be arsed to bugger about putting them all away at the mo!)

Maybe no one lasts that long because of the neighbours? 😉