Or is my neighbour weird

[aliceinchunderland1]

Not my direct neighbour but our back garden backs on to his driveway. Since we moved in 2.5 years ago he's always been overly interested in what we're doing, will speak to us through the fence in the garden at any given opportunity, ask quite personal and nosey questions when doing so, he somehow (and I have absolutely no clue how) knows what my husband does for work and WHERE he works (we are very private people, don't really talk to any neighbours). He makes me feel quite uncomfortable, I cant put my finger on why but he just does, he's quite an intimidating character. We have been burgled twice since we've lived here, as have about 20 other houses on our street (just garages broken in to and the odd door lock picking attempt) but his house has never been tried. He also brings up the burglaries in conversation at very random times (when peeping through our garden fence etc and he always mentions it first). We've added height to the fences so he can no longer see through as easily, but it doesn't stop him trying. He also sent a tree surgeon to my house to enquire about chopping the top off of a tree at the end of my garden, he didn't speak to us before he arranged for them to visit so I just politely declined and said the tree was fine as it. This afternoon I've had a visit, literally seconds after I got home from work, from a man I have never seen before saying 'i've spoken to your Dad about some flooring' (it's just me and DH living here) and 'I'm certain it's this address i've got a text to confirm it'. I was clueless so sent him away, only he drove further in to the cul-de-sac rather than out of it. 15 mins passed and he still hadn't driven back out of the road so I took the dog for a walk to see where he'd got to, and low and behold he's parked on my strange neighbours drive talking to him. AIBU to think he's sent this person to my house for some reason and is just a bit of an oddball in general (it's not like the house numbers could have been mixed up, we are number 5, he is number 32)? I'm thinking of popping round there later on to ask who the 'flooring man' was and why he stopped at my house?

singadream OMG thats terrible!

Front door is the first thing we changed when we moved in, so locks are all brand new. Back door locks are old but we have cameras in the garden and the house so would 100% know if someone was in the house when they shouldn't be. We don't use a cordless phone either, only mobiles. Internet provider was changed about 6 weeks ago so the password is fairly new anyway, but we changed it last night again just to be sure.

Maybe he's just psychic

Sorry for typos. On phone while waiting in v long queue for something!
What about forums like this one. Could he know who you are and know details of your life that way? Have you posted any identifying details anywhere ever eg asking about local activities for kids that would help him deduce anything?

OP, could you and your DH discuss plans to spend one night soon away from home in a way that your neighbour can hear it and then actually stay at home without him noticing it? He does sound suspicious to me - being home all the time (no job?) and extremely well I nformed about the neighbours and not in any financial difficulties...

It sounds as though you've secured your home well. However a next door neighbour can glean a lot simply through daily observation.

The guy is weird, clearly. He seems to have no sense of boundaries and also to be obsessive.

I agree with the advice about wifi code (I see you've done this ✅))

Hmm I'd be wondering if he'd pinched some post. None of this is normal. How unnerving for you.

singadream I suppose it's possible but I'd have absolutely no idea how he'd know it was me!

Mia184 That's a good idea, he's been out in his driveway this morning () so I might have a fake phone call in the garden in a second confirming a night away this weekend!

Cheesey Absolutely, although I do and have always tried to make my schedule as unpredictable as possible, I work from home so am here pretty much all day every day, I take lunch at different times and walking the dogs can vary from morning to afternoon to evening, I cant help think there's not much else I can do!

The flooring guy yesterday was very sheepish (just looked over cctv again), like he wasn't expecting anyone to be home. He said it was definitely my address he'd been told to go to, but he got back in his car and drove straight to strange neighbours house without sitting in the car to make a phone call or anything, can't help but feel that if he's genuine, he would call the person back and say "just been to number 5 and they have no idea what I'm talking about, oh you're number 32, my mistake be there shortly".

DH said that maybe strange neighbour man had driven past shortly before and seen there were no cars on the drive, told flooring man to check it out on his way round assuming house was empty, but I surprised them by getting home in between the 2 of them if that makes sense.

Oh god it's so creepy! Sounds like the start of one of those yuppies in peril movies it definitely sounds suspicious that the guy looked so sheepish. And your neighbour pretended to have no idea what you were talking about until you mentioned you'd seen him talking to the bloke!

I agree with your idea to ask friendly NW neighbour. Strange neighbour does sound strange. Have you ever spoken to his wife?

I think he's sending people to scout whether you answer the door or not... if not, they rob you.

Also, if I had your name and address I could find out your occupation, where you work, phone number, email etc within about 5 mins. If he uses the same programmes as my profession then he probably knows a lot about you.

Reading your posts, the worst case scenario is that your nosy neighbour is part of a gang and finds out when people in the neighborhood are away so that others can break in. Maybe the flooring guy was there to check out your door and home?
I live in an area with a very high burglary rate and your posts sound like your home could have become a target.

Did you change your locks when you moved in? I'd have the house swept for bugs, the computers checked for keyloggers and spying programmes and lock down all social media.

I'd also get big thick hedges etc and look in to some kind of anti listening/acoustic stuff to line your garden (if it exists) in case he's listening to you talk in your garden/while you have windows open.

My dh used to live in an area that had a large traveller presence. He would often get them knocking on his door with offers of roofing, driveways, gardening etc. Sometimes they would try the old, "your neigbour is doing it, so we can give you a special price...." He always allowed the dogs to come to the door and bark, and would tell them that he can't let people into the house because the dogs aren't safe to be around (they were perfectly fine). By a very strange coincidence, houses that had work done seemed to get burgled fairly soon afterwards.

If he is getting so much info about you I would sorry about the house being bugged somewhere. It might have been before you moved in.
That all sounds really worrying

It is all very odd, we have completely renovated the house from top to bottom so I’d like to think I would have come across some kind of recording device if there was one, but the whole thing is making me a bit . I have 3 large aggressive looking dogs with a rather negative stigma attached to them (absolutely teddy bears though) so will start with the ‘sorry can’t let you in the dog will rip your head off’ line.

Not that I would ever let him in anyway I should add!!

I get the same sort of feeling about this as Mia184. And the whole story about the flooring guy seems very suspicious.
In case he's up to no good, I would do everything you can to keep him on his toes by changing your routine and mixing things up.

Not read every post, but if your CCTV cameras are wireless it is entirely possible for him to hack in to them if you've not password protected them or not changed the factory default password. It's relatively simple to do if you know what you are doing. That could be one explanation as to him knowing what you are doing and when.

Did you install the cameras or were they already there? He may have been able to view them before you even moved in.

Call the police - With all the burglaries and your cctv evidence and the fact that dodgy neighbour is the only one unaffected, I think they'd be very keen to see what's going on.

This is freaking me right out reading this so poor you having to live this.

I tell everyone my dog bites. She barks like crazy if she sees anyone, and she's small and nippy anyway, so I always tell people who come to the door to steer clear and make a very ostentatious performance out of shutting her out when I answer the door.

She'd no more bite a person that she'd fly to the moon, unless they were carrying a rabbit, but nobody else needs to know that.

I was going to post the same as @notfromstepford . This was on tv very recently, but wireless cameras can be accessed easily if they do not have appropriate security settings. If you have colour and sound recording cameras they can give viewers so much information. There are sites where users trawl the web for open cameras and add them to the directory for anyone else anyehere in the world to view.

See also, cordless phones and baby monitors, particularly video monitors.

Your neighbour could know how to search for local cameras and be watching you. He knows when you're going to leave the house, so hangs about outside etc.

I'd suggest not only a garden phone call, but have a conversation with your ex about something made up whilst in the house and see if it gets back to him. Go out in your car for a drive to set up the finer details - don't discuss it at home at all until you have the fake conversation itself.

And make sure your cameras at secured!!!

I reckon your neighbour has one of these...

Years ago our neighbour over the road (who was friends with my dad and a total creep!) mentioned something to my dad that we knew hadn't been said outside of the house, luckily it was something totally boring like changing gas supplier but some time later he told my dad he had a listening device and we figured that's how he knew about us thinking about changing gas supplier.

Thank you for the advice everyone. I've done a bit of googling myself and got his full name, it's really scary how easily you can find things on the internet. I also googled myself and DH and our address, nothing at all came up to match our names to our address, so if he has found this out by looking online, he's much more tech savvy than me!

I love having the indoor cameras to check on the dogs whilst I'm out, but seriously reconsidering keeping that one as it's freaking me out that someone could be watching!!!

MunchMunch wtf! Why would anyone need to own one of those?!

Nosey buggers who like to know everyone's business!

I'd suggest not only a garden phone call, but have a conversation with your ex about something made up whilst in the house and see if it gets back to him. Go out in your car for a drive to set up the finer details - don't discuss it at home at all until you have the fake conversation itself.

Check your car/s for trackers as well.