Tell me about semi rural house purchasing please

[Countrylifeornot]

I'm viewing a semi rural house on the weekend and looking for some tips.

The house was stand alone but has sort of been built around, so not really rural now but has the rural issues such as septic tank, oil heating etc. Having always been suburban until now I'm not completely sure what issues I should look for. Does anyone have any tips?

Thanks in advance

Re what a pp has said, lack of gritting in snow/ice can be, er, well, interesting. We get nothing down here, although we still have grit bins so you can diy if you fancy. However, the local farmers will often try and clear the roads if they've got time. In 2010 I often couldn't get to work the snow was so bad.(I'm retired now so that's no longer a problem).
We have oil heating. We don't find it expensive. We have our tank filled about every 8 months and it costs 4 to 500 pounds a time. However, we do have a new boiler and a very well insulated house plus a multi-fuel stove.
We have mains drainage, but my parents had their own sewage system - the sort you have to pump out annually. It cost about £175 a year for the shit truck.
Other things? Rats usually every spring. We used to have a jack russell to kill them, sadly he is no more.
Supermarkets will deliver here, but there are no fast food deliveries, which doesn't bother us as we only rarely eat it. We have 2 freezers and I only shop once a week because of the distance to the Supermarket.
We have regular power cuts - the wind gets up and the lights go out frequently.
There is virtually no public transport (one bus a week). You may need more than one car.
I love it! I love the birds, hearing farm animals, bats and at night a completely dark sky full of a million stars.(When it's not bloody cloudy that is!)

Things to ask about your septic tank are how old it is, how many people it serves etc, when it last had the soak away redone, if it is communal then everyone has to be very careful about what you put down the loo and also what cleaning products you use. If it is not abused it shouldn't need emptying very often at all.
People have mainly covered the rest, regarding the rats there are far more, bigger and dirtier rats in the towns and suburbs than in rural areas in my experience.

I will chip in as a rural dweller:
Our septic tank costs £40 per year to empty
Oil heating is expensive
More frequent power cuts
Crap broadband
Crap mobile phone signal
Drink drivers
Dangerous roads, icy in winter
Cyclists at the weekend are a pain in the ass, especially when sunny
Mud
Keep a small stockpile of essentials as supermarkets far away and local shops hardly ever open
Boring for teenagers

Can you tell I want to move back to town?!

My parents have always lived rurally.
It is rubbish for teens always being reliant on parents to take you.
Septic tank you need to not only just put the three Ps down, but only use white loo roll and limit bleach.
Oil fired central heating doesn't work in power cut as you need electric for the pump to work unless you have a gravity fed system.
Power cuts are frequent and long, a couple of years ago my parents were off for two weeks and this is within an hours drive of Cambridge so not north Scotland.

Benefits it's quiet, really quiet you see lots of wildlife all year round.

Currently planning a move from outer London to somewhere rural. Not decided where yet but I feel quite sick by all the talk of rats! Though to be fair, we did see one in our garden a few weeks ago so I do realise they can be everywhere.

Gas central heating won't work during a power cut either afaik, because the pump will be electric.

I just wanted to revisit this thread (sorry to derail) because something has happened (relevant to my earlier post) and I'm just so so sad.

One of the noisy animals complained about was a feral peacock. He was beautiful and friendly and funny.

And today somebody killed him.

The worst thing about living semi rurally is the people.

Oh that's awful, Pour :(

Actually laughing because I moved into a small city suburb, about 18 months ago, from a large vilage and many of the things listed are even more valid, now!

Definitely more wildlife. Lots of songbirds in our little garden, when we used to be plagued with starlings and corvids. Also squirrels, a visiting hedgehog 9saw the poo, then the hedgehog, when it set off our security light), a field mouse nesting under some railway sleepers, bank voles which are utterly adorable! Also lots of house mice in winter (never had any in our old house, funnily enough) and rats throughout the city.

Thank you both, I’m still so sad to not hear him this morning. It’s thought to be a retired bloke. Just 8pm on a warm evening, casually killing an animal. We live near to a family whose kids love the peacock and a witness came to let them know in case it was them that owned it

Nice to hear you still have lots of wildlife Chew :) we’re moving to edge-of-town shortly and I hope we get hedgehogs visiting :)

How awful. But it can happen anywhere. We live near London and when dcs were little we had a fox den in our garden. We used to watch the cubs at dusk playing with the dcs' toys. Then the cubs disappeared and our neighbour told us she'd found them all dead - presumably poisoned - in her garden.