Would this annoy you? Neighbours copying everything you do.

[thinktoomuchtoooften]

We have nice decent neighbours and we get on ok. I am also very mindful that they can do whatever they want to their property without our permission, and a lot of improvements/ adaptions are led by fashions/trends. But everything we do, they do. It’s just a long list of mostly minor things. Same fences, same outdoor lights, same garden furniture, same drive block paving. We had our kitchen roof changed to sky lights.. they did the following year. Changed our patio doors to bifolds, so did they. We had a big pergola built… now so have they. It’s become a bit of a family joke tbh. Would it irritate you?

No. I am not sure I would even notice, definitely wouldn’t bother me.

I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it.

Our ndn does this but everything is always just a bit "better" or "bigger" than us

Really weird and annoying!! It’s hard to pinpoint why but it would freak me out a bit especially when it’s so many things.

I guess it is a compliment but also a big obsessive? Like they are watching.

Could you get a really cheap but horrible statue thing and put it in the garden with a fake expensive price tag….then when they’ve splashed out on it, bin yours 😂

It's a classic "keeping up with the Joneses" situation. A bit annoying but there are far worse things neighbours can do!

Haha! This is our neighbour too! We find it funny. He lives there with his wife and adult son.

We built a summerhouse during the first covid lockdown and painted it a certain colour and then painted our shed the same. Within a month, our attached semi detached neighbour painted his the same colour. Within a few months, his neighbour and their neighbour painted their sheds and summerhouse the same colour. So 3 other houses did the same colour!

We then started working on the garden. Had a new patio laid with steps and walled flower beds. Next door was in their bedroom window watching at times, now they have the same slabs as us. We have seen them with their visitors in their garden leaning over our fence, pointing things out that we have done and then it appearing in their garden within months. I have planted a lot of shrubs down both sides and along the bottom, so we will eventually have a private garden.

When I wash my car, he comes out and washes his. When I jet wash the drive, he follows with his jet washer and does his. When I cut the grass, he cuts his. If I go out to wash the windows, he follows with his bucket. I went out the once, to do some weeding in a flower bed I put adjacent to the fence we own between us, and he came with his spade and started doing the same right in front of me the other side of our fence.😂 I started growing vegetables and now he has a vegetable patch too.

We have now painted the lower half of the back of our house a colour because we are going to get a glass roofed shelter installed over the patio in the spring. We will see if he follows. He hasn't yet because since we did that, the weather turned so he hasn't had chance to.

At first, we were like "what on earth is going on?", but now we have got used to it and to be fair, we would rather have him as a neighbour than a bad one.

Just to add, we never really spoke to each other other than to say hello, now he comes round with chocolates every christmas and Easter, so we now have to do the same and give him some in return. 😂

He is harmless and it's actually nice that they like what we have done to our garden so much they want to have the same. Not sure how he will spend his time, when his view is blocked by the shrubs. Guess we will have to wait and see.

This made me smile because we have a cellar but they don’t. I’m not sure if they would go so far as to hire a digger….

Same here.

We went on holiday last year and a few weeks later our neighbours did too

We had a Christmas tree and the neighbours copied us.

I had put the washing out and it started to rain and had to bring it in, and blow me if the neighbours didn't do the same.

They even go to the same local supermarket!

I know I should be flattered but I do find it so frustrating.

Put a gnome or something similar in your garden. See if they copy that. Alternatively, if a gnome is a step too far, search out a really quirky, unusual ornament that they can in no way replicate. You could have real fun with this.

Do they get exactly the same brands of patio furniture, pergolas etc as you? How about things like plants and flowers? Do they have trees and flowerbeds in the same places?

True

Put a whiteboard in the window facing them and put up a new Germaine Greer quote every day.

I would find it flattering and be happy their house looks good too.

🤣🤣🤣

I’d find it pleasingly symmetrical.

Start breeding Rottweilers, see if they copy that :)

I live on a road of near identical houses. Very common when someone is thinking of doing their kitchen or side return or loft conversion that people ask on the neighbourhood WhatsApp if they can visit for inspiration. My kitchen layout is copied and adapted from a friend’s down the road. Someone else has copied our attic. We have really strict planners and are conservation area with article/section 4 so it just makes sense and makes things neater. It’s a very pretty road and part of that is the matchy matchy ness of it all. We also share good and bad trades so you often see the electrician or carpenter who helped you, parked up helping someone else.

Some interesting thoughts.The 60/40 split in voting is about what I feel really.
It’s not so much they’ve had identical things, it’s more they’ve copied our ideas. We have 2 patios in our garden; one for sun and the other in a shady area for when the sun is really too much. They did the same. We changed our furniture and bought some accessories to make it nice. They’ve changed there’s to the same style (their previous ones were the same as our old ones).
It’s just mildly irritating. I feel like whatever I do it’s only a matter of time before they match it.

So it’s normal for houses on the opposite side of me to have 2 patios because they are North facing.

And slowly but surely everyone is turning their outbuilding/garage into a home office. Ours was like that when we bought it but my neighbours aren’t copying me, it’s a general lifestyle shift

I genuinely don't think I'd notice, and if I did, I think what a pair of weirdos with no imagination.

Our previous neighbours were like this and it used to really irritate me. It wasn't so much that they were doing nice things to their home, afterall it made the whole street a lot nicer when people would invest in making their homes look lovely, it was that they had to have exactly the same thing which then took away any individuality from our home. They could've afforded to have had "better" versions of the same things but no, it had to be exact and thats what I found annoying. We now live in a house with no immediate neighbours and its so nice just to do what we want to the house without having a carbon copy of it next door.

I'm surprised by how few people find this odd. Obviously when you follow trends you will inevitably have the same stuff as other people but it sounds like OP's neighbours have never had an original thought in their lives.

Yes, lots of people have have similar sky lights or pergolas or block paving or shutters or outdoor lights but it's not a coincidence that the neighbours suddenly have all of those after OP got them. I might be in the minority here but I would find it really bloody weird.

Admittedly, my view might be coloured by the fact that my own mother does this to me. If I book a two week holiday, she'll book a month-long cruise. A few years ago, I bought a car and a week later, she bought the next model up from mine. Some time later, not long after she told me how she would not be replacing that car for years because she loved it so much, I got a new car and she immediately went to view the bigger version

The mature adult in me would say they can do what they want but if I’m being really honest it would piss me off.
You should say you are doing something totally hideous and see if they jump in first

Used to be like that in our old street - not for any malicious reason - it was usually someone spotted someone else getting a job done, liked it, asked for the contact number and booked saying "I want something like you did on number 37".

For example about 5 houses had their roofs renewed by the same company, so using the same tiles and the only variety was whether you went for red or black ridge tiles - semis would have looked a bit daft changing colour halfway so we just went with next door's choices on ours.

Then half the time if someone changed a sofa or similar - someone else in the street would find a home for it - so you'd end up with furniture rotating around the houses being wheeled down the street, or you'd pop in to see what X was doing with their new patio etc etc. I do miss that street. However the houses were incredibly uniform so naturally the same kind of stuff just visually worked well on the houses - whereas where we live now is all old houses that popped up at various points in the early 19th century so all look very different - next door is completely different to ours (think it's about 20 years younger) so I have no urge to copy his retracting sunshade and resin driveway cos it would look shit on our house - but it works well on his.

Couldn't help but be reminded of the Wickes advert, where the couple know before they even put the new kitchen in that her sister will copy it.

I think there are good reasons why neighbours will copy. It costs a lot of money to renovate and nobody wants to make an expensive mistake - so if you see that your neighbour has done what you had in mind and theirs has 'worked' - yeah, you're going to use their work as your template to avoid that expensive mistake you fear.