Get over it. Unless you bought that adjacent lot yourself, you don't control what goes there or what happens there. Period. The builder doesn't owe you a thing.

Even if you had a HOA it wouldn't cover a retired guy puttering out of his garage. Your expectations were out of line with reality of having a non Stepford neighbor. Perhaps it's time for you to do something other than staring at his garage all day. If you make friends with him, he might just invite you out on his boat.

The Clampetts were honest and kind people - way nicer than their snobby neighbors.

Get over it , or move.
The neighbor is doing nothing wrong.

I fail to see how the builder is blamed for this.. no one was thrown under a bus.

The only way to control your view is to own it. If you don't want to now a dozen acres, then your choice is neighbors. I personally don't see this as the builders responsibility. What if you hated the paint color the neighbor painted their house and it made you literally nausious? Hopefully you have enough room on the side of your house to plant a good buffer. Start with taller plants, so they get taller quicker. In the meantime, find some good rhubarb recipes, I bet he will share :)

The builder has nothing to do with this. If the neighbor is violating a town ordinance than report him. Remember that tomorrow you can buy a loud sports car, paint your house lime green, start having a rock band practice on your patio, start mowing your lawn only when threaten with a fine, get a barking dog, etc. You never know and should make the best of it.

I will 2nd the fact that the "messy" neighbors are often the best neighbors. Our messy house neighbor will fix our cars for close to nothing and doesn't care if our dog visits his yard. The nice house neighbors while mostly are fine but seem to always question the property line. Recently the "fancy" house neighbor has for some unknown reason mowed part of our front lawn killing some newly planted grass, twice. This weekend DH is putting up stakes and caution tape along the property line.

I'll take our messy house neighbor with the loud hot rod any day.

It is ridiculous to blame the builder.

You should have moved into an area with covenants. Since I'd be thrilled that my neighbor was planting rhubarb (and hopefully an entire garden) and seems to be handy with tools, I guess I don't see the problem.

Maybe he bought this lot, BECAUSE it did not have the restrictions found with covenants. Bake some cookies, apologize, and wait for the arborvitaes to grow :)

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but it's called private property...and it's why our ancestors came to this country.

We've had a tendency to be the messy house neighbors with the loud hot rod. But if anyone needs anything, guess where they come?

Make the best of a bad situation, you might wind up with new friends! :)

" He planted a rhubarb patch in the middle of his backyard. His wheelbarrow is leaning against the side of the house and he has every power tool known to man "

Oh the horror!

It is ridiculous to blame the builder.

You would be more lucky than most to have your builder willing to take your view into consideration and restrict his other paying customers, with no HoA. Its rough to not have the forsight to realize a lot "in close proximity" to yours won't be empty forever and you didn't envision a worse case scenario there. Whats more, it sounds like you don't even have the worse case scenario yet. You yourself say his home is beautiful and your worse gripe is open garage doors, a truck, and a wheelbarrow. Now not to rain on your parade but what happens when it gets worse, even tho its unlikely in the expensive neighborhood you describe, maybe you should consider it now rather than later. What happens when that nice tinkerer neighbor moves or passes on and you end up with owners in there that decide to turn the driveway into a junkyard of real eyesores. They allow that rhubarb patch to overgrow with weeds and have their yard littered with trash like the real "clampetts" might.

This is the point where you get to worry not only about your fickle views but your property value. So I'd say either deal with the screening issue 100% on your property or move into an HoA restricted area as others have suggested.

There is a reason I designed my house/lot not to have the best views looking at neighboring lots. I'm sorry you have to suffer such a misstep after your own dream build tho.

Plant, plant, plant.

And when my very green-thumbed neighbor's tomato plants are tall enough to fall over my privacy fence and are an eyesore, I remember all the free tomatoes and other veggies I get from him.

Your neighbor's garden isn't going anyway, but the produce you get from it depends on your attitude. haha

Another good thing about my retired neighbor - he is outside at least eight hours a day every day. He's the best security system I could have.

Good luck!

I find it hard to believe that a new subdivision that is by far the most expensive real estate in town, does not have covenants.
I think you are overreacting. 75 feet away is far enough. They can not be that terrible is you described them as a lovely couple.

We bought our lot in a new, wooded subdivision, with covenants and no HOA.
We (I) had a few requests and the developer was ok with them, like us removing most of the trees because they were not ok in my DH opinion; we will plant new trees. By covenant, they could not be removed.
He is also going to allow us to build a house with no brick (covenants require brick or stone in the front) because I prefer fiber cement siding in the 4 sides of the house to brick in the front and fake vinyl siding in the other 3 sides, and also he will be flexible with the minimum size that can be built in the subdivision (We are pretty close to the minimum). he said that all my request made sense and that he trusted my judgment.

If what your neighbor is doing is so terrible, probably the other residents are with you. Did you talk to the other residents?

I hate to pile on here....but you need to thank your lucky stars if this is the worst thing that happens to you.

Without restrictive covenants, you are limited to whatever zoning laws have to say about all of this. I doubt your local zoning is going to care about any of it, but you could always call and find out.

Please try not to pre-judge the new neighbor/s. They might turn out to be the nicest people you know, who are willing to help you out in a pinch someday.

Plant, plant, plant.

And when my very green-thumbed neighbor's tomato plants are tall enough to fall over my privacy fence and are an eyesore, I remember all the free tomatoes and other veggies I get from him.

Your neighbor's garden isn't going anyway, but the produce you get from it depends on your attitude. haha

Another good thing about my retired neighbor - he is outside at least eight hours a day every day. He's the best security system I could have.

Good luck!

Wow - I'm the OP and I'm surprised at some of the responses. Very harsh. This is my 6th new build. In every instance the Builder/Developer took into account the needs of new buyers as well as existing residents. This builder prides himself and presents himself as building communities, not just houses. There were options - he could have pointed them toward another lot (14 are available) where two driveway would abut or he could have replaced the trees that he took down during construction. As far as my new neighbors, they have every right to park their truck, grow their rhubarb, run power equipment within reason, leave their wheelbarrow outside etc. I would never dispute that although I think they could be a bit more considerate. It's the sum total of all of these that is a little hard to swallow - and yes, it does affect my property value.

I completely agree with you...

"my new neighbors, they have every right to park their truck, grow their rhubarb, run power equipment within reason, leave their wheelbarrow outside etc. I would never dispute that"

I guess I don't see what the problem is...maybe they want sunshine for the garden and don't want to have the trees replaced.

Since you seem to have plenty of money...I'd call a really good landscaper and focus on your property. Maybe a pergola outside the kitchen, with climbing roses? A nice place to sit and have a cup of tea or coffee...and maybe even invite your new neighbors over to visit :)

Well... I'm trying to be sympathetic, and the only valid complaint I can see is the power tools running all day. Is there a noise nuisance? Perhaps you could approach it from that angle. But truly the plantings are the only legal way to create more privacy for yourself, from the info you shared. The builder and the neighbor are not responsible, unless there are some kind of regulations he signed up for when he purchased the lot. I'm sure the neighbor paid a high premium for his real estate too, and wants to enjoy the benefits of that by puttering and planting. He sounds like a really useful guy to know... if he is that handy with tools. And I don't see how the builder was responsible to foresee certain privacy issues for you in regard to each lots placement. I do, however, understand your desire for more privacy. I'm right there with you. We've purchased 2 new homes in the past before the development was finished and both times I ended up with much less privacy than I expected and hoped for.

We are planning a build in the country on acreage up against a cattle ranch... but we still realize that the land next to ours might some day have homes on it, and all the stuff that goes with that. We actually paid a major premium to NOT have an HOA, and have the ability to put tractors and hay bales and muscle cars and gardens all over our property. So it's possible that it could increase your property value. :)

Again, the builder has no responsibility. Even if he tried to "screen" the buyers, buyers could lie, or they could change their minds. As I mentioned above, tomorrow your teenage son could buy a screeming yellow "project" car. You could all of a sudden take up growing whatever.... You could decide to buy a motor home, etc.

Perhaps the issue is most don't see anything wrong with some of the issues you pointed out. What in the world is wrong with growing rhubarb? What is wrong with having lots of power tools? I would take that as a good sign, as in, they like to fix things.

Sorry if all this sounded harsh but many would be happy with that kind of neighbor. The house across the street from me has been vacant for several years. It was a beautiful home at one time. Now has a tree growing in the living room through the hole in the roof. Yes, the bank comes to mow the lawn but does nothing to stop the house from decaying.

Here is another idea that may or may not help. Get to know them. Invite them over. Set things up so that they can see the "issues" from where they are sitting. Just maybe they will get it. Year ago our "messy" neighbor used to come over for coffee. One day she sat in a different chair at the kitchen table. This seat gave her a direct view of her yard. She commented on the view and immediately cleaned up some of her yard. This was not done intentionally but it did work.

I doubt this stuff affects your property value... This seems pretty minimal to me. Shoot during our renovation we had a tub and toilet in our yard for weeks. And we are in a neighborhood with 600k-2million dollar houses. Luckily our neighbors are all renovating too so it's no big deal.

Well, if it's your 6th build, by now you should know yourself well enough to have purchased in a community with a HOA if you want more restrictions on the activities of others. Or perhaps next time, you would prefer to have more property so that you can site your home with whatever view you desire without the interference of neighbors. Or maybe you should have also purchased the lot next door if you wanted it to remain wooded.

But, this time, you have to deal with being in a community where nothing you listed is remotely a problem for most people. And, the only thing you can change here is your attitude about it. Maybe take up vegetable gardening yourself. A healthy hobby that takes up some of your free time and produces bounty for your table could be a really good thing to occupy you here.

gayled, if the view is the main concern, then the landscaping might just be your best bet. If you have young kids/grandkids or pets that you'd want to keep from wandering into an open garage with power tools, you might consider a fence, and suggest that your neighbor keep his garage doors closed when he's not actually working there. Maybe your neighbor would enjoy helping design and build a nice fence? Where we are, even in the neighborhoods with 1 acre lot sizes most folks have fences for privacy and/or safety (pools, kids, pets).

I agree with the majority..... why is it the builder's fault? A community with no covenants and no HOA? Then everyone is free to do as they please as long as it isn't breaking a law.

I think the responses you've gotten here have been fair, reasonable, and in no way harsh. This is your 6th go around, so you're not fresh off the trolley. The fact is you are trying to blame someone besides yourself when in fact thats the only place blame can lie in this circumstance.

Your builder is there to sell a product. He may have steered your neighbors at another lot, and perhaps being high priced shoppers like yourself..they insisted on the lot *they* wanted period. They then built the house they wanted there, and there was nothing in place in this community to tell them they had to do otherwise.

GW isn't trying to sell anything and your getting honesty here, if its harsh in your opinion then you do know how the old saying goes...truth hurts?

I can see why you are upset. I would be too. I like my privacy and do not like being that close to anyone. On 1/2 acres with no HOA or restrictions...it was really a crap shoot.

I figure if you can see them as well as you can, they can see you too. I want to look at turkeys and deer, not people and trucks.

The subdivision we bought in consist of wooded 1/2 acre lots. We want less ground to care for but we still want privacy. We purchased 2 lots and had the easement vacated between the 2 lots. Now I know I won't have the same problem.

I hate to suggest it but you can always build another home on a more private lot, if the lack of privacy really drives you crazy.

Good luck.

Is this a joke? Is there a full moon? You have got to be kidding, gayled. Like someone else said, if you want to control what you can see from your house, you'd better buy all you can see. And you didn't.

If you called your builder to complain, he probably laughed and laughed after he hung up the call. No way is this his fault or responsibility. It's YOUR fault for not doing your due diligence. Especially if this is the SIXTH time you have built a house.

Another vote for "you're the one being ridiculous".

I think Gayle knows we think she's over-reaching just a bit, at least in our opinions. However, that being said, I hope she'll continue to post and maybe we can help with ideas on screening her view or other home and garden issues.

Gayle- I hope you'll take a look at my home plan. I value everyone's opinion and want to include you, since you've had so much experience building homes :)

"This builder prides himself and presents himself as building communities, not just houses. There were options - he could have pointed them toward another lot (14 are available) "

Really? REALLY?? Sorry to say this, but I really think this is one of the most self-involved things I've ever read on this board.

What you are saying implies that you believe the builder should *first* consider whether or not *you* would enjoy the view of the new neighbors' home before considering running his business in a way that makes sense. I could understand if the new neighbors plunked down a 40-year-old rusty mobile home, but seriously.... A half-acre lot is not very large. You basically are complaining that the builder allowed the lot to be built on. Either that, or that he and the new owners did not consult with you on the design to get your input on how much you would enjoy looking at it from one side of your house. Wow.

Saftgeek, I was just going to post something very similar.

I've lived near drug houses - complete with scary morons who let their pit bulls run loose.

At my last house, my neighbor used to yodel and bark. At 6 am. While he was outside in his tighty-whiteys, picking up yard debris. (Yes he was very weird. Harmless, but very, very weird.)

Years ago, when I lived in apartments, I had a band move in over me. Nothing like an electric guitar about vibrating you out of bed at 2 am.

Power tools and rhubarb wouldn't even register on me. :)

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This post was edited by patriceny on Tue, Oct 1, 13 at 13:34

We wanted to avoid this situation as well, except that we're the nuisance neighbors :)

Husband & I like to build things (lots of power tools), husband has a loud truck, and sometimes we like to play the music a little loud on weekend evenings. Our young boys will likely be running around like wild things, and will likely drive loud trucks themselves.

Our solution? We bought 10 acres.

If you want to avoid anything that might possibly come along with having neighbors (in our case, older, cranky people who wouldn't appreciate our version of fun), you can't assume what your neighbors will be like. You buy big.

I'm not trying to be rude, it's just that you can't control situations like this. If that particular neighbor was set on that lot, why would the builder dissuade him? As much as they may try to make reasonable accommodations to the best of their ability, in the end, it's about business.

I think I'm your neighbor, you'd be happy to know I take my shirt off when it gets real hot, and just wait 'till you see the Christmas light display I got planned.

Oh, my goodness! LOL

Oh, my goodness! LOL

Hahahaha!!!!! I'm rolling! The Christmas display! Lol
Ibwye ... you made my night! My week!?! Maybe even the best highlight of gardenweb I've seen in a while.
Im thinking we meed a highlights thread...

There's a thought

I can relate a little just a different story. We built our first house in a subdivision with .25 acre lots. We went with a corner lot because it had the biggest yard. We had no idea the lots would fill up so fast.It went from just us to someone picking the lot directly behind us within a month. The guy who lived there used to mow his lawn for 2hrs on Sunday nights. Then next door built the month after. Our bedroom window view turned into their siding. The couple spent every day playing yard games and drinking. What got us to move out a year later was their dogs were in our yard all the time and would come after us every time we went in our yard. Were actually building our second home now on a private 2 acre wooded lot. We liked our previous home just location wasn't for us. Felt different living their then we had envisioned. Just thought I'd share :)

My God, I'm the OP's neighbour!

Wheelbarrow on the side of the house. Ditto construction trailer. And three modified twin exhaust vehicles--Mustang GT, a Hemi Ram pickup and Cayenne S. I just trimmed a new door on my front porch with a noisy Skil saw. And, like Forest Gump, I delight in mowing my own yard. How blue collar can you get!! Excuuuuuse me for living.

This post was edited by worthy on Tue, Oct 1, 13 at 21:24

Seriously, folks, this should be a lesson to anyone building in a neighborhood without convenants or restrictions.

Don't want to let someone else tell you what to do with your property? No deed restrictions are for you. Want a pristine neighborhood even if it means losing some of your freedoms - go for the covenant restricted neighborhood.

In the home town where I grew up there's a small development with no restrictions - large, gorgeous, custom homes with boats, motor homes, etc. in the back yard. Yes, there are plenty of folks who believe their home is their castle, don't care what others think, and would rather have freedom to do what they want than live in a deed-restricted neighborhood.

Neither attitude is wrong, but choose your lot carefully based on what's important to you.

This post was edited by bird_lover6 on Wed, Oct 2, 13 at 9:58

Living in a place where there are lots of restrictions can be a real pain, too. I just moved from one (a condo community). While there was no restriction against putting a washer and dryer in your unit, all were subject to individual review and approval.

One long term board member routinely voted against approval, because she had lived there for "20 years and have never had a problem using the laundry room or going to the laundromat" She felt people that had their own washers and dryers were "self entitled and lazy".

A neighboring unit owner fought mine because he was positive he would see my dryer vent when he looked out his skylight. When it was pointed out that he would have to have his face pressed against it to see it, he said "well I will see the steam coming out".

You may be forced to use materials on your house you don't like. I did a project in a community where one woman complained whenever anyone painted their front door in the correct color, because they didn't match the faded version of the correct color on the other doors.

I couldn't wait to finally get out of my HOA even though I have no say as to what my neighbors do, and my next door neighbor does lots of things I don't like, including passing out when he is cooking and nearly burning his kitchen down. And our houses are connected.

We've lived in a subdivision in our small town for 13 years. I'm just sure our neighbors will be glad to get rid of us.

My 22 acre Field of Dreams is sounding better & better every day!!! woop woop! :)

Acreage seems to be the ultimate answer.

We targeted 3-5, and got 3.02. I'm very happy - close enough for safety, far enough away for privacy.

I told DH when we met, you can pay either for acreage, or window treatments, and we targeted where the cost of those two items met.

I'm sorry for your stresses, but it seems to be rooted in the shift of expectations. Maybe they won't be there long. But it could be a LOT, lot worse.