Neighbours from Hell

[Andy]

Over the road from my house live a couple where the man of the house is obsessed with DIY, mostly involving power tools.

Literally every day since they moved in around 2 years ago, he has been grinding, hammering, sawing etc. I'm talking 7 days a week and now it stretches into the evenings.

The last month of summer evenings when most people chill out in the Garden having a drink and having a barbecue, this guy was using a heavy duty hammer drill to break up his concrete pathway followed by cutting blocks with a diamond tipped cutting disc optimised for high-pitched screeching noises. I suggested he used a block splitter which is quick and easy, but no he spent days grinding away at the blocks with the noise and dust.

Now their house is up for sale since it seems like all the improvements are done. But even now he is digging up the garden to improve the edge! I don't know wether to laugh or cry I have noticed something he missed  I'm going to have to point it out since it may delay the sale of the property. The soffits (boards under the roof look neglected) and they need to be repainted. I guess repainting wouldn't be an option. The whole lot would have to be ripped out and replaced. 

I have too many stories like this to tell about problem neighbours that I could write a book! How about trying to sell a house when the next door's dog is mental and goes crazy anytime someone goes near! This dog lost me £20,000 on a property because it put off buyers.  The house took around a year to sell.

[12noon]

It makes you wonder what they can be doing, drilling all week. Our next door neighbour was at it for about two weeks solid. His house must have been full of holes by the time he was finished.

At the moment the same next door neighbour is making silver jewelry in his back garden. The thing is that he's doing it on the wall at the side of my back door. The next time i catch him, i'm going to tell him to move it away from my house. I shouldn't have to put up with it.

[SensoVision]

It makes you wonder what they can be doing, drilling all week.

exactly... our neighbours from the upper flat keep on mastering something... especially in the morning when you'd like to sleep a hour more or on holidays when you try to relax I wonder how much could be done in two rooms flat and how long would it take(as they seems to do renovation of their flat for more than year now...).
Glad that I don't have to worry about property price, as you, Andy, otherwise it would drop very rapidly ;P

[greg]

makes some of my neighbors sound nice. The worst I ever had was a couple of guys next door at my old apartment that would throw parties every night just about and they usually ended up in the parking lot passed out next to my car the next morning. That and they had a dart board hung on the wall that was connected to my living room, and decided to play darts all day long. So you would constantly hear this banging going on behind your head while you tried to watch tv

[JustAMom]

It makes you wonder what they can be doing, drilling all week.

Things like this always make me worry 

We're going to convert our basement in August from a dark, dismal, dungeon into a family room, extra bedroom and add a bath. To do it, they need to drill down 1 foot into the concrete because the ceiling is low.

Maybe I should send all of my neighbors gift baskets now?

[SensoVision]

Welcome to forums JustAMom! hope you'll like to be here

Maybe I should send all of my neighbors gift baskets now?

Hmm, if our neighbours do this I think everyone would have more understanding to them
Anyway I think that if you just talk with them and tell about ongoing repairs they would appreciate as well, at least I would(if this going to cause a lot of noise, maybe I just plan may day so I would go to nature or something).
Wish you luck in improving your flat!

[JustAMom]

Thanks for the welcome and the wishes. It's scary. It's an old 1921 beach bungalow that hasn't been updated since about 1960-something. Debt and dust is in the forecast for this summer !!

[Queen Bee]

I have to admit that my neighbors are all very quiet and lead somewhat private lives... Our neighbor across the street works on his cars a lot, but I never notice any noise. Then there's the ocassional holiday party but even that is not much of anything to talk about.

[SensoVision]

It's an old 1921 beach bungalow that hasn't been updated since about 1960-something. Debt and dust is in the forecast for this summer !!

what about making it in retro style, wouldn't it be easier? or it's looking hostile to you?

I have to admit that my neighbors are all very quiet and lead somewhat private lives... Our neighbor across the street works on his cars a lot, but I never notice any noise. Then there's the ocassional holiday party but even that is not much of anything to talk about.

you're lucky, Rachel, maybe we should move somwhere close to you?

[JustAMom]

what about making it in retro style, wouldn't it be easier? or it's looking hostile to you?

Parts of the bathroom we'll be making retro. It still has very old 1930's light fixtures in the bathroom above the sink and on the ceiling that we'll be fixing up a bit. What we are doing though is adding two more bedrooms and another bathroom. We have a blended family here and two of my husbands kids are moving in... well, one already has moved in, the other will be moving in end of summer.

[carpmad]

they sound like a nightmare andy
mine arent too bad apart from they have 4 kids and 2 trampolines so all i hear is boing boing boing all day 

[12noon]

My neighbour nightmare is over. The woman next door kicked my nightmare neighbour out of the house and he's not been back all week.

[rosie]

I swear my neighbors pee in my flower box! From their property side 2 feet of my flower box is dead meat all the time!

[Andy]

I have some breakthrough news! The neighbour's house is now sold!!! So all they can do now is stand outside all night watering the grass to drain the reservoirs of all the precious water in the summer heat and polishing the "successfully sold" sign. Presumeably, there are ways to unsuccessfully sell your home these days 

In winter they used to get up really early to rev the engine of the car to demist the windscreen. I guess it costs less to replace an engine that is revved hard at freezing temperatures than invest in a can of de-icer 

On a lighter note we had a military helicopter go over our house at low altitude today to the local school. Given the happenings  in London it made me wonder what was going on. These things make alot of noise and wind. I guess they were giving the young kids a good example of how well protected we are and ideas for them of a career in the forces to protect our pleasant lands.

[seth321]

Here's a practical solution, send them all YOUR junk mail and insist on playing classical music at all hours. Bach is your Black and Decker