People often don’t get along. That’s just a fact. There are wonder-people with 7 thousand friends on Facebook and perhaps even many big groups of friends in the real world, but most keep to themselves and only have a couple of close friends.
So it’s no surprise that so many conflicts occur when someone new moves into a neighborhood. It doesn’t help when the new neighbors start off on a hostile footing with everyone, instead of being polite and friendly. So it happened in today's story, when new neighbors built a huge home next to a couple’s cottage.
More info: Reddit
Sometimes new neighbors really can't read the room and think that they're the cool and important people on the block
Image credits: Maria Orlova (not the actual photo)
A woman took it to the Mildly Infuriating community to share how her new neighbors' house has affected her life, even without their pestering
Image credits: remesabo
Image credits: Pixel Addict (not the actual photo)
The neighbors, built a huge, 3+ story house right next to the poster's seaside cottage, which meant that they could see what was on her property from multiple angles
Image credits: remesabo
Image credits: Max Rahubovskiy (not the actual photo)
What's worst is their roof deck, from which they have a bird's eye view of the poster's outdoor shower, even when she's using it
Image credits: remesabo
Not only that, but the neighbors have the gall to complain about them being able to see the poster, even though they're the ones who built the all-seeing monster
As it is with most stories, everything isn’t as simple as it may seem on first blush. We’ll get into those details later, but keep in mind that these new annoying neighbors and their even more annoying house are just a symptom of a wider issue.
But let’s start at this “symptom” - the original poster’s (OP) problem. New neighbors move in, demolish the preexisting cottage, and in less than a month, start building a new home.
They quickly erected a new house instead of what I can only imagine was a picturesque cottage - a 3+ story, gray goliath. 12 feet from the nearest wall of OP’s cottage. That’s about 3.5 meters, for those of you not in the States.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I feel uncomfortable around some people that are 4 meters away from me, so having a whole house so close to my own would definitely make me sweat. Besides the obvious annoyance of your neighbors having a pretty much direct view into your house, having a building so close feels like wearing a turtleneck one size too small.
It’s okay at the start and you think that you’ll just get used to it, but after a little while, you want to tear at your collar and burn the thing in your fireplace. Unfortunately, you can’t really do that in OP’s case. I’m not well versed in U.S. law, but I feel like taking a sledgehammer and committing arson are more than a little frowned upon in the courts.
I bet that the poster feels similar, especially as she mentions the house stripping them of any sea breeze passing through the home. That's probably the second worst part - imagine not being able to air your house or feel a nice breeze during clement weather, especially if you live by the seaside. It’s almost stripping someone of their primal human right.
Image credits: Taryn Elliott (not the actual photo)
So it goes that you get these new hoity-toity neighbors complaining about how OP has been living for over 10 years now, enjoying her privacy with her husband, letting a nice breeze into the home, and, of course, showering outside.
Now let’s talk about why this is actually happening. Some commenters balked about a building of this size being built so close to another, especially close to the ocean.
The poster is from Long Beach Island, New Jersey, and according to her testimony, this started happening when the new mayor was elected, unopposed. He quickly made some changes to the zoning laws, allowing such gargantuan and ugly buildings to be built in OP’s neighborhood.
The new mayor, coincidentally, has the biggest real estate business in the town. Another stunning coincidence is that the mayor’s son is the premier builder in that very same town.
Sometimes things just seem to click, right?
If you’re stuck in a similar predicament and, just like OP, there is no one to complain to (the one time a HOA can help you), the best thing you can do is increase privacy in your own house. House Digest suggests two main methods - increasing privacy in the home and your property.
For your home, you can do things like blinds, curtains, or window film, like the poster has already done. For your property, you can build fences, grow hedges or strategically place flowers and trees.
Unfortunately for OP, with a house like that, little will help. Perhaps a tree could block their annoying roof deck about… 5 years down the line.
Her story collected over 30k upvotes in the Mildly Infuriating community, but it’s a worthwhile competitor for r/extremelyinfuriating, if you ask me. Among the 2.2k comments, people suggested how the couple could improve their privacy or shower extremely provocatively, only to further annoy the neighbor.
Share your own thoughts of annoying neighbors building their houses too close to others in the comments!
The poster replied to many comments, where people shared ways to deal with the neighbors, both funny and useful
