Unkempt garden next door

[Herewego83]

Hi all, hoping for some advice/perspective please! DH and I are planning to make an offer on a house at closing date tomorrow. We are first time buyers, currently renting in London and looking to move to Scotland. It's a large detached house in a beautiful location with lots of things going for it, but one drawback is the next door garden which is completely overgrown. We asked the owners about the neighbour - he is apparently very quiet and friendly but in poor health and so his house and garden have become unkempt over time. I am getting cold feet I think because I'm worried the situation may worsen over time and cause unnecessary stress for us, particularly if we try to sell the house in future. I also worry that having to look at a messy garden every day might get me down/irritate me. On the other hand the house and location are great and I wasn't worried about the neighbour until tonight, so wondering if it's just cold feet? I have form for getting anxious ahead of making big decisions...

What do people think? Am I overthinking this or should we walk away?

If the bloke is nice and in pro health he may welcome a bit of help.
I would just offer to tidy it up, it could make such a difference to him

@Dreading2020sSeasonFinale That's the way to do it, it's a win win situation for you both. Gardens can get overwhelming, I'm looking at the weeds in mine wondering where to start. Hopefully they will die off in winter.

Overgrown gardens are good for wildlife, but well tended gardens can also attract wildlife, without the abundance of self seeding weeds and invasive species such as bindweed.

Watched a programme recently where they studied the wildlife in various gardens on the same street, in different styles and with different levels of management. The most wildlife was not in the most neglected garden, but the mid level one - presumably that had a greater variety of food for the wildlife.

Neighbours move on...
When we bought our house we didn't pay much attention to adjoining properties...because we are at the end of a cul de sac we actually share boundaries with 6 other houses!
It was only after we moved in that we noticed the state of the garden our landing window overlooks. Waist high grass and weeds which helped disguise the 2 abandoned cars rusting in it. Five years later that neighbour moved taking his dead cars with him and was replaced by a builder who spruced up the place and got the garden to 'decent field' status.
Now it's occupied by a young family with a tidy garden with kid's outdoor toys.

Thanks so much to everyone for your help! I feel loads better about it now and we have just submitted an offer this morning! Now we just have to wait and see

Good luck!

Like PP say, neighbours can come & go, there’s also no perfect house: just about making best choice you can at a certain time with the info you have

Pressed send too soon: of course it’s stressful, big decision, normal to have doubts & worries

Good luck with your offer OP! X

My neighbours garden was an absolute hell hole in my last home, he was a young man who just couldn't be arsed.
My garden was immaculate and at one point the sheer weight of the bindweed, ivy, bramble and unpruned shrubs pushed my fence right over and he refused to do anything about it. Just left the fence to lie on my flower bed.
I had to put up a special reinforced fence to take the weight and was constantly digging up weeds that were spreading under the fence, it was just mind numbing.
I would not live next door to someone with a wild garden again, it is horrendous.

@madcatladyforever

Time to be clumsy. Whoops, I accidentally missed my garden and splashed a few watering cans full of high strength weed killer over into next doors jungle of weeds that keep invading mine! Clumsy me.

Honestly, saying next doors garden is none of your business sounds perfectly reasonable but weeds LOVE to spread. When a neighbouring property is cultivating a field of dandelions, willowherb, brambles or god knows what else, it doesn't take long for them to spread or seed your own.

I've been throwing poppy and other wildflower seeds on patches of common land, verges and paths and the kids and I made a massive wildflower patch in the back garden. it's lovely to see the beautiful poppies coming up randomly on the path at the side of the house and I'll take them any day over the mass of dandelions growing and spreading from adjacent unkempt properties.

Overgrown I’d be fine about and would enjoy the privacy it offers me and the wildlife it brings.

I would worry about hoarder type gardens with piles of rubbish, broken objects, multiple cars with parts strewn and trees grouping through them

Good luck. I'm also surprised at the snippy tone of some of the replies, but it seems to be par for the course on here at the moment.

I also think it's sad no one has helped him. Perhaps in this case, but some people don't want help. The person with the worst garden I knew would never have accepted help. He was still working when I got to know him and could very easily have afforded to pay a company to improve it. I felt very sorry for his neighbour.

We did get an awful lot of weeds in our old garden, particularly bindweed. It didn't occur to me that it was being made worse because of the state of the garden next door though. We were downhill of the next door garden so we couldn't actually see it apart from when you looked out our bedroom window. We should have just had a chat with the bloke or offered to give him a hand, he was perfectly friendly.

You are detached and he sounds a decent neighbour so it wouldn't put me off

If he’s a nice chap , maybe do a bit of tidying for him , that way everybody is happy

Said by someone who has time , obviously