to think SIL's lucky she hasn't been arrested for criminal damage?

[WorldPeaceAndFreeProsecco]

She's just said that her neighbour was so rude to her that she went home and cried.

SIL had weeded her neighbours front garden because she decided it needed doing. Later on she saw the neighbour cleaning her windows so joked, 'oh you can do mine if you like' and the neighbour snapped 'not bloody likely'.

SIL said, oh and I weeded your garden for you. Neighbour said, yes, I know, you've pulled up all the wildflowers I planted.

SIL went home and cried, not because she felt bad but because the neighbour was rude, and shoudl bloody well keep her garden weeded, and told me that next time she's just going to put weedkiller down.

I've offended her now because I said she's bloody lucky not to be charged with criminal damage, and that if anyone did that to my garden I'd be furious. She has done it to us as well, she just comes round and starts cleaning or pulling up 'weeds', now I know she means well and mostly let her get on with it but I think she's seriously fucked her neighbour off.

The thing is, I'm pretty sure she'll carry on, and I do think the neighbour won't stand for it.

I thin kI need to say more to her, make it crystal clear that what sh'es doing is not NORMAL and that the neighbour is completely right to be annoyed.

AIBU?

Off topic, but where would I find this cabbage recipe?

Would your sister in law take guidance from an authority figure, like a priest? Could you have a quiet word with a PCOS as this really is behaviour likely to cause a breech of the peace! Wishing you luck.

BIWI - we were GUTTED I tell ya.

LisaM - I roughly chop white cabbage then sauté it in a pan with olive oil and butter. A sort of Bubble & Squeak without the bubble bit if you like.

Mmmmmm I cook cabbage in the microwave with caraway seeds, but I will try that.

Sorry to hijack OP, you sound lovely but my view is that I don't think anything you say will work. It sounds like your SIL has her version of reality and that's that. You need to get something official to change her rules, before her neighbour gets really cross.

Perhaps her neighbour needs to take some of her gnomes hostage. Only return them is she ceases touching her garden. Or would that tip her over the edge?

We coudl do that, Lunatic. We're supposed to be going out in a couple of weeks.

You could join us, and any other willing MNers actually, we could do an MN intervention.

You could all don MN scarves and sneak in and steal the gnomes in dead of night?

m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19349921

This wasn't your SIL's work was it?

Oh dear. She's clearly unwell. You know. I've been there. Not over that but over similar. I know I asked before - is she happily married? Does she have anxiety issues?

I know I was batshit when I had my anxiety stuff going on. I know now, I mean, at the time it was normal and the rest of the world was insane. But I was married to a controlling man and my anxiety had to go somewhere. So it came out in doing stuff and buying things and making my life seem perfect from the outside.

LisaM you hijacked before I did .... I fancied knowing Heps' recipe, too, as I LOVE cabbage!!

I think you should talk to the neighbour and ask them to log it with the police, perhaps a visit from the police explaining that this is actually not just annoying but illegal might make her stop and think "is this wrong?" because she doesn't get it. If everyone then backs up the police and says "yes, if my neighbour came round and pulled out all my plants because they didn't like them, then I'd call the police too, it's not normal to mess iwth other people's gardens" perhaps it might shock her in to realising at least she should leave other people's spaces alone. Some people don't accept it's just not normal behaviour because it's normal in their heads, but do react well to realising it's illegal.

(Is she the one who had to buy a sandwich every day on mat leave because she couldn't make a sandwich and look after a baby or am I thinking of a different mental SIL?)

Ooh good lord. She sounds very strange indeed. She does sound ill strange rather than just annoying strange.

She is very lucky that you are so kind to her.

God knows what you can do though unless she recognises that she is wrong.

Yes, that's her, Don'tMind.

I do think she's a bit ill. But she's been like this for so long that I don't know if she woudl get better with help.

Maybe could your husband talk to his brother and get him to talk to her doctor?

Is she my neighbour?!? She isn't by the way, but my neighbour is similar. He regularly mows the grass verge at the front of our house (shared between me and DH and neighbours on other side) and has recently started cutting the hedge too. We all think it's a bit odd, but I'd be pretty pissed off if he started coming into the garden to do the lawn/weed.

He's obsessive about the way his house looks though- it's like a show home at all times, despite having 2 kids and 2 dogs. I really do mean immaculate. I think he finds our normal neat-ish gardens too shabby and can't stand it so is compelled to act. Perhaps your sil is the same?

Well that really didn't go well. I just spoke to BIl and he says she;s not doing anything wrong, that it's a shared lawn.

I'm pretty sure it's not a 'shared lawn', it's just that there doesn't happen to be a fence. There is a shared drive between them and the other neighbours and I think they are confusing things. The other houses on the street have fences. The drive is laid out so they each have a bit in front of their houses and share the entrance.

BIL also said that there are 'mixed messages' about mowing the lawn, i don't know what he means by that but I suspect he means because they've grudgingly accepted that SIL mows their lawn. I said, well, pulling up plants, however 'weedlike' is another ballgame, she needs to stop or she'll be arrested.

His reply was to laugh and say, 'they'd have no proof'.

Right. Because that's the point.

You've done what you can. Well done for trying.

OP, you said earlier that you think she may have an "identifiable problem", and I think you're probably right. This isn't remotely normal behaviour. It's overstepping boundaries, literally and metaphorically. I have no idea how you get her to do something about her problem if she refuses to accept she has one.

The fact that your BIL is supporting her in this madness doesn't help.

That's a shame.

Well, your choices now are to leave them to it and wait for the neighbours to get so fed up that they escalate things, or go and talk to them - not to make excuses but just to explain that they seem to think it is a shared lawn but you are concerned about neighbour relations as you can see that they are mistaken, other properties have fences, etc.

I guess it depends how involved you think it is appropriate to get.

Personally, I'd be inclined to leave it and let the neighbours deal with it.

But, of course, they may have neighbours who will fume and be really unhappy but lack the confidence to do anything.

I think both your sister in law and your brother are being really ignorant and arrogant. I did think perhaps your sister in law had some sort of problem, but it could equally be that she is as ignorant and selfish as your brother seems to be.

My first reaction was 'yet another thread about someone who can't talk to people - why didn't she just ask the neighbour if they'd like their garden weeded?'. Has the idea of asking first ever occurred to her? Or would the possibility of a negative or complex reaction scare her - in which case she knows other people do not see things the same way she does and is deliberately avoiding 'confrontation', or listening, as most people understand it.

Sounds like she acts as a way of imposing her internal view on the real world to gain security through its manifestation outside her head. No idea what conditions that relates to but the idea of anxiety / depression makes some sense as one possibility.

Sounds like her DH has long experience of this and has a strategy of ignoring and minimising in order to cope with her.

As the neighbour I'd be very angry and would call the local police if anything like it happened again.

I hope the flowers were planted from seed, does she have any idea how much plants cost? I bought a load of wildflower plugs and a few plants last year, cheap individually but suddenly £150 had disappeared!

This sounds a bit like my sister, who has MASSIVE boundary issues and quite a few other things going on too. She will do things that on the face of it will appear to be doing you a favour but are actually extremely violating, and then be utterly gobsmacked that you are not on your knees at her feet grovelling your thanks.

With my sister it's all about control. She needs to control everything around her, and has absolutely no capacity to see her actions from another person's point of view. It's a weird mix of narcissistic entitlement and extreme insecurity, resulting in very manipulative behaviour that she has no insight about at all.

No practical advice, really, except to say that your SIL is an adult, and perhaps she needs to really feel the consequences of actions to begin to get a bit of self-awareness. Sounds like her neighbour is at their wit's end so I'm sure it'll be coming soon.

I'm sure the police CSOs would love to have a chsnce to intervene now, before the situation goes all to hell...

God, how many of these guerrilla gardeners are there?

We had one. She made our lives a misery. I'd agree with ItWasLightCreamCheese's diagnosis.

Usually on these threads people say you should be grateful and stop being so anti-social and messy.

They haven't shown their faces yet. Probably snipping away at the neighbour's lawns with nail scissors.