To buy my first house two minutes down the street from traveller housing initiative?

[MelMar1]

Please give me advice.
I’m sale agreed on a new build house in Dublin . I found out that there is a new traveller housing initiative going in right across the road from me. Please don’t say I’m being snobby I’m really not. I’ve just heard stories of anti social behaviour etc. I know there’s always some lovely people but I’m nervous.

Do I give the house up because of this? It’s a substantial amount of houses for the traveller scheme all together - six very large detached four bedroom homes. It is two minutes walk from me. I drove up to the development to see and the traveller housing initiative is not in front of me directly as I thought. It is not in front of or behind me but about 2 minutes walk down the road. I can only see gable end of one of the houses from mine. Not directly facing.
I need to sign contacts in 2 days and I am so torn.
Otherwise it’s perfect house for me. With this information are you saying yes or no?

Let’s see @babylamb4 ’s response to whether she’s registered with council as a breeder

I wouldn’t buy a new build and I wouldn’t buy in an area that has a lot of change predicted (good or bad). I’d buy somewhere where you know the house prices are stable, even if that means buying something smaller.

Even if you loved it, from a financial perspective it’s very dangerous to have a mortgage on a possibly depreciating asset.

If you wanted to leave, you could end up having to sell for significantly less than what you paid for it and being in negative equity where you owe more than it’s worth.

I don't have any lived in experience of having lived near traveller communities so I can't comment on that aspect. What I would say is buying a home is such a big investment. If you you have concerns re anything to do with a home such as potential neighbours, reselling, the area etc. I would listen to your gut and pull out.

The few posts from experience?

Nearly every post is setting out their lived experience. You are an outlier and the post you quote doesnt live with or near travellers, merely works with Travellers (and its not clear under what circumstances)

The police go in pairs, SWs go in pairs, tradesmen go in pairs, most sites are littered with abused animals and literal shit.

Sorry op, it's a no from me. It's bad enough living on new builds where huge families move in (kids playing in people's private garden, parking spaces stolen etc.) but a traveller initiative would have me pulling out.

Whenever travellers took over a car park in the small Yorkshire market town I lived in there was a huge clean up needed costing the council- so council tax payers - tens of thousands of £££
The car park was next to the river - just a small one - and the place would have all sorts of shit thrown in. I remember tv boxes and the old tvs were just dumped in the river.
Shops shut because the kids would steal. Everything that wasn’t nailed down was considered fair game by them whether it was in shops or people’s gardens.
The worst thing though was that every time all of the mallard ducks which the town had, loved and took care of, all vanished. Every time. The utter bastards were killing and eating them. Money for huge tellys, money for cars costing £70k but not enough to go to Tesco.
The sterotype exists for a reason,

DONT BUY THE HOUSE, Your life will be a misery and you will never sell it or loose tens/hundreds of thousands

This.

I don’t live in south dublin and can think of 3 halting sites that had “settled” housing off the top of my head that I would have knowledge of. Labray Park, Ballyfermot. Nutgrove and Stocking lane Rathfarnham. Nutgrove is completely gone. Every single house burned to the ground. And in labray and Stocking lane if there’s even 20% of the houses left I’d be surprised. They been burnt down and caravans now stood on the site. I have friends that live within spitting distance of the Rathfarnham site and the antisocial behaviour is shocking. Horses wandering out into the road, rubbish dumped all around the area and cars and vans speeding in the vicinity. In saying that it doesn’t stop people buying houses at least around there. There’s such a demand people are prepare to put up with the possibility of issues but it wouldn’t be me

Travellers aren’t a race FYI. They’re an ethnic community

So that’s the answer then

No, you are not a registered breeder

Yes another reason why living next door to travellers would be hell on earth to most

You are talking about sites, which is a different scenario from the 6 houses OP is talking about. I work with Travellers and don't live far from the estate where they live. Majority of them are from a few families and have lived in the area over several generations. The men certainly have long criminal records and spend time in/out of jail, but they don't bring any trouble to their area.
@Waitingforthesunnydays the UK government is supposed to provide "culturally appropriate" housing for Travellers and there have been various schemes around the UK where these initiatives have worked well.

Yes, do you even need to ask that question?

I wouldn’t.

The travellers that pitch up from time to time in my rather boring town always leave a trail of havoc. A few months back they broke into the local playing field/football pitch, the kids teams have weekend matches which all needed to be cancelled. There is a small Tesco next to it; I know the staff there and they told me the kids were being instructed to take trolleys and basically fill them to the brim for the parents (who were actually there and instructing them what to steal) and then just walk out.
When they eventually got moved on, there was the obviously huge pile of fly tipped crap to clean up.

Another incident, they pitched up in the leisure centre car park next to the outdoor astroturf pitches. When a stray ball happened to hit one of their (extremely flash) caravans, they came out and threatened the young kids playing with baseball bats and their dogs.

Im sorry I don’t have any positive stories to balance out my perspectives as I expect most of us don’t. Its no surprise the comments on this thread as it seems most have had similar experiences.

Even though they are given houses, they happily defecate in the street! They don't like houses, they like travelling! Not for me!

No, do not buy this house.

Not a chance, which feels a bit shit to say as I’m quite sure it isn’t the case that every single traveller is a problem… but the overwhelming majority, in my experience, have been, so much so that it’s been impossible to discern any decent ones among the ones who seem to thrive on fighting, stealing, scamming elderly and vulnerable people, exhibiting aggressive and destructive behaviour as a default and abusing animals. The few spoiling it for the many? Perhaps. I’d certainly like to believe so. But it isn’t a risk I’d take.

The vast majority of Travellers are settled and live in houses, in Ireland it's about 80%.

The travellers in my family have been banned from many designated sites due to feuding/fighting with other travellers.

And also because they don't want to pay the rent, waste disposal, gas, electric and water fees that comes with using the designated sites.

So to the PP who said they're successful, some are and some really are not.

My personal experience in Dorset, as a horse owner, is that they steal anything they can get their hands on, they shit and piss everywhere, and they are legally protected because they are: "travelers!" They get legal protection because they are not the full ticket. I get that, but I wouldn't buy a house near them.

They are successful in the sense that they pay for no social amenities, take what they want, and are immune from normal laws.

No if you look upthread at least one poster is telling of their experience of housing provided for travellers being burned down and caravans put on the site.

Don’t do it OP, and it does make me feel bad to say that but it’s too much money and too much risk.

I grew up in the west of Ireland in a town with a large traveller population. I was reared in a council estate with travellers directly opposite and in other houses in the estate. When we moved in, we had little trouble with the parents opposite and their 8 children. I was very good friends with 2 of the children in particular.

Then the children grew up and it was carnage. We couldn’t so much as leave a mat on the front doorstep because it would be stolen. Absolutely everything we left outside was always stolen. The children then started marrying and pulling caravans into the driveways and onto the green areas. Horrendous rubbish in the green areas, dogs running wild, horses emaciated and tethered in tiny green areas, houses kept pristine though. Witnessing weekly domestic abuse of women across the road was horrendous. There were instances where vans pulled up and gangs of men with bats and machetes came and terrorised the neighbourhood looking for members of the family. There were 2 cars set on fire right outside my childhood home and many other dramatic instances.

Of the 8 children, 3 are severely disabled (parents are first cousins), and were a danger to anyone who found themselves alone with them. One was murdered by his own brother and others with machetes at a funeral in front of the grieving family and children. He’s now in prison. Another just died recently, while awaiting trial for another violent offence.

I’ve met lovely travellers, but unfortunately they are very few and far between. What most travellers see as their cultural rights are not compatible with civilised society and you will regret trapping yourself in this house that won’t sell if it all goes wrong.

No - unless you want your metal gates nicked and mountains of fly tipping