Uh oh...trouble in paradise. I popped in to see the neighbors this weekend, which we do fairly regularly and it's all been very friendly for the last few years, that is until now.
They are an elderly couple of snowbirds who winter in Florida and spend the summer here. Unfortunately, her health is failing and she's increasingly inactive. He is doing all the work now, which would be hard in this heat for a man half his age. Friends and a grandaughter that I used to see visiting don't seem to be around as much. Old age is hell for both of them, she's in pain and I'm not unsympathetic, but generally, they are very negative people. You guessed it. Now it's our turn to be on the receiving end of their complaining.
Here's a non-exhaustive list of their requirements. They want no more weekly rentals, only year round or seasonal because they say we don't really know who we are letting into our house and they are the ones who have to live next to them, not us. They want us to stop renting to families with children, because at their age, they find even the sound of happy children playing very annoying. They want us to remove the badminton/volleyball net and not provide any other outdoor games. They want us to stop our guests leaving the outdoor house lights on at night, especially the motion detectors on the driveway. They think that four cars on our driveway is too many coming and going all the time, and that 2 or 3 is the most needed, otherwise the house must be overcrowded...I can go on, but it just gets even sillier.
They had an empty house for a neighbor for far too many years before we moved in, but since we're not moving out again anytime soon, perhaps I would do better to stop delivering bucket loads of sympathy and my home made pasta sauce, and instead, ignore these poops and plant a few more trees on the boundary line to block out their view completely.
Anyone else have experience of this kind of situation, or suggestions?
Difficult neighbors
Difficult neighbors
Waves from America
-
Alan Knighting
- Posts: 4120
- Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 7:26 am
- Location: Monflanquin, Lot-et-Garonne, France
Joanna,
That is really sad! How can people become so intolerant?
I am approaching 70 (Is it true? I find it very hard to believe) and some might say I am a "Grumpy Old Man" (rude sods!) but I hope I never become some introverted as your neighbours. Please shoot me if I do.
Surely the problem is a figment of their imagination. I don't think there is anything you could/should do apart from planting the additional trees.
Regards
Alan
That is really sad! How can people become so intolerant?
I am approaching 70 (Is it true? I find it very hard to believe) and some might say I am a "Grumpy Old Man" (rude sods!) but I hope I never become some introverted as your neighbours. Please shoot me if I do.
Surely the problem is a figment of their imagination. I don't think there is anything you could/should do apart from planting the additional trees.
Regards
Alan
I think you are going to have totake a firm line from the start. I speak from bitter experience as I always continue trying to accommodate people for too long ( I am changing honest!) and hubby is right - they actually interpret this ongoing consideration for their point of view as an admission of their being right and you being wrong. They would have these problems even if the property wasn't used by holiday makers. Be polite but firm.perhaps I would do better to stop delivering bucket loads of sympathy and my home made pasta sauce, and instead, ignore these poops and plant a few more trees on the boundary line to block out their view completely.
Go for the trees.
Point out that any problems they have only last a few days/weeks - how much better this is than to have noisy neighbours all year around! (And you KNOW that not all of your visitors are noisy.) How much safer they are to have an occupied house next door!
They won't notice nearly as much if they can't see anything. Unfortunately, they will be losing their hearing, so the noise issue will become less and less important.
Is there any legal basis to their complaints(i.e. could they take this further)?
Point out that any problems they have only last a few days/weeks - how much better this is than to have noisy neighbours all year around! (And you KNOW that not all of your visitors are noisy.) How much safer they are to have an occupied house next door!
They won't notice nearly as much if they can't see anything. Unfortunately, they will be losing their hearing, so the noise issue will become less and less important.
Is there any legal basis to their complaints(i.e. could they take this further)?
Best,
Alexia.
Alexia.
Trees !!! Big furry evergreen trees ...
Great fences make for great neighbours and even greater trees make for even better neighbours.
As I let a number of properties and have some experience with difficult naeighbours I can tell you once a neighbour starts to sound like this its time to cut off communications and ignore them. They will only annoy you into submission if you even engage their conversation.
You have as much right to your property as they have to their own. Suggest that they invest in some island property
Great fences make for great neighbours and even greater trees make for even better neighbours.
As I let a number of properties and have some experience with difficult naeighbours I can tell you once a neighbour starts to sound like this its time to cut off communications and ignore them. They will only annoy you into submission if you even engage their conversation.
You have as much right to your property as they have to their own. Suggest that they invest in some island property
Hmm... tricky one.
To be honest I would really rather live somewhere with no neighbours within at least 500 metres, so I can sympathise with their wants! But, until the next house move....
But, if people choose a house that is near other houses you suffer the inevitable. Providing you are not causing an unfair nuisance and are not breaking any rules then there is nothing they can do apart from moan. But at their age you are probably providing them with some sort of fulfilment in their lives: old people are sometimes only happy when they are moaning!!!
The tree planting option could be suggested to them as a way you could solve the problem, but say that you didn't think that they would want to lose their view. This way you appear to be offering a choice. Not necessarily any choice they want, but a choice nonetheless. "So its quieter with no view, or noisy with the view....come on, make your mind up! More pasta sauce?"
I don't think you should make any real concessions. Perhaps just try to calm any excessive noise from guests, and ask them to be considerate of noise late at night, when it could be turned into a problem worth someone elses attention.
Meanwhile its just 'tea and sympathy', or in your case home made pasta sauce and sympathy. Do you know if the taste of those "Quiet Life" tablets show through a strongly flavoured pasta sauce?
To be honest I would really rather live somewhere with no neighbours within at least 500 metres, so I can sympathise with their wants! But, until the next house move....
But, if people choose a house that is near other houses you suffer the inevitable. Providing you are not causing an unfair nuisance and are not breaking any rules then there is nothing they can do apart from moan. But at their age you are probably providing them with some sort of fulfilment in their lives: old people are sometimes only happy when they are moaning!!!
The tree planting option could be suggested to them as a way you could solve the problem, but say that you didn't think that they would want to lose their view. This way you appear to be offering a choice. Not necessarily any choice they want, but a choice nonetheless. "So its quieter with no view, or noisy with the view....come on, make your mind up! More pasta sauce?"
I don't think you should make any real concessions. Perhaps just try to calm any excessive noise from guests, and ask them to be considerate of noise late at night, when it could be turned into a problem worth someone elses attention.
Meanwhile its just 'tea and sympathy', or in your case home made pasta sauce and sympathy. Do you know if the taste of those "Quiet Life" tablets show through a strongly flavoured pasta sauce?
Oh Joanna..it sounds as though your neighbours are clones of ours!!!
Our neighbours are exactly the same! They are a retired couple from the UK and have lived in their villa for 10 years. Our gardener (who has been with us and the previous owners says they have always moaned about everything and anything!)
Most of our guests are families and responsible parties of single men/women (we do not rent to anyone under the age of 21).
Most people come to Spain for the alfresco way of life..i.e. sitting out by the pool in the evening eating, playing cards, swimming, chatting. Since we've been renting our villa we've had no end of complaints about guests sitting outside in the evening chatting, or the noise of children in the swimming pool!
We've explained to them that this is Spain and that even the Spanish eat and socialise outdoors (and their very lucky we do not have Spanish guests as yet!)
Some of our guests have had the 'third degree' from them too! They've been bombarded with questions..i.e. how many people in your group?..How many children?....etc....They've even started to tell our guests that there is a law in Spain where people are not allowed in the pool after 11pm! Our neighbours have double glazing and A/C..but they leave their windows open at night (I think because their nosey)..and then complain about noise.
We have an enclosed garden with bushes and two rubber tree plants...they've now taken to throwing dead leaves that have fallen into their garden over into ours! A couple of guests have commented on this and we were really embarrased about their behaviour!
We do have a notice inside the villa stating that our villa is situated in a residential area ..and our guests are responsible people that have taken into account of the location, but we feel that our neighbours are just 'moaners & whingers' and really should be back in England and definitely not be living in Spain!
Our neighbours are exactly the same! They are a retired couple from the UK and have lived in their villa for 10 years. Our gardener (who has been with us and the previous owners says they have always moaned about everything and anything!)
Most of our guests are families and responsible parties of single men/women (we do not rent to anyone under the age of 21).
Most people come to Spain for the alfresco way of life..i.e. sitting out by the pool in the evening eating, playing cards, swimming, chatting. Since we've been renting our villa we've had no end of complaints about guests sitting outside in the evening chatting, or the noise of children in the swimming pool!
We've explained to them that this is Spain and that even the Spanish eat and socialise outdoors (and their very lucky we do not have Spanish guests as yet!)
Some of our guests have had the 'third degree' from them too! They've been bombarded with questions..i.e. how many people in your group?..How many children?....etc....They've even started to tell our guests that there is a law in Spain where people are not allowed in the pool after 11pm! Our neighbours have double glazing and A/C..but they leave their windows open at night (I think because their nosey)..and then complain about noise.
We have an enclosed garden with bushes and two rubber tree plants...they've now taken to throwing dead leaves that have fallen into their garden over into ours! A couple of guests have commented on this and we were really embarrased about their behaviour!
We do have a notice inside the villa stating that our villa is situated in a residential area ..and our guests are responsible people that have taken into account of the location, but we feel that our neighbours are just 'moaners & whingers' and really should be back in England and definitely not be living in Spain!
Yes, I do very much like the tree idea...
...except, well, I'm not sure how to say this nicely: by the time the trees have grown to a point where they can really block out everything, they may not be your neighbors anymore.
I fully agree with others who said that if you give them any reason to think they can make you change the way you run your house, their demands will only get worse.
There is a time to be accomodating and a time to draw a line in the sand, and I think this is the latter! They may feel that their age and experience and health gives them the right to try and interfere with your means of income, but they need to be set straight. In as friendly a way as possible without giving ground.
Just my two cents!
Good luck with this one.
...except, well, I'm not sure how to say this nicely: by the time the trees have grown to a point where they can really block out everything, they may not be your neighbors anymore.
I fully agree with others who said that if you give them any reason to think they can make you change the way you run your house, their demands will only get worse.
There is a time to be accomodating and a time to draw a line in the sand, and I think this is the latter! They may feel that their age and experience and health gives them the right to try and interfere with your means of income, but they need to be set straight. In as friendly a way as possible without giving ground.
Just my two cents!
Good luck with this one.Brooke
I'd like to avoid the situation deteriorating to the extent Crystal is suffering - that's just awful that neighbors harrass guests and throw rubbish onto your property. So sorry Crystal. I'll make a special batch of my pasta sauce for you to give them with that new secret ingredient for a quiet life.......
Seriously, I see more trees in our future. As luck would have it, we just happen to have some pretty mature conifers standing around on a vacant lot that will do the job nicely at 12ft-16 ft tall, but even the 7ft ones would be a useful barrier. Hubby thinks we can move them using the backhoe to dig them out, then take them over to the beach house on a trailer and line them up on that side of the property. This could be a Keystone comedy act, but will have to wait until October, not something we can fit into a changeover day.
Perhaps it's all getting too much for the grumps. Maybe they are looking for reasons not to come back to New York next summer and it's easier to blame us. He had a lot of expense recently, largely of his own making I might add. The Town Trustees gave him a real battle over beach erosion which he partially caused by pulling out shoreline vegetation, so they made him put in a really expensive bulkhead and new vegetation to shore it up. We have no erosion at all because we didn't mess with the shoreline. On the contrary, sand from his beach is shifting onto ours, so ours is getting bigger while his has been reducing and I'm really beginning to feel sorry for him again while writing this! He just got over that when the water authority dug up his well line and told him he had to use Town Water instead, for which he now gets bills. Maybe the final straw was the roof repairs I saw going on last week. Obviously it's now raining in on him. Add to that a sick wife and it's hardly surprising he's in a permanent bad mood really even with the perfect neighbors!
Anyway, I agree completely that too much sympathy is enabling these people to complain and reinforcing what they are saying. When I think back, I realise it's been building for a while. The situation calls for a change of strategy on my part - less contact with them, but always polite. Less sympathy and more firmness.
Of course we can't have only perfect guests, but I cannot imagine a more considerate family than the one that just left that were also the subject of a complaint about the children. It was their third stay with us and the head of the family is a Christian Brother who brings four generations of his family together every year for a family reunion. The irony is that while the grumps were inside their house with the windows closed and AC on all week, not hearing a thing, but complaining regardless, our folks were probably praying for them all week!
We do exercise a quiet time policy in consideration of the neighbors after 10pm, but there is actually no way for me to enforce it as there is no noise ordinance in this Town. More interesting, the grumps couldn't recall one specific instance of excessive noise except for a crying baby one week, and I'm not sure, but it could have been daytime. That was an 8 week old baby who came into this world needing heart and lung surgery unfortunately. Maybe he did cry more than normal, I don't know, but would they rather the family cancelled and lost their holiday completely? They had a wonderful week. Anyway, I'm going to stop thinking about what I can do to keep everyone happy all the time, and focus instead on transplanting those trees.
Alan, you are at least 50 years younger than these two, and strike me as a person with a very positive attitude to life, not at all the poster child for how not to grow old!
I'll stop rambling now - (another sign of getting older?) thanks for all the very helpful suggestions, tea and sympathy. Worst case scenario, I'll just kill them with pasta sauce and bury in the garden....
Seriously, I see more trees in our future. As luck would have it, we just happen to have some pretty mature conifers standing around on a vacant lot that will do the job nicely at 12ft-16 ft tall, but even the 7ft ones would be a useful barrier. Hubby thinks we can move them using the backhoe to dig them out, then take them over to the beach house on a trailer and line them up on that side of the property. This could be a Keystone comedy act, but will have to wait until October, not something we can fit into a changeover day.
Perhaps it's all getting too much for the grumps. Maybe they are looking for reasons not to come back to New York next summer and it's easier to blame us. He had a lot of expense recently, largely of his own making I might add. The Town Trustees gave him a real battle over beach erosion which he partially caused by pulling out shoreline vegetation, so they made him put in a really expensive bulkhead and new vegetation to shore it up. We have no erosion at all because we didn't mess with the shoreline. On the contrary, sand from his beach is shifting onto ours, so ours is getting bigger while his has been reducing and I'm really beginning to feel sorry for him again while writing this! He just got over that when the water authority dug up his well line and told him he had to use Town Water instead, for which he now gets bills. Maybe the final straw was the roof repairs I saw going on last week. Obviously it's now raining in on him. Add to that a sick wife and it's hardly surprising he's in a permanent bad mood really even with the perfect neighbors!
Anyway, I agree completely that too much sympathy is enabling these people to complain and reinforcing what they are saying. When I think back, I realise it's been building for a while. The situation calls for a change of strategy on my part - less contact with them, but always polite. Less sympathy and more firmness.
Of course we can't have only perfect guests, but I cannot imagine a more considerate family than the one that just left that were also the subject of a complaint about the children. It was their third stay with us and the head of the family is a Christian Brother who brings four generations of his family together every year for a family reunion. The irony is that while the grumps were inside their house with the windows closed and AC on all week, not hearing a thing, but complaining regardless, our folks were probably praying for them all week!
We do exercise a quiet time policy in consideration of the neighbors after 10pm, but there is actually no way for me to enforce it as there is no noise ordinance in this Town. More interesting, the grumps couldn't recall one specific instance of excessive noise except for a crying baby one week, and I'm not sure, but it could have been daytime. That was an 8 week old baby who came into this world needing heart and lung surgery unfortunately. Maybe he did cry more than normal, I don't know, but would they rather the family cancelled and lost their holiday completely? They had a wonderful week. Anyway, I'm going to stop thinking about what I can do to keep everyone happy all the time, and focus instead on transplanting those trees.
Alan, you are at least 50 years younger than these two, and strike me as a person with a very positive attitude to life, not at all the poster child for how not to grow old!
I'll stop rambling now - (another sign of getting older?) thanks for all the very helpful suggestions, tea and sympathy. Worst case scenario, I'll just kill them with pasta sauce and bury in the garden....
Waves from America
-
Alan Knighting
- Posts: 4120
- Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 7:26 am
- Location: Monflanquin, Lot-et-Garonne, France
Joanna,
A couple of years ago my neighbours tried to invent a boundary dispute. They failed completely because, no matter how they tried to inflame and escalate the situation, I refused to respond. I did nothing - I completed ignored their protestations and the situation went away. They now realise that they tried to take a step too far.
In your particular situation, I think I would put in the extra screening of trees. Apart from them I think I would continue with the relationship with the neighbours as though nothing had happened. If you give them no ammunition, they can't shoot at you.
Regards
Alan
Thank you for that. It really all comes down to attitudes and I'm not sure age has much to do with it. Some people just love interfering in what others are doing.Alan, you are at least 50 years younger than these two, and strike me as a person with a very positive attitude to life, not at all the poster child for how not to grow old!
A couple of years ago my neighbours tried to invent a boundary dispute. They failed completely because, no matter how they tried to inflame and escalate the situation, I refused to respond. I did nothing - I completed ignored their protestations and the situation went away. They now realise that they tried to take a step too far.
In your particular situation, I think I would put in the extra screening of trees. Apart from them I think I would continue with the relationship with the neighbours as though nothing had happened. If you give them no ammunition, they can't shoot at you.
Regards
Alan