Obsessive NOSEY NEIGHBOURS

[RamblingJenny]

Can anyone help me out, this is really effecting our quality of life.

There is a couple next door that seem to make it their priority to be nosey wherever possible with us. I only noticed how low our fence was recently because we have not long moved in and I’m busy back and fourth into the garden partially doing up the house so I have not noticed how situations are timed so they can ear wig.

I began noticing not long ago that whenever we stepped outside around a few seconds after their back door would open and the washing would immediately be hung out. Small bits of washing would be strategically placed nearer our fence when it could easily go nearer to their door.
Sometimes there’s literally 4 socks hung on the line, at the exact time when we begin talking, right near our fence.
I realised how obvious it was on a wet miserable day that the woman went and put the washing on her line as soon as we began talking outside. And it was one bed sheet or towel.
It then clicked in my head that these line drying days have been happening even on days when the weather is horrendous, rain spitting, grey clouds etc.

The walls are paper thin and whenever we have normal disagreements I feel on edge on how it might come across to them without the context.

We renewed our mortgage beginning of the year because I thought I could manage the situation but the nosey-ness is escalating and now I’m feeling really sh!t about getting a longer term which is now 5years. I should have listened to our gut but we’ve not long moved.

Now this morning my OH has left the house with the kids ready to go to Breakfast Club. We had a heated squabble last night DIY related, both lack of sleep and they must have been propped up against the wall with some popcorn because this morning said neighbour decides to water plants at literally a few seconds before we are talking saying bye to each other and reminding kids about school stuff before leaving.

This is at 7.15am.
I know it’s going to be a warm day but I have not once seen anyone do that on our road, at this house or the last.

I know this person is staying in because they loudly said in their garden to ‘come over because we’re in all day tomorrow’.

OH said eye contact was trying to be made and the watering was done on our boundary fence during the full duration of OH and kids being at our doorstep and he could feel being gawped at.

And the biggest eye opener is OH is always the first to brush something off but he rang me and said ‘yeah, that was weird’. As he is not the type to really ever confirm behaviours.

Even if we make the house more private with plants and trees I am struggling to relax knowing someone is ear wigging at every opportunity. It just feels like the type of people to report and wrongly report just for the drama, I feel completely on edge and don’t know what to do now we have renewed the mortgage.

I appreciate that there may be suggestions to wind them up by saying things but they honestly come across as the type to make a situation a 100 times worse if poked. They play their music outside ridiculously loud and I think it would be a case of them just doing more passive aggressive things if we were ever to say jokey things for them to overhear.

Another rubbish thing is we can’t just point out what they’re doing because is so underhand/covert.

Feeling really helpless and stupid.
Please help :(

I get it, too, OP - I don't think you're being paranoid at all. It sounds pathetically unbelievable because it is pathetically unbelievable - but that doesn't stop it happening.

Considering that there are actually trolls who frequent MN, who genuinely gain thrills from asking/hearing about strangers' babies' toileting needs, how difficult is it to comprehend that some people have such boring lives and/or the desperate need to know everything that's going on that they will make it their business not to miss out on such 'gold' as "Katie, don't forget to take the form in for the school trip" or "Could you pick up some milk on your way home, love" ?

Anybody going outside to hang out washing to dry when it's already raining is either up to something or mentally unwell. Unless it is the latter (which is a possibility, although less so if it's both of them), they're simply blatant and just don't care that you know their game.

Maybe previous neighbours were horrendous and their was domestic violence so they are keeping a look out.

Even if they were, it isn't the house itself that's responsible for the DV. If Mr Smith who previously lived there at number 102 beat his wife, and the Smiths move out (shame it's not just him) and the Browns move in, Mr Brown isn't automatically to be suspected and monitored right from the outset - unless you happen to somehow believe that 'the kind of men who will live at 102 Sycamore Avenue are known to be the violent sort'.

Anybody going outside to hang out washing to dry when it's already raining is either up to something or mentally unwell

Or they just think it'll stop raining soon so I'll get it out now as it's only drizzling.

Just because someone is doing something you would t it does not make them mentally unwell.

Or they just think it'll stop raining soon so I'll get it out now as it's only drizzling.

Just because someone is doing something you would t it does not make them mentally unwell.

Fair enough, it's a free country - if somebody wants to start their washing off drying by hanging it out in the wet rather than, say, using an indoor airer when there's no sun to take advantage of anyway, it's entirely up to them. But OP said "these line drying days have been happening even on days when the weather is horrendous, rain spitting, grey clouds etc." I wonder if these neighbours also book a cottage in Inverness in January with the expectation of getting a tan and sipping Malibu on a sun lounger on the beach....

OP I totally recognise this, we had similar with some neighbours when we were renting a couple of years ago! It's weird because you don't really notice at first, and then when you do you try to convince yourself that it's just a coincidence/you're being paranoid etc because who does this?

And then of course when you finally have admitted to yourself that your neighbours have you under surveillance for no reason at all, no one believes you because of how utterly bonkers it is.

Luckily we were only on a short term let, I don't have any answers to the weirdness apart from moving which really isn't helpful.

Or they just think it'll stop raining soon so I'll get it out now as it's only drizzling.

And how likely is that when it's 4 socks?

I can't believe people are making excuses for the nosey neighbours.

One thing, yes it could be coincidence. All of them? Not a chance.

I think some of the responses calling you paranoid are a tad harsh when they themselves may not have experienced something like this or understand where you are coming from.

A lady did this down our road, for the purposes of the explanation I shall call her Weird Lady. There are about 6 cottages which are council housing and have council tenants in (we will never know if this was relevant to her behaviour). This is on a rural road with mainly detached houses on and this lady lived next door to the run of the council cottages. Everyone gets on relatively well (or so we thought). A really nice couple moved into cottage 1 which was next door to Weird Lady. They joined the book club, got stuck in to village life and were really pleasant. Over time they noticed Weird Lady displaying the types of behaviour you describe. Going out to the garden the moment they did, trying to ear wig etc. It massively escalated though, she took to staring at them out of her windows all day and everyday and trying to intimidate them. Screaming at them, throwing stuff over the hedges into their garden etc - the list is long. Whilst they did all they could to ignore it they eventually moved because it was so upsetting.

Twas very sad..

However. Weird Lady got her comeuppance - A new chap moved into the now vacant cottage - he is huge (and lovely) and he went round to introduce himself. Weird Lady got the wrong end of the stick and thought it was the nice couple's son moving in to intimidate her, so she promptly sold up and has not been seen since! I do hope she is not making someone else's life hell somewhere..

Anyhow, I don't know what else to add apart from I hope it gets better!

And then of course when you finally have admitted to yourself that your neighbours have you under surveillance for no reason at all, no one believes you because of how utterly bonkers it is.

Reminds me of all the self-appointed lockdown police who would sit taking notes and photographs of when their neighbours left and returned, itching to berate/report them if they broke the 'law' allowing them to be out for one hour maximum that existed nowhere except in the nosey busybody's head.

Not to mention those abusing nurses and even letting down their tyres to sabotage their safety and ability to get to the hospital; and these people believed that they were the responsible ones.

We used to have neighbour a long, long time ago who was constantly out watering the plants around her front door. She would always dash out whenever somebody else left their house, with one of those little dainty long-spouted watering cans that was more like a traditional oil can, and she had perfected the method of standing at a 135 degree angle to her door, so she could pour the watering can off to the side whilst also having a very good view of anything going on in the street.

To be fair, her plants always looked perfect and none of them ever actually died - but then, they were all made of plastic....

I think your options are to move or get a higher fence. It's understandable that it's leaving you on edge. The people opposite us are very nosey and wherever I go out to tend the front garden, they come out for some reason and try to talk to me. We've nicknamed her Twenty Questions because she just bombards you with questions. They do it to the other neighbours. I caught him standing by his garage watching me one day just so he could trap me into chatting. I suffer from severe depression and am not up to talking to others anymore. I can't go out into the front garden now, dh does it instead. I loathe these people now.

I have a neighbour like this OP. There was initially a low fence between us. Every single time I went outside the neighbour would quickly appear next to the fence and become overly interested in whatever I was doing. It was very uncomfortable and I felt like I didn't have any privacy. I wanted to move but couldn't afford it so soon after buying my house. I ended up putting in a taller fence and shrubs. It hasn't stopped the neighbour earwigging but it has given me some privacy and helps me to ignore them.

OP; feeling for you. Been there too many times. The next times I moved as I was renting NO NEIGHBOURS was the code. Even then..

I used to do the garden at very odd hours.

Now, bliss as I have no neighbours within range. I can see only one house several fields away..Still I tend to go out for a walk etc when there it no one around.

DEFEND YOURSELF. Yes to the high fence. A small radio plugged in and visible? I used to converse in French. Can you build a porch of any kind? A tree by the door? A nice bushy lilac....

How about acknowledging them every single time in a faux-cheery tone of voice a la Kath from Kath and Kim?

'Morning Mandy, not the best weather for drying washing?'....'Hello Mandy, yes I am mowing the lawn'...'Hi Mandy, those plants must be thirsty this morning?'.... 'Oh there's Mandy kids, we're just off to school, give her a wave!'

You can move even in a fixed rate. It’s called porting.

But while all that is annoying I’m not sure why it’s bothering you so much. They’re not doing anything and unless you discuss very personal private matters at the top of your voice then who cares? Let them listen in on the mundanities of your life. But put up a higher fence.

(I will admit that I am generally oblivious to our neighbours even though we live in a terrace so feel free to ignore me!)

Are you sure they are really being that nosey? If they were repeating your conversations back to you, or telling other people, then you could say categorically that they're being nosey. Instead it sounds like your hyper awareness/paranoia might be making it more of an issue than it actually is.

That said, I do agree with PP that maybe they're concerned about the level of arguing in your house. Could they be putting music on loud to drown out the rows?

@SoupDragon

I can't believe people are making excuses for the nosey neighbours.

One thing, yes it could be coincidence. All of them? Not a chance.

All of what? I'm genuinely puzzled. Their crimes seem to be hanging out laundry on overcast days (spitting rain and grey clouds isn't horrendous weather where I live) and watering their plants once

@KidneyBeans If I haven’t been clear, and unfortunately I can’t edit my post. But horrendous weather - read, middle of winter. When you can see you own breath kind of weather. I was just trying to describe the mixture of weather that we have but I can see that my original sentence wasn’t very clearly thought out.

I'm genuinely puzzled. Their crimes seem to be hanging out laundry on overcast days (spitting rain and grey clouds isn't horrendous weather where I live) and watering their plants once

It's not "hanging laundry out on overcast days" is it? It's "hanging tiny amounts out whenever the OP goes into the garden" That isn't coincidence.

I was watering the plants outside my front door at 7.30 this morning.

@SoupDragon

I'm genuinely puzzled. Their crimes seem to be hanging out laundry on overcast days (spitting rain and grey clouds isn't horrendous weather where I live) and watering their plants once

It's not "hanging laundry out on overcast days" is it? It's "hanging tiny amounts out whenever the OP goes into the garden" That isn't coincidence.

Tbf that's the OPs version, of course it could be a coincidence.

@bamboocat

I was watering the plants outside my front door at 7.30 this morning.

I was too 😂

As long as they are quiet I could put up with nosey. We had a nosey neighbor. Each and every time we went out she would be out. But I just ignored her.

If I were you I'd make stuff up. Be on the phone talking about being deployed or witness protection or something.

Your not paranoid. You know when something isn't right it's gut feeling. Nosy neighbours or horrible neighbours are annoying. Don't engage with them, put a huge fence up and grow something terribly huge up them. Something odd has happened to a lot of people in the last 18 months, they lack boundaries and genuinely seem not to care how rude they are being. Keep a diary of incidents. I hope you won't ever need it but it will be handy if you do.

Failing that just have lots of loud sex.

I agree about soundproofing and incessantly giving them cheery chat when they're out...

But I also would have loud conversations indoors about how creepy they are and have (or fake if you're generally quite quiet) lots of rowdy sex

I think next time they come to hang washing when you're out, just say loudly and cheerfully "oh hello X, we thought we'd be seeing you any moment!"