Thank you for starting this thread. This explains our neighborhood and growth. Apparently happening everywhere. I am still not sure why the huge multistory homes are being built here by retired couples.
OP- thank your neighbor and hope that one of those “stop work” orders is plastered on their house before they can finish it.
Tea Olives? You are too kind!
Here’s my thought why. Why should the builder make the money? If you have the means, inclination and the time, then why not maximize the value of your property and add to your retirement?
In November 2013, our neighborhood was mentioned in a newspaper article as one of five local areas where you can still get a great house for $250K. Here we are, 4.5 years later, and a second house just sold for $500K. So far, neither of those homes has been a tear-down, but both were flips. The new owners of the first home have added a two-story structure in the far corner of their back yard. If I was the neighbor behind them I’d be none too happy. I called the former president of the neighborhood association and got her on the case. They had not pulled any permits, though it’s unclear if they really needed to. If it’s just a beautiful giant shed with no plumbing or electricity.
One of the things I love about our 'hood is that, without an HOA, people can do whatever they want. But that’s about to be tested as more people with money move in and want to change things up. The second house flipper added 300 square feet and built this very tall covered deck. I bet the neighbors weren’t thrilled either.
Maybe this is their dream home, and I get that. It does maximize the value of the property (and the taxes). I guess I am not sure how it would add to retirement? I guess if they sold it years later, then it would be a good investment?
OP, I’m sorry you are going through this.
“Tea Olives? You are too kind!”
Well, OP has to look at it, too.
It’s worthwhile to distinguish legitimate grievances from wishes that other people in the world would do what you want.
The dog poop issue is a legitimate grievance. Since the neighbors seem friendly, I suggest acting as if you believe that their sons, like a lot of heedless boys, are, unbeknownst to their mother, carelessly failing to clean up after their pets. I suggest bringing this to the attention of the parents while indicating that you think this is boys behaving badly against their parents wishes. If the boys are misbehaving, their parents can try to make them shape up. If the parents know what’s going on, they may still be able to be shamed. Give them a graceful way to make this right.
If the house is violating code, that is also a legitimate grievance, but it doesn’t sound like that is the case. A house with a full basement and three stories above is not a four story house. We call this a three story house. It sounds like there is a daylight plane regulation, which this house is satisfying by pulling back the facade on the third story. You should be able to look at the plans and talk to the city. Did this family get a variance? Are they satisfying the requirements for the variance?
If there are drainage issues, you should deal with them right now. Most cities have rules about the percent of a lot that can be covered by impermeable surfaces. Have a look at the approved plans and make sure the neighbors are following them, and are using the surfaces they were approved to use.
I’m a bit confused about “it means our natural sunlight is gone.” What is blocking the natural sunlight from the other directions? How wide is this house? I would think it was casting a shadow on your lot at some times of day, but not other times.
oh my… not sure if I can post a FB link, but the San Francisco Decorator Showcase house for 2018 has a paint job that resembles three giant eyes. On FB, look for SFShowcase. This house is overlooking the Marina Green, SF Bay… talk about not fitting in the neighborhood…oye.
A replica of Michaelangelo’s David statue like this?
Doesn’t your city do inspections as a matter of course with new builds and renos? Anything that requires permits here, and that’s virtually any reno, and all new builds, have a schedule of regular different types of inspections by the town.
As for neighbors and statues, I recall hearing about a man who bought the house next to his ex-wife just to install a giant middle finger statue for her to see every day.
A friend has lived on the non-waterfront side of a street for 20-30 years; the land slopes, if you drive down the street nearly every house, even two story ones, is down the slope of the lot as close to the water as possible and low down so no views are blocked. Cue new shoreline restrictions and a spec builder who decided not to fight the variance. The house across the street is right on the street and also fully using the allowed height. Our friend complained, a lot, and the county inspected, turned out the excavation missed the mark by about a foot. The builder had to drop the height of the tallest roofline by one foot. It really did nothing to help our friend’s view, but the inside of the house has some, um, interesting adjustments to make that happen, definitely some asymmetry happened.
It doesn’t hurt you to make sure the installation follows the plans and rules, but it won’t solve the big issue.
My friends bought a lovely property in an older area of the village and built a $2M house. The next year the adjacent lot came on the market at $500,000 but was clearly a tear down with raccoons living in the house and water damage. The size of the second lot was the same as the first, about .5 acre. My friends wanted to tear down the second house and have additional green space. The village fought them tooth and nail for the demolition permit. The village’s objective was to have more tax dollars rather than green space. It took over six months for the demolition permit to be approved.
We have issues with our neighbors being able to look into our bathroom and vis-a-versa. We got frosted window covering stuff (I think I got it at IKEA). It’s like a roll of thin plastic that you put right on the window glass from the inside. It’s been on our bathroom windows for 20 years and still looks good. Does the trick and still lets in light.We don’t have the frosting over the whole window. Just high enough to block the view. Our neighbors use blinds on their bathroom window, but I don’t like blinds. Too dark and hard to clean.
We used the same frosting on our upstairs windows when we put in a shed gable on our 2nd floor. Our new windows look straight into our neighbors backyard. Frosting on the lower half blocks that view (for their sake and ours) but still lets in plenty of light from the top half.
@SouthernHope Wow this sucks. Maybe paint MAGA on your roof if that would irate them.
@SouthernHope Put the monstrosity as your avatar temporarily so we can see it.
How big is the lot that this three-story house is on? (You can probably look it up on Zillow.)
Also you could shine spotlights at their windows. We had a neighbor do that in retaliation for calling the police for party noise.
Our neighbors on one side are building their dream house. Reclaimed wood and rusted metal are apparently the rage nowadays… thank goodness that stuff is not facing us. I swear their house is 5,000 sft or bigger. This is their retirement pad… One of the reasons they built so big is they wanted to have views, so they had to go up, and that added the square footage. The house has a ton of stairs, and I am afraid that in a few years we will be dealing with new neighbors… if we walk by the place, we sometimes see the guy slowly shuffling up the stairs holding onto the railing for support. But they are good neighbors. We rarely see them, and we are separated from them by a significant distance. 
This family bought a lot and (as far as we know) legally is building a three story house. Shining lights in their windows, painting nasty things on your walls, painting what are intended to be insulting slogans on the roof-- what is all the hostility about? Does no one on this board live in a three story house? I don’t, but I grew up in a three story house and I don’t think there is anything strange or hostile about wanting to live in a three story house.