It took me an hour to write a book here, pressed the wrong button and all gone, this is my second try, I'll try to keep it short, and I hope it works this time.
3 years ago I moved here to live with my husband ( he's been here for 8 years ) The neighbours next door - 2 sisters in their 40-50's, never married and childless with 2 cats - were the perfect neighbours, very welcoming, lovely, understanding, we had long chats, I've baked cakes for them, I was telling everyone how nice they are and how lucky I am
When I told them I am expecting twins they were very happy and congratulated us,visited me and the babies at home even brought us a card and some baby clothes - that was 2 years ago
A year later when I told them I am expecting again ( not planned, a total surprise and shock but a blessing nevertheless ) they seemed to be outraged even although they added a haha after
I thought I am imagining things, but slowly our long chats become shorter and shorter and usually about the cats and at the end they would add a how are the kids or how are you feeling but again i dismiss it, I said to myself that since they don't have kids they aren't familiar with what's going on and that i would bore them to talk a lot about the kids ( even although as i first time mom I was very exited about everything )
A few weeks after I told them I am expecting again their back garden gate was replaced by the housing association ( from tall solid wood one to a tall metal bars one ) , when I've made a remark about their new no privacy gate they said are very upset and will try have it replaced with a solid one or have it covered because they don't like people looking in their garden from the street. Between our garden and theirs there's small fence up to my hips, so now with the new bars gate people could see into our garden as well and we lost our privacy too.
We waited until may this year for them to do somethign about it - every time the subject was brought up they kept saying next month or it's expensive to have it covered because it has to be custome made etc..) so they we're doing anything about it, so we decided to put a bamboo screen to raise the fence between us, but we decided on bamboo because we felt solid wood would maybe send the neighbours the wrong signal..as in we don't want to see them any more. Anyway, they said they totally understand that we need our privacy back and the bamboo screen is not to keep them away or anything but now it means that "the sun won't fall at 12o'clock any more, now it will fall at 2o'clock but that's not a problem because we don't use our garden except a few times a year " their exact words
Fast forward to last month, the younger sister became increasingly worried about our cat and kept asking us to take him to the vet and have him checked - we told her than in fact we took him to the vet a week before (because he was getting skinny) and the vet told us he is all right, he is not sick, not ill but he is very old - 18 years - and she can put him to sleep or we can take him back home and wait for his end. We already made peace with it for a while now, it was expected to happen in the near future, this was just a confirmation, and we wanted to be sure he is not in any pain .
But for our neighbour this wasn't good enough, and she kept ringing the doorbell to let us know he is meowing - he started to spend more time outside, basking in the sun or staying under a bush, and in general it was cooler outside than in the house- and took advantage of this to start the conversation about taking him to the vet again after a few days of these while I was out with the kids RSPCA came to our house because someone reported that we neglegt our cat and somehow the rspca lady convinced my husband that the cat is not going to die anytime soon in fact he still has 4-5 years to live and they will take better care of him and place him for adoption maybe to an eldery couple ...long story short my husband agreed to give the rspca lady our cat after being promised they will put him for adoption and under no circumstances put him to sleep.
The next day the neighbour comes again to our door to ask us to stop putting cat food outside because her cat comes and eats it and her cat must eat the special and expensive food they order and not ours...she didn't even asked how is our cat or where is he, from being soooo concwerned about him for the last week to not even mention him - so we knew for sure she was the one who called rspca
From that day they started avoiding us, didn't bother to come again to ask about the missing cat, or anything else
Couple of days later when my husband called to ask about our cat, the lady said that he has maybe 6 months left and since they can't give him back they will keep him and wait to die because he can't be adopted
We asked a friend to call and see if they will give the cat to her and they told our friend that is not posible because they already put the cat to sleep - that's 5 min after we talked with rspca lady and told us he is ok and everything- I am very upset about it and I will never forgive the neighbours or that deceiving lady for taking away from us and our cat the last weeks and my husband will not forgive himself that he trusted that lady...but that's another story
..back to the neighbours ..
Last week we had our entrance door replaced with a new one, two days later I was taking the rubbish out and the neighbours were painting their entrance door I said hi but got no response
Next day when I went to the clinic with my kids for HV the older sister was there waiting at the queue, she saw me first and she just turned around facing the fall, so she was with the back at me when I pass by, I saw her when I sat down on the chair but she quickly covered her face like I am some kind of paparazzi trying to take a photo of her it was almost comical
...and yesterday delivery guy rings at the door with a parcel for me, I was feeding my baby and I knew he will not wait , he is our regular delivery guy and he usually rings the door and he is already on the way back to his van...so I was feeding my baby and I go towards the window to let him know I am home, meanwhile he rang the next door and the neighbour refused to take the small package - me and the delivery guy both shocked because it never happen before.
I am usually home with the kids and I am the one who gets her packages because they always deliver them on the "wrong day" when neighbours are expecing them in 2-3 days when they have day off, only this year I think I took over 10 packages for them...so to see her refusing to take mine was a little bit shocking
My husband wasn't home, but when he came back in the evening I talked to him and we decided since he knows them longer to have a talk to them and ask what's going on, why the change, what happened
Around 9 o'clock after dinner and a day away from home my husband went to spend some times with the kids, they were sooo happy and excited to see their dad, as they usual are after he's been away, so they were laughing and giggling and runing around the room ...and then the neighbours knocked into the wall - which made me mad
our kids are well behaved, they do have their tantrums and screaming - during the day when neighbours are anyway not home - and we always calm them down and tell them no shouting and in the past we asked the enighbours if they can hear the kids crying/shouting/screaming and we worried that they might be too noisy ...but they always dissmiss it and said not to worry they can't hear anything , they work until late anyway and by the time they go to sleep our kids would be in bed anyway....and now all of the sudden they are disturbed by kids laugh at 9pm - they settled down in a couple of minutes anyway - the running ...because no runing in the house...but what's next...i won't be suprised if the neighbours will call police next time our kids are happy
We have a small park behind the house but we can't take the kids there because we know the neighbours are upset about kids playing there and making "noise" ,,,so they are like this about kids having a good time in general. Funny enough they didn't seem to be bother by my toddler screams at bed time ( we went thru a phase ) but she is by her laugher?
I don't know what to do...try to talk to them,,,ignore them, what if they will keep pushing it, what if we talk and they will get worse WWYD?
I am aware that things can't go back to normal, as we lost trust in them and after the episode with the cat i don't really want to deal with this kind of people, but i still want a civilised relation and to respect eachother and things not to get more sour...but I really don't have a clue what to do
sorry about the long post