“You Destroyed the Neighborhood”: Man Faces Relentless Backlash Over Demolition-bound House Sale
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If there’s one thing you learn as you get older, it’s this: you can’t control how other people feel and how they’re going to act.
You can try as hard as you want, but people are gonna do what they’re gonna do and there’s not a whole lot you can do to change it.
And that brings us to today’s story.
A man explained why he’s getting all kinds of grief from his neighbors because they’re not happy about the plans the person who bought his house has…
Yeah, let that sink in…
Take a look at what he had to say about this situation.
“You have wrought unspeakable harm.”
“My spouse and I recently closed on the sale of our home. The buyer is a developer who plans to tear down our existing home to build four townhouses on the lot.
We were likely going to list our house for sale within a few years but they reached out to us with an unsolicited offer that was ~60% over market value.
Because our city recently relaxed zoning to encourage the construction of more housing, many of the homes that have sold recently in our neighborhood have likewise sold to developers.
This is a bummer…
We’re really sad that our house — which we recently renovated — is being torn down, and that a large mature tree will be removed as well, but we are on a relatively (very) large lot and our city has a housing shortage and affordability crisis so we’ve somewhat made peace with it.
Our neighbors have not.
We assumed people wouldn’t be thrilled about the sale and the buyers plans — no one likes construction noise! — but we massively underestimated the level of ire.
Oh, boy…
Since our neighborhood was informed of the pending sale a few weeks ago, we have had:
-Neighbor #1 come to our door to confront me
-Neighbor #2 attempt to solicit competing offers on NextDoor (which we weren’t seeking, we were already under contract…)
-our NIMBYest city councillor send unsolicited information about another house that was recently torn down, and ask us “how she could help”
This is getting out of hand…
-Neighbor #3 had one of my childhood friends reach out to me to try to get more info
-Neighbor #4 messaged us to complain that we had “wrought unspeakable harm” upon the neighborhood, and *in the same breath*, ask that we please keep them updated about the timing of everything.
-Neighbors #4 and #5 come onto our property while we weren’t home to hug the tree and measure it; we then put up a “no trespassing” sign.
Wow!
-Neighbor #5, in response to the sign, then gave us a letter in which states, in part they said they just wanted to visit the tree, and to the neighbor’s credit, they also said in the letter that they won’t come on to our property again. This definitely isn’t hellish behavior, we are just feeling overwhelmed.
…and more!
It’s worth noting that a few years ago, Neighbor #1 mentioned that they had once requested that the city plant some street trees on our street, but the other neighbors fought it off because they didn’t want anything to shade their gardens…
I feel like I am losing my mind. I think the only reason we’ve managed to avoid (most) in-person confrontation is because we’ve been avoiding our front yard for weeks, and have all our street-facing curtains drawn.
I am a gardener and have been hoping to dig up some of my flower garden to transplant it to my new house, but keep putting it off because I’m emotionally exhausted and don’t want to deal with any of these people anymore.”
Here’s what readers had to say about this.
This person weighed in.
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Another individual shared their thoughts.
This person spoke up.
Another reader weighed in.
If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about neighbors who intentionally tank an open house sale because they want to buy the property themselves.
And this Reddit user made a good point.
Nobody likes to see things changed dramatically in their neighborhood, but that’s life!
Change comes with the territory!
And, like I said, you can’t control how other people feel.
They’re getting attacked by their neighbors from all sides!
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