I have a neighbour who is the local busy body, possibly has mental health issues but all the same it’s becoming increasingly difficult living next door to her.
She lives alone and I’d say around 55-65 years of age, the noise she generates sounds like a zoo has come to stay. We’re woken regularly by the sound of someone running up and down the stairs, which is against our bedroom wall. She has a specific routine at certain times of the day where she will bang pots and pans together and what sounds like jumping on the spot. We’ve got a joke going that she’s exercising with objects, but in all seriousness it’s stressing me out. We briefly mentioned it to her once but she denied knowing what we were talking about.
Alongside this she is extremely entitled and feels she can control what everyone around her can do. On the rare occasions we have had a conversation she has told me she reported X at number X for having a bonfire/party/visitors/deliveries, that she doesn’t like X overgrown tree, that X car devalues her house and she wants it sold. Very ridiculous and unnecessary things to point out. When my children are playing in the garden she will often stand at the upstairs window with hands on hips looking very angry that they are in their garden. They aren’t being noisy or anti social, just kids in the pool or on their bikes laughing and having fun.
We’ve overheard her (on very obviously fake phone calls) saying that we only cut our lawn because she did, that we need to wash our car because we last done it on X date which is too long, that we should be in bed by 10pm because she’s asleep and doesn’t want to hear so much as a creaky floorboard, and that we ordered a take away on X date because she saw the driver pull up. She also stops to look into our living room window every time she walks past, we have had to put reflective film on the glass as it was making me uncomfortable being watched. She hung out about 10 bras on her washing line and loudly said that should excite (my husband) as I have small breasts - that’s a comment we can laugh about, but even so it’s very creepy to do that and with the intention of showing my husband her bras.
We saw the funny side of this behaviour at first, knowing she is that bored and lonely that she is obsessively watching our every move, but it’s starting to unnerve me now and I want it to stop. I’m always nervous about bumping into her as she will rant at me about something silly like my cat meowed and woke her dog (yes seriously) or a leaf from my tree blew across her driveway. We don’t pander to her and ignore everything she says with a polite smile and nod, but obviously this is making her angry because it’s got worse the more time goes by.
Everytime I hear the pans banging it makes me jump out of my skin, whenever we cut the lawn I feel anxious like a naughty child and now I’m sick of letting a grown adult dictate our life, also annoyed at myself for letting it bother me so much. My anxiety is sky high over it today.
How do I block this out and stop letting it affect me?