Friday evening musings… how bonkers are your neighbours?

I know that petty disputes with neighbours is a staple of the internet, but let’s have your stories, not of disputes, but just general all-round bonkersness by your neighbours

A couple of doors down from us live a nice middle aged couple. Always pleasant and polite they just seem like an average couple. At the start of lockdown he decided he was going to completely gut his house and build an extension so set about ripping everything – and I do mean EVERYTHING – out. That was the start of 2020. He insists on doing everything himself as apparently he doesn’t trust tradesmen. He isn’t a builder.

The snail-like progress of his ‘home improvements’ has become an amusing spectator sport. It’s like the shittest episode of Grand Designs ever. 4 years later the entire house is still a building site. The front garden is completely full of pallets of bricks and breeze blocks, bits of scaffolding, the bathroom he ripped out, a rusting cement mixer and just general building rubble.

For 12 months they rented the house across the road to live in as their entire house had been reduced to a shell with bits of tarpaulin where walls should be. I reckon over 4 years all they’ve succeeded in doing is halving the value of their property. Christ only knows what it looks like inside. There’s no way it can be structurally sound after his random wall demolitions. I certainly wouldn’t set foot in it.

So let’s have your examples of frankly nuts behaviour by those you live alongside.

This sounds made up but I assure you, fair citizens of STW, it is true. My neighbour at my first house was known locally as Evil Dick. This was due to his generally not very nice disposition and the fact he tried to murder his ex wife and spent time inside.

He was involved in a cock fighting ring and Id occasionally get fighting spurs and other chicken battle pariphinalea delivered to mine by mistake. He once knocked on my door to inform me he had caught the rat that lived in the wall between our houses. It had somehow trapped itself in his barrel of dog food, so he strangled it with his bare hands!

I’ve got some that are a bit odd – she puts washing out & he promptly lights a bonfire about 10 feet away (they have a tiny rear garden)

My neighbour at my first house was known locally as Evil Dick

He was involved in a cock fighting ring

Well. I can’t compete with that.

But the bloke who lived over the road from our old place used to clean his car every Saturday.

Nothing unusual there, but he used to spend around 6-7 hours doing it. Every Saturday. Every week the wheels would come off and he would clean inside the rims, full on valet – whatever the weather. If Christmas day fell on a Saturday, he would still be out doing it, despite (or perhaps because of) his 2 early teen kids.

Thing is, it was an old Insignia.

MIne have been pretty good really.  A succession of european computer geeks as my tenants and immediate neighbours – great because they are organised and cause no trouble.   Other neighbour was an old chap who spent summers here and winters in Tenerife.  He got dementia in his 80s which could be a bit difficult and I used to get phone calls from his family asking me to check up on him because he wasn’t answering the phone.   Had to support him a bit in his final years but after finding him outside the building in his pyjamas he went to a home

We’ve just moved into a little close of 5 houses. The neighbour in the corner is a Yorkshire version of Gerald. 70yrs old and utterly bonkers. I love having “conversations” with him, especially about getting lost when he’s off towing his mahoosive caravan. Honestly, he’s worth the council tax.

Thankfully a tale from the past but we lived next door to some of the band ‘fat white family’. I had never heard of them and didn’t find out who they were until 18 months in. Then I read some articles about them and it all started to make sense. Going round to yell at them at 4am on a Tuesday in my dressing gown was a particular low point.

I think you’re going to have to expand on this @davros

I love Fat White Family but I wouldn’t fancy living next door to them

When we lived in London our neighbours knocked on our door & asked us to tell our cat not to go in their garden as their mother didn’t like cats, I told the cat.

The same neighbours insisted we receive numerous meat kebabs even though we did tell them we were vegetarian.

The lady next door to them the other side had hoarded up to half way up the front downstairs windows, her single story extension at the rear had a collapsed roof which channeled rain straight in, she housed rats and did yoga in her tiny front garden or in the street.

They guy who lived across the road from rat lady would shoot the rats with an air rifle from his wife’s house next door to rat lady.

My next door is a total idiot, but friendly enough… 40 something woman.

I’ve had to unlblock her drains twice when they were overflowing into my yard… blocked up with copious amounts of pasta and purple hair.

She said she doesn’t know why it keeps happening…

Touch wood she’s taken my hints as it’s probaly been a year since it’s happened, and it’s a darn site better than my previous neighbour who was constantly drilling and hammering.

Woman two doors down might or might not have been bonkers but definitely had a drink problem as did her fella. One afternoon she let him drive her car. He drove it into the outside wall of another neighbour’s house and almost ended up in the kitchen “shocked face emoji”!!

Former chap over the road ran a superbike team from his garage. If he was out and MrsMC was in when he had stuff delivered I might come home to find quite substantial bits of Kawasaki race bikes in the garage.

He appeared to be a grumpy old man. He had a heart of gold, would help anyone, and doted on our other neighbours grandkids.

It was rather stressful binners but there were funny moments. But it made me realise that all these renegade musicians that people love have to live next door to someone. And even their fans wouldn’t want to in reality. Unless they also lived in squalor and didn’t share the normal schedules of working people!

Here’s a shot of their charming yarden at the time. Unfortunately we had no fence. After one renegade party on a Sunday morning I remember seeing a girl wrapped in a duvet on that soggy cold sofa. Christ knows how bad it was inside if that was her choice.

On both sides of us lives two ladies called Ann. To distinguish the two we refer to them in our house as “nice Ann” and “crazy Ann”. Heaven forbid our growing children ever share this info.

Nice Ann lives with her husband nice Jon*. Crazy Ann’s husband left her long ago. Her children moved to Australia. Need I say more? Ok, I will.

Crazy Ann trims her 50ft hedge bordering us with her secateurs. Then complains about how long it takes. Every Gardner she’s employed to do the job with proper tools has lasted less than a year before getting fed up with her, for the last four years.

Whenever I have guests in our garden, suddenly Ann is right there trimming the bushes (no fun euphemisms here) with her secateurs.

*some names may have been changed to protect identities.

Back to uni days this one.

We rented a university-owned house in our 2nd year. 4 of us from 1st year halls but because it was a 7-bedroom place, we got moved in with 3 other random people.

Downstairs was a Greek “couple”. Separate rooms but a couple. They’d have these massive stereotypical plate-throwing rows, screaming at each other in Greek, smashing shit up and then later that night there’d be a rhythmic “creak CREAK, creak CREAK” and cries of whatever the Greek was for Oh Yes, Oh YES! as they made up from the earlier row. This would repeat on a fairly regular basis. In further true Greek stereotype, he was an abysmal cook, barely able to boil an egg. She could cook up a 3-course gourmet meal for 12 out of a fish and a couple of loaves.

^ ^ Love that Google Photos is suggesting ‘adjust the sky’s colour‘ as if that’s going to make everything OK 🙂

[Edit @davros]

Christ knows how bad it was inside if that was her choice.

Sounds like Super Hans New Year’s Eve party…

I suppose not particularly bonkers per-se, but I cannot fathom why our next door neighbours bought the house. When they bought it, it had been really nicely done out inside, and also in the garden, by the previous couple. Consequently, they paid top dollar for the house. No problem so far.

But since then they have constantly pissed about renovating it to their tastes. I think they’ve probably re- done every room and definitely both gardens. New furniture, kitchen or appliance deliveries seemingly every week. A constant stream of trades, scaffolding and skips.

They must have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on this as they’re not small houses. I can’t imagine it has added any value at all and surely must be marginal benefits to living there, not to mention all the disruption.

Total Insanity. Why not find a doer-upper if you want a project?

Hans would have loved it round there on the tinfoil deathstar.

We waited for ages for one of those table legs to finally collapse.

After the band moved out we had more good luck with a Vietnamese lady enslaved to grow weed. Took about 6 months before we figured what was going on and got the police to raid it.

I lived in an Edinburgh tenement where one of the flats had a woman living in it who had some sort of complicated relationship with her landlord/possible ex boyfriend. She had a light grip on reality, he just seemed very alternative and appeared very occasionally. She was pretty harmless, just hoarded a lot of stuff and talked to herself a bit, but the set up made getting anything done to the communal stair pretty tricky. After someone set fire to the bins outside, the rest of us really wanted to have an entry system installed on the stair door, which needed electric button things putting into every flat, plus a new door.

I went full UN peace core negotiations squad and endured many hours of non sensical and paranoid conversations about how the IRA mustn’t find her before eventually securing the number for the landlord/ex boyfriend so we could get the button put into her flat. The rest of us in the stair just paid her share between us in the name of progress.

New door installed. Buzzer entry system too. Day two, she smashes out her button in the entry panel. A couple of weeks later, as the snow falls outside, she paints the front door in great gloopy gloss bright purple paint. It takes about a week to stop being tacky, during which time the door has to be propped open, and the gloss does its best to follow gravity.

UN peace core skills deployed again as the guy downstairs – a bit scary after a drink – lost his shit over the unscheduled purple. Eventually the paint dried and peace was restored. Never attempted any further communal stair repairs.

My neighbours are generally all lovely people. I’ve done odd jobs for all of them, fixing cisterns, hanging curtains etc. I never accept payment, but they’ll often give me some sweets for my kids. One neighbour is 92. Her body is giving up, but her mind is sharp as ever. I fixed a leaking tap for her, and she asked my how much. I said nothing, as she’s a neighbour. She turned from this frail old dear, and did this guttural growl and said i always pay…. in the most menacing voice I’ve ever heard anyone utter. Genuinely gave me chills. Took a box of celebrations as payment, and a fiver for the kids!

My other neighbour is called Denise. She’s really chatty and friendly 90% of the time. Sometimes you say good morning etc, and she blanks you. Walks right past you like you aren’t there. We joke it’s her twin,  Dennis, who hates people. She lives alone… v odd.

My slightly bonkers neighbours misses actually stood in the driveway waiting for her husband to return as he was 15.mins later than he was supposed to be.

So she could start having a go at him the second he pulled in to the driveway……

Deeply religious families on both sides. Both under 30. Very random.

One side is nice and keep themselves to themselves but chat away when we see each other

Other side is in a very cult-ish church. Some very grim articles online about their churches practices. The wife does absolutely everything around the house while the husband does nothing. I mean nothing. Grass cutting, taking stuff to the dump, filling up the windscreen washer in the car, etc. all the wife. We used to joke about it but given what Ive read about their church, I actually believe she’s effectively his slave. Feel very sorry for her.

Ours are mental, they choose to live in a old, cold, stone cottage on the top of a hill where it’s always windy, the mildest hint of a flurry elsewhere wear means they’re snowed in, and the permacloud through winter means they barely see the sun, indeed the end of their drive, from about November to March. They must be nuts.

Hang on…

Pretty bonkers: we’ve had her imitating my small child’s night terrors at the top of her lungs on the street a couple of years ago; weird vague insinuations that we were abusing our kids; vexatious complaints to the council about the council house tenants neighbouring them on the other side; him shoving his phone with an audio recording of a wasps nest in their eaves in my face on my doorstep because he thought it was something we were doing; complaints that our wisteria would let lizards into their house; and most recently him on our doorstep the day after we’d had some plumbers (with their sign-painted van on our drive) doing some plumbing work, claiming that he could smell (specifically our) gas in his house/garden. She really struggles around March/April in particular – that’s when they seem most likely to kick off.

Mine are just Bunts…..

In my last place I very rarely saw my neighbours and I lived in a little square of 8 houses. Occasionally I’d rush out if I heard some movement but like a quantum quark they were gone.

One of mates said it was me.

Our neighbours on one side are 2 brothers somewhere between the age of 50 and 75.

Picture Gerald from Clarksons Farm and your half way there except they are even harder to understand and their false teeth fall out as they talk . I think they only have 1 set of clothes each.

They have chickens, turkeys and a donkey. I’ve never been inside their house but it looks a shit tip when I’ve been up there to say the chickens have escaped again.

it they are good blokes and I help cut their grass and hedges

Thankfully I’ve never had any really bad neighbours

Bloke I worked with had a neighbour with a drink problem (a bit sad) if anyone parked outside her house she  went mental one day went to pick him up and parked outside her house went mental demanded £5 which much to her suprise I gave her and said i would be back in a fortnight. She just looked at me and returned to the house.

Not quite neighbours but so crazy that a judge / sheriff has banned them from contacting their neighbours for 15 years, banned them from the street where they live and they must sell their house within the next 2 months.

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/13755446/neighbours-david-jacqueline-aston-north-berwick-east-lothian/

Ours are mental, they choose to live in a old, cold, stone cottage on the top of a hill where it’s always windy, the mildest hint of a flurry elsewhere wear means they’re snowed in, and the permacloud through winter means they barely see the sun, indeed the end of their drive, from about November to March. They must be nuts.

Hang on…

Well that’s weird

I don’t mind the music on that Fat White  Family but the videos don’t seem to be like they were back in the day 🙂

is that some sort of skateboard moon ?

Oof. I knew this thread could turn scary. I do my best to look after crazy Ann and I’ll keep doing that – a far better fate all round than what some are seeing. Social care eh.

For the last 28 years I’ve had pretty good neighbours.

My previous place though! Norman White attempted murder

But that pales into insignificance to another resident of the same street!!!!

Cromwell Street, Fred & Rosemary West

Living through all the media circus while also being made redundant means spring 1994 was not a high point in my life, but better than the poor souls who suffered at their hands.

When I lived in Warrington the neighbours were like Biffa Bacon and family out of Viz. All raging alcoholics living in a really quiet street..

One night we all got woken up about 2 am by a ruckus outside. Pisshead son had arrived home and lost his keys so was banging on the door shouting ‘Lerruz in yer pair of ****s!’. Dave, his dad leans out of the bedroom window upstairs and tells him to **** off. There then follows a shouty exchange of abuse, waking the whole street up..

Next thing Dave comes flying out of the front door, bollock naked and decks him. They then proceeded to have a wrestling match on the front lawn, punching **** out of each other. Next thing, the mum also comes flying out, also bollock naked and piles in, swinging punches. By this point the whole street is leaning out the windows watching the naked punch up, who were then joined by two coppers (regular visitors) sat shaking their heads at each other in disbelief and declining to get involved.

Never a dull moment, living there 😀

I call my neighbour Briefcase, as he used to carry one to work in an office. They’re under 30 I think.

We live in a tiny street with allotment gates at the end. We’re last but one. Briefcase and his wife are the last house.

They are obsessed with having their car parked directly in front of their house. They both work from home mostly now so pretty much always manage to get their car right in front of their house where it doesn’t move for weeks.

If by some miracle they’ve actually gone out in it and we come back in ours, we always try to park ours where they normally park. If we then go out in ours again, no matter how short, they’ll zip out and move their car backwards a car length to get directly in front of their house again. It’s like they’ve got an alert set up for it.

Strange.