Summer stress of life next to a holiday home

A new house next to us is a holiday let. It is advertised online with photographs cropped to avoid showing our house. So holidaymakers, expecting an isolated house with a private pool on the edge of a village, find it has neighbours in close proximity.

Some tell us we shouldn’t travel up and down our drive, as it infringes the privacy of their pool; that we shouldn’t be working in our garden when they are trying to relax. They have paid for this holiday house and we are spoiling it, they say, and ask: Why did we build our house so close to their holiday home? (We’ve been there since 2006, their house was built in 2015).

We have suffered late-night pool parties, drunken rowdiness, cigarette smoke and mégots tossed into our garden, music loud enough to be heard inside our house. “It’s only because it’s our last night” but we, of course, suffer several “last nights” in summer.

Happily, such holidaymakers are in a minority. Most are very friendly and pleasant families, and often bring presents before they leave, to thank us for the help and advice. But it makes Saturday stressful as we anticipate the next cohort of vacanciers.

Liz Jackson, Hérault

Liz Jackson wins the Connexion letter of the month for September 2018 and a copy of the Connexion Puzzle Book.

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