What the heck is this guy doing next door?

[MissMarplesCat]

We live in a very small village in a row a 4 cottages. The end terrace is joined to us, and had previously housed an old lady for many years, who then went into care. The house stood empty for a few years then put up for sale. It seems that it was in a bad state of repair (very dated), so went on to auction.
A man purchased it last January and when we got chatting he said he hadn't viewed it prior to bidding and was horrified at the amount of work he'd have to do.
We expected contract work to begin, but he only had one guy, this guy is not a professional in any sense of the word, and to date has damaged our roof (dealt with), fitted all of the windows incorrectly, badly plastered some walls, then hacked it all off and put boards up instead (!), and caused plaster work in our hallway to crumble.

We kept things as friendly as possible, but since last January he has been there most weekdays with his helper chap and they have not stopped smashing at the walls in all of that time. Around 5 skips of bricks have been completed so far, although no interior walls have been removed! Since we can hear a pin drop in there now, it seems like they have removed bricks from the party wall.

As of early Feb this year they are coming 7 days per week. I presume the helper is family or a friend and getting some cash for his trouble.

There's no getting your head around this. The man is very shy and non communicative and looks desperate to get it ready for his small family. What concerns us is that a gas boiler has been delivered from a car (not a plumber van) and left in there. DP overheard him discussing fitting it with an older man who warned hm he wanted nothing to do with it. Make of that what you will.

The guy seems to be struggling financially and very desperate, and whilst friendly, he has already told us a few lies.

Since a few weeks back they have been coming every day even sunday, horrific noise from early until after 5pm. Through last year they even did Easter sunday, and all of the bank holidays, which i thought was illegal for building/construction?
He tried to do Xmas even and Xmas day until DP told he would call the police.

Between October and January this guy was hammering at the front bedroom window frame daily to try to refit it, to no avail. DP works from home so it's sheer hell. It is taking him quadruple the time to do anything because he won't hire professionals. It looks like a bomb site.

Anything we can do here? We have been passed on to planning as council told us building regs no longer have a number. God knows what that means. We've been very tolerant since we knew he was struggling, but since he has already damaged our property and had to repair it, we are getting very concerned and fed up. We doubt anything in there is legit, and he told us when he first bought it that he hadn't had it surveyed, etc.
We think the helper is just a cash in hand guy, with little to no knowledge of what he is doing, and we are very tired of the 7 days a week noise at this point. We have tried to talk, and whilst he is polite, he just lies to us about reducing the days and carries on.

Sorry this is long! Any advice welcome.

Not sure the rules apply if you are doing it yourself, builders have to abide by them. But most neighbours don't do noisy work at antisocial hours anyway. Party wall and building regs I would be looking into, party wall agreement particularly if they have already done damage and you think they have removed bricks from the party wall. Could you ask to go in and look at what he is doing (or done), say you are concerned or just interested.

Thanks.

We have had the talk and are just ready to leave. OH is feeling similarly and we have decided to use what energy we do have to focus on getting out. There are other, growing issues around here, and I don't want to be facing that in 5 yrs time, too.
I am a fighter at heart, but I am just done with this. It isn't good for me at all.

I will pop back if anything interesting happens, such as him blowing himself up fitting his gas boiler, but I do think at this point it will be something we haven't instigated if it does.

Thanks for returning and sticking by me throughout this pointless nightmare, I appreciate it it so very much.

him blowing himself up fitting his gas boiler,

That's the worry OP. (One of them!). If it's located on the party wall, the explosion would take your house down with it.

I hope you can find a way out. Use the thread how you like, it's your thread, if you want to come on and bitch about having a hard day that's fine, don't feel that you can't just because it isn't in the Chat section.

Don't forget you could always put your house into an auction too. Or you could hold an open house viewing on a weekend if that's when the neighbours don't do work. Someone will want it, either because it's cheap, because they're a builder and can fix any problems or because they're planning to rent it out. Or even because they're an antisocial noisy fucker who'd love neighbours that don't complain! Or someone dodgy who'd like neighbours that ask no questions.

And there will be somewhere in the country (or abroad?) you can go, even if it's another town, a smaller property, a rental for 6mths while you get something sorted out etc. If you brainstorm ideas as if there weren't any barriers, you'll come up with something. Sometimes the most ridiculous idea will turn out to be the one that, on closer inspection, has the least barriers, the barriers most easily overcome or even no barriers at all. Life has thrown you a curve ball but that doesn't mean it can't work out ok in the end.

Just awful, shame The Daily Mail don't pick something like this up to print rather than exploiting people's relationship misery

Very sad it's come to this.

Get an EA who does viewings for you. If you show people round, it'll be impossible to keep the trauma from your voice.

So terribly sorry, op. Hope you can move away asap. It’s truly criminal, what is happening, and the neglect of infra structure that allows this to go on. I do hope you find somewhere peaceful to live.

Not sure. Will be frank and honest, we are going to take a huge hit and have been preparing for that for some time. We have good savings, but they will likely dwindle to nothing.

I also lost my small company 5 years ago, after 30 years of work, so have a nose for disaster management. I had even promised myself that if OH wasn't interested in leaving, I would be happy to rent. And....we may do so, together.

Sometimes life throws you a 'shit ball', something a tad more complicated than a curve .

I will survive, one way or another, but we do, absolutely, need to get out of here.