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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think our neighbour is weird and to be wary of him?

103 replies

MumblingRagDoll · 04/10/2011 18:20

We live in a quiet cul de sac and we are on nodding or chatting terms with nearly all the neighbours.....but the man who lives at the bottom...4 doors from us, is reserved and never says hello unless you REALLY look him in the eye and he cant avoid it....fair enough....but......my DC are 7 and 3 and the 7 year old goes out the front which is all open plan and rides her bike a lot....I usually keep an eye on her from the kitchen window

Whenever she does, he appears at the front of his property and messes about with something....he loiters iyswim.

Hes never actually DOING anything, just now he was sort of pushing his bin around...repeatedly re-positioning it.

My 3 year old wanted to go out so DH went with her and thats when he saw the neighbour kind of peering at our older DD from the cover of his garage...he was JUST inside and half hidden. Hmm

I cant see his house from my window as it's on my side....

AIBU to ask the police for one of those disclusure things?

This man lives alone and is about 55. He seems "normal" if shy/anti social.
WWYD?

OP posts:
Ripeberry · 04/10/2011 18:50

Does he look like Gargamel, maybe he is looking for those pesky smurfs who keep hiding under his bins and they only come out when kids are around Grin.

Sorry, been watching too much Smurfs on You tube with the kids.

Salmotrutta · 04/10/2011 18:51

the / should be an ?

ledkr · 04/10/2011 18:52

Well i dont think yabu to keep an eye out and be aware of anything you feel uneasy about.It does sound as if he is just being irritated by the kids playing near his property lots of people get like this and cant tolerate kids.Just keep an eye on them.

PomBearAtTheGatesOfDawn · 04/10/2011 18:52

I just deleted an enormously long post when I realised that I was not only ranting, but getting way too irate to be good for my blood pressure.
I lost a very dear friend to a stress induced heart attack when he was wrongly and baselessly accused of "been a peedo". He died alone in a rented house, and lay for two days, after he was forced to leave his home thanks to small minded ignorant stupid people just like you op who thought that a single man in his late forties who lived alone and minded his own business HAD to be some kind of vile pervert.
You think about that while you twitch your curtains OP
:(

diabolo · 04/10/2011 18:53

He'd have to be a pretty odd paedophile anyway wouldn't he, to want to come out of the house to watch the kids when he knows their Mum is watching too?

Surely if he were deriving pleasure from seeing them, he would hide in his house and do it covertly?

GalaxyWeaver · 04/10/2011 18:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

KittyFane · 04/10/2011 18:55

My DH stands at the front window looking out, it's bloody annoying because if people are outside washing cars, getting ready to go out it looks like he is gawping,
Thing is, he doesn't even notice they are there half the time. He's either looking at the flipping sky or hills. :o
My grandparents were constantly looking out of the window when their neighbours came out of the house. They were lonely and were just interested in others routines because their routine was so dull.

DownbytheRiverside · 04/10/2011 18:55

'Why are people being so harsh? I cant see anything overly "red flag" in the OP but has no one ever had an instict that something just isn't right?'

Some of us have a teenager on the spectrum and are a bit fed up with odd behaviour and not fitting the norm being a cause for instant suspicion and paranoia. Which has the potential to be fanned into abuse of an individual by others merely because they are different.
Paedophiles are usually members of your own family, rather than isolated strangers.

Birdsgottafly · 04/10/2011 18:56

OP this is strange behaviour, but it might not be dangerous or sexual. I have had female neighbours behave like this. With them it was a sort of warped territory thing, if i (or my children) were out, them they would be as well, but they didn't do it to get to know anyone.

He may have MH or LD's, as others have said, just teach your DC's to be safe.

SauvignonBlanche · 04/10/2011 18:56

I was so hoping this was a wind-up. Sad

JeanBodel · 04/10/2011 18:57

Here's a summary of the thread for those who can't be bothered to read it.

AIBU?
Yes
Yes
Yes
Fuck the lot of you, I'm done with this place.

DownbytheRiverside · 04/10/2011 18:58

No, these threads happen on a regular basis. Welcome to the NT world DS.

LadyBeagleEyes · 04/10/2011 18:58

I don't agree with the OP but I think people should have been a bit kinder, and actually discussed the matter instead of turning on her.
Nasty thread.

lightroom · 04/10/2011 19:01

I don't think it's unreasonable to be wary but I'm not sure you should pursue the disclosure thing. I changed the way we walked to school because of a man we passed every day. I don't know why but he really, really made me feel uncomfortable for reasons that I find impossible to articulate and this is not like me at all. I have never before or since felt that way about someone. There was some underlying prejudice, I'm sure, but I don't want to jump to judge MumblingRagDoll. Sometimes it's ok to be wary and it absolutely doesn't mean we think all single men over 50 are paedophiles. Maybe you could try to get to know him, as LadyBeagleEyes says. Ask yourself: if you found out he was on the sex offenders register, what would you do? Move house? Never let the children play out? (I don't mean these questions aggressively, btw!).

KatieScarlett2833 · 04/10/2011 19:01

My DH is a curtain twitcher and regularly accosts smiles and waves at the neighbours.

I blame the MIL, when google came round to do streetview she can be seen in her glory peering angrily out of her window at the vehicle who very dared to come up her street.

Neither of them harbour unsavoury thoughts about young children though.

Birdsgottafly · 04/10/2011 19:02

"Paedophiles are usually members of your own family, rather than isolated strangers".

Everyone is a member of a family. Now days 'schedule 1' offenders cannot have contact with the children in their family, or are rejected by the family because of what they have done. Do you think that all of them are reabilitated? Some of them are and some aren't, so they become random strangers, until they get to know the children or (usually) mother.

DownbytheRiverside · 04/10/2011 19:03

She was given a lot of sensible advice on teaching her children to be safe and not to go into other people's houses without permission from her.
She is also at liberty to ask the police for a disclosure thing, but what would she be able to do legally with the knowledge other than be wary?
Which she already is.

KittyFane · 04/10/2011 19:04

Just had a thought, a man in his 50's would possibly never have been diagnosed with aspergers/ autism. There must be a lot of people in this age range living alone and just coping the best they can. Maybe this man does appears odd but maybe not for the reasons the OP thinks.

KittyFane · 04/10/2011 19:05

Appear

KatieScarlett2833 · 04/10/2011 19:07

..Or maybe he's just shy like the man opposite on our street.

5 years we were there before he spoke to me and that was because he'd just got a new puppy and we could focus on that for conversation. He's lovely, we still don't know his name tho, so is called Oscars Daddy to everyone in the Scarlett household.

Birdsgottafly · 04/10/2011 19:07

In this case the OP shouldn't go to the police. But sometimes there has been a pattern of offending, which the police would know about. On receiving a query they would go round and 'have a chat' to see if there is a possibility that the person needs help. They would then hand this over to other services. The area of risk to children is vast, so the response varies.

DownbytheRiverside · 04/10/2011 19:07

I don't think it is possible for a paedophile to be rehabilitated, but all the abused children I have first-hand experience of were attacked by members of their family, including boyfriends and girlfriends of parents.
It's a much higher risk than random stranger with poor social skills and inadequate communication.

DownbytheRiverside · 04/10/2011 19:08

Girlfriends went for physical abuse rather than sexual.

Birdsgottafly · 04/10/2011 19:18

Some of the cases that i have dealt with involve the same men (sexual), once they cannot gain access to children via family they look elsewhere. I dealt with a case recently were the girlfriend didn't have children, but her friends/neighbours did.

He will be released in 2 years, to live on his own.

TandB · 04/10/2011 19:22

Quite a lot of old people do things like this, things that might seem odd to others, and they probably couldn't really explain their actions if challenged. Like a previous poster said, someone might irrationally resent someone driving down the street, or parking near their house, or playing outside. My gran occasionally went in for a bit of curtain twitching, and if she wasn't convinced that someone had a good enough reason to be parked in the street she might even have a wander out to pointedly dead-head the roses and eyeball the poor, offending van driver, or loitering school-child.

There is an old lady who lives near DS's nursery and she often comes out and stares at people who park in the street, even though she lives a fair way back from the road and on a completely different square - she seems irrationally offended by someone daring to park in her general vicinity if she doesn't know them.

Some people are just a bit nosy, or maybe just isolated and looking for distractions.

Don't flouce, MRD. There is nothing wrong with being concerned, but it is highly likely that there is nothing to worry about.