Deliberately provocative neighbour

[flutterworc]

Without being too specific, our neighbours are being deliberately provocative - not just to us, but to all the houses/families on our small cul-de-sac: obstructive parking, minor ‘accidental’ damage to garden decorations, passive aggressive behaviour etc.

We tried the polite bit and matching the passive aggression also hasn’t worked. What else has anyone tried? All privately owned homes and behaviour doesn’t tip over into either active aggression or harassment... but after a year it’s driving us all bonkers!

Thanks!

CCTV and police.

What's their problem? Why are they doing this stuff?

Goodness knows. We’re on a new build estate and they were the last family to move in - the rest of us all welcomed them in, but problems started immediately. They’ve got the most parking and fewest owned vehicles of all of us, but the rest of us keep to our driveways whilst they actively seem to try and park as awkwardly as possible, blocking the access way with one vehicle (a works van) and only parking their front tyres on their driveway (the rest of the car overhanging) with their other.

Early on we went round and did the polite and diplomatic thing, but despite saying that they’d try to avoid parking like that, they actually seemed to do it more instead. It then escalated to other issues, such as the damage, passive aggression and at times them shouting obscenities randomly at us all down the road late at night when they get home, despite us all being in our own homes and not actually interacting with them at that point.

We’ve had some irritating neighbours, as everyone has, in our time, but these are something else. It’s escalated to the point where I don’t actually know what to do - it’s really quite antisocial behaviour, but in such an insidious way that they’re causing quite a lot of distress to the rest of us whilst staying just within the bounds of ‘legal’.

If they were renters or HA, we’d have a natural avenue of complaint, but as they’re the home owners it feels like they’re entitled to behave as unpleasantly as they wish without any consequence. Which I suppose they are really... sigh

Couple of things to look into..

*is it actually their house or could the be renting or h/a as that might give you some recourse

*check your deeds, lots of new build estates have things written into them about parking commercial vehicles, I know when we looked into an estate near us with the view to moving there were things in the contract that meant I couldn't have brought the work van home. I didn't often drive it but as I was responsible for maintenance of the fleet I would often bring them home if they needed to be in the garage early as I could drop them off on my way into work

Sadly, yes - it’s definitely their house. And the reason we know this is because each of us signed covenants not to park commercial vehicles and when we all chased this with the builder they sent letters. Which were ignored. Then more strongly worded letter which were also ignored. I think they’re now looking at an injunction, but each time further correspondence is sent, we have an increase of the other behaviours which sadly are not in the covenant. Though if we ever move again, I’m checking they have a ‘no horrid, scary folk’ covenant...

So basically it's a parking issue that has escalated?

Could you try a charm offensive instead?

@TiesThatBindMe - That’s certainly part of it, but lots of the ‘unneighbourly’ behaviour started on the very first day - swearing excessively whilst the kids were out playing, damaging other people’s grass then assuming a ‘so what?’ attitude...

@ParanoidBeryl Charm offensive is my default. We greeted them with a bottle of prosecco on the first day and let them know that if they needed anything whilst they were unpacking to let us know. Have revisited it a few times, but to no avail. Even a friendly smile got me the middle finger a few weeks ago...

Having suffered 3 years of neighbour torture, I would advise you to pretend they don't exist and just try to accept that the inconveniences will be there. It's horrible. Believe me I know. I used to vomit every time I saw my neighbour's car arrive back. It's just not worth the hassle. Try and protect yourself by just accepting it for what it is.

I'd ask myself how bad it really is

If it is something I can chalk up and live with I probably would and .i imagine with time they will get bored with acting out

It sounds as though they didn't know/read the rules and parked willy billy
When told about the rules they acted defensively and childishly
The letters cemented their position and maybe ramped it up a little
They have nowhere to climb down to

You are seen as a fussy clique of busybodies who won't tell them what to do
I've seen stuff like this really escalate, I'd leave it

@RonaldMcDonald - you’ve hit the nail on the head. I hadn’t thought about it in those terms - childish is the exact description. There’s that level of selfish egotism l would more associate with under 8yos - perhaps those strategies would indeed be more appropriate.

(However frustrating that may be)