I'm being bullied and harrassed by my neighbour and her friends and family.

[Misspointypencil]

Hi. I hope I am posting this in the right place. I'm having a horrible time. I'm on my own with a boy and a girl, my girl has special needs and although she is almost eight she is more like a three or four year old. My next door neighbour really has it in for me. She's a single mum with a girl in the year above my son at school. I have always tried to be a good neighbour, and get on well with all my other neighbours. But this one neighbour has had it in for me from the start - I had problems with the previous tenant of that flat. When she moved out, a friend of hers moved in. Previous neighbour had been slandering me left right and centre, spread some appalling rumours about me.

I gave the new neighbour the benefit of the doubt, and I know I have always been a good neighbour myself! She used to send her daughter round to play with my son. Then... accusations of me spying on her from my garden, with my back to her house, using a mirror! Months later she "forgot" about my "spying" because she wanted to spread some nasty, untrue gossip about another genuinely nice ex neighbour, so spoke to me to spread the gossip. At the time I was just grateful for hostilities to end, for whatever reason!

So she started sending her daughter to our house again, to play with my son. Then one day her daughter said that she wasn't allowed to play with my son in school, even though they shared a playground. (My son at that time had been having problems with a couple of other boys, who I think were picking on him, and were also friends with neighbours daughter) Her daughter insisted that was the truth so I phoned the school as I thought it was silly as they were playing together in my house... Neighbour accuses me of complaining to the school about her daughter! I spoke to the head mistress, she phoned neighbour to explain, but to no avail.

Since then I have had all kinds of accusations, she has turned up with her sister, shouting abuse at me in front of my children, accusing me of being a "peeping tom" (funny how she had sent her daughter round to play at a peeping toms house before that school based incident!!) and recently things have got worse.

Two weeks ago my daughter was off sick, so with me on the school run. We went to the paper shop on the way home, for a treat. Then neighbour walks in. My daughter said "There's jo*" which I ignored. But she said it again, in her innocence. This time I said "yes (and my daughters name)". Next thing I know she pushed me, very deliberately. All on CCTV... I told the police and they said I could press charges for assault and she would be arrested if so, but I would have to commit to going to court. That would be an extra stress for me, though housing association have said they may put an injunction on her, which I am hoping comes soon, but I have no idea how long that might take.

She is still harrassing me, as I don't think she realizes I have logged the assault with the police (they won't have a word with her or anything, it's all or nothing...)

She came up behind me when I was talking with someone last week, and slapped me HARD on the back, twice, saying "See you later wagbo"

Almost every day she is shouting more or less the same thing at me. And it's not just her, I have actually tried to shorten this believe it or not! Her mother,sister, brother (all in a different house) plus of course her good friend my previous neighbour, have at different times been abusive to me, plus I have been told of really nasty lies that have been spread about me, from them, resulting in some people who don't know me giving me a wide berth. Sorry this has been long. What advice can anyone give? I'd be grateful, thanks. xx

that sounds horrible. did you post about your neighbour before? I think i remember reading about her. I think you should go ahead with the assault charge & try to move away if possible. So sorry you are going through all this. X

put in for a transfer with the housing association.

Just move. Just get away. It's never worth staying put in situations like this.

One day, she's going to kick the shit out of you, I know the type.

home swap (mutual exchange) or transfer - these are not the same things so go for both, press charges, see if your HA has an anti social behaviour officer or at least a anti social behaviour policy.

phone shelter i mean this to find out what options your housing assoiciasion has, what legal recourse it can take against this tenant. it is always better to ring your HA and say " i have spoken to shelter and they told me....."

you will probably get diary sheets, fill them in to the letter - as these may be used in court to evict her should it come to it.

what custardo said. Keep detailed records of the abuse and asault, and maybe video or audio recordings on your phone if you can.

I am not sure whether I would actually do this in full view of her rather than secretly - this alone my alarm her enough to stop bullying you. On the other hand, she sounds a bit unhinged so you might be lighting a touchpaper. Either way, keep records.

And no of course you shouldn't have to move - she should. But life is too short so bite the bullet and put in for a move before it escalates.

In the meantime, do you have any friends or family who could stand beside you (literally) so that you can ask outright, why she is doing this?

What you are going through is horrible. I really feel for you.

It sounds like her behaviour is escalating , shes pushed you in front of your daughter , and has then slapped you in front of someone else . I can see this escalating im afraid .

Do you have freinds / family nearby or someone to walk with on the school run ? If possible have lots of visiters , be seen to have lots of support if you can. What area are you in ?

As others have said , i would look to move , quickly , even if that means staying with family for a while or going into private rent. You shouldnt have to of course , but considering theres more than one of them i dont see how this can be resolved .

I know the type of family your referring to and they enjoy these vendettas and generally have the reputation of being "hard". Theyre always picking on someone and i doubt your the first. My daughter experienced similar and it went on and on. She was reluctant to leave , but it escalated one night and i went at 3 am to pack up her belongings and bring her home.

Awful for you and your children , you have my sympathy .I would consider moving asapp ersonally before it escalates further. Also consider posting this in another section , possibly AIBU as you may get better advice.

custardo knows what she is talking about, listen to her. i'm sorry that you are in this situation and hope you can get away.

a family member has had to deal with something like this in the past.

i'm telling you now - you may have done nothing wrong, but the best thing you can do is move away ASAP. just cut your losses and get away from her.

you've become her target, and the only thing that's going to happen is 1) she'll lose interest (unlikely now that it's progressed into physical assaults in public in front of your DD), 2) she'll escalate it to the point where she harms you or your daughter and isn't stopped, basically she wins because the police have higher priority things to deal with UNTIL it gets serious or 3) you'll retaliate and end up getting arrested and escalating the situation even further.

there is nothing you can do to win here.

i've seen it again and again, the good people, the ones who don't deserve this sort of hassle, have absolutely NO power to prevent this sort of stuff happening until the Police get involved because either one of you has retaliated and someoen ends up hurt.

i would be looking at your options to move, and i'm so sorry i don't have any other advice to give her. but i offer this with my uncle's hindsight, when he divorced his wife he just wanted to be left alone to potter about until his retirement, neighbours (in a rough area) just wouldn't let him. He endured months of dog excrement on his gate, yobs hanging around his house, even someone attempting to set fire to his shed, and although the Police acknowledged he was the victim they could do nothing about it - no witnesses, no one willing to get involved, and the yobs had local links to the families in the area, so if he'd retaliated in any way he'd have had 5 more just like them to deal with.

life is TOO SHORT to face up to these types of people, and the justice system in this country makes it IMPOSSIBLE for you to do so (whilst providing little support to stop it escalating in the first place).

The best of luck to you.

moving,transfers,mutual exchanges.....none of these are easy or immediate....i have no advice. housing association have a process to go through,but with people like your neighbour,nothing can stop them. your best hope is that she will move away!!

Just seen this thread. As already mentioned, house transfers etc can takes months if not years.

Go back to the police. Neighbourhood policing is a priority for almost all forces. This is anti social behaviour and harassment. At the very least your neighbour could be given a 'first course of conduct' warning. Written into this should be a clause of inciting any other person to cause you harassment, alarm or distress. Any further reports from you would result in her arrest.

Yes, you may have to attend court if it goes that far, but the warning may be enough. As someone already said earlier, keep a log of events. This can be given to both the police and the council.

Also (sorry to drone on!) one other thing would be to contact your neighbourhood officer directly. Their contact details will be on the force website. Tell them what is happening and ask them to have a word. If this doesn't happen, escalate it. Go to the sergeant, then the inspector. Be heard!

This 'lady' is the problem, not you. You'll find you're helping others by helping yourself. Please be strong. (and sorry if that was ranty!)

Thanks for the advice so far. Sorry I haven't been on to update but the latest stuff has been her calling out "See you later Wagbo" whenever she has seen me. Even in the school grounds, in front of other mums! I have spoken with the housing officer, she said they can put an injunction on her, though that would take time. she said she was going to see her last Wednesday, I haven't heard from the housing officer since so I don't know what happened there. But I also let the principal of the school know about the pathetic name calling in the school grounds. If she was going to behave like a child,I decided to tell the teacher! Principal said she would contact her about it. For the last few days she has said nothing when our paths have crossed. So at least something or someone has had some effect on her behaviour, for now. I am applying to be rehoused, out of the area, but the housing association don't routinely rehouse people for these reasons! We should have plenty of points anyway though, for other reasons, thank God. I still feel sick when I see her, and I expect it's only a matter of time before something else happens.