Neighbour broke into my house

[tenredthings]

My neighbour and her son sold us their house. They never lived in it and it was practically a ruin. She built a new build on land next door and they sold us the old ruin. We invested loads of time , money and energy and completely rebuilt it and now rent it out.
Since then we have suffered low level harassment from her son. He reported us to the council for our washing line and painting the house a slightly different colour beige than before ! He then broke our rain water storage and cut a hose pipe.

I caught him approaching our house another time with a metal bar and I confronted him , he behaved very aggressively poking the bar in my face. I tried to keep calm and just asked him what his problem was at which point he ran off with his fingers in his ears , dancing up and down like a young kid and behaving very strangely. He's 45 and holds down a job !
I reported it to the police but nothing was done.

I went into the house today to water the plants and noticed that a window was open. This window has no handle as it's a door length window with a drop outside and not safe so I never put a handle on it. Someone has climbed up from the outside, brought a handle with them ( the bar of which they have left in the door ) and entered the house. They couldn't shut the window from the outside so left it open. Nothing looks disturbed but I won't know if anything is missing till the tenants return. I am contacting the police but I have no proof it is him , though I am convinced it is. I contacted my tenants who say they have never opened that window and I have a photo taken a few weeks ago where I can clearly see that at that time the window had no handle bar.

WIBU to post him the handle anonymously so that he knows I know , and then if it wasn't him he will just think its weird and not connect it to me ? Given that his behaviour has been a bit unhinged in the past is it best to not get involved with him on any level ? How can I make him back off when I have no definite proof.

Just to add we bought a very cheap device which films all activity within a certain radius.
It alerts dps phone every time some one approaches our property and records them.
It also allows us to speak to whoever is near the property even if we are not at home.

This kind of shit Is exactly why we need "stand your ground" laws in the uk.

"I've always dealt with him in a really grey rock kind of way"

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what that means.

That window doesn't sound very secure though, OP. If all it takes is a little handle bar on the outside, it could have been anyone.

Can't you make that more secure?

I'd be concerned as to why he broke in and left things undisturbed? He could possibly have been putting in some surveillance cameras of his own to spy on the tenants?

You can get motion detected CCTV, which automatically notifies you when a motion is happening via your phone.

So you could catch him in the act?

Grey rock is different from no contact, it's more a method whereby you make yourself really boring and uninteresting so that you don't feed into any drama. It's away of dealing with sociopaths, narscisists or anyone who try's to drag you into their craziness. You make yourself a really unsatisfying person to have contact with, you present the personality of a grey rock !

That window is madly insecure, sort that out if nothing else!

And yes, get CCTV, or do what I did and put up signs saying there is CCTV, even if you've not got it. Signs v cheap on eBay.

Wow, that sounds a bit weird! Definitely cctv, and get your tenants to make notes of anything that seems odd.

I like the idea of being able to talk through the camera if it is triggered ! Does this really exist.? You could pre record the sound of a police stakeout so the intruder thinks they are totally surrounded

CCTV and an alarm, definitely. If too expensive, get a wildlife camera, they work pretty well (about £60 off Amazon)

I am also a bit curious as to why you were in your tenants house watering their plants? Why don't they water the plants?

True the window is not very secure but it's on the first floor. You have to climb a tree with the right size handle, then balance on a window ledge. It would have to be premeditated. In addition we live really rurally. Until recently none of the houses round here even locked their front doors. However I'm fitting a proper lock today !

Apollo Maybe it's not currently tenanted? She says she rents it out but not that it's currently let.

Sg s said the tenants are away.

The tenants being away makes sense. It was just idle curiosity that made me wonder!

We've got a couple of security lights that record sound and vision to a cloud when they go off so you'd have proof if you needed to go to the police. They are about £250 and are by a company called Ring (who do the doorbells). You can also speak through them.

Our electrician replaced existing security lights with them, it was a very easy and cheap job.

Fit proper locks, a burglar alarm, security lights, and CCTV.

Keep a log of incidents even if you feel the police are not doing anything.

Trouble with security lights and cctv they are quite easy to see, if you want to catch him use wildlife cameras. I have been using them for a while for a similar reason and have got a pic of a prowler on mine.

Are wildlife cameras good enough definition to identify someone ? Are they less visible than normal cctv ?

Gosh, your tenants deserve a safe and secure home, sort the window out.
Then ask them if they mind you installing cctv.
Your tenants are your priority here.

Look up smart frog cameras on amazon, we have one (which we weirdly got sent by our utility provider for free)

Smartfrog is only interior, I'd prefer exterior. It seems you need you to pay a subscription to get WiFi access to footage. I hate the idea of cameras but am going to have to go for it. The wildlife cameras are cool as I'd get a kick out of watching the animals. My neighbours antics can be months apart and I imagine the batteries will run out.

Wildlife cameras are good enough to see who it is, obvs you'd need an infrared night vision one.

Oh, they don't record during the day though.

Change the batteries every two weeks, use rechargeable. Easy. Records to a memory card.