to wish I could do something

[Empusa]

We live in a flat, next door to us are more flats. The downstairs neighbours are weird, I've mentioned them before.

They turn up at our door at all ours expecting us to give them lifts (we never have), or take in animals that they've "rescued" even though they can't house them. Both times they've done this we've had a pet dog that they knew hated other animals.

They turned up one day, said "can you sew?", when I said yes, they handed me a cuddly toy and told me to fix it. Then complained when the thread I used wasn't an exact match! (I only did it as I was too surprised to say no)

When we moved in (it's a council house) we had no carpets etc as the council had ripped them all out. So we were warning them that it'd be noisy. They told us that the previous tenants, who they described as "nig nogs", probably ripped out the carpets as they were cheap.

So real charmers.

We do our best to avoid them, but they tend to spend their whole time looking out the windows and will come running out the door every time we go in or out of the house. Which was a nightmare when we were dog walking regularly. We've been trying to be civil but distant, as we don't fancy a spat with the neighbours, even idiots like them!

Recently they've been coming to us and complaining about their upstairs neighbours. They are a lovely couple with a 2 year old kid, but the crazy neighbours keep trying to get us to complain about the noise. They turned up the other day with a police incident report form! They wanted us to write down every time we heard a noise from the upstairs neighbours (our flat is also upstairs, so they back onto us)

Obviously I'm not going to, as they are really quiet. Obviously with a small child they aren't always as quiet as the grave, but no (sane) person could complain about the minimal noise their child makes!

However, as we were given the form, we thought we'd warn the neighbours and give them the name on the form if they wanted to pre-empt it.

Poor girl was almost in tears. Turns out the shit we had to put up with from these idiots is nothing compared to what she does!

They go through her bins!
If someone knocks at her door, they open theirs and stand around listening.
They give her husband abuse for not being British, and not having a British name.
They wont let her leave the house without harassing her about keeping her child quiet.
They yell at her at 3pm to be quiet because they want to sleep (they don't work, so it's not that they are doing shifts or anything).

Wish I could do something to help her. She's moving away, despite the area being perfect for her, because she can't cope with them. She tries to never be at home as she doesn't feel she can relax there.

I wish they'd go and she'd stay!

Everyone in the cul-de-sac has had hassle from them :(

How can people like that think their behaviour is in any way ok?!

[DevotionAndDesire]

What a nightmare.
I also think you and the nice neighbours should join forces and report the nasty neighbours to anyone and everyone.

[Empusa]

bloodymary That was pretty much the look on our faces when they said it.

[mankymink]

Ooooh, what's happened?

[PersonalJesus]

God, they sound like my old neighbour. She used to batter on my door if I cooked a Sunday roast as it made her flat 'too hot'. She moaned if I made a cup of tea when I got in because she could hear the kettle.

She reported one couple to the police just after 9/11 because she could hear them 'plotting' in a foreign language and they were 'brown'.

I was only a 'bit brown' and therefore she was able to speak to me.

[M0naLisa]

Report them.