five years of nosy neighbours

Mess with them!
Next time you take rubbish to recycling centre, shape it like a dead body and load it into car looking super suspicious.

That sounds annoying. We had a similar situation in previous house but not as bad. I did befriend them in the end in a somewhat distant manner. We had a small party one summer afternoon for the neighbours in street and I invited the couple across the road to come a little in advance of other people so that they could have a look round ‘as I knew they’d known the previous owner well and had seen the house as it was before’. It made their day and I was pleased to have cheered them up. Appreciate may not be your cup of tea.

Nosy neighbours do make your property more secure. We used to refer to them as ‘Big Brother’ and no burglaries in the street went undetected when they were ‘hivving a hang oot their windae’ as we say in Glasgow.

Put a poster up in the front window; “hi, I can see you too! 👋’

Start holding up items from your shop and giving them thumbs up, or bit iffy signals. Tap your nose at them. They're being rude, be rude back. Can you grow large shrubs in your front garden to block their view. Get leaflets for local events or hobbies etc and keep posting them through their door. Invite male friends round at random times and get them to sneak out the back. You could have fun with this. Stand out front with a friend pointing and laughing. Old people do get like this with the window. I can see my husband starting to do it and he is the least nosey person I know. It's more security with him though as we live in a small cul de sac and rarely see strangers . We laugh about it.

For heaven's sake they are probably just housebound and bored. Please just knock and invite them round. Show some kindness.

If that proves unhelpful, judge them as you will. But most people aren't malicious.

Put ketchup around your mouth and stand there licking a massive kitchen knife and smiling manically

Put a sign up saying, stop staring at us you perverted couple in the opposite house.

We had a neighbour like this; a creepy and somewhat intimidating man. I found that if I called out to my DH, “DH! Geoff is staring again,” and he came down and we both looked at him out the window he would stop.

This guy would also yell things etc and I found raising my phone and taking a photo/video of him also made him stop.

Wow that's creepy. If it were me I'd have lost my rag and knocked on their door

My mum-in her 80s-recently moved and has bought a bench so she can sit out front to watch the goings on! I mean, she does have a little front garden, she’s not on the street. Keeps her entertained, she’s met loads of neighbours and speaks to people. Your neighbours sound odd, tho, just watching, never speaking to you?

Don't wave to them, do that thing where you point to your own eyes and then at them.

You could have fun with this. Line up a load of sex toys on the windowledge? Get a shop mannequin and put it a different window/outfit/position every day? Wander about in a witch's hat? Give them something to look at!

I have no idea if any of my neighbours come to the window to look if I have a delivery etc.
I'd only be looking at way if they started banging on the window and shouting "yahoo! What's your parcel?"

Maybe OP will give you their address & you can pop round & do all that?😂

Start making rude gestures at them. Or next time they do it, actually walk over to their house, knock on the door and ask if there's a problem, only you've noticed that they seem to spend a lot of time watching you/your house.

Must be frustrating

My ils and dh are a bit like this

Must be awful that they have nothing better to do

Either get your binoculars out yourself or every time you see them nosing go out and go over to them and ask if everything's ok. You'll soon have them avoiding YOU!

Get a butter churn.
Put it under your window
Churn butter furiously
Stare at her while you do it
ask her if she wants to come over and taste some of your sweet butter (Lick your lips when you say it)

These sound just like my opposite neighbours (I also live on a small cul-de-sac) and they're the same age group. Unfortunately their next door neighbours are their best "friends" (the woman actually slags them off but is best friends to their faces) and they're just as nosy too.

They watch every little thing we do and talk about us but not to us - I was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer a few years ago (thankfully in remission) and I continued working really long shifts as well as having treatment (venesection to remove blood from my veins as it was so thick, to make more room for my blood to flow to my organs properly and also iron infusions and the occasional blood transfusion) and kept myself to myself.

I was later diagnosed with spinal stenosis and my neck is completely arthritic as is my lower back and I also have bone spurs and two nerves actually sticking through my spinal cord in my neck and getting caught between the vertebrae so I am now registered disabled and unfortunately had to give up my job and was retired on the grounds of ill health and literally spend my life at home apart from a regular appointment most Tuesday mornings and I walk with crutches or a push walker and have had all sorts of mobility equipment installed in my house - yet when I had a disabled bay installed outside my house (I had to meet a very strict criteria with the council in order to be granted it), they both came out of their house and ORDERED the contractors to not paint the disabled bay because they didn't want it on the street.

When my husband asked them what their issue was, the woman (who is old enough to be my mother and who I've NEVER spoken to) said "Months ago she told me she had cancer but she's not dead yet and she never lost her hair. We don't think she's disabled" and the man stood there nodding in agreement - I was so upset, I was speechless and had to go indoors (considering I've never spoken to her but had spoken to her gossipy best "friend", it's obvious where she heard it) and my husband was absolutely livid and confronted them there and then and told them in no uncertain terms that they were "sick, evil" people.

That same day, we went out and bought blinds for all of the windows and he installed them - I can't even bear to acknowledge their existence.

If they don't get out much then the cul-de-sac is their whole world. They are old, bored and probably very lonely, and everything anyone around them does is fascinating to them.

I would befriend them, take them a cake, drop by and get invited for coffee. Maybe offer help and to take them out. I think they need company and to feel needed.

I'd give a friendly wave every single time you see them doing it. Even if they don't wave back. It might make them clock how much they're watching after you've waved at them fifteen times an hour.

It is a pity there isn't a side benefit of increased security though... Shame on them for not keeping up that part of the deal. 😁

That is really annoying!
Can you give them a big shock and hope their heart can't take it? 🤣
There are worse neighbours, but... Yeah, that sucks.

I'd be tempted to screw up all my courage and go for the sticking plaster approach, one short sharp pull (metaphorically)...
Knock on the door, tell them that you see them watching from their window all the time and it's rude, intrusive and you want them to find something else to do.

Don't do a note, anything in writing could get twisted into something else / shown to neighbours, a trophy of how they were right all along that you're a wrong'un ... if they are unabashed and don't have the good grace to be ashamed and scuttle off.
But a face to face firm request might just do the job, if that doesn't work then you're stuck cos you can't make them stop.