The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

CKhalvashi

I think Wizzair may be about to owe me !!!8364;400.....

More details later.

ivyleaf

LydiaJ wrote: »

He's just phoned. He's not usually open on a Saturday - the man likes to have a two day weekend like most other people - but this weekend he happens to be working Saturday morning in order to have Monday off. He didn't phone on Friday because I hadn't left my phone number when I dropped it off, assuming that he already had it as I've been going there for years. This morning he's made the time to trawl back through his past records to find my number and has just called me. It's fixed and I can have the car back if I'm there before he closes today at 2pm.

Hurrah! :j

PasturesNew

Jackmydad wrote: »

....

My next house will definitely be "older/regular", none of this parking business ... which you can't "defend" against any form of trespass.

I want a house, on a road, with a driveway, surrounded by other gardens.... that way you're limiting "interference" only to those adjacent gardens and not "anybody and his dog, kids, cousins, kids friends from school and any other random person who decides that your car is the goal"

Not on a corner, no foothpath adjacent, no "garage in a block", no "allocated parking", no "open plan".

A plain and simple house.... driveway, fences ... "my bit".

michaels

Jackmydad wrote: »

The reality is that there are too many of us crammed into too little space. And the greed of developers has made it worse.
Huge estates with very few green areas, just houses crammed together with as little private space as possible. No proper parking off the street.
When I lived in the Midlands 30 years ago, they built some very nice looking houses on a private development. They were a lot of money.
Detached, but little garden, and you'd have been pushed to get a 25 thou feeler gauge between them.
I read somewhere that if too many rats are kept in a cage they go mad.
There would seem to be similarities between those poor rats and humans.

Nowt to do with the developers really - the amount of land that is released for building is much less than would be needed to house the increasing population so the only answer is to fit in as many properties as possible.


Our house built late 30s still has a 120 foot garden even after we extended back by 15 feet. They are building another road parallel (although of course not a straight road but a set of closes) and the gardens look to be 40 feet max for 4 bed semis and these are expensive private houses not 'affordable'

Jackmydad

michaels wrote: »

Nowt to do with the developers really - the amount of land that is released for building is much less than would be needed to house the increasing population so the only answer is to fit in as many properties as possible.


Our house built late 30s still has a 120 foot garden even after we extended back by 15 feet. They are building another road parallel (although of course not a straight road but a set of closes) and the gardens look to be 40 feet max for 4 bed semis and these are expensive private houses not 'affordable'

Seems to be plenty of land getting released round here at present. New houses springing up everywhere.
And they're tiny gardens and set close together as you say. Whether they're affordable (what a joke!) or not.
It certainly doesn't hurt the developers to cram more in.
If I was looking to buy, I'd be looking for an older property.

PasturesNew

michaels wrote: »

Our house built late 30s still has a 120 foot garden even after we extended back by 15 feet. They are building another road parallel (although of course not a straight road but a set of closes) and the gardens look to be 40 feet max for 4 bed semis and these are expensive private houses not 'affordable'

Mine's got a bigger garden than the identical new builds built by the same developer 7 years after they built this one.

The terraced cost £260-£275k (2-3 bed, ends and mids). At that point they had enough room to give a garden with car parking in it... but, by putting in allocated parking in an open space they managed to squeeze a 3-bed detached onto the plot, which sold for about £325k.

To make the same profit from the houses, given off road parking, they'd have wanted to charge £40k extra for each one....

The 3 bed detached has a trampoline, the garden is so tiny it only just fits between the patio door and the end fence... and width wise takes up nearly half their garden entirely. So what does she do...? Throws open her gate to let toddlers run amok in the car park. She had a choice of buying an older house with a larger garden... but no. Throw them out there, let them be somebody else's nuisance... and attract others into the chaos...

Originally there were two dwellings.... with large gardens. Half their gardens were sold off and became this development of just over a dozen. Then they demolished the 1930s dwellings and replaced "two old ladies" with 9 families.

So now, 10 years on, instead of 2 old ladies, each with very large gardens, there are about two dozen family sized houses... with four households producing kids that "do what they like".

It's especially difficult with renters as they never have deeds explained to them - and FTBers on mortgages probably don't even have a copy in their house to check up/see what's what and know no different, so they all just "let it go on".

Pyxis

Jackmydad wrote: »

Seems to be plenty of land getting released round here at present. New houses springing up everywhere.
And they're tiny gardens and set close together as you say. Whether they're affordable (what a joke!) or not.
It certainly doesn't hurt the developers to cram more in.
If I was looking to buy, I'd be looking for an older property.

It does depend, though.

My first house was probably interwar, and had a 100' ft rear garden, with a small front garden, only big enough for a car if sideways on.

My current one is late Victorian and has a 30', almost square, rear garden. The front garden does fit a standard sized car pulling straight off the road, though, and a wee bit more.
All the Victorian houses in this area have similarly smallish gardens for the age of the house.


In Brighton,though, a lot of the older houses don't have gardens as such, but small yards. I looked at a lot a long time ago, and was shocked by it! Tiny spaces!

That might be because they were built to be second homes for affluent Londoners.

PasturesNew

A lot of older seaside towns don't have gardens. Back then they were in the houses because they needed to be close to the sea where they made their living. Gardens didn't matter to them as they had harsh lives. Also, the salt air would've made it difficult for them to do much with that space, such as grow food.

PasturesNew

Thinking about the original size of Michaels' garden... this row of 8 terraces, including parking, was squeezed onto a plot about 130' x 95'. If he buys next door's house and demolished them.... he could fit 8 on there

michaels

PasturesNew wrote: »

Thinking about the original size of Michaels' garden... this row of 8 terraces, including parking, was squeezed onto a plot about 130' x 95'. If he buys next door's house and demolished them.... he could fit 8 on there

I wanted to buy next door when it was for sale recently and build a house at the end of both gardens but despite meeting the letter of the law on planning my architect felt it would fall foul of the general rule of 'out of keeping for area':(