This is a difficult one to word and will come across very childish but it’s an issue that is affecting my family so I would appreciate some advice.
We moved to a new house before Christmas and everything was great, we met the neighbours who were lovely and we have really started to make it feel like home.
Rewind a month and we had a problem with lighting in our kitchen, it was a big heavy thing and it collapsed taking some ceiling and wiring with it. The noise woke us in the night and took quite a while to repair and make safe the following day.
This obviously triggered something in our neighbour who is an older lady who lives alone. Since then she has been replicating the noise during the night implying she thinks we done it to wake her and now wants to ‘get her own back’. I’m not sure what she is doing but it sounds like a television being thrown at the wall from 4am.
We chose to ignore it and hoped it would stop, on passing we said hello and apologised for the noise and what caused it. She seemed okay with the explanation and we moved on.
Several days later she began making noise yet again, but we noticed a pattern it would be if there was any noise of any kind from our house. Such as my toddler having a meltdown as she didn’t want to go to nursery next door would thump the wall, if we close a door she will slam hers hard, if we have family over she turns her television to the highest volume until they leave (we aren’t loud), I used a hairdryer at 9pm and she turned hers on at 3am, and so on.
Eventually we got fed up with her ‘retaliation’ to normal daily living noises that we done it back, seemingly causing a noise war.
I’m now nervous about living our lives because if we so much as put a plate, pan or mug on a table she will do the same but with force so it makes a loud thump. She is clearly listening to our every movement and watching who comes and goes from our home. It’s very unsettling and I can feel my anxiety coming back.
I approached her yesterday to ask if everything is okay as we have noticed a lot of banging and she denied any knowledge or hearing anything.
I am so sick of hearing deliberate noises when we aren’t doing anything wrong nor being anti social, my children sleep through the night and wake at 7.30, I know we aren’t disturbing her we can hear her let her dog in the garden at 4.30 so she is clearly awake early. I just don’t know what else to do, we have tried talking and we have stopped retaliating back but this seems to have made her think she has ‘won’ because she has continued the noise knowing there aren’t any repercussions.
I know I can’t force people to be respectful but it’s stressful knowing someone is always waiting for an opportunity to ‘punish’ us. I don’t want to live in fear in my own home but I don’t want to hear the noises anymore. I’ve already been told I can’t report her or take it further as it’s impossible to prove it’s deliberate. Any advice?