How do you check your future neighbours aren’t arseholes?

[Asdawindowandglass]

Just wondered what strategies you have employed to suss out future neighbours. Do you knock on doors before you’ve purchased?

A house we like has a high, solid, Reed-type lining on the fence on one side only. Makes me slightly suspicious.

I got allocated a council house.

I found out the day before I got the keys so I only knew where it was about 20 hours before.

When I moved in I found out my best friends sister lived in the house next door! I knew she was in the village somewhere but not what house.

I was so excited but it turns out she was moving in 8 days.

She was replaced by someone who used the house as a puppy farm. It was a nightmare.

I don't think you can ever contol who your neighbours are.

Personally I just don't think there are any guarantees where neighbours are concerned. I have just sold my (dream and fully renovated) house. We moved there about 15 years ago and it is a rural lane with no pavements or street lights, backing on to fields, 1 acre garden etc. Life was bliss and we renovated as this was going to be our forever home. New neighbours moved in about 6 years ago, had their children and got a barky dog.. They proceeded to make life hell for everyone around them with hot tubs, pools, full sized bouncy castles every weekend, screaming kids, screaming bellowing parents, performance parenting loudly in the garden, music etc etc - because they back onto fields and I think came from a built up area it kind of feels that they think they are in the middle of nowhere and can do what they like.

I now live in a cul de sac, cheek by jowl with neighbours and it is blissfully quiet.

You never can tell I have realised!

Go round in the evening and ask neighbours. I found out a flat I wanted to buy was a nightmare as the neighbours upstairs had wooden floor and clacked about in high heels all the time. It stopped me buying it!

It's also good to snoop and listen for eg loud music, shouting

I do think that the only real way of finding out is asking neighbours
Mine are harassing us in many different ways - we've only been here since July - the visible bits to the public that he's doing is very intermittent so I would have been lucky to catch that. (And you'd never know if you chatted to them when passing)
But the neighbours are aware he's problematic (to put it mildly)

Unfortunately nothing stops you coming home from work one day to find out they are actually the worst kind of arseholes who have built this absolute disgrace in their garden. I just can't fathom how some people are so self centred that they have no consideration for the people around them.

@GingerTum Oh My God! Surely they aren't allowed to do that? Surely??

Another one to say you can’t guarantee, council house so slightly different but I moved into a 3 bed gf maisonette, it’s like a house but with a one bed flat above, so I thought great won’t be noisy as it’s only one bedroom so will only ever be a single person or a couple, how wrong I was! For the first year it was fine a couple lived up there, then after a year a family of 5 moved in! The noise was so awful they had laminate throughout and allowed their kids to ride scooters (?) up and down all day, they would constantly throw things ride up and down all day the wheels scraping across the floor was awful, then if I ever dared to use my garden they would hang out the window and stare down at us. Felt like I had no privacy. So no you can never know.

What's causing a problem in the photo?

Is it the shed in the photo?

I don’t see why that would t be allowed tbh.
The gardens are very bare, once you’ve played some trees it will be fine

I wish I knew, mine are bloody annoying.

Unfortunately nothing stops you coming home from work one day to find out they are actually the worst kind of arseholes who have built this absolute disgrace in their garden. I just can't fathom how some people are so self centred that they have no consideration for the people around them.

I don't really see the issue. It barely protrudes over the height of the fence so doesn't cause any light issues. There are no additional privacy issues. The materials blend in well to the surroundings.

It annoys you that someone has done something to their property?

This is why I always want to meet the vendors at viewings, and not just be shown around by the EState Agent.

I say to them, at the end of the viewing, "and now the most important question of all - tell me about the neighbours". If there's a look of shock or nervous laugh or a bit of hesitancy you can always tell that something's up.

Those of you who can't see the issue with my photo, I would say that the pic doesn't do it justice of quite how monstrous it is. You are honestly better people than I am if having to look at that 5m x 7m wooden box wouldn't bother you. Not to mention that it's outside my 8 year old's bedroom window and given my experience with these neighbours, they've not built it to quietly do jigsaws in! Regardless, it bothers me to the point that I'm putting the house up for sale so if you fancy moving to North Yorkshire, feel free to let me know 😁

My daughter will hardly play outside anymore cos she's so scared of our neighbours
It's heartbreaking

In the opposite situation here... neighbours from hell have just moved out today, new ones moved in. Haven't met yet, so no idea if they are decent....😬

It’s a real risk OP. I see it so many times on here - people with awful neighbours and everyone urging them just to sell up and move - I always think, well what about the poor person who they sell it to?
Can you ask the vendors? You might be able to tell from their reaction if thy aren’t telling the truth.

@Gettingonabitnow

Go upstairs in the house you are looking at and try and look into their garden - look out for noisy fucking hot tubs 🙄, motorbikes, piles of rubbish etc. Wish we’d done that before we bought the one I’m currently sat in.

I was coming on to say exactly this. It stopped me buying a house next door to an amateur scrapyard a few years ago.

Also knock on neighbours once removed. They will know how your neighbours will be as they are also their neighbours

@GingerTum

Is every garden devoid of plants, trees and shrubs or is the photo deceptive?

Also if you look into the neighbours garden from the house you are buying you can often see if they have kids or dogs. I have a reactive dog so tried to look at houses with no evidence of another dog next door

I used to drive around the area, park up in the cul-de-sac for 5 or 10 mins at all different times of the day, on all different days.
Just incase anything jumped out at us

Im not sure you would get a true reflection of a person by randomly knocking on the door and asking, i would be really cagey and wierd if soneone came asking me questions,alternatively they could appear to be lovely as some have said on here and end up a nightmare, i think its just the risk you take

[quote RedHot22]@GingerTum

Is every garden devoid of plants, trees and shrubs or is the photo deceptive?[/quote]
It's a new development so we've not long since moved in. Our (mine and next door in the photo) gardens are quite sparse at the moment although some hedging I ordered in August is due to be delivered in the next few weeks. Unfortunately, it won't hide that though.

Let's just say , when considering a property to buy, we didn't just view the property. We asked the sellers "who are the neighbours".
From their replies, gauge if the sellers are sorry to leave old friends, or eager to escape). Then walk past the neighbouring properties IRL and on google maps .Sometimes, that shows two different stories.

We walked the neighbourhood by day; chatted over the fence to any neighbours doing a spot of gardening.

If it was beside a potential nuisance (restaurant, school, pub, sewage works) we paid a little visit at 3pm , on Friday/Saturday evening. We bought and read the local paper, searched their archives for local "issues" , checked out local planning disputes.

Check on rightmove, the sales prices in that area. How frequently the nearby properties have changed hands. IF sales are rare that tells me people like living in a stable area. If properties change hands frequently, it tells me a lot of buyers regretted a mistake,

Google maps streetview is usually a year or two out of date. The dates on it provide a hugely useful insight; has that scruffy looking place next door always been like that ? If it was smart two years ago why has it gone downhill?

Read the ofsted reports on the local schools (even if you have no kids). Look at the websites of the local medical practice and dentists,.

All the above are tiny clues to the local area; who lives there; what the local issues are.

Our neighbours are bonkers and have caused several households to move house from around them but you would never know by talking to them. The other neighbours would probably never say anything either due to loyalty to the selling neighbours (we’re a tight knit neighbourly group apart from the family who are problematic). I don’t know if you can ask the council for anti social behaviour reports?

Those of you who can't see the issue with my photo, I would say that the pic doesn't do it justice of quite how monstrous it is

I do actually think you are being a bit weird about it @GingerTum

On second inspection the shed isn't even your immediate neighbour! It's also just as obtrusive as what I assume is your neighbour's garage which stands next to it. You'd do quite well to add a few trees or taller shrubs to the corner of your garden to break up the view.

I wouldn't mind that shed at all. unless they are doing something antisocial in it.

Walk by/drive by. We almost bought a house until we casually walked by and could here heavy metal playing next door. (sounded like a nightclub)..their teenagers were in a band.
We asked the estate agent and the vendors response was "it doesn't bother us at all"

😂😂😂 we withdrew our offer. It would bother me and 99% of the population.