I’ve come here looking for a bit of advice regarding my neighbours. I’ll give a little background and try and be as short and sweet as I can. I didn’t know where to post this, so have posted it in here.
We live in a quiet village, and our houses are terraced. Neighbour moved in with her daughter in 2011. Everything seemed great to begin with: we would always have a chit chat if we saw each other, that kinda thing. It was friendly and nice! She was a high flying career woman and settled here with her daughter to give her the best life in a quiet area.
Then her partner moved in, and all hell broke loose. She changed almost overnight, from a lovely, friendly and warm woman to someone very cold, detached and angry. They would start to play music almost every evening until the early hours, sometimes even still playing it at 6am. Alongside their music, they would have screaming matches and they would use the music to drown out their arguments with. This became so bad that we went round a few times to ask if they would turn it down but would be ignored despite him peering out of the window. Her daughter soon moved out after her partner moved in; she’s the same age as my daughter so was still in school at this point. We wrote them a letter, due to us not being able to reach them or being ignored by him, asking them if they would turn their music down a little so that we can’t hear it in our house. And I suggested we grab a coffee to talk about it.
They sent a letter back saying they weren’t in the wrong and that we were lying, and then in the next instance saying that because they were hard of hearing, the music had to be loud for them to hear. It continued, almost getting worse to the point where we had no choice but to contact the police on several occasions which would usually have their music stopped for a little while. Ten minutes later, the music would be back on but louder. When the police turned up again, they were given a warning. They advised us to contact the council and go through that way, which we did, and so we contacted the council stating that we had a diary log of their continuously loud music as well as a copy of our letter and theirs. They sent people round to our house to listen to them one evening and gave us equipment which recorded their music.
They both have a borderline drink problem and have been very violent with each other. We’ve heard on many occasions both of them fighting each other, and other neighbours have contacted police regarding that.
With the diaries and evidence against them, they were sent their first warning letter in 2015, and that was pretty much ignored. They were then sent a second warning letter a few weeks later, to which we finally saw some breakthrough. The music was still frequent but would stop at 11pm and everything was fine. I get up at 4am to go to work for 5am and there have been times (more often than not) that they have still been playing music when the sun is up the next morning, to which they told us (on the off chance of talking to them) they didn’t realise the time (despite them having played music for 12 hours straight). This, over time, has affected us all greatly. We are exhausted and are not happy here anymore.
As we’ve gotten the council involved, it seems to have caused their behaviour towards us to change and become quite aggressive. There have been times when the partner has gone for my husband which has been logged with the police and he’s been given a warning, as well as the woman starting on my daughter as she walked up the path on her way home from college.
Many times she has shouted to say that they’re tearing the fence between us down so their cats can have free rein of our garden. After many restless nights fretting over it as well as both my husband and I working overtime, we managed to have a fence put in on our side after her threats that were ongoing for weeks became all too much. It’s been a year since and their fence is still up.
We have two dogs who are the most placid and laid back pets ever, and she, on many occasions, has met them and she adores them. Around us, every single family has a dog and they have cats. It became really bad a while ago when our dogs were outside as was my husband, he was doing a bit of gardening in the sunshine one weekend, when she appeared at their window shouting down at him at how our dogs are always barking, when in fact they were simply basking in the sunshine, and how we should be more considerate to them. My husband simply shook his head and said ‘okay then’ and continued doing garden work. She kept going on at him for a few more minutes before she got bored and went inside. That evening, we were getting ready for bed and I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth, the window was open, when the neighbours on our other side were outside as well as them. They also have a dog and it was barking playfully at their owners. Our problem neighbours, hearing the neighbours dog barking, started shouting slanderous claims against us, which became even more aggressive and threatening the longer they were talking; we always know when they’ve been drinking and it was obvious they had been. She was yelling that we were harming their cats, and how we always goad our dogs to attack their cats. Never in their time here have our dogs ever encountered their cats. We always make sure to check the garden beforehand. They then threatened to poison and kill our dogs if they harmed their cats. It continued most of the night, by which time the other neighbours had gone in and she was shouting at herself.
We called the police when we had heard her shouting the slanderous claims against us naming us so the other neighbours knew who they were talking about, and an officer came round the next day. He reassured us that our dogs have every right to be in their own garden which we understood and that we didn’t need to check to see if their cats are in our garden as cats roam before letting them out, but because we know how she is, we still check the garden beforehand now. He then went to see them and warned them that slanderous claims can be dangerous and they need to stop. He told us that we haven’t done anything wrong whereas they’re making the situation worse by not talking to us when we’ve approached them to sort this out and continuing their abuse. She also lost her job, I know this through a mutual friend, due to her either not turning in, being late or turning up drunk. This seems to have escalated their music and behaviour.
Like I’ve said earlier, we’ve always been cautious with their cats, always checking to see if they’re in the garden before we let the dogs out as well as calling the dogs in straight away if a cat appears on the fence. They have also been seen by our other neighbours and ourselves throwing their cat over the old fence so it’s in our garden when we’re outside (thankfully the dogs have been in the living room), putting the cat on the fence and even climbing over our fence to take photographs. When we’ve asked them what they were doing, they scurried back into their house and slammed the door shut. (Police were notified regarding that behaviour).
Recently, the neighbours daughter has moved back in and all has been quiet. No loud music, literally no sign of them in the garden, and everything seemed pleasant. If we do hear music, it’s mostly in the back garden and cannot be heard in the house, and is always stopped by 11pm or earlier.
However, this weekend, they were playing music loudly again. It’s been becoming more and more frequent but again mostly turned off by 11pm or later, which we still log just in case. We took the dogs out for a bathroom break at around midnight and they were outside, music blasting and them arguing over it. They saw our outdoor sensor lights come on and that seemed to be enough for the tirade to begin. She starting swearing, not to us but about us, and was talking about how they’re going to play music, their house, their rules. She then continued her slanderous claims about how we still set the dogs out on their cats, that our dogs are always out barking (even though they’re in bed for between 8 and 9pm with us) and if our dogs attack their cat then there’s hell to pay.
We are physically, mentally and emotionally drained and we’re unsure as to what to do next. Their behaviour is weird. The council person we have been in contact with regarding our case has said that if their music and their aggressive and bullying behaviour towards us starts up again that he’ll reopen the case. My daughter suffers from severe anxiety and it has always affected her badly, and with the female neighbour’s behaviour towards us, she struggled quite badly with college and work. She was able to get better with the neighbours adhering to their warnings, but with them starting again, she is beginning to struggle again. We don’t get any peace and we’re fearful of this being the start of it all again. The other neighbours don’t get involved as they’re not next door to them.
They know how it is affecting us due to the letters that the council have sent them, but they seem to be oblivious to our feelings. To them, it’s just them enjoying themselves and listening to music, but for us, it’s just horrendous. We feel shut in our home as every time we’re outside, we’ve gotten abuse for simply speaking up against them.
We feel intimidated by her mostly, and I guess a lot of our reluctance has been because of that.
Would this weekends antics constitute as enough to contact the person who was dealing with our case at the council again? What would your advice be on our next move? Have any of you had to deal with neighbours like this?
TIA
(Upon looking back at how ‘short’ the background was going to be, I’m sorry for how long it is! Well done to those who got to the end, lol)