How to create your dream home without raining on your new neighbour's hopes

My dream home is going to be amazing. I’m going to search through the best suburbs, find the nicest street, buy the most charming home with the quaintest period features, then I’ll knock it down and put up a big exposed-concrete hard-edged Brutalist Doomsday-bunker home (one of those prefab ones that go up over a weekend, but quality). And yes, I know the neighbours will probably complain about it, say I’m spoiling the beautiful heritage streetscape – and I’m a reasonable guy, I’m open to compromise. I’ll clad my home in giant shiny mirrors so it reflects all the beautiful heritage homes around me. That’s me: Mr Solution.

My dream home is also going to be big. Like BIIIIIIIG big. No backyard or front yard or side yard: just solid house going right up to the boundaries (maybe a little bit over if the builders work quickly and quietly at night while the neighbours are sleeping). There will be tons of rooms inside, some of them even functional, and the living room will have 360-degree windows so I can spin in a circle, stop at any random point, and be staring directly into a neighbour’s bathroom or bedroom. Sure, maybe neighbours will have an issue with this too (so predictable), claim it’s an invasion of their privacy – but hey, I’m a good fellow, I’m community-minded, I’ll make sure my windows are frosted so I can’t see through. Though it’s kind of pointless seeing I have a 360-degree wrap-around balcony. But if it makes them happy…

My dream home is going to be high. Like maybe three or four levels, maybe more – I want that “vertical-slum” look that’s all the rage in poorer parts of Venezuela. In fact, it will be so high, it will cast a moving sundial-shadow in a 50-metre radius, so anyone walking down the street will be able to look at the ground and tell the time – my gift to the ‘hood! Oh here we go, here we go: neighbours up in arms again, saying I’m blocking out all the light in their homes and they’re growing mushrooms on their faces, boo hoo hoo. But you know me, I’m sure we can work something out – get better streetlighting or realign the sun. Though that sounds like a council thing to me. Yeah, the council will sort that out.

My dream home will have a swimming pool, derrrrr, of course it will. But because I’ve got no backyard or front yard or side yard, it’ll have to be on the roof, half of it sticking out over the neighbour’s property (that’s why I’m putting up privacy screens, I don’t want them peeking up at me, the pervs). Also, I’m not sure if this is a thing but I want to fill the pool with extra-splashy water so it makes a loud splashing sound all summer. Who doesn’t love that sound? Maybe I can get underwater amplifiers. Must look into it.

I’m pretty excited about my dream home: can’t wait until it happens. And I know there will be a couple of whiny, petty neighbours who will hate me, shun me, and I probably won’t get invited to the Xmas street party, but stuff ’em, who needs them? Did I mention that I’m subdividing my property into eight smaller exposed-concrete bunker-houses? So I’ll have my own little community, like a pop-up mini-suburb. Then we can have our own Xmas street party in one of our six-lane driveways.