Height of the fence to the neighbor and windows in the boundary construction

Hey, if both of you want the privacy screen, this could be the first successful project you do together. Take a look at the height the neighbor suggests. The neighborhood relationship sounds quite petty. That's really a shame.

She really doesn't have all her screws loose - to put it kindly.

Last Sunday we were watching TV with the window closed. Then one of our cats wanted to come in and, as cats do, it's "am I coming in now or not or maybe yes or no..." So I left the sliding door open about 20 cm so the lady could decide and went to the fridge to get myself a drink. When I came back, about 1-2 minutes at most, Mrs. Neighbor was already hanging out the window screaming "I HEAR EVERY WORD!!! *screaming and shouting*." I just closed the sliding door again, what was that supposed to be? I should be able to open the door even when the TV is on. Neither of us is hard of hearing, so at normal room volume. But the way she acted you would have thought there was a rock band playing at full volume at our place.

Doesn't matter. We know her outbursts by now.

But that wasn't enough. Shortly after, there was a storm of ringing at our door. The neighbor. It was half past eleven, we really didn't feel like having a conversation with a shrieking fury and didn't answer. It's our right. We don't open the door for Jehovah's Witnesses either. However, they understand quicker that you don't open the door, whereas our neighbor made a terror for about 5 minutes or longer with pounding and banging on the door and the window. My husband opened the door upstairs once and listened to what she was cursing (you can do that without her hearing it downstairs). It was like: "Now they're still watching TV! The TV is still on! They're still awake! Why don't they open up! Outrageous!!!" And more like that in the same tone.

She's been agitated about us the whole time. We are not allowed to talk outside "I HEAR EVERY WORD!", in nice weather we should please keep the windows on her side closed so she’s not disturbed, and also we should pull down the blinds for privacy reasons. So she demands and we are supposed to comply. But we don't. So far we have really been considerate and hardly sat outside at all in the summer. It’s no fun when after 10 minutes some shrieking woman is there. But by now we don’t feel like that anymore and believe that if it bothers her, she should please close her windows. If they don’t provide soundproofing that’s not our problem. She will have to tolerate our conversations, those are normal neighborhood acoustic emissions, she has to endure that.

Therefore a maximally protective privacy fence and also we would like to keep the garage window closed after these incidents.

If she makes another such circus at our front door, we will issue a ban from the house and also put it in writing (possibly through a lawyer).

Not nice and unfortunately she’s not old enough to hope for a biological solution to the problem.

Honestly, we have never experienced anything like this and until now have gotten along well to excellently with all our neighbors we had.

However, I don’t believe a joint "privacy fence" project will improve anything here...

Oh dear, you certainly don’t wish for neighbors like that. I also think that the privacy screen can’t be seen as a joint project. I would also shut myself off as much as possible and plant everything nicely so that they don’t have so much insight and you still have something nice to look at.

Our future neighbors also have many floor-to-ceiling windows, but they can’t look out of any of them because they have pleated blinds pulled all the way up for more privacy.... We don’t have any problem with them at all, but that’s just a quirk your wonderful neighbor could do too.

Did you build in a building gap, that everyone annoys you with every little thing? Was she already like that during the construction phase?

It used to be an undeveloped strip of land that belonged to my brother and they never expected a house to be built there. Of course, they are not thrilled about it. I can understand that to some extent.

But she was already arrogant before and went to my mother (next to whom we built) and demanded that the strip be mowed because it looks so sloppy and her children have hay fever (I don’t know why she wants the grass mowed then – that’s much worse for hay fever). When my brother was extensively renovating his old farmhouse, he also stored building materials there temporarily (old bricks to be reused, for example, so no hazardous materials or anything like that). She also complained that it looked terrible, and so on and so forth.

What she would have preferred, of course, is that nothing was built there and we had made a nice garden for her eyes. That my nearly 80-year-old mother can no longer maintain it simply doesn’t occur to her. With the "I want the grass mowed" thing, for example, it would have been received differently if she had offered that her children (both teenagers) would do it, if that would be okay. But no, one just demands and believes one has the right to do so.

I wouldn’t do anything there with a lawyer, otherwise your neighbors might get similar ideas. For now, they apparently are only barking. I know other escalation levels when it comes to building gaps. They no longer communicate at all, zero, the construction was a nightmare. Don’t know what’s better. Still offer to talk and give space for wishes in joint projects.

I would not build a single millimeter higher than allowed.
Tomorrow she won't know what she said.