Hi all,

Just wondering if and how I can seek help for dealing with nasty neighbours.

Our problems started the day we moved in 3 years ago when she came round demanding we keep our back gate unbolted. (We live in a mid-terrace with a thoroughfare through the garden). This wasn’t the most unreasonable request but it was the manner in which she didn’t hesitate a second to come round and lay-down her law on us. She was nor polite or friendly and at this point we hadn’t even moved a single box into the house. Since then she has moaned about us doing DIY, we’ve had countless noise complaints because of our dog, although these have all been investigated and we were cleared. She constantly sweeps her rubbish into our garden – my other half caught her in the act and asked her to stop, she said she would come round and smack him. She tried to blame us for the existence of a rat in her garden because apparently our dog was attracting them….there’s been plenty of other incidents too…. But worst of all is the indirect abuse. She spends much of the day (presuming she doesn’t have a job) sat in the garden on the phone, and her favourite topic is us. She especially enjoys talking about us when she knows we’re outside too and can hear her. I’ve been called a psycho, accused of neglecting our dog, sad, pathetic, immature, you name it. All for no reason other than that she doesn’t like us. She watches our life and comments on everything in a negative light to whoever she talks to. It’s got to the point where we just can’t use our garden in peace anymore without hearing nasty words about us. She is clearly a nasty, bitter, lonely and bored woman who wouldn’t be able to say a kind word about anyone – but I just want it to stop. I almost feel bullied in my own home. Is there anything I can do?

This isn’t what you want to hear but just move, it’s far easier. You will not win with idiots like this and life is too short. My parents (in laws actually but as close to as my parents) are currently being blighted by their neighbours, we have involved the police, spent hundreds on CCTV, lost thousands of £ in koi, filled in a pond, had the sky dish tapped into, had the sky dish smashed down, bricks through the window and constant verbal abuse etc etc etc we are all just upping sticks and moving.
The police can’t do anything so let them lead their sad worthless lives whilst you get on with yours, hopefully far away from the cretins.

It wears you down and as I said life is too short.

I agree, just move, not worth putting up with all that, sounds depressing, short of killing her and hoping you get better neighbours next time that’s probably the simplest solution

We actually have the house on the market at the moment – we always intended to only live here short term anyway… And this is also the reason we never involved council/police as you have to declare stuff like that. But a year later after first putting it up for sale, we’ve had 3 sales fall through…. which is emotionally draining in itself ontop of having to put up with the neighbours! It almost feels like we just can’t escape.

Keep trucking, it will sell eventually and you will get your life back.

But a year later after first putting it up for sale, we’ve had 3 sales fall through…

Move. Just did it myself. So pleased.

Price too high or just unlucky with duff buyers?

Start smearing dogshit on her door handles, empty rubbish in her garden, when in earshot say someones going to end up in the canal late at night, when you see her just stare, if she sees you looking out of a window stare.

Itll soon reset her.

If she calls the police default back to nice couple/shes mad/see will try anything

Don’t take Horas advice.
You can’t ‘reset’ someone who is clearly a little deranged.
If you embark down the road suggested by Hora she’s going to retaliate in a similar manner – the issue is you’re clearly sane and she clearly isn’t, as a result she’s likely to retaliate waaaay past the point of which you are happy to which means she ‘wins’ again.

Just keep the house on the market, keep your chin up and now that it’ll all be ok at some point it just takes time.

I was in a similar situation (terrible neighbours, 3 fallen through sales) but it sold eventually and we now live an area with great neighbours and look back on that stage and chuckle about how crazy it was.

Maybe a new patio would help sell the house………

I wouldn’t be able to stop myself going round and confronting her; I would have to do it, if only to understand what makes her tick. The better I knew her, the better I’d feel able to ignore her stupidity and just laugh at her. She probably has some prejudice about you both and it would be worth trying to get to the bottom of it.

It may be that she’s just a pathological bully and she senses that her bullying is getting to you.

Is she on her own? Gets many visitors? Is she actually on the phone to someone or just herself?

I’d go down the murder route…. Maybe

Perhaps you should try being insanely nice to her, invite her round for cups of tea, give her gifts and generally be awesome. She is probably sad and lonely and suffers from filling in the darkness (ie what she does not know about you) with monsters. Be nice.

How does she behave when you have house viewings? Do you have to time them for when she’s out?

Id try and weird her out.. wear a bikini round the garden whilst talking animatedly to a plastic rat called frank. Have explicit conversations out loud with frank about the most weirdest heinous and perverted crimes you have committed to previous neighbours.

Pik n Mix – Member
This isn’t what you want to hear but just move, it’s far easier. You will not win with idiots like this and life is too short….

The best advice.

A nutter once moved in next to us, and then started on a stream of complaints. Tried being reasonable, but quickly discovered that no matter what, there would be more. Considered retaliation, but why sink so low.

You can’t cure what they have got, and there’s no point suffering the side effects.

So we moved.

I’d be quite inclined to ‘weird her out’ too, really give her something to talk about. Like sit by her fence when she’s in her garden, whisper a lot (so she can hear just whispering) a laugh quietly, stuff like that. It’ll freak her out I’m sure especially if you say ‘make sure it’s deep enough to bury the bitch’ so she can hear.

I’d still move though.

Ignore. Really, don’t interact, just blank, pretend she doesn’t live there, she clearly hates/is jealous of you, she’ll be on the phone, talking to herself about you, trying to get a response, you’ll have a wry smile knowing you’re pushing her buttons, and not the other way around.

Move.

Then get on with your life

The thing is though why should the op have to move house. It will cost a fair bit of money to do that and then this mad old bag will continue to do what she is doing to the next people that move in.

I would confront her and tell her to wind her neck in!

People like this boil my piss

Put some stealth speakers in your garden and quietly play stuff that will play with her head such as a child crying, weird back ground chatter, weird voices stuff etc
Play it quiet so she can just hear it…
If she asks you about it just shrug.. you cant hear anything.

You need to make it fun challenge for you to do.. but you also need to be very clever. Theres no way id let some fruitcake next door get to me.
Get creative and freak the bitch out.

I’d go round and explain the facts of life to her and if she carries on punch her.lights out 12 months of weekends doing community work would be worth it TBH and cheaper than moving.

I almost feel bullied in my own home. Is there anything I can do?

Ignore it you can be victimised without your consent

she is an idiot – why would you care what she says about you.
Its a war you cannot win so just move….then do the nasty stuff afterwards. 😈

Loving all the creep her out suggestions, whispering and speakers, excellent!
Do you know her phone number or email, sign her up for some annoying calls/emails.

She can complain about diy all she wants so long as your doig it in sociable hours

Fwiw the most annoying noise is the grinder. I suggest buying a grinder and just throwig it out inte back garden when shes on the phone 🙂

She will soon get the hint.

Richie living in whampstead and croydon and scally Stretford I had some odd neighbours. Violence doesnt always work. Shes a plain old bully. Once you pushback they retreat. Bullies always have a button to press.

I’d ignore her, stuff in my garen would get thrown over the fence. Any damage would get the same back, you’ve let her establish a pattern you need to break it. If it continues at some point you either man up and confront her or move out.

Out in the garden every now and again for ten minutes or so, sunglasses on, and just stare at her. No words, just stare from behind the sunglasses. You won’t be doing anything wrong, but she’ll start to shit herself, especially if you get a mate round now and again to do the same thing.

Like the whispering speakers, that’s class!.

We had a nightmare neighbour a while back, a spoilt little bitch who pretty much paid her ‘friends’, they made our life a misery for 18m, we tried the nice chat route and this eventually led to the police being involved. We moved last year. Best thing we ever did. I’ve since heard she has fallen out with her so-called mates, after sleeping with their boyfriends and had her tyres slashed.
Nothing worse than a shitbag neighbour.. Hope it gets sorted out.

Haha loving some of these suggestions! Every time they go to their car they stare through our front window.. I always make a point to stare straight back. But I feel she is beyond reason and confronting her would probably make it worse. I actually have a recording of her voice on camera slagging us off when I was playing outside with the dog and filming him playing. Needless to say, the playing ended and we returned inside.

In reply to our useless buyers – one changed their mind, one had a damp survey that riddled the house with “saturated rising damp” from a con-man that cost us over £200 to rectify his lying report and prove him wrong… Still losing our buyer. Another was a buy-to-let who claimed he pulled out because the area was “liable to subsidence” – sounded like bullshit to me. We’re jinxed.

I also think she has an age prejudice… She’s around 40 and I was 20 when we moved in. I always thought she was just a bit pissed off with her new young neighbours thinking we would be crazy party animals smoking weed every other night or something. But we are not. We worked hard to raise money for a deposit because all we wanted was a place to call our own. Kinda backfired on us…. We were probably happier in our rental home.

Soon enough this will all be a distant memory, just focus on the end goal. Your first BBQ in your new place with your new friendly neighbours will be awesome.

I’d go down the violence route, a good pasting, 1st offence you’ll get a fine or bit of community service. It would be worth it.

Then be on the phone boasting and planning your next attack.

We’re not really condoning violence against women are we?

of course not, we only condone violence against men; we are not monsters.

Keep a diary. Go to the police.

Just leave. Get yourselves into rented accommodation, and rent the house out.

EVERY single moment you take trying to reason/accommodate/fix the problem is another moment of your life that you aren’t getting back.

With luck you’ll get a renter that will respond in kind to the neighbour in question.

Put low frequency noise next to their bedroom then alternate it with very high frequency noise but not obviously audible. Let’s see how long can they stay awake for. Watch out this may also affect you.

I have two huge generators the size of container, idiots put it in between two buildings, outside my flat at the moment and all I can say is I have been sleep deprived since last night and like living in a torture cell.

😡

Move.

But in the meantime, would you like to borrow our drum kit? 😀

The thing is, some of us can do ‘confrontation’ and some can’t. But even those that can, need a place to go home to to get some peace and quiet. Therefore the idea of turning that ‘place’ into a battleground is a complete nightmare.

You’ll never win, because you’ll always be think g about it or worrying about what happens next. Therefore despite the fact that it may go against your principles, never engage in a war on your doorstep, make friends, or just keep away, but if all else fails …. Move!

I empathise with you as I have gone through and am currently going through similar!

Home should be the one place where you can get away from all the nonsense and stress heaped on you during the day. So to find it waiting there for you, so to speak, is a monumental pain in the behind.

Our first nightmare neighbours were here before we moved in, a couple of repulsive drunks who delighted in hurling as much abuse at each other as they possibly could- who needs TV dramas when you have such dysfunctional people to listen to when they argue and argue and….well, you get the idea!

They were nasty malicious gossips to boot! And after tactfully pointing out that they were waking and scaring our 7 year old daughter, they both started spreading nasty rumours about us. Over the years we stayed clear of them, never spoke with them and pretended they were not there if we passed them at all. They HATED this! They also saw that the very neighbours they were trying to turn against us, were becoming friends of ours who came in to us for tea, or mulled wine and mince poes at christmas etc… It wasn’t always easy to play it cool, but ti payed off. There fury and frystration was taken out on others and they were soon being ignored by others here.

They left in early August 2014. Then THIS LOT turned up.

A young mum with her daughter and a boyfriend who dragged his knuckles along the floor. He beat her up for cheating on him, TWO DAYS later she had a new knuckle dragger in with her. He has intimidated, threatened and sworn at fellow residents. He has streams of suspicious looking young men in his girlfriends flat at all hours and is a huge pain.

Everybody here wants hom, and now also her, out! Local MPs are involved, the police and also our Town councillor. We are holding a meeting to discuss getting them moved out!

I have actually told the young twonk that I think he is a silly little boy who has been nothing but trouble since he got here and everyone knows. He didn’t say squat to me and is clearly scared of my husband.

We are actually looking to move on, but as I had quite a serious operation only recently it is not an option we can put into action just yet. It doesn’t seem fair or right that we should have to move but I just don’t feel the same about the place anymore.

I really do hope you get to move yourself soon and find a happier and much nicer environment to live in.

Best wishes.

Okaaaaaay!