Backing onto a park - a good thing??

[AnybodyHomeMcFly]

We have seen dilapidated but good sized house which we are v interested in (having missed out on similar but done up version further down the street).

It backs onto a park and we are trying to gauge the pros and cons of this. Garden is 45 feet and one of the park's paths runs about 3 feet away from that.

So far we think:

PROS
Not overlooked
Quiet when the park is quiet
Lots of trees and wildlife around
When our DS is older he can hop over the fence

CONS
Noisy when park is noisy (there is playpark v close to end of garden)
Burglary risk
My colleague says parks are havens for pervs (I think that's just his filthy mind)
But I am worried about teens drinking etc. Park is shut at night but they prob do. I don't actually know this tho.

What do y'all think?

thanks

Check it out at various times - evening/late night/weekends etc. You are right to be wary... sadly many parks are a hanging out place for local teens and it could really affect your quality of life.

even tho it's "shut" at night?

We live overlooking a park and are moving, we enjoyed it for the first couple of years, but dh and I now crave peace, quiet and privacy, plus I want to be able to chose when and who my dc's play with. The other issue is boundaries - some children don't know where the park ends and your house begins
Sorry to present only the negative side - it also depends on your attitude, if you are a very community outgoing person then it may be your dream home. I did use to be, but it only takes a couple of 'difficult' children to mess things up.

We back onto a park, and its great - its part of why we bought the place. Kids are just getting to the stage when they can go there by themselves but still be supervised (sort of!). Park has a multigames area which is floodlit til 9pm, it has cctv cameras etc. Have not had any problems, esp since the cameras were installed. It can be a bit noisy, but it really doesn't bother us.

But I accept that it very much depends on where it is, who uses the park, what the neighbourhood is like etc. Agree you should go there at different times to see for yourself what its like, especially those balmy summer evenings.

Thanks all. We have checked it out a bit more now and got the views of people nearby and the consensus is it seems fine - phew!

Message withdrawn

Agree that it depends on things like where it is, who uses it etc and that you need to check it out very throughly. We bought a house that didn't back onto a park but was not many metres from the entrance and moved from outside the area. Shortly after we moved in I found out that a man had been murdered in the toilets a few months previously and that there was a big drugs issue with it.

Definately depends on park but imho most parks are a haven for teenagers whether they shut at night or not. In fact if they shut than even better for underage drinking teens who dont want to be seen by passing people.

My friend recently got put off a beautiful house backing onto the local park. It had a gorgeous 125 ft garden and high 12 ft brick wall BUT a lady who had sold her similiar property a year before a few doors away told her she was selling as even with the high wall and long garden, the noise from teenagers in the evenings was horrible and she was sick of hearing smashing of bottles, foul langauge and general drunken screaming. Noise carries and this lady told her she didn't even like having her french doors open some evenings