He is mid 40s, married, two youngsters and works at a local fish farm. Works all hours, is wiry, thin and strong.
Never stops. He makes me tired just seeing him.

He installed log fires in both downstairs rooms which obviously back onto ours in the terrace of 6.
When they first moved in maybe 5 years back, he would offload the logs - Oh yes, transports them himself and offload by hand onto the block paved frontage to his house which is back from the kerb by the width of the pavment, just like ours. Then he would caefully and nealty stack them against his front wall.
Now they are just off loaded in the same place and huge untidy heap, but left there till he carts them indoors at about 6 every night having chopped them out on the front. I see people walking past puzzled by the mess. The rest of the terrace is kept tidy, neat and with some nice little front flower beds, including Carole's
Cleaning and raking the burners every night makes a hell of a din, sounds like he knocking his way through.

15 months ago he had a loft extension built, using a pal of his just down the road who is a part time fireman, who brought in specialist trades but as it was on the cheap it is not finished yet. He has had to have fire stairs built but pal has done the main work and neighbour is finishing, which he does on coming home each night, so what with the logs and the drilling, smoothong and what else equipment used, our early evenings are not peaceful.
He has completely altered the lovely garden that was there with some highly specialised plants which were extremely attractive and cultivated it, and now has a huge veg patch, 3 sheds, a dog kennel - yes 3 working dogs, trampoline.

It makes us wonder if he ever sits down to relax and what she must think as there is always noise, must be dust and not a job finished. Madam would not put up with that ever. Oddly the two charming kids are very quiet.

Not the most approachable bloke, so I don't feel as it I can chat to him. I can't do anything and he's not breaking any laws or local by-laws.

It's just so tiring. I do try and enjoy retirement.

Quote: hampshireman wrote in post #1

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I do try and enjoy retirement.

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We landed lucky when we bought this place five years ago.

Our cul de sac is shaped like a hockey stick and our place is on the inside, just around the bend at the bottom of the stick. We have no neighbour to our right , whilst to our left is a retired head teacher, a widower. We do share our rear boundary with three houses that are on the inside of the hockey stick handle and back onto our garden and we are friendly with all three families.

At the end of our Close is a retired Keele professor, a local CofE vicar and a nearly retired businessman and their wives and directly opposite another retired guy plus his wife who is a radiologist who retired once and has returned to work part time.

I sympathise with your predicament Derek, maybe he needs something put in his water.

Not good Andy I remember the old saying your house is only as good as your neighbours. I think this is true I am also lucky where we live detached house with plenty of room between houses. New houses being built these days you can touch each others house walls.

When something annoys it amplifies the longer it goes on, getting away in the Puck gives you a break, roll on summer.

Morphy.

When we first moved on our Avenue we were the youngest family and most of the neighbours were elderly. The street and gardens were all clean and tidy and help was always available from us "young uns". 30yrs on and new neighbours leave their wheelie bins on the street, anything for the council to collect is also on the footpath, mind you that's when the cars are not parked on it. If you are able to drive down the avenue you are lucky if you can park outside your home due to the volume of cars that are usually abandoned not parked. You can only talk a neighbour about a problem if you are ready for some real abuse coming your way. No need for us to wonder why we love to spend as much time away as possible, roll on that lottery win

I do wonder sometimes about new build estates where houses are built almost on top of the pavement and each other. They presumably look OK on a plan, but if you ever visit them at weekends it's just a sea of parked cars. Our small estate (27 houses) was built in 1972 and although the houses are not visually enticing at least they have 30ft or so of front garden and drives. In fact a few have nearly 100ft of front garden because of their location. These days I suspect developers would get nearer 100 houses out of a plot the same size as our estate.

Thanks Andy, Ellen and Morph. We were the houngest on the terrace, not the old gits on the end - in 15 years. The parking is a pain for drivers going past on what was once a lane, but in that case we're OK as we can get 3 cars off the road, the Eriba, plus a garage (store/shed now), where nearly all of them have two cars at the kerb and "he" has 3.