Bill Gates: Anything for a quiet life

What do you do if you have noisy neighbours? Complain to the police? Have it out with them in person? Or spend $14m buying up their homes and ensuring peace and solitude for yourself in the process?

Microsoft boss and world's richest man Bill Gates opted for the latter recently when he completed the purchase of his eleventh property in the vicinity of his own five-acre estate on the shores of Lake Washington.

According to a report in the Seattle Times, the latest purchase brings the total number of houses owned by Gates in the Medina area to nine, plus two other non-residential properties.

The goal of such investment by the software tycoon would appear to be a desire to pick and choose quiet neighbours.

The newspaper quotes a family spokesman as saying: "The properties create a buffer around the Gates home."

"This is a family that holds privacy very dearly to them," he added, almost unnecessarily.

At least two of the homes are believed to still be occupied by the previous owners and Gates' motives would appear to be more about vetting whom he has for his neighbours than becoming a property baron.

It would seem Gates exerts his powers of ownership to ensure the homes are occupied by Microsoft employees with young families, creating a barrier of pro-Microsoft neighbours around his lakeside stronghold.

However, at least one of the properties currently sits unoccupied, raising concerns among neighbours about the effects that Gates' masterplan has had on local community spirit.

According to the newspaper reports, "casual socialising" is at an all-time low.

Clearly Bill and Melinda need to deliver a few more baskets of muffins before their remaining neighbours are willing to fully welcome them into the community.

However, it's not just human inhabitants of the Lake Washington shoreline that Gates has attempted to move on. In 2002, Gates famously took issue with the large numbers of Canada Geese who had the audacity to defecate on his lawns.

Gates effectively took out a contract on 4,000 of the birds when his complaints saw park rangers empowered to conduct a mass extermination of the animals.