For the last 4 years my companion and I have become very attached to a flat that was left to her by her mother in a great location in a beautiful Sicilian town. In fact we are/were thinking of spending much of our retirement there. My companion owns the 1st floor of this single-storey house and the ground floor is now being split and converted into 2 B&Bs. As you can see from the photo, just under our big balcony where I spend lots of time reading, they are constructing this ridiculous pool (It will not have a roof). This has really upset my ideas of a peaceful retirement. We went to the Ufficio Technico about it. Because of privacy concerns they were unable to say if the owner had a permesso di costruire but said that they would be very surprised if they did and suggested we sent an anonymous letter. However as the owner of the ground floor is a powerful local figure I hesitate because of possible repercussions. Am I making a fuss about nothing?

You are not, but is it worth the potential hassle?

The phrase 'powerful local figure' says it all. I wouldn't hesitate to file a legal complaint if this was the UK, but seeing that it is Italy (and especially Sicily), you might end up waiting for decades for justice [Edit: if it would ever be served]. I shall refrain from insulting everybody as there are some decent people in Italy who understand our British sense of fair play - but certainly not your downstairs neighbour though. Shameless, inconsiderate, and rotten to the core.

I'll leave it to your imagination for what you can do with their outdoor pool, but I'm sure that 'powerful local figure' wouldn't mind having some feathery guests use it as an outdoor toilet.

Roald Dahl was such a great writer with his descriptions of petty self-interest, obliviousness, and slightly comic menace.

Looks like more of a hot tub type of construction to me..... always a danger of neighbors doing something you don't like when one lives so close together.

I have lived in Italy 15 years and I never saw a hot tub in the front garden. One of my neighbours has recently purchased the small daughter a powerful go-cart. She drives in circles round my appartment block making quite a lot of noise and smoke. I would happily swap it for a hot tub.

[QUOTE=SanDiegogirl;13327987]Looks like more of a hot tub type of construction to me.. Yes unfortunately - so unlike a child on a go-kart, a hot tub = adults, drinks, guests, bikinis, laughter, hot chemical steam, laughter, splashing → at night and even in winter next to the street and 3 meters from our balcony. Big profits for the B&B owners so if we get the work stopped, which we could almost certainly do as our street is "vincolata" (coastal & historic area), I am worried about reprisals. NB powerful local figure was not a euphemism for anything else, just the truth. Last week as I was standing on the balcony I noticed I was having my photograph taken ostentatiously by someone in a car.This is not Palermo BTW

I've worked with a few polite, well-educated people from Sicily. Unfortunately these people are few and far between.

It happens that my not-so-new neighbour, who is a family, also comes from Sicily. Four people crammed into a studio flat. They lied to their landlord about the number of tenants, got caught out, blatantly lied again and ignored their landlord's request to seek alternative accommodation. They lied again months later that their two toddlers were going to start nursery when in fact they found money to enjoy a two-week holiday in October. Worse still, they had received quite a few noise complaints from multiple neighbours before things got slightly quieter.

Some people are shameless but it's amazing how they can live like that.

Epilogue for those still following this story! I got the help of a really good Palermo Lawyer expert on building law etc who wrote me a 4 page "Parere" on this matter confirming that a "permesso di construire" was essential in this area of a beautiful historic town which is "vincolata" and that they didn't have one as the cartello di cantiere only says "manutenzione straordinaria". Thinking about this now it was very odd that the ufficio technico told us that the PdC was covered by privacy. Why didn't he just tell us to look on the cartello for this or a "SCIA edilizia maggiore"? That same afternoon the railings you can see at the top of my photo were covered in green material to hide the work. Orally our lawyer confirmed that there would probably be retorsion if we took legal action. The fact is that the whole town including the administration has seen the hot tub, new walls and concrete garden so our intervention would not be appreciated. We have decided not to pursue the matter and not start work on restoring our flat. I got a relieved call from the lawyer last night who extremely generously said he would not charge anything for his work. There are some exceptionally competent and kind people in Sicily but very few want to enter in confrontation with the powers that be. BTW I am slightly amazed at the number of people who said they wouldn't mind a hot tub like the one above under their balcony with different people each week probably most of the year as tourism here is stretching to November and April.

Sorry to hear about all of this. HOwever all is not lost - you need to think like a Sicilian. Firstly, he wants a B&B/casa vacanza - that requires permits, notification to the police every time a guest arrives and so on and there its the problem of the Guardia di finanza and someone can make an anonymous denuncia if he opens without the necessary paperwork. It would be terrible if he had terrorists as guests. Secondly, people who have paid for accommodation generally dont like floating dog turds in their hot tub, which,as it is so near the street, would undoubtedly happen along with litter and all sorts of stuff.. Nor would they like a man on his balcony with binoculars trained on the hot tub, which would probably make them self conscious enough not to use and and post negative reviews on airbnb. A dish served cold and all of that. On the plus side, you're not likely to get burglars if everyone knows who lives there.

Just what I was thinking. It's very easy to be a pain in the neck upstairs neighbour. A couple of very soggy towels or jeans hung out, dripping down below. House projects that suddenly require the use of drills and hammers. A passion for very loud, heavy rock / metallica type music. A very smokey BBQ. An alarm clock with a very loud beep that you forgot to turn off before you went out, one of those that beeps and beeps until you turn the bloody thing off yourself. Balcony plants that drop lots of leaves and petals. Discretely sprinkle sugar along their wall to attract lots of ants. Hang a bird feeder from your balcony so you get the pretty birds and they get the bird shit. Learn how to play the violin and practice on the balcony....... even worse - get a kid with a plastic school recorder (get yourself some good earplugs).

Throwing dog poops and litter into the hot tub and playing a violin on the terrace is like an act of war. I wouldn't be suprised if that thing is never used.
We suffered during the Covid with neighbours chatting until 1am. Background noise cancelling headphones were invaluable.

But if one chooses to live in Italy one must accept Italian customs. In Italy it's:
1. Likely your neighbours will chat noisily
2. Customary to go to bed later (1am is a bit later than some but midnight is by no means unusual)
All part of the local colour.

Thanks everyone for the ideas. The trouble is the people below will not be our neighbours but different tourists from all over the world so I will find it a bit difficult to take my revenge on them. Looking at it this weekend after perhaps our last swim of the season (water still 22°C) it looks so utterly ridiculous right in the middle of the town that perhaps Phil is right - it may never be used.

Well we can't reason with the unreasonable, can we? Not a great idea to reduce ourselves to using animal tactics to fight animals either. (I'm not suggesting your neighbours are animals - that would be an utterly disgraceful thing to say, but you get the idea.)

Perhaps you can have a word with the guests if they prove to be a nuisance. Tell them someone has drowned in the pool - don't leave any concrete proof of you saying it though!