How I Learnt Which Buttons to Press

Yet again, a visitor to the Braun's property parked on the end of the driveway, again blocking our access. We hadn't seen the car arrive and only noticed it when another vehicle triggered our CCTV a little later. Given that previous short, sharp demands to have vehicles moved seemed to get a reaction I, once again knocked loudly on the Braun's front door and upon its opening I shouted "Move the car now!" as I walked away. I didn't actually see who opened the door and I didn't care.

It got the desired effect and the car was moved! What I did not know until later was that another neighbour visited the Brauns shortly after me to complain about another of their visitors who had parked so badly in the street that the neighbour had difficulty getting onto their own driveway. I actually caught the tail end of their visit as I opened my front door to check that the previously moved vehicle was parked appropriately. All I can say is that the other neighbour did not hold back and made it quite clear that the Brauns should remember that they lived in a cul-de-sac with limited parking and should arrange parking appropriately. I spoke to our other neighbour as they were returning to their property and it appeared that Mr Braun was not there but Mrs Braun was extremely upset and concerned about being embarrassed in front of her visitors which, given the historically observed importance to the Brauns of status amongst their peers, seemed to indicate that the other neighbour had "pushed the right buttons". Well done!

Mr Braun Arrives Home

Apparently, Mr Braun arrived home a short time later with another visitor and his wife joined him in the street where they had quite a long discussion. I was told this later by the other neighbour. The upshot of this conference was that Mr Braun came knocking on our front door (neither my wife nor I had spoken to him in 4 years) arrogantly and sarcastically stating that the "visitor had left and the car had been moved as I wished". As Mr Braun walked off, I replied "It shouldn't have been parked there in the first place!". He said "It was their first visit and they didn't know" I walked after him stating that it was his responsibility to tell them not to park there but he then went off on a rant accusing me of all sorts of things that were totally untrue and insulting. He then accused me of "sexually abusing his wife!". I had only said "Move the car now" so how that could be construed as "Sexual Abuse" is beyond me!. A heated discussion began with me trying to get Mr Braun to talk rationally and stop being so childish but he continued to rant and rapidly turned the situation around so that he became the victim. He made other irrational but serious accusations against me including claiming that I had "sexually abused him"!

Now, I know Mr Braun is often irrational and can be delusional but what remarks to come out with!. In fact, I have had concerns in the past about his mental state. Note, no apology was forthcoming regarding the visitor's parking and Mr Braun blamed it all on the visitor! He also went on to accuse me of targeting him when he had visitors for an event at his property when they disturbed no one which indicates that he is clearly paranoid as well as delusional! I am not sure that the other neighbours would agree that he and his visitors disturb no one.

Conclusion

Looking back on the incident, which was fully captured by my CCTV, my wife and I believe that Mr Braun has been given a distorted version of events by his wife as he only mentioned my visit to the property but referenced what I believe may have possibly been comments made by the other neighbour whose visit he made no mention of. His "knee-jerk" reaction was to blame me for the entire incident and verbally abuse me!

I admit that I did partially lose my temper with Mr Braun and said, in the middle of his insulting rant "You really are a piece of s**t aren't you". I will not repeat his irrational response but it did include his accusation that "I was sexually abusing" him.

Still insist that you are "friends with all your neighbours and respect your neighbours" Mr Braun?

17 December 2024: No MOT Certificate...

3 months past its first MOT date, the Braun's Mercedes still has no MOT certificate despite the fact that it is used daily! We all have to follow the rules Mr Braun!

The vehicle's MOT was finally done on 23 February 2025!

A Few Other Rules That Don't Apply to the Brauns

• The fence between Mr Braun's and the other neighbour's property is explicitly forbidden in the property deeds
• Mr Braun is required in the deeds to maintain the driveway in good order
• Mr brown is required in the deeds to keep the exterior of the property in good tidy order
• The Brauns are not allowed in the deeds to cause nuisance to other residents
• The Brauns are not allowed in the deeds to prevent free access across the "right of way" or block access to garages

Monday 10th March 2025:

Mrs Braun ran over one of our decorative concrete tubs, nicknamed Bob and Kate, which protect a British Telecom junction box and try to deter drivers from driving across the front of our property. The deterrent didn't work in this instance as can be seen in the photo below:

RIP Kate

Not a Good Driver

Our neighbour's wife is not a very good driver at the best of times and watching her reversing is very entertaining. She paused for a few seconds after the collision, just off camera, probably to see if she had damaged the Bling Rover and then proceeded on her way. No apology, no attempt to put right the damage done, in fact, no manners shown at all!

Amazon drivers are the worst as they often clip the tubs and on occasions, push them across the gravel. One Amazon driver actually drove over the top of one of the tubs which must have damaged his vehicle but, as usual, didn't stop!

Thursday 3 April 2025: I Caught Up With Mrs Braun

Coming back from lunch out with my wife I spotted Mrs Braun about to get into the white mercedes so I waited for her to turn the car around and approached the vehicle. Mrs Braun stopped and wound down the window whereupon I said "We are still waiting for you to put the tub you ran over back where it belongs". Her reply was "I don't know". I continued by saying "You need to do it as soon as possible because you did the damage with your Range Rover" to which she replied "No I didn't". I said "Yes you did, I have it on video.". She said again "I don't know" to which I replied "If you don't put it right I will claim against your vehicle insurance". She, yet again, replied "I don't know" so I gave up and walked away.

I used to give Mrs Braun the benefit of the doubt but I now know that she will blatantly lie as her husband has done on so many previous occasions. She has actually broken the law by "failing to stop after an incident involving damage to property" and I am within my rights to report her to the Police but, I will now write them a letter and give them one last chance to put things right.

Friday 4 April 2025: Well, wonders will never cease! This afternoon, Vlad arrived and put the concrete tub back, roughly, where it used to be. He put most of the spilled earth back into the tub and straightened it up on the gravel. It looks like my conversation with Mrs Braun and most likely, my mention of claiming on her vehicle insurance paid off. Of course, neither she nor her husband were ever going to do the work themselves so Vlad was delegated. It only took nearly 4 weeks!

Parking Has Improved

Since the big bust up last November, it's generally been quiet on the neighbour front. We had a couple of stupid, selfish visitors which I had to ask to move their cars and one insisted that as they were parked on our neighbour's side of the driveway centre line there was no problem. I asked the offending driver to tell me how I could get my car off of the drive with their car parked as it was and they had no answer. They did move the car but it was clear that they were not happy.

Since then my neighbour does seem to be making his visitors park in the street. Vlad has been driving his van onto the drive but only for short periods and he leaves the engine running. We haven't seen him load or unload the van so we suspect it's intimidation, he knows he shouldn't but he's going to anyway! The Mercedes mini-bus is back permanently taking up 1 of the 2 visitor parking spaces as usual but the old BMW poser-mobile is being stored somewhere, yes, he still seems to own it but it hasn't appeared for about 6 months.

It's April now and my neighbour has decided to put a planter on the driveway..

Note the brick (trip hazard, circled) and the length of wood which he placed there last year after our solicitor "tore him a new one" which, to this day, we do not understand. He can't really do this as we have a right to a straight path to our garage which is behind and to the right of the photographer but, we don't care! He will, if anyone falls over because of his bricks. We just think it's his attempt at intimidation. Oh, the decorative weeds are back on his part of the driveway and they'll stay there until they shrivel and die.

Anti-social Behaviour

Saturday 26 April 2025 04:35: Well, Mr Brown has surpassed himself by arriving home at 04:35 this morning in his Bling Rover with his music blaring at full volume. It woke us up and I'm sure few of the other neighbours escaped.

Summer passed relatively smoothly. Very little visitor disruption except for 1 large gathering on 21 August with a little parking disruption in the street. Maybe Mr Braun has got the message at last!

Mr Braun is up to his old tricks as they went off for a few days over the August Bank Holiday in the minibus. Mr Braun couldn't leave without leaving his mark on the close by replacing his permanent parking of the minibus in the visitor pull-in with the, so far, permanent parking of his poser-mobile BMW in the other visitor pull-in. At present, they still have only 3 vehicles, the bling-rover, the poser-mobile and the minibus which they can comfortably park on their drive.

When they left for their break, they only left the bling-rover on the drive leaving ample space for the poser-mobile. But, Mr Braun was either too lazy or just wanted to inconvenience the other residents by leaving the poser-mobile in the street where it remains.

Wednesday 17 September 2025: Something wonderful occurred today! The Brauns, after 9 years living in their property, finally cleaned their window sashes and frames! To be fair, the Brauns didn't actually do the work themselves as they got Vlad's labourer to call and do various tidying-up jobs including weeding the driveway and tieing up the rose bushes.