Bear with me on this…

We have a nuisance neighbour, she’s old (70ish I reckon), lives next door and over the last two months has become obsessed with our lives. Every day she’s waits until we come home from work before coming out of her house and standing next to our front door whilst we unload the car and go into the house. She then watches us eat our dinner in the garden, watches us sit and relax or watches us go about doing some bits of gardening or whatever jobs we are doing. If she can’t see us easily enough by looking over the fence, she’s goes up to her back window and watches us from there. If she still can’t see us clearly, she stands at the end of our garden and looks over the wall. This typical last 4 – 5 hours per evening, or until we go indoors. This has been going on everyday for the last 5 weeks, and I mean, everyday.

She refuses to talk to us as we are ‘outsiders’ having only lived there for 3 years. Our other neighbours who we get on great with have also tried talking to her but she is refusing to change her behaviour. She has no family and no one comes to visit. By all accounts she is not a sweet old lady. Despite us being very kind to her, she is very aggressive and has grabbed me on occasions when she wants to know what I’m doing. She accuses us of being ‘up to no good’. She has recently built a homemade cctv ‘camera’ from a box and toilet roll wrapped in foil, apparently to keep a better eye on us.

I rang social services the other week and explained what she had been doing as I felt this was unhealthy behaviour for someone of her age. They said that unless she was in immediate danger there wasn’t much they could do. Clearly there are some mental health issues, but they can only act on these if she reports them herself.

We thought we could cope with this but as time goes on we’re spending more time in the house and less time at home altogether as we just want some privacy and are fed up with our lives being invaded. We’re private people at the best of times so this really grates.

Any help appreciated.

Nudity

EDIT Having read it properly, perhaps not.

Does your garden need watering? Maybe invest in a new sprinkler

Perhaps talk with the local GP surgery?

Very sad.

Harassment, report to local Police to have a quiet word.

Report to police for harrasment?

Leave life size cardboard cut outs of yourselves out the front with a radio set to a chat station hidden away somewhere whilst you’re in the back.

Stand in front of her calmly looking back – stare off!

Bigger hedges/fence?

It’ll be winter soon…

Get in touch with the local GP.

Does she have any family ? Might be worth speaking with them if you see them about. If it is a small town, somebody will know who they are.

Not sure how reporting to the Police will help! Where’s your empathy STW?

Sounds like far more of a mental health issue to me… my Gran started to go a little bit nuts after my Grandad died and she spent her whole life alone. Not as bad as this but she sounds like she needs help rather than being reported to the Police as some kind of criminal…

Maybe push back to social services/take it higher, along the lines of someone paying a visit and making an assessment of her mental health somehow. Maybe point out the effect it’s having on you and that you think involving the Police would be deeply unhelpful but if it carries on then you will.

At a time of cuts I suspect they’re pushing back where they can, so you just need to push back harder…

wee in her slippers

Build a larger fence and forget about her ?

Are you up to something OP? You must have done something to raise suspicion. Perhaps you’re the problem? Looks suspiciously at OP and scribbles something down, hmmmmm.

2 options

either go round with some bombers…..

or maybe bake her a cake or something, to try and win her round
and defo speak to her GP!

Sounds like a mental health issue to me. In which case there’s not a huge amount you can do. She’s never going to voluntarily stop because she doesn’t know any better, so notifying the authorities isn’t going to make a fig of difference until such a point as they deem she’s not capable of looking after herself and come to take her away. Only thing you can do is learn to ignore her.

Something similar happened to an old woman near me a good few years ago. My gran used to go round and help her out occasionally; keep her company, do her shopping and help with cleaning and suchlike. One day something must’ve gone pop in her head, and she became obsessed with my gran and not in a good way. She’d be on our doorstep at all hours accusing my gran of stealing her teapot or some other random nonsense, waving her walking stick about and calling her all sorts of things. She was a bloody nightmare, a pretty tragic way to end out your days really.

She’s lonely and sad and like most people she is somewhere on the spectrum of what’s called “mentally ill”. My own solution would be to go round and have a friendly chat with her, explaining why her interest is making me and my family feel uncomfortable. Older folk are generally very trusting and compliant with “authority”, which is why they are so often preyed upon by fraudsters, so my next move would be to make it clear that, if she didn’t desist, I would be forced to involve Social Sevices or the Police. If that failed, a friendy chat from your local beat officer might do the trick. If you can make her your friend she could turn out to be a valuable neighbour.

If you’ve been there three years and its only become a problem for five weeks then something has changed. She sounds like a lonely scared old lady, possibly in the early stages of some form of dementia. I’d try to bear that in mind and be as nice as you can, but it sounds like you are doing that already.

My Grandad thought the neighbours were creeping into his house in the middle of the night and stealing his trousers, but by best estimates chucked about twenty grand away in his recycling. At least it didn’t go in landfill.

The MIL went off the rails after FIL died. She’s accused the missus and I of some utterly abhorrent things and she’s displayed obsessive behaviour.

We’re pretty sure that dementia is playing a part, particularly as she seems to have difficulty controlling her emotions of late and her reasoning skills have noticeably diminished. TBH there isn’t much we could do, except explain the situation to our GP (who’s also MIL’s GP) and ask them to keep an eye on her.

Dementia does all kinds of horrible things. Sufferers can confuse a plot on a soap opera with real life and transfer what they see on Emmerdale or Eastenders onto friends and relatives.

I appreciate it’s a difficult situation when you feel like your privacy is being invaded. You have a right not to have a CCTV camera pointed at your home, but given it’s made of bog roll and foil I’m not sure as to the legality. My own solution would be to plant some tall trees or install fences in between your property and her’s and forget about it.

jon1973 – Member
wee in her slippers

Possibly to late?

Anti social behaviour dept at the local council.

I would start to display behaviour that really gives her cause for concern. Take to wearing white hooded cloaks, ritually sacrifice goats, dig holes at midnight, that sort of stuff.

She’ll tailspin and call the police, they will investigate and tell her she’s bonkers, she’ll feel silly and stop*

*Possibly.

but they can only act on these if she reports them herself.

Someone’s been reading too much Catch-22, how the hell can that work with someone who has a mental health problem? She sounds like a dementia sufferer to me sadly; don’t try and rationalise the behaviour, instead try to relate to her on her terms. Try and get into her world.

Tricky one this. One option is to write a letter that is posted & registered and explain that you find her behavior unsettling and disturbing and if it continues, you will have no option but to call in social services or the police.

That would probably be my first move and sets the scene as you being the victims (which you are) and allows the process to continue.

If it’s any help, I’m still somewhere towards the “sane/rational” end of the spectrum but following a bad experience with nightmare neighbours about eight years ago, which forced us to move house, I am still paranoid about neighbour noise and will go and peer out of the window if, for example, there are teenagers hanging around in the street. For somebody who might be in the early stages of dementia this fear will be much worse and the only way to help her to relax is for her to know you don’t present a threat.

That’s really sad, for you and for her. 🙁

IANAD but sounds a lot like dementia – inhibitions disappearing etc. and paranoia. If you only moved in 3 years ago, and she does have Altzeimers (sp?)/dementia, she may well not remember you at all, which would go some way to explaining her behaviour/suspicion of you.

If social services won’t do anything, I probably would contact police and explain the full situation – they may well pass it on to social services and it’s a bit of a pain for them and you that social services won’t do anything, but the police often deal with mentally ill/vulnerable people in the line of their work and hopefully will have some procedures to deal with this.

It sounds like a very unfortunate situation, good luck getting it sorted.

Poor old Dear! How was she before? Friendly? Aggressive? kept herself to herself?
If this strangeness has only been happening in the last few weeks then something has flicked a switch and she needs help. Something as simple as a urinary infection can cause severe personality changes, including hallucinations.
Keep on at the social services. Also try and get the District Nurse involved. I don’t know how though; maybe through your, or any random, GP?
Just tell them you’re concerned about her welfare. During my Father’s last months the District Nurses were fantastic. They did more for him than his GP, the local hospital and social services combined.

Could you construct something temporary using this sort of netting to block her sight lines? Two layers are fairly opaque.

If social services won’t do anything, I probably would contact police and explain the full situation

TBH, it might not be a bad idea to notify them anyway, just to pre-empt her reporting you for whatever ‘crimes’ she thinks you’ve committed.

Police love this sort of issue.

Social and Mental Health services don’t have resources to get involved so say ‘can’t help’ Police *have* to get involved but are completely inappropriate for the situation.

Stage a fake murder or alien rape scene etc.

Sounds like it could be early dementia to me. Not sure what you can do in the absence of any family or friends, but it’s potentially in her interest to be assessed by her GP.

I would have thought this falls under the social services banner, but the Alzheimer’s Society may be able to give you some advice on the correct ‘pathway’.

This typical last 4 – 5 hours per evening, or until we go indoors. This has been going on everyday for the last 5 weeks, and I mean, everyday.

You spend 4-5 hours in the garden very single evening? Clearly you don’t live in the west of scotland 🙂

On a serious note I wouldn’t be calling the police. There’s clearly a problem with her so try the softly softly approach although if its dementia, and it does sound like it, then that won’t work.

is it a magic camera

or can everyone see through that screening?

Build a larger fence and forget about her

This.

I agree with some of the above cents that she could have dementia, especially if he behaviour has changed. Would the other neighbours know if she has changed her behaviour recently and whether she has been like this in the past?

Normal solution in your neck of the woods is to accuse them of witchcraft, isn’t it, Binners? 🙂

A recent neighbourly dispute….

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtDUmD9MYNg[/video]

😉

Seriously though… she might well be a witch. Have you tried the ducking stool?

Is there anyone who knows her better? It has to be worth trying to find family or friends, as they are better placed to help. You can then approach them in confidence and share a concern.

Worth a (very) subtle ask around local old folks coffee morning/church/shop who knows her.

If not, see if you can engage her in conversation and find out about family or friends.

Perhaps its something really simple.

Is her telly broke?

Even if its not, it can also be a boring summer on Sky Sports. Golf, cycling cricket, that kind of thing. Weird minority sports. Once the Premiership starts again in a few weeks, she’ll be back indoors in the evening singing abusive songs while drinking lager