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?

But it clearly isn't, going by the experiences shared by others. Why is your experience (which looks to be in the minority) 'normal' just because it aligns with your beliefs, when everyone else's are not?

And no one knows whether buying the house will be fine or not.
But on balance, on lived experience, on news reports, it has a high chance of not being idyllic.

Why spend hundreds of thousands to put yourself in that position?

Some people will tell you to your face that black is actually white, and you are a racist if you cannot see that.

I thought it was a really insightful post @babylamb4. Thanks for sharing.

What, that trashing public property is what people deserve because they rail against people...trashing public property? Yeah, real deep man 🙄

Maybe that’s what the poster meant when she said ‘insightful’ ! 🤨🤨

So we will continue to pull up in your car parks and playing fields and have yous clean up after us. After all it’s what you all deserve

I wonder why you're not wanted? 🤨

I’m conflicted about posting this because there are so many holes in my reason to say I’d not. I’ve had amazing interactions with travellers and terrible experiences with them. This might sound sexist and racist and had they not been my own experience, I’d think I was a arsehole for saying this, but just like many situations in life, it’s the men who have been problematic. Women? Absolutely splendid. The men? Dreadful. Due to those personal experiences I’d say absolutely not, but I’d not choose to live close to an hmo filled predominantly with men either, from any culture/background. Or a known half way house. DH’s workplace is next to a home for troubled young people, they’re constantly causing chaos, and over Christmas/easter DH takes the kids and staff some hampers we make for them. Even if the wee sods have scratched our car and what not, they’re still kids and it’s important to me they’re shown that they’re liked by society, even if they’re a pain in the neck at times, we can show love and kindness to them. Through chocolate naturally. But I feel so sorry for their neighbours. Constant police presence, ambulances, fire fighters. Screaming at 2am outside. I’d never knowingly choose to live anywhere there are likely disturbances. I doubt anyone would in all likelihood.
I have been accused many times on mumsnet of being completely unreasonable and unrealistic about racism and discrimination, that I’m a bleeding heart lefty and all that malarkey, but all anyone can do is advise from personal experience and what they’d do in your position.
I have to say this, I have met people from all over the world who have dreadful reputations and never personally had anything but nice and pleasant interaction. So any other community I’d not hesitate to share my own community with. The things I’ve witnessed travelling men do very publicly, I’d struggle with due to my own history of trauma with domestic violence. I have seen a travelling man smack his wife very publicly, now as I say i have been a DV victim and I appreciate every single culture DV is a problem within, but I’ve never witnessed any other man out publicly hurting their partner. I know that I’ll have met 100s of abusers and not known, but I don’t want to ever see it in the street. (Obviously I don’t want it to happen anywhere but I certainly don’t want to open my door and see my neighbour being harmed by her husband.)
I would also think any property you buy you have to consider the resale with and I imagine it’s a hard no for a lot of people to live near travellers even without experience of them. Why buy a property that will instantly become difficult to shift?
I hope that I haven’t upset anyone from my post. If I hadn’t had lousy interactions with a few blokes from the travelling community I’d be saying consider resale value but do what is right for you. But with the experiences i have had, I can say personally that I wouldn’t choose to live there, no.

Absolutely not ! Don’t do it.

Plenty of decent travellers out there but it would be a no from me as well. It could be absolutely fine but there is a good chance it won’t be. There is a higher risk of feuds and such activity and it’s just not worth the risk of having that at your doorstep plus the difficulty selling in the future.

You may love the house now but you will quickly begin to hate it and suffer buyers remorse if you proceed. Don’t do it OP.

Maybe you should read this thread properly, to understand why people think this way.

In Nottingham, where I live, Travellers wrecked a memorial site for stillborn babies. https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/nottingham-news/charitys-anger-over-devastating-damage-5796296#amp-readmore-target

It wasn't the only negative story to hit the local press.

Yes….very insightful!!! In fact, says it all really!

Taught traveller children for 2 1/2 years. Not a cat in hells chance I would live anywhere near them.

And as horrifying as that post is… not even the full story. @babylamb4 is on other threads talking about the 5 dogs she keeps outside! (Oh and one of them has his given birth to 8 puppies, which she’s selling for £2.5k a a pup 😢).

Just imagine living next door to… this

Nope.

Agree. Also agree with the pp who said the other buyers will have pulled out because of this, not because of a loan falling through.

I'm as woolly and left wing and liberal as they come and I still wouldn't buy a house next door to travellers. Like others posters, I have personal experience with them that is enough to put anyone off. Sorry op, I hope you find something else.

I probably wouldn't, as you dont know about resale etc.
However, I once unknowingly rented a house next to travellers and they looked after me like a neighbour would. I remember once the little kids offering to help unload my car after a garden centre trip. I was a bit taken aback and wondered if they had a motive.
Someone once hit our car and the dad offered to beat him up for me 😁 we declined the offer, poor guy was terrified.
I did see drunken brawls outside sometimes but nothingnl that involved us. A yappy dog, but that could be anyones..

My worry about a site like you describe, is that the surrounding houses wouldn't have good integration like I did with my immediate neighbours.

May I ask, what’s a wooly? It sounds cosy, you have piqued my interest!

That might be true. But unfortunately it mirrors the amount of prejudice that you’ll find in real life. And the statistics on crime and antisocial behaviour are fact, not prejudice. So regardless of any actual issues having the traveller site there will make your home much harder to sell and devalue the surrounding houses. So I’d not touch it with a barge pole.

No. You will be plagued with antisocial behaviour from the Travellers. You will also be surrounded by HMO's and low quality rentals, because the other owners will want to move out, and nobody will buy their homes. Your house may be lovely inside, but you will be trapped by mortgage in an rough area with a transient troublesome population. Don't do it.

You got the house cos a buyer pulled out.

You don’t say.

We had an asbo invasion of crooks who stole & hurt animals, said they were travellers. The junk drove off eventually, evicted, another six months to clear the rubbish mountain.

In fairness, ‘travellers’ make great neighbours for rats and dealers.

Hard no from me!! I used to live in a small village just outside Leeds, and had a beautiful house on a lovely street. A year after moving in, a travelling community turned up and set up camp on an area of green space about 300 metres away…honestly it was a nightmare! The council tried for months to move them on…it was really difficult. The area was trashed…rubbish piled up, youths causing real trouble and damage to our local area, and our lovely village businesses targeted with theft and harassment. Oh, and dogs, everywhere…barking, aggressive, shitting everywhere.

After they were finally evicted (which in itself was a shit show!) the green area was totally ruined. Dog excrement everywhere, mounds and mounds of rubbish, no ‘green’ left at all. It took years for the council to sort it 😢

And the others pulled out because of an issue with their loan… really 🤔!

I think they also found out about the site!