Neighbour's Son living in 'shed' at end of garden
Discussion
Hello all,
After a bit of advice on where we stand regarding a slightly strange situation.
We've recently bought a house and during the viewings we could see there was a corrugated iron outbuilding at the end of next doors garden that was well hidden by hugely overgrown hedging and trees (growing on our side of the boundary).
We've just removed the out of control hedging and trees and replaced them with standard 6ft fencing and it's now very obvious the neighbours son (a mid 30's Rab C. Nesbitt is the easiest way to describe him) is living in the corrugated iron outbuilding.
What first alerted us was the stench of urine when you get anywhere near the building. It appears he fills up numerous bottles during the day / night and then pours them out of the back window onto a paved area once full. What's worse is our children's play area is adjacent to his shed.
It would appear he has all the mod cons in there including sky/freeview tv (the dish is attached to a tree just outside).
Apart from the obvious 'go round and have a word' it would be good to know where we stand in such a situation. As he was already in situ before we moved in and exposed his little hovel with our landscaping efforts I expect it's going to be difficult to resolve the problem amicably. I imagine someone who lives in a shed also has a limited grasp on what's fair and reasonable.
His parents are elderly and it *may* be that they're claiming some form of benefit based on it being only them living at the address, or maybe not. That could be our ace card should it be true and all other options have been exhausted.
We're not looking to cause any trouble (yet...) but it just seems having to have a conversation along the lines of "please can you tell your mid 30 year old son to stop pouring bottles of piss out of his shed onto a patio" really shouldn't be something anyone needs to do.
Does the PH collective have any advice on how best to approach the situation? I'm assuming if there's someone living full time in an outbuilding it needs to comply with some kind of building regs? It's a pretty old and rusty looking thing so it's clearly been there a number of years.
A discreet call the council is the obvious answer but I'd ideally like to go in armed with knowledge on what rules (if any) are being broken.
The best outcome would be a demolition order without them knowing it was us who started it all but it's highly unlikely that'll happen!
Any advice gratefully received...
After a bit of advice on where we stand regarding a slightly strange situation.
We've recently bought a house and during the viewings we could see there was a corrugated iron outbuilding at the end of next doors garden that was well hidden by hugely overgrown hedging and trees (growing on our side of the boundary).
We've just removed the out of control hedging and trees and replaced them with standard 6ft fencing and it's now very obvious the neighbours son (a mid 30's Rab C. Nesbitt is the easiest way to describe him) is living in the corrugated iron outbuilding.
What first alerted us was the stench of urine when you get anywhere near the building. It appears he fills up numerous bottles during the day / night and then pours them out of the back window onto a paved area once full. What's worse is our children's play area is adjacent to his shed.
It would appear he has all the mod cons in there including sky/freeview tv (the dish is attached to a tree just outside).
Apart from the obvious 'go round and have a word' it would be good to know where we stand in such a situation. As he was already in situ before we moved in and exposed his little hovel with our landscaping efforts I expect it's going to be difficult to resolve the problem amicably. I imagine someone who lives in a shed also has a limited grasp on what's fair and reasonable.
His parents are elderly and it *may* be that they're claiming some form of benefit based on it being only them living at the address, or maybe not. That could be our ace card should it be true and all other options have been exhausted.
We're not looking to cause any trouble (yet...) but it just seems having to have a conversation along the lines of "please can you tell your mid 30 year old son to stop pouring bottles of piss out of his shed onto a patio" really shouldn't be something anyone needs to do.
Does the PH collective have any advice on how best to approach the situation? I'm assuming if there's someone living full time in an outbuilding it needs to comply with some kind of building regs? It's a pretty old and rusty looking thing so it's clearly been there a number of years.
A discreet call the council is the obvious answer but I'd ideally like to go in armed with knowledge on what rules (if any) are being broken.
The best outcome would be a demolition order without them knowing it was us who started it all but it's highly unlikely that'll happen!
Any advice gratefully received...
Edited by eeeeeeeeee on Friday 4th July 11:59
mike-r said:
If it's on your land burn it down when he's out and plead ignorance.
Thread noticeably short of PH answers. Obligation now fulfilled.
Edit: realised it's on your neighbour's land. Answer remains the same.
Funny you should say that - now that the huge hedge has been replaced with fencing it's very obvious the shed is on what used to be 'our' land. It appears what they did was line the side of the shed up with our facing side of the hedging. As the hedging was planted in our garden and had spread to be so wide they were well over the boundary, but clearly that shows the level of intelligence we're going to have to deal with. (We're obviously aware that as the shed was there when we bought the house and there are no definitive OS maps showing the exact dimensions of the garden it's not worth fussing about. The garden is big enough so we've simply fenced around it.)Thread noticeably short of PH answers. Obligation now fulfilled.
Edit: realised it's on your neighbour's land. Answer remains the same.
Edited by mike-r on Friday 4th July 12:50
If it looked as good as the shed in that DM article it wouldn't be quite as bad. The shed in question has a certain shanty vibe going on.
Environmental Health could be a good option. I assume they would feed back any interesting findings to the council for them to follow up?
The house was built in 1902 and from what I remember seeing during the purchase process the only OS maps showed the boundaries but not in sufficient detail to work out the exact width of the plot.
Both our gardens appear to be the same width up to where the shed is, then ours gets mysteriously thinner. It's just one of the joys of old plots originally all separated by hedging I guess.
Both our gardens appear to be the same width up to where the shed is, then ours gets mysteriously thinner. It's just one of the joys of old plots originally all separated by hedging I guess.
The planning side of things is where I was hoping to get some more thoughts on.
I would hope it's not possible for anyone to put a structure in their back garden and have it as a habitable space without having to jump through a few hoops with the council. The main issue is it's been there so long it might have been allowed whenever it was built and now we've arrived and want to start causing a fuss.
If the council aren't aware someone is living in an outbuilding would a retrospective planning / PD application need to be approved?
Having spoken to the parents before I don't think having a polite chat would provide a long term solution. However, I would be expecting some kind of petty vandalism should we make a complaint to the council and Mr Nesbitt figuring out it was us. Life is far too short to have to deal with any kind of ongoing neighbourly feuds but at the same time we shouldn't have to avoid half our garden because it smells like a toilet block at Glastonbury.
The neighbours house has 4 bedrooms so it's not as if he'd be homeless if the council did say he could no longer stay in it (although enforcing that would be virtually possible). Surely living with Mum & Dad is better than living in a shed at the bottom of Mum & Dad's garden!?
I think a call to Environmental Health over a 'strange smell' is in order and we'll see how things progress!
I would hope it's not possible for anyone to put a structure in their back garden and have it as a habitable space without having to jump through a few hoops with the council. The main issue is it's been there so long it might have been allowed whenever it was built and now we've arrived and want to start causing a fuss.
If the council aren't aware someone is living in an outbuilding would a retrospective planning / PD application need to be approved?
Having spoken to the parents before I don't think having a polite chat would provide a long term solution. However, I would be expecting some kind of petty vandalism should we make a complaint to the council and Mr Nesbitt figuring out it was us. Life is far too short to have to deal with any kind of ongoing neighbourly feuds but at the same time we shouldn't have to avoid half our garden because it smells like a toilet block at Glastonbury.
The neighbours house has 4 bedrooms so it's not as if he'd be homeless if the council did say he could no longer stay in it (although enforcing that would be virtually possible). Surely living with Mum & Dad is better than living in a shed at the bottom of Mum & Dad's garden!?
I think a call to Environmental Health over a 'strange smell' is in order and we'll see how things progress!
trashbat said:
Sounds like it's illegal to use one to sleep in without planning permission.
This is what I was hoping to discover, thanks.I'd love to be able to get a pic to show just how special it is. Here's a Google image of something remarkably similar - the only difference is his has windows front & back (the front windows that overlook our garden are permanently covered from the inside in what appears to be a nicotine stained sheet):
s p a c e m a n said:
With a garden big enough to live in surely you need a compost pile, or you could put a bee hive down there. Can you get honey from wasps?
I like your thinking. We do have a friend who is a bee keeper so perhaps we could donate an area next to the shed for them to place a few more hives - although the RSPCA might have something to say about subjecting the poor bees to such a harsh working environment.Kermit power said:
I'm confused by this.
If your previous owners planted the bushes on your side of the property and these then expanded into their property, and they then build the hovel in line with the edge of the bushes where it had moved into their side, then surely this just means they've got a bit of space between the shed and the property boundary from where you've cut the old bushes down.
I thought my description might not have been very clear. Here's a pretty picture to try and clarify what I meant:If your previous owners planted the bushes on your side of the property and these then expanded into their property, and they then build the hovel in line with the edge of the bushes where it had moved into their side, then surely this just means they've got a bit of space between the shed and the property boundary from where you've cut the old bushes down.
When we bought our house the end of the garden was very overgrown so the boundaries weren't as obvious as they are shown above, but with the rest of the gardens being fenced it wouldn't have taken much to work out where the boundary was. Whilst we could have tried to prove the shed is on our land we've simply chosen to fence around it. Luckily the garden is big enough that losing a couple of sq m. in total really isnt worth the hassle.
Most of our neighbours have only recently moved in too (perhaps we've found the reason everyone sold up and moved on...) but the one that's been here the longest did say they heard him with a lady friend in there once!
To answer some of the other questions raised:
I don't think this is a vulnerable person we're talking about. He has a job, at least 3 cars, and we often see him out and about. Whilst that doesn't necessarily mean he's not a vulnerable person I'm just trying to paint the picture that he's not a social recluse and appears 'normal' in all other aspects.
He definitely does live in the shed as we can see lights on all night and he comes out in the morning (usually half naked) looking rather sleepy.
On a couple of occasions when we've been in the garden we've heard a bottle of liquid being poured out of the back window, shortly followed by the stench of a thousand camels (he clearly needs to drink more water). If it wasn't for this we couldn't care less about his life choices and would leave him in peace. We do feel a little uneasy about moving in and rocking the apple cart but as this is taking place right next to my daughters' play area it's my duty as a parent to put their welfare first, hence why I thought I'd ask how best to approach the situation.
I've spoken to Environmental Health this morning so I trust they'll do whatever they feel is necessary to resolve the issue.
Edited by eeeeeeeeee on Monday 7th July 10:46
Edited by eeeeeeeeee on Monday 7th July 10:50
fido said:
Good start. With my political hat on, I would say that this makes an excellent pretext for establishing your garden boundary.
The location of the shed isn't an issue, just an additional annoyance. I only mentioned it as someone else earlier in the thread correctly/incorrectly thought the shed was in our garden.The only issue is the hygiene of the sheds occupant, hence why I've chosen to contact Environmental Health as helpfully suggested by a few contributors.
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