17th March 2014 - Neighbours

Our neighbours are moving tomorrow and it is all a bit worrying because of my past experience in Enfield. 

They had been looking to move to a village for a while now since their children had left home and they found a place around Xmas which they mentioned to us. My problem is not with that, although they are nice neighbours and it would have been nice if they were not moving, my problem is who is buying the property.

When we lived in Enfield, our lovely old neighbour Jean passed away, and her house was brought by someone who was not going to live there but rent it out. This can of course be Ok, we rented for a time and consider ourselves to be nice people to live next to, however it does mean that you can also quickly have different people renting who may be worse or better. There is of course the other problem that we encountered where we had a family move in who both did not work. The rent was paid by the council, they had no interest in looking after the house or garden and soon fences were broken down, the garden not kept well, noise from the occupants including loud music whilst I was trying to work next door, very strange people calling to the house at all hours and those same very strange people sitting and making noise in the back garden, during the day and night. It got to a situation where I did not want to use our garden as much. We went from a quiet neighbour who we could hardly tell if she was in or not, to a horrible situation.

I am envious of my Mum and Dad, who for many years have had the same people next door, who give them no problem and with whom they get on fine with. When I say many years, one side must have been there over 30 years and the other over 50 years.

So with that bad experience in mind I am wary of what might be arriving next door now. We are in a better position than the time in Enfield. Our property is detached, we have a nice 6 foot fence separating our garden, something we did not have in Enfield.

So why I am so worried. Well when we have been chatting to our neighbours about them moving it turns out that the buyer is a friend of a friend. That is Ok no problem there, but from conversations I picked up that they have not actually met them. If they have not met them and there is no estate agent involved the buyer must have purchased it without seeing it, possibly from photos only. So would you buy somewhere to live in without seeing it, sounds to me like it is being brought to rent out.

We were chatting to them the other day and I tried to broach the subject again. “have the new people got any kids for Kirsty to play with?” I asked. They both looked strangely at each other as if they were not sure what to say, eventually they replied that there children were in their 20’s.

Then over the last weekend they started moving all the garden stuff, it turns out the place they are buying is vacant and the owner said it would be OK to move garden stuff in before completion. Completion day is 18^th March, tomorrow as I write this. However although they are moving out tomorrow into their new place, they still have the keys on their old home next door to us for a few more days. That seems strange, to complete on a Purchase and I assume on the sale and the new owners not taking possession immediately. Again to me that sounds like the new owners are not moving from their current location and are buying the house to rent.

Whenever we have spoken to them, it has been a bit cagey about the new buyers. I find it strange, I would never have a problem with them if they have sold to bad people, criminals or people who were going to let it out. I know when I was selling I would never have considered who was buying mine and what my old neighbours would be inheriting, at the end of the day you just want to sell and move, so why not just say who is buying it, and why be cagey about it.

I love the peace and quiet here, I really hope the people who live next door, whether it be the new owners or tenants, are nice and we get on with them and they are as quiet as our previous ones. It is a worry but something out of my control so we just have to wait and see.