For avoiding confrontation?

[newdaddie]

My wife is furious at me for spending £250 on a new doorbell.

We live in a flat in a Victorian conversion and share a front door with a complete busy body. She tampers with our mail and answers the door when she hears our doorbell (whether we're in or not).

I suspect she's 'not well' and don't want a nasty confrontation but we had to do something about the constant invasions of our privacy. We can afford the bell which connects to wifi and rings silently on our mobiles.

£250 for a bell?

My intercom (we have the top half of a maisonette) has broken and we have spent £5.99 on a wireless doorbell from Argos... had to buy batteries as well so it was a tenner all in.

If you are married there is no such thing as my money

Bullshit there isn't!
DH and I each have our own 'spends' account, separate to our joint account.
It is very much my money and I can spend it on the hell I like. Amazed that you don't think this should be allowed in a married couple

This thread is weird! The neighbour is possibly 'unwell', a 'hippy witch' and it might explode into a racist/xenophobic attack?!

If my boyfriend did the same as you then I would be livid too.

Btw the money is definitely my own separate funds. My wife is in the middle of 1 year maternity but we have all of both our incomes paid into a joint account and standing orders for small amounts each month to our personal accounts for pocket money/personal savings. I'm quite thrifty and generally not a big spender so use 'my money' for gifts for our daughter or non essentials like fresh flowers etc. My dw has decided that this bell constitutes a 'household' spend so shouldn't be allowed but we've never had that rule before.

Why are your options limited to "avoid" or "fight"?

Surely there is an option to calmly tell her not to interfere with your post or privacy any further, and then just walk away. It doesn't have to escalate into a fight.

I would not spend £250 on a household item without checking with my partner first, and she wouldn't without checking with me. If she said she'd deal with something and then spent £250 on a way of not dealing with it, I'd probably be a bit peeved.

I guess she feels that, as you have a new baby, the money could have been spent on something more useful? I appreciate you don't like confrontation and that's ok, but it's an awful lot of money...

Jess tldr version just for you.

My neighbour opened up my BIL xmas present cos it had his (African) name on the front of it. I bought an expensive gadget instead of confronting her about it. Dw isn't happy.

The bell sounds like a good idea, and I'd complain to the LL if my mail was being tampered with.
If you dont rent, consider sending a solicitors letter to the neighbour.

But why wouldn't your confront her?!

Why would you spend money when you didn't need to?

Both leaseholders so we can't get landlords involved. Solicitors is overkill and far more expensive than my gadget imo and I am 100% certain that this is a fight or avoid situation. I cannot see it ending well even if I bring it up with my neighbour

You both have personal spends and you bought a gadget out of yours. I don't see the problem with that. If you have to run everything by each other before spending any money it makes it pointless having any separate spending money.
being annoyed with you for not telling your neighbour to stop opening your post is okay but being annoyed with you for spending your personal money as you wish is out of order.
Surely things for your daughter should come out of the joint money pot?

I saw a programme on the theory that if you have a lot of Smart devices in your home, Russia can intercept them and corrupt them, bringing the entire country to a stand still.

Did you know you can get Smart kettles? You can boil it from your phone. Something for your Christmas list maybe?

I can't help thinking that it's a communication problem between you and your wife tbh.

Why is she so mad at your for your idea of solving the problem, or is she tired of you avoiding issues all the time?

I wouldn't get worked up over the bell and would think it was a pretty nifty way of dealing with it - but then in our household I lose my shit over my DH not being able to tell me exactly who is coming for xmas until xmas eve, so it's swings and roundabouts.

Talk to your wife and find out exactly what is getting her angry about the bell - then you can hopefully together come up with a way of dealing with future issues together.

lostit.

Couldn't you just ask friends to call your mobile from the doorstep? Same outcome, no cost.

I think you did right to avoid confrontation with the neighbour though, once that starts life will be hell, it rarely ends well and you have to declare stuff like that when you sell the property.

lostit are you trying to get me murdered!!! if I give her a smart kettle you'll be reading about me in the dailyfail "MNer takes not so smart advice'

The issue I see here is the fact that you haven't communicated with dw about the bell/intercom etc (just putting it out there but maybe to avoid a confrontation with DW about buying it?)

And also buying bell etc to avoid confrontation with hippy witch? Or to avoid having to communicate with hippy witch????

The thing that I can see in issue in both instances is not communicating, and the. Trying to second guess the reaction of others i.e. wife would be happy with bell, or hippy witch (sorry can't get the image or name out of my head now) would go mad and start world war three over the challenge.

Neither of the above appear to have happened and there is no way I'm even going to start guessing given what is going on here.

I think working on communication could solve some issues for you, i.e. By saying to dw you were going to buy this item you could have saved yourself from a massive bullet, if dw complained about it again you could have told her you offered a soloition but she didn't take it.

A gradual flexible result may have worked with hippy witch too, fro a "please don't involve yourself in our business" right up to "listen here you witch touch my stuff again and I'll throw water in you until you melt" if she didn't listen.

newdaddie . Could you use a parcel drop off service, like your local PO or shop? Not sure that would stop the letter opening though - neighbour might have a Smart Kettle which can not only steam open the envelopes but have Siri read them aloud, too...

Perhaps there is a way of letting the old lady's family know (if she has any of them to visit) that you're a bit concerned about her recent behaviour? Could be early Alzheimer's or dementia?
It does seem odd that she opened a parcel because it had a foreign name on it. Was she worried it had slabs of crack from Columbia inside?

(Smart kettles retail at the slightly cheaper price of £72.99, by the way.)

I'm a male also.

Seriously - address the issue with the Neighbour, you cant use technology to avoid confrontation. Grow a pair.

I agree completely with NavyandWhite. I really don't understand why your wife is so angry. As for everyone saying confront the neighbour, if she is slightly crackers that could make a bad situation worse, and as the wife is avoiding dealing with her herself clearly she is reluctant to get into it with this neighbour too. Asking OP to deal with it then throwing a fit because she didn't like his solution seems unreasonable. Also I love the sound of the mobile connected doorbell, I avoid answering the front door as much as possible, because I'm a misery git, this sounds handy.

I totally get where you're coming from, Newdaddie. You describe your elderly neighbour as "not well" and are certain that any complaint about her nosiness will only make matters worse. She's a racist too, to make matters worse.

Feuds with neighbours can make a family's life a misery. You fear, and with grounds, that if you confront this woman in any way you could start a problem most of us would want to avoid.

Perhaps point out to your DW exactly how nasty it would be to have a neighbour who is not just a busybody, nasty "hippy witch" but one who is actively malevolent. You have used your best skill and judgment to evaluate this neighbour as a potential hazard to your family's peace and taken steps to avoid it. Your DW should perhaps have more respect for your evaluation of the situation.