Please help me solve this ongoing mystery and tell me how you’d handle it. There’s quite a bit of detail but I’ll try not to waffle on! This is really impacting DD & I’s day to day lives though, so I need to get to the bottom of this.
I live next door to a fellow single mother, who I’ll call ‘M’. We moved in at roughly the same time as our homes were new 6 years ago. We’ve always got along pretty well, chatted a fair bit and had her on my Facebook list, although I rarely use it now; I just keep it active to stay connected with friends abroad but I’m never on there. We didn’t socialise or exchange numbers but had a laugh whenever we’ve spoken.
She’s never once done anything to annoy or upset me. For new builds, our houses are well soundproofed so I’d never heard a peep from her side and she vehemently assured me of the same when I apologised for the noise I made when I fell down the stairs once! 🤦🏼♀️
DD10 & I are pretty quiet and respectful, don’t ever have visitors besides my Mum or a neighbourhood kid comes to play and I look after the house & garden well.
Last time I spoke to her, she DM’d me on FB messenger one night, asking if I could see a weird light in the sky(!) and we chatted jokingly for a bit. All friendly, no issues.
Then a few days later I go to DM her to ask if she wanted me to take in a parcel that was left outside, only to find I’ve been blocked! Perhaps she deleted her FB as people often do, but nope. A friend managed to search & find her. I was definitely blocked.
Mystified, I decided to ask her when I see her next as I don’t have her number.
I didn’t end up seeing her for months which isn’t unusual due to our schedules but when I did, I smiled, said hi and asked if I’d said or done something wrong as I can’t seem to be able to message her anymore……. BLANKED ME. WTF?!
I don’t try again after this incase it escalates as we never seem to cross paths without at least one child present. Plus perhaps she’s going through something?
Cue months & months of front door slamming (the plaster-cracking, drop-your-cup-of-tea-in-shock, kind), music blasting at eye-watering levels whenever I’m in my back garden or quietly pruning in my greenhouse. Her Dad loudly revving his motorbike engine in her back garden as soon as I open my patio doors. So it’s all very clearly targeted at me after all. Her dad always used to say a quick “Hi, how are you?” whenever he arrived to see her and that swiftly turned into blanking from him too! Which even extended to DD10 when she kindly said to him “Hi, they just went out 5 mins ago” when he was knocking on M’s door once and he blanked DD as well! Just the other week, I was taking a picture of our dog trying to sniff a bumble bee next to our shared fence and her dad shouts “Come round if you want a photo, why don’t you?!” He must’ve thought I was taking photos of them?
DD has always played with M’s DS over the years, but now he’s loudly told not to even speak to DD if they walk past whilst she is out front. He’s even started giving her filthy looks and she’s now anxious about seeing either of them and in turn, is anxious about playing out at all, in case they arrive home whilst she’s out. She won’t even come into the back garden to play with the dog in case she or her Dad shout something.
Therefore like I said above, I need to sort this. But how?
Theory #1
So this might sound a bit of a leap but I can’t ignore the possibility.
For the past 15 years, I’ve had a thorn in my side. My surname isn’t unusual or odd, but very uncommon and the spelling isn’t how you’d expect it to be. My first name isn’t uncommon but both together, when you’re in a small town not a city, then you’ll almost certainly assume that there must be only one of us… Only there isn’t! There’s two. Not only that but her day & month of birth is the same (though she’s 3 years younger) and the first & surname is spelt the same! 😑 I know, what are the bloody chances?! Trouble is, this other ‘me’ is a foul mouthed, arrogant, racist, hateful & abrasive individual; As evidenced on FB, on which she is a prolific commenter. You can see where this is going, right? Yep.
Over the years I’ve lost count of how many friends, acquaintances and in once instance, even my first cousin, have cut contact with me after seeing some shockingly offensive verbal diarrhoea by this woman on FB and assumed it was me!! Some of them I managed to prove to that it wasn’t me but most of them just blocked me completely including my cousin! Even a close mum friend still won’t speak to me a year later, despite my explaining it wasn’t me. I’ve also had 10+ visits/calls from police who’ve clearly seen the name, day & month of birth and assumed I am she without checking the year. How our different addresses have been mixed up is anyone’s guess. Oh, I’ve also been removed off one GP surgery’s list for no-showing & one dentists, despite never having no-showed. Again, they failed to check the year and addresses.
So yeah, could this be it?
Theory #2.
Around the time M stopped speaking to me, DD had heard a van late one night, looked out of her window and noticed M & her Dad loading lot’s of stuff from her driveway, which had been leftover from her now dissolved business. Plastic crates, rubble bags etc. Quite a bit of angry slamming of van doors, clearly annoyed by something due to the swear words.
Perhaps someone reported her to her housing association for the stuff on her driveway and she assumes it’s me???? If so then she is very, very wrong and clearly doesn’t know me!
- I couldn’t care less what is in her driveway. It’s not on my side of our semi and I can’t even see it until I drive past. And even if it did bother me, I’d speak to her about it, as most would.
- I’ve never reported anyone for anything in my life. And I wouldn’t either, unless a child or an animal was in undoubtable danger or other extreme circumstances.
However, I spotted the house on her other side, on Rightmove the other day. With an online agent (there’s no sale board outside house). Recently reduced, been on market since the month before this all began so obviously not selling. What a coincidence. This house sits alongside M’s driveway. So it’s not out of the realms of possibility that they reported her and for some reason which I cannot fathom, she’s jumped to the conclusion that it was me…….?? Especially given that there’s no sale board outside her neighbour’s house, so M may not know it’s being sold. I’m sure if she did then she’d have to consider the possibility that it was them, given they’ll be having viewings etc. That’s if she has been reported for anything.
Anyway, big apologies for the essay. I’ve tried my best to condense it!
I thought about writing a brief note to pop through M’s door, either asking if we can talk or just making it clear that I haven’t done/said anything to her or about her and that I’ve no clue why she’s turned like this?
What would you do?