Sorry, this is long. We have a 1930s detached house where one of our house walls forms the boundary between us and the neighbours. All the houses in the street are built the same. The wall is 100% ours.
The neighbours are elderly and not at all friendly or approachable. I think they don't like the fact that we're young and their friend used to own this house before she died. The neighbours have lived here for many, many years and think they own the street. We keep hearing them speaking to other neighbours about us, saying we're a nuisance family and how previous owner would turn in her grave if she knew people like us were living in her home!
Their garden butts up to our house wall. Neighbours' garden is totally overgrown and is overrun with brambles, weeds, bushes and trees,
bags of rubbish, wheely bins etc. The brambles are 2 to 3 foot high and very dense. It is impossible to get within about 2 feet of our wall because of these brambles. There is barely a clear piece of soil in their entire garden that is bramble free.
We had our friend over today who knows a bit about building and diy and when the neighbours went out we sneaked a quick look round their side of our wall (we had to actually go into their garden to be able to see it and fight our way along their overgrown front garden and path). The bottom part of our house wall (between 12-18 inches high) for the entire length of our property is now a dirty green colour (it used to be cream when we first moved in).
Our friend also noticed that the neighbour's property which is quite close to ours has a piece of their guttering missing and other areas are broken/cracked especially on the side nearest to our property so when it rains the water must be pouring out and collecting at the bottom of our wall. We haven't noticed any obvious signs of damp indoors yet so don't know how long their guttering has been like this.
Our wall needs to be repainted (it's painted pebbledash). Friend said the top of our house could be reached with scaffolding but the bottom 3 ft of wall would be difficult because of the brambles. He reckons we need to chop all the brambles down to get access to the bottom of the wall before any builder/decorator will be able to get to work on it. I can't see the neighbours agreeing to this!
We've been here about 2 years now and when we previously asked if we could go round to clean our gutters out they said 'no, not convenient'. A couple of other requests from us have been met with the same response. Neighbours are fit and physically healthy so there appears to be no reason why they don't maintain their garden, other than laziness. They're part of a local walking club so can only assume they're not disabled in any way. Myself and my husband offered to help them tidy their garden shortly after we moved here on one of the few occasions we have spoken to them (their garden wasn't too bad a couple of years ago) and they took great offence and have more or less ignored us since then. We thought we were being neighbourly but obviously they thought otherwise!
This is the first property we have ever owned and we're really regretting buying this house now. If we had the money we'd sell up tomorrow and get the hell out of here but I don't think anyone would want to live next door to that mess.
Our property is suffering because of them. What would you do? We're tempted to order a few gallons of weedkiller and next time they go out, pour it all over the brambles and weeds that are touching our wall so that at least if we do ever find a builder/workman he might be able to get near enough to our property to work on it! We're thinking we'll probably have to get a solicitor involved to write them a letter to say they have to allow us access for essential maintenance but not sure if our information is correct. Plus we don't have much money to get into legal problems with anyone. Husband recently lost his job! Also, is there any point trying to repaint this wall if the neighbour doesn't repair their own guttering? Please help.