Boundary drama: Neighbour trying to scare birds out my garden? With disco mirrors!?

Exodi

Abbafan1972 said:

We have a private joke about that neighbour with their crazy obsession with cutting the grass. Their “tune” is “I can hear the grass grow” by The Move. Neighbour the other side is the opposite and hardly ever cuts hers or weeds, lol. 

We have a neighbour about 4 doors up who has a works van, a personal hatchback car and a hobby motorbike. He gives them a thorough cleaning and maintenance (lasts usually a few hours) outside of the front of his house every week, meaning for 3 days of every week you'll see him jet-washing one of his vehicles. His wife and his child have little camping chairs they set up to the side and they usually sit there with a cup of tea and turn it into a family event. Sometimes he'll have their kid help with the sponge or something.

It's a running joke of the street, our neighbours on both sides are always commenting about it because it has pretty much been every other day since he moved in about 1-2 years ago. Plus it carried on during a hosepipe ban in the South East which was pretty bad. I think the street now unanimously attributes any water shortage in Kent to him. 

Oddly enough from what I can make out from the graphics on the van, he works for a heating company (as you would be forgiven for assuming he works for a vehicle cleaning company and it's part of the role turning up in a pristine van, but no).

I know it doesn't sound like a big deal here, but honestly every day I drive back from work and there's a 50% chance he'll be on his drive jet-washing one of his vehicles, I can't help but chuckle. He's a nice enough guy though, we always wave at each other.

I don't even have the motivation to clean my own car once every few months.

silvercar

Exodi said:

Abbafan1972 said:

We have a private joke about that neighbour with their crazy obsession with cutting the grass. Their “tune” is “I can hear the grass grow” by The Move. Neighbour the other side is the opposite and hardly ever cuts hers or weeds, lol. 

We have a neighbour about 4 doors up who has a works van, a personal hatchback car and a hobby motorbike. He gives them a thorough cleaning and maintenance (lasts usually a few hours) outside of the front of his house every week, meaning for 3 days of every week you'll see him jet-washing one of his vehicles. His wife and his child have little camping chairs they set up to the side and they usually sit there with a cup of tea and turn it into a family event. Sometimes he'll have their kid help with the sponge or something.

It's a running joke of the street, our neighbours on both sides are always commenting about it because it has pretty much been every other day since he moved in about 1-2 years ago. Plus it carried on during a hosepipe ban in the South East which was pretty bad. I think the street now unanimously attributes any water shortage in Kent to him. 

Oddly enough from what I can make out from the graphics on the van, he works for a heating company (as you would be forgiven for assuming he works for a vehicle cleaning company and it's part of the role turning up in a pristine van, but no).

I know it doesn't sound like a big deal here, but honestly every day I drive back from work and there's a 50% chance he'll be on his drive jet-washing one of his vehicles, I can't help but chuckle. He's a nice enough guy though, we always wave at each other.

I don't even have the motivation to clean my own car once every few months.

Does he have a water meter? If not, an anonymous message to your water board about excessive hose pipe use may prove fruitful.

Exodi

silvercar said:

Exodi said:

Abbafan1972 said:

We have a private joke about that neighbour with their crazy obsession with cutting the grass. Their “tune” is “I can hear the grass grow” by The Move. Neighbour the other side is the opposite and hardly ever cuts hers or weeds, lol. 

We have a neighbour about 4 doors up who has a works van, a personal hatchback car and a hobby motorbike. He gives them a thorough cleaning and maintenance (lasts usually a few hours) outside of the front of his house every week, meaning for 3 days of every week you'll see him jet-washing one of his vehicles. His wife and his child have little camping chairs they set up to the side and they usually sit there with a cup of tea and turn it into a family event. Sometimes he'll have their kid help with the sponge or something.

It's a running joke of the street, our neighbours on both sides are always commenting about it because it has pretty much been every other day since he moved in about 1-2 years ago. Plus it carried on during a hosepipe ban in the South East which was pretty bad. I think the street now unanimously attributes any water shortage in Kent to him. 

Oddly enough from what I can make out from the graphics on the van, he works for a heating company (as you would be forgiven for assuming he works for a vehicle cleaning company and it's part of the role turning up in a pristine van, but no).

I know it doesn't sound like a big deal here, but honestly every day I drive back from work and there's a 50% chance he'll be on his drive jet-washing one of his vehicles, I can't help but chuckle. He's a nice enough guy though, we always wave at each other.

I don't even have the motivation to clean my own car once every few months.

Does he have a water meter? If not, an anonymous message to your water board about excessive hose pipe use may prove fruitful.

No idea, if I was a betting man I'd wager he doesn't or had requested to be on assessed rates.

Who knows, let's see what happens during the inevitable next housepipe ban. It would surprise me if not a single person in the street reported him during the last.

Abbafan1972

Not as an extreme as the above, but there’s a guy across the road we call “Mr Marigold”, he is out there every Saturday spending hours washing his red Nissan Juke with his yellow gloves on. One bucket for clean and one for dirty water.