Would this garden next door put you off buying the house?

[twiddlingthumbs69]

As you can see it’s completely overgrown. The front garden is a little neater, but not by much.

would this be a deal breaker for you?

house that’s for sale needs work to bring up to date, new bathroom etc but is liveable although only night storage heaters and needs new windows. It’ll obvs need a fair amount of work but the house itself is a good size.

so, if you were viewing and wanted the house how much of an impact would the neighbours garden have on your decision

Looks fine to me

more likely rats in gardens with bbqs for food droppings and sheds to hide under

We bought our house with a similar garden next door. It has been a nightmare - in the late Summer the blackberry brambles grow over to our side and try and take root in our garden and we have had mice in our house 4 times since we have lived here, because as it turned out the outside of their house reflected what was also going on on the inside. So from my experience, don’t do it!

Would it put me off?

it would certainly make me think harder about my purchase.

As others have said it will depend how much the house is worth to you (the one you’re buying) and whether you’ll get an opportunity for an equally good property come up.

Also the reason for the overgrowth and therefore of it’s likely to be long term or not.

So it wouldn’t be a complete dealbreaker for me and a flat no.

At some point will the neighbours' house be a building site for redevelopment after you've moved in?

Would be worth checking also to ensure there are no invasive plants growing - I wouldn't have a clue what eg Japanese knotweed looks like.

Is the house attached to the house you are looking at buying? That's the only thing that would bother me - if the house was attached and in a state of disrepair the potential for damp, leaks etc - just general lack of maintenance might affect your house. The garden, not so much.

It looks like the garden is never used so for me that is a positive, the neighbours would not be out there making an annoying noise.

I live in the countryside and there are loads of hedgerows and unkempt bits of ground which house all sorts of rodents. When I lived in London amongst nicely kept gardens there were rats around, I knew because my cats used to catch them. So I wouldn't see that garden as a particular problem because rats are everywhere.

I would not be bothered no

SIL's next door neighbour has a garden like this and it causes her no end of work to keep the weeds down and to keep the growth coming over the fence tidy. She is also concerned about unwanted wildlife.

Our garden is well kept but as we back on to a railway line we do gets rats coming into our garden and there is not a lot we can do about it.

The garden alone wouldn't put me off, I'd rather have a peaceful overgrown space with lots of birds and wildlife than one which looked sterlie with plastic grass and a hot tub on the deck.

I would be concerned if the house was attached to mine and in a similar state of neglect as things like climbing plants, roof leaks and broken gutters could affect the adjoining property.

I have had a similar situation and it did become an issue as brambles kept breaking down my fence, at considerable cost...

I used to live nextdoor to a house with a garden like that. It was absolutely fine living nextdoor as the person living there was generally very quiet and barely ever left the house. The problem came when the owner was evicted and a developer bought it. There was no central heating, mould everywhere, electrics weren't working properly, roof was leaking etc. It was under noisy reconstruction for almost 2 years. That was a much bigger nuisance.

There are rats EVERYWHERE, nothing special about this garden, in fact I'd prefer this to plastic grass and nowhere for wildlife to hide! They might be amenable to letting you go in and chop stuff back (especially the stuff that's growing near/over your fence) but it wouldn't put me off at all.

But then I like gardening and I love to see wild spaces.

The garden wouldn’t bother me any more than backing on to woods or a riverbank. Looks lovely for wildlife tbh. Rats live everywhere outside, as long as that’s where they stay it’s fine!

However if I was attached to the house the garden belonged to I probably wouldn’t buy it. The people who live there really don’t care and that would indicate other issues down the line.

People who’ve lived there decades and never done their garden?

a big NOPE from me.

No, unless the garden was full of ivy, which spreads over and under fencing and is a massive pain in the arse to keep in check.

I also think it's more likely to be a home for foxes than rats.

We have rampant ivy growing over our back fence, hence my user name 😀

Wouldn't necessarily put me off if the house was right, nothing is encroaching over the fence. I've seen on youtube a guy with a business called Flawless cleaning who does garden clearances and cut backs, I wonder if the neighbour is elderly/disabled and is struggling with it? He'll do it for free.

When we bought our house, the garden next door looked like that. We lived next to those same neighbours for ten years and they were lovely. It caused us no problems (in fact, our cats were over there all time - they loved it!).

Rats will only come if there’s food, such as birdor hedgehog food left out permanently.

OP find out who’s responsible for the fence as it seems to be bending toward your garden; is that tree etc. leaning on it, beyond end of photo?
Your surveyor will be able to find all this stuff out (& more!)for you.

It would have to be, as has been said, a unicorn of a house for me to consider it. I say this as someone who has their own deliberately wild looking garden. Its a real fight to keep it as i want it and not to let the brambles and ivy from surrounding gardens encroach. If I wanted a more "normal" lawns and flowerbeds setup, it would be even harder. Yes rats would be an issue for me. There may be no food source for them there but if there is shelter, they will bring food from elsewhere.

Rats will nest in long grass.

I doubt that alone would put me off. I’d be more concerned if it or the front garden was filled with rubbish to be honest. Looks neglected but not everyone has the time/energy/money to do up a garden. As and when the house gets sold it’ll be sorted. It would be awful neighbours that would negatively impact your life, not an overgrown garden.

It would give me pause if the houses are attached. I would worry about rotting joists and floors, that kind of thing.

Otherwise no I don't think it would be a deal breaker, but I would budget for replacing that fence preferably with something really solid and repairable, eg closeboard, with concrete gravelboards and posts.

This. My neighbour sadly passed away a few years ago and his son inherited the house but didn't move in for over a year - in the meantime the rats did.

So I would be very wary, but would also take circumstances into account if the house otherwise ticked all my boxes.

Its not about an overgrown garden its about the people you will be living next to who think its acceptable