Advised that new neighbour is difficult

PasturesNew

sofarbehind wrote: »

The owner is a developer who has recently flipped the place so they have never lived there. Prior to that it was rented out so how much reassurance this will give me I don't know.

Right... Plan B. You could ask them for an "AirB&B style" short let of, say, a weekend, or a week.... live in it to satisfy yourself.

Bizarre, yes; unusual, yes. But, with the history of the property it's not impossible to get approval to do that. Unorthodox, so expect a knock back .... but if you go in with the right tone of voice (still keen, just checking....) then you might just be grated the "try before you buy" opportunity.

You can even offer to pay, with it being £0 if you still proceed.

If it's empty, you only need a folding chair, blow up bed, kettle and a book. You'd be there to "evaluate", not to luxuriate.

easilydistracted

I'd run. If you are this stressed now its going to be worse when you're in, going to ruin your enjoyment of the new place. You'll stress about the first hint of a problem. I've had noisy/ difficult neighbours before, you cannot imagine the stress when you don't get to sleep after a long day at work. You are lucky to have caught the issue. If you do go ahead, follow PasturesNew's advice to write via the agent. Good luck

Mr.Generous

Is it a terraced, semi or detached? Ive had neighbors I didn't particularly like but we just didn't have anything to do with them. No noise or parking issues thankfully, which would be hard to ignore but far less likely with a detached house.
Just finished renovating a terrace for sale and the house next door has crap dumped in the back garden, old mattress, christmas tree, chipboard furniture etc. It wasn't like that when we purchased next door but we are wondering how on earth we can sell it now. You can't choose your neighbors very often and you have the chance to do exactly that. Good luck!

Doozergirl

sofarbehind wrote: »

Yes I thought this might be the case so I met her to decide for myself. I'm pretty sure if I knocked on your door I wouldn't think you were nuts and aggressive but I could have got you all wrong....

Lol! But if I'm not nuts then the other neighbours must be! (Or maybe just easily led and it's nice to have someone to talk about )

I know how stressful it was living next to the misery next door but that was half the time we've been here ago. There's a good point already made about neighbours moving and changing beyond our control.

If you are joined to her, I'd worry a bit. If you aren't, I think you'll be alright if she's more the type to complain than be raucous.

sofarbehind

Thanks everyone

It's a terraced house so unfortunately I would be joined to her. I agree that it's less of an issue if you're detached.

Interesting idea PasturesNew. I think I will ask, it would be helpful. Unfortunately I won't be able to stay for long in the week as I'm currently working 150 miles away. But I could manage a day or two. I'm most interested in what she is like during the week. She works nights and it sounds as though a lot of the noise issues stem from this. I can understand this to an extent but don't want to feel that I can't watch TV etc on my day off. I'm not sure how reasonable she will be about ordinary noise levels.

I take everyone's point about local gossip and I was initially a bit cynical before meeting her.

moneyistooshorttomention

I'll add that my very first thought on seeing this was "I know just what a couple of my neighbours would have to say about me" and they've put it about the neighbourhood to a few other house-owners (ie that don't even know me - but I suspect have taken on board their opinion of me).

In actual fact - as a neighbour - I'm quiet, honest, look after my house, no troublesome pets, nowt wrong with me and a lot would be glad of similar for a neighbour.

But they don't like me because I'm not "local" and didn't respond to their attempts to order me around basically. How very remiss of me to regard myself as an equal to them:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:.

As for "sandwiches short of a picnic" - I have another neighbour like that and we get on perfectly well/have some pleasant chats and I keep a bit of a protective eye on them (and can see they are well aware of both facts and appreciate it).

So - I make a point of never adopting someone else's opinion personally in any context and, in your position, I'd be doing my best to block their "voices" out and form my own opinion personally (as per usual:)).

marksoton

I'd see this as a challenge. And one i'd conquer. Come on, they're only as bad as you allow them to be.

A christmas card and treats for the dogs soon sorted mine.

FBaby

Do you know anything about the people who live there before? Maybe there were extremely nosy and she had a good reason to become a bit loony.

She did invite you in, so she has at least some basic manners. Personally, I feel uncomfortable going in my next door's neighbour, I do make me feel on edge, but they are ok neighbours and we never had a problem.

Unfortunately, whatever decision, you won't be able to know for sure if you took the right one before, you just have to take one listening to your inner voice and go with it. It really all comes down to whether you think you could find another similar house to buy shortly elsewhere, or whether this one really ticks all the boxes against the odds and you could make a big mistake to let it go just because you felt a bit uncomfortable with your neighbour. At worst, if the issue is indeed the noise, there are things that could be done to help.

Davesnave

All the local gossip where I live is spot-on, but we weren't made party to it until long after purchase, so you've been fortunate.

Houses are only bricks and mortar, so if a place is reasonably up-together, it's mainly the social environment that governs the emotional part of living in them. Even the most pleasing physical structure can become a burden when the act of living in it throws up random and worrying situations at frequent intervals.

Although we hear some horror stories on this forum, I still believe that the majority of properties come with good or neutral neighbour relations, so I wouldn't saddle myself with one that had a question mark over it as big as this.

moneyistooshorttomention

FBaby wrote: »

Do you know anything about the people who live there before? Maybe there were extremely nosy and she had a good reason to become a bit loony.

She did invite you in, so she has at least some basic manners. Personally, I feel uncomfortable going in my next door's neighbour, I do make me feel on edge, but they are ok neighbours and we never had a problem.

.

By and large I'd agree that inviting in equalled having at least some basic manners. I'd tend to give benefit of the doubt that it was a genuine sociable "invite in" initially.

I was "invited in" for a very different reason (ie after I'd moved in) in order to get the message home to me that I had better knuckle under and do as I was told or there would be Trouble. It wasn't put quite in that language - but I subsequently realised that it had been what I suspected (ie when I thought "That was a very odd thing to say...:cool:...now why did they say that?" when I didn't "knuckle under" and there was Trouble).

But it's now "Trouble - past tense".