Arghh how rude!

zippygeorgeandben

Hi all,

I've just done my first ever drive by today (yey I hear you say!) and made a list of the roads I liked the look of and the areas which I'm not so keen on where it's all council houses etc (steer clear of them!). I wrote down some houses which were for sale and because i'm fairly well researched on the area thanks to rightmove and knowing the place, I feel I know which area I want to live in of this town.

I'm sorry to hear that some people are disrespectful of your house that they are thinking of buying (kicking the bathroom door open?! !!!!!!?!)

As a FTB, i'm a bit more respectful of that so if you happen to open the door to my partner and I, we'll promise to be pleasant! For what it's worth, it wouldn't put me off if the house was a little bit cluttered, (personally I'm not a fan of homes where EVERYTHING is spotless) if you can't see past the clutter then more fool the prospective buyer(s)

Ben

lisa2905

I have just done the moving house nightmare !!! NEVER AGAIN !!! Anyway as said before its a buyers market so YOU have to make everything as perfect as possible to attract viewers/buyers if that means lobbing down the weeds and long grass in next doors garden then do it. I know you feel 'why should I do their garden' but it might just make the difference of someone coming to view. You gotta get people through the door, and first impressions/drive pasts count so much so its all got to lok soooooooo good out there.

Good luck !!

mishmash

Hi All

Well lots to respond to.

I know it is thier garden and they can do what they like with it. However it is not just a little untidy. The weeds are higher than the windows (downstairs) so can easily be seen. Neighbours complain because it looks reaaly bad and the very elderly couple on the other side have a lovely garden which they spend hours keeping nice, but the weeds come through.

I have tried being nice (honest) about a year ago, they had rubbish and a mattress piled up in thier back garden and this started to attract rats (there are fields at the back of us with a stream). They had just had the baby then, after the rubbish being there for a while, I told them I was going to the tip and asked if they would like me to take their rubbish. They said yes and told me just to go in thier back garden when I was going. So they sat in their house while I lumped their rubbish through their garden and into my car and they never offered to even help with that or said thanks.

A few weeks later for some unknown reason they stole my wheelie bin, Mine was a new one with my number on, they took it and changed the number to theirs?

Then they had some trees removed from their front garden (which kept the mess from view) some bloke turned up with a truck and pulled them all out. We have a shared pathway and all the path was pulled up and the fencewhich is thiers was broken and left in my garden. I offered to pay half to a new fence and the path put straight, they said they would let me know. Well after a year of it being like that with no change my other half sorted the path and put a new fence up, same size but nicer than the old one. When he was doing this she came out and said she had wanted us to build a wall!!!

Recently she bought a swing for her little one and asked my OH if he could help putting it up, he said he would she then said the garden needs doing first so would he do that and then put the swing up as her and OH 'can't be bothered'.

So I draw the line, my OH is not living with me yet, we have 2 houses to sell to buy 1. together we have 6 children, 4 live with me and we work full time, They have a new car, the big tv, sky dish and all that so are not really struggling, maybe they are I don't know. I don't understand why they bought a house with 2 large gardens if they don't like gardening. But I am struggling with the thought of spending my time doing thier garden. Yet I know that I may need to if I want to sell.

The EA's feedback was not specific to them, maybe I jumped to conclusions. If I do get any specific feed back I will have to swallow my pride I suppose.

Thanks all.

Mish

emay

OMG, you sound like you live the other side of a work colleague's neighbours. She resorted to buying them gardening tools as a wedding pressi (1 year later and I think they're still unused!)

pickledpink

I can understand people being VERY put off by your neighbour's garden! Besides being an eyesore which NO-ONE wants to live next door to - prospective buyers could make all sorts of assumptions about your neighbours! They may think they're sink-estate type people, drug addicts, drop-outs......the list is endless.

On the other hand they may think the neighbour is just a mad eccentric old woman - which would be better up to a point - but mad eccentrics often have about 36 cats - none of whom bother to catch the mice and rats they invariably have living with them too.

Do you have a link to your property? Can you see next-door's garden in the photo?

Out of curiosity, were the properties once owned by the council? You mentioned your neighbour owning it and it sounded as though it could have belonged to the council.

If they were once council owned that could put people off if they think a few stray properties are still being rented from the council. I know it's assumptions again, but many people are put off by that.

mishmash

Hiya

You Can't see their garden from my pics, though you can as soon as you drive down the street.

The 4 properties are ex la, but were all bought years back. My neighbours bought theirs about 5 years ago from a couple who had bought it years ago. Theirs used to be the nicest house it was always lovely. My neighbours on the other side are also a young couple with 1 child their house is lovely and then there are the old couple, they spend all their time in the garden.

The other houses are not LA ones, they are smaller and don't have the size of garden and don't back onto the fields.

Other than being a bit wierd (bin stealing and gardening shy) they are not really a problem, no noise or parties but thier property does give the impression of neglect. I will just have to see how it goes.

Mish

guyb99

We always try to be out when there is a viewing because I hate to think of people being sniffy in the house!

Our neighbours garden is getting a bit overgrown now - it is empty - and while we've got a guy who does our garden, I'm thinking of popping him an extra tenner to nip over the fence and do theirs for viewings.

brightonman123

would hope any seller would have made an effort, ahead of a viewing.. just think its ready for the next people..

and if you hadnt done a clean up, and they did turn up.. would they have made an offer?

...would it be good/bad thing to get EA's to request a viewing deposit (say £10 - £20), to weed out the time wasters?
- refundable if you turn up -on time! - with double that back, or stamp duty etc paid, if you actually buy the place..

oldMcDonald

brightonman123 wrote: »

...would it be good/bad thing to get EA's to request a viewing deposit (say £10 - £20), to weed out the time wasters?
- refundable if you turn up -on time! - with double that back, or stamp duty etc paid, if you actually buy the place..

If an EA asked me to put down 10 - 20 quid (or even a penny) in order to view a property - promising it back to me if I turned up on time - I would tell them where to go and visit the EA up the road from them instead.

With all due respect to the OP, the property sounds like one of very many for sale in a buyers market, I can't imagine why anyone would want to put down a sum of money in order to view it, even if it were returnable.

zippygeorgeandben

Further to my previous post about not bothered about the clutter in a house, thinking about it I would have an issue with the garden if it wasn't well maintained as the last thing I'd want to do is have to sort that out...

Just thought I'd let you know i'd altered my view a little bit!!