What is it with modern British society? While I admit that I am no angel, I do believe that, in general, I’m fairly easy going, so why is it that I now seem to be in dispute with both sets of neighbours?
The first dispute started almost as soon as they moved in. One day, I was working in my office when I heard a rushing, water-spray kind of noise. I looked out the window to discover that the neighbour’s hosepipe had blown off the tap and water was flooding their garden. I rang their bell, but they were out. So I, and the neighbour on the far side, clambered over the back fence – at no small risk to ourselves – and turned the tap off. You’d have thought that I’d threatened to rape them, or something: I was screamed at that, under no circumstances was I to ever enter their property again… I constantly live in hope…
A little later, I made the mistake of parking my car outside my garage, on what the deeds state is my parking space. Again, the banshee-like screaming that I wasn’t allowed to park my car on their property (the deeds are unclear). So, for a quiet life, we paid out a large amount of money to convert our front garden into a parking area so we didn’t have to drive along ‘their’ drive. The amount of junk they’ve since piled into the supposedly shared access area (to be used for access and car parking only, according to the deeds) now means that I couldn’t park my car in the garage even if I wanted to…
Things worsened when we wanted to build a conservatory. Of course, they had to let the builders gain access – it’s in the deeds – but there was absolutely no way we were to be allowed to build it up to the boundary, since this would mean that the footings would extend 4½” into their property, and this was absolutely unacceptable. Hence, rather than a nicely-finished brick wall to edge their property, to which they could fix pretty much anything they want, we have a 9″ wide space edged by a wooden fence, which I will not be allowed to maintain. It looks awful, but that’s their problem: I can’t see it and an occasional spray with some noxious chemical or other keeps it weed-free…
So far, so bad. Then, a couple of years ago, the neighbours on the other side – with whom I believed we were friends – said that the wooden fence between the gardens was getting a bit tatty, and they wanted to replace it with a wall. I told them that I was happy with a fence, but if they wanted to build a wall, then fine with me. They then said that they wanted to build the wall on my land, and that I was to pay half. I said no.
This boundary issue is a bit fraught. Originally, their house had a 9″ wide brick wall all the way along the boundary. Then, at some time in the past, the section of wall from about half-way along the boundary was removed, and replaced with a wooden fence. The fence was erected on their side of the wall’s footings, which were cemented over. It had stayed thus ever since: for at least 20 years during our residence here. Now, it seems, they want their ‘land back’.
Our house was originally built as a school, and converted in the 1960’s into two semi-detached houses. I can only assume that the wall was originally removed either when the school was built, or when the house was converted, to allow access to the garden along the side of the house: The original wall would have been within about 18″ of the house wall – too narrow to use as a ‘side-way’.
Anyway, the other day the neighbours contacted us again to tell us – tell us, note – that they were calling in contractors, starting in 2 days time, to build a wall to a slightly modified version of their original plan. I said that no, they weren’t. For this I was described as an ‘aggressive twat’ – a term I find particularly insulting – and they stood there and shouted at me that I was being unreasonable because I didn’t turn over and let them tickle my tummy while I agreed to making my side-access unusable. I threw them off my land, and they retreated, still screaming that I was a ‘twat’. My neighbour should apply to the UN for a job as a peace negotiator: he’d solve the third-world population crisis at a stroke…
So: there you go. Try to be a good neighbour, and you’re vilified and ordered off their land. Stick up for your rights and you’re a ‘twat’. Sometimes I wish that I’d emigrated when I had the chance… Still, maybe they wish that, too.