Neighbour swearing at my children

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Little bit of a back story to this. I moved in just over a year ago and didn't seem to have any problems at all with neighbour next door. Three months ago I had a knock at the door from the police, they searched my home and stated that the said neighbour had made continuous phone calls reporting that my home was some sort of cannabis factory!

No cannabis here I'm afraid. The police officers said that she clearly isn't mentally well and said they would refer her to the mental health unit - I've said nothing and not seen the neighbour up until 3 days ago.

I have two sons, 7 and 8 who play football in our garden, she has kept their balls by her back door which I thought was strange, why not throw them back over?

The children were in the garden and myself in the kitchen. They asked for their balls politely to which she replied "no"! I heard that came out and said erm, hello? Can you please give their footballs back, then she replied no, and if they keep coming here I will be throwing them in the electric box (an area behind both our gardens with large high voltage warning signs) she claims the ball hit her back door and made her jump when she was in her kitchen and fears one of the balls will damage her water feature. I've got very ranty saying they are children and the reason she is keeping them is because the police left here empty handed. She told me I must have gotten 'whiff' of them coming so I removed all the drugs!! anyhow later that evening she threw them back over.

Upon speaking to the person that lived here before she had done the EXACT same thing and she made his life hell as far as I'm aware, continuous calls to the police about a cannabis factory!! Coincident?

I have called the housing on the first instance when the police came around and never heard back from them. I have called again to explain about the children's balls but I fear it will fall on deaf ears again.

Anyhow, yesterday my eldest son was bouncing on the trampoline and came running in to tell me she was sticking her middle finger up at him through her window!!! At which point I just don't know what to do so I told of him to come inside and we went off to our party.

Today one of the balls went back over her garden, whilst the children were in the garden she came straight out shouted at my two sons "piss off you mother fuckers" and yes, threw the ball into the electric box area so it cannot be retrieved! They've ran inside to tell me as I'm making my way through downstairs to go into the garden I hear her screeching at the top of her lungs "evil fucking mother" literally screamed! By the time I've opened the garden door she has gone inside and slammed hers.

What do I do?!!!!

I suggest you take your kids somewhere to play ball if they kicking it so hard it keeps ending up in her garden. It’s hard to teach them to be careful.

If your kids can see into your neighbours windows on a trampoline your garden is too small for one id say - v antisocial

*not hard

Edmund.

Just stay clear of her OP and keep a diary . And make sure your kids don't get their ball over the fence ! She is far from the ideal neighbour but she won't change so the only tactic is to reduce any interaction with her as far as possible

And keep a diary !

She may have MH issues but I think most people would get pissed off with footballs going into their garden. She'd collected some, then gave them back eventually, and then there's another one there today in her garden which she threw into the ?electric box?

Clearly as you say she falsely accused you of growing cannabis and is possibly damaged. But despite that you've been ranty because your boys have the right to play football.

I'd go back to the police but keep your rants away.

Did they have a warrant? Very very strange they were granted a warrant on the basis of reports from one single source. Lucky they got a magistrate/Sheriff to grant that!

And no police officer in their right mind would tell the suspect who the source was. Certainly in my area, I wouldn't even know that information as it would be redacted by the intelligence officers. Sources are guarded very carefully.

If the NDN has mental health issues, the noise etc are likely to make her very stressed. If she doesn't have MH issues, the noise and footballs landing in her garden over and over again are likely to give her some.

Take the kids to the park to play ball games and stop them antagonising your neighbour. If she's unwell, you won't get a rational response from her.

and is possibly damaged.

Wahooo. PLEASE never refer to someone who have mental health difficulties as damaged.

your kids need to stop kicking ball into garden it’s provocative and annoying
If your children feel threatened or alarmed keep notes of date and the event
But you need to stop your kids balls going in the garden causing alarm

Possibly damaged? Because she may have mental health issue's

The only behaviour you can control here OP is that of your kids.

No more balls next door.

Would drive me fucking mad and I'm not suffering from any mental health issues!!!

Well she sounds awful but for goodness sake it's not her duty to keep throwing back balls that your children keep kicking/throwing over into her garden. Even if she was the most normal, nicest person in the world it's seriously bloody annoying when kids keep doing that and by you getting ranty at her over it you lost the high ground in that situation.

Tell your kids to be more careful with their balls- which you should do anyway regardless of how awful the neighbour happens to be and keep a record of her behaviour and false claims and keep contacting the housing people to make sure they know.

You sound like a pain in the arse

I sympathise with her having to put up with your dc and their balls.
They'd be in the bin if they came over my garden often too.
I've done with footballs as dc grown up now, and my garden finally looks nice, a football could crush small plants just being established.
Control your dc, she obviously is pissed off about the balls, and who could blame her.
Maybe she does have mh issues, perhaps you should befriend her or totally leave her alone and not bother.

op where are you?

I'm not batty (well, I don't think I am!!) but my NDNs children are largely ignored unsupervised whilst in the garden and I have to endure:

• balls coming over constantly
• constant high pitched screaming, shouting crying
• they sometimes get locked out by NDN mum/dad and then proceed to bang on the glass of the French doors until they finally get let back in
• a full size heavy plastic keyboard coming over once and nearly taking DD (5 at the time) head off
• kicking ball against metal shed for AGES at a time
• swing set up so that it smashes into the wooden garden fence on every backward turn

And that's just the noises and disturbance from the garden....

Now I can barely tolerate it, and even if your NDN is a nosy nasty busybody who possible also has MH problems, then she can probably stand it even less than I can.

I too agree, have some respect. Both the footballs and time on the trampoline are solvable - by you - and you should consider that it is bloody annoying!

I have sympathy for her with the footballs. I got so fed up with neighbour kids constantly kicking balls over and then hammering on the door or shouting over the fence wanting them back that I now stab them with a meat knife (the balls not the children!) every time they come over. Eventually they clearly got fed up with buying new ones because they stopped coming over.

so police got a warrant to search your house on the say so of one person? then the police tell you she has mental health problems and they are referring her to the mental health unit?

The police will not get a warrant on the say so of one person. The police will not tell you about mental health issues or actually any medical issue at all and they definitely would not tell you what referrals they would make. Let me guess...there is a whole lot more to this story....

OP YABU

Put aside the whole "getting your house raided" - your children are repeatedly kicking balls into her garden, that is annoying at the best of times. Also TBH I don't see why you went straight from her being annoyed at the footballs going into her garden being because she was annoyed the police found nothing when they raided your house rather than because it is an annoying thing to have stuff flying into your garden regularly?!

I live in a terraced house and the neighbourhood kids all play football in the back street. Unfortunately my house is in the middle of the block and has a large empty wall space between my gate and next door neighbour 2's gate, which is my yard boundary so my gate and NDN2's gates are used as the goalposts.

Obligatory MN Diagram:

wall
¦ ¦

I can see how annoying it could be having footballs kicked into her garden. My old neighbours used to let their kids kick their ball against our fence and with ours and adjoining neighbours conservatories either side. Saying that I never complained (gave up trying to peacefully sit in conservatory too). She does sound completely bat shit crazy though and like others say keep a diary and stop the footballs going in the garden

Police can ask to do a search - especially if it's to rule out something that they possibly think is a malicious and inaccurate report of wrongdoing going on.

They say "Oh NDN has said you've got a spliff factory upstairs, would you mind (awkward like) if we had a quick look around?" "No, go ahead" says OP (secure in the knowledge she's not got a cannabis farm, the police look around and say "thank you".

This happened to me once. I lived in a shared house - three separate lots of folk, me, a single girl, and a rough as fuck couple. Someone knicked some stuff. So the police came and said "Can I glance around your room?" "Sure" says I. "We've looked in your wardrobe" says the copper "No you haven't" says I - he looks at me "WE'VE LOOKED IN YOUR WARDROBE HAVEN'T WE!!" "ahhhh" says I penny dropping. They knew it was this couple who were known to the police, it was just a tick box exercise.

You can do voluntary searches but you wouldn't generally do that for a possible cannabis cultivation. The legalities could potentially get ripped apart in any later court proceeding. And if you find anything you would need to stop and go get a warrant anyway.

What do I do?!!

Stop your kids staring in her window when bouncing and stop them kicking their balls over.

#placemark

So the police raided your house on the say so of a neighbor with form for false reports, and then discussed her mental health and subsequent treatment with you?
Maybe if your kids don’t get there ball back they’ll learn not to kick it over the fence

What a unique police operation OP !
Did Gene Hunt turn up in the Quattro?