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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

New car & my neighbour... Ignore or say something?

252 replies

Greenleafer19 · 30/10/2019 09:13

Hi all
I know MN's love a neighbour post but I may get told to get over it about this one.....

So about 12 days ago I bought a new car and since then my neighbour, who I have a joint drive with but partitioned, can't seem to take his eyes off it.
Everytime he walks his dog, 3x a day he's coming onto my side of the drive and staring at the car, staring in the windows, circling it, stands next to it staring for ages etc.. I've been off work the past 2 weeks so the cars been parked on the drive alot and He's done this everytime he walks his dog, everyday since then. It was funny to watch on the cctv at first but I'm getting a tad concerned/ peed off with it.

This morning, having had it 12 days, I thought the fascination wouldve worn off, but no... He's now gone into the road to stand back and stare at it from a distance....

I've never had any kind of relationship with my neighbour, reason being my husband and I are always at work, keep ourselves to ourselves and apart from walking his dog the neighbour never goes out for us to see him. The very rare occasion we have seen him he tends to ignore us if we smile, wave or say hi but never thought anything of it.

Do I ignore it or say something on the cctv? He knows I have cctv but doesn't seem bothered that I'm watching. I don't want to be rude to an old man but it's now annoying me! (as pathetic as I sound!)

AIBU...??!

OP posts:
LadyMonicaBaddingham · 30/10/2019 11:49

Definitely click the lock on and off next time you catch him at it...

Or be really childish and leave a stripy jumper, beanie hat and bag marked 'swag' on the back seat...

Sparkey47 · 30/10/2019 11:53

Next time you’re gone and catch him out there just quickly dash outside like you’re just grabbing something out your car, he won’t have chance to just scurry off so ask him what he’s doing but in a friendly way, I would go with something like “you alright?”

wowfudge · 30/10/2019 11:55

DP used to work for a car rental company and would change cars frequently. His neighbours told him they had thought he was a drug dealer before they got talking to him!

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 30/10/2019 11:57

You need to find a way of getting the car to talk to him, like KITT in Knight Rider.

Grin Grin Grin

Can you gut a Tickle-Me-Elmo and rig something up so that it giggles uncontrollably every time he fondles it?

Original poster
Greenleafer19 · 30/10/2019 11:59

@HowlinProwlin fellow arse hole, appreciate your post lol, that's an excellent note!!! GrinGrin

OP posts:
Casander · 30/10/2019 12:02

Tbf OP, that would really irritate me.

When I was in my really early twenties, my exh and I bought a really nice new sporty hatchback car (which tbf was on finance, so not even like we'd bought it cash) We had it about a month and some bastard broke in and stole the keys and stole it.

As if that wasn't bad enough we found out later that the old twat two doors down had seen the police van (they came and took fingerprints and a statement, not sure they'd bother these days lol) and told all the neighbours (and anyone who would listen!) that we were "obviously into drugs" and had been searched and our car seized!

To this day I have no idea how he came to that conclusion but it still winds me up thinking about it years later!

Original poster
Greenleafer19 · 30/10/2019 12:05

@Casander I think that's what he's said we're into.... DH thinks he has a massive problem about our age, we are the youngest on the street, everyone else is over 60. I don't understand his problem, we aren't noisy or a problem, we're hardly ever home, truth be told. He is due a dog walk about 5ish, i will be waiting.....!!

OP posts:
havingtochangeusernameagain · 30/10/2019 12:09

I get notification to my phone everyt ime someone's on my drive or very close to the car

That would annoy me so much! Is your area a hotspot for burglaries/car thefts or something? Do you really want to know every time someone puts a leaflet through your letterbox if you are on holiday?

Your neighbour does sound annoying though. But if you turn the notifications off you won't know unless you see him yourself.

2girlsandagap · 30/10/2019 12:16

Just say you’d appreciate it if he didn’t spread unsavoury rumours about your income and lifestyle around the neighbourhood and that he needs to stay away from your car in future because he’s on cctv being creepy

Saucery · 30/10/2019 12:26

You need one of these. “Get back y’ bastard!” car alarms.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 30/10/2019 12:27

Some people have very little to interest themselves or to keep themselves busy outside of their employment, so when they retire, this kind of person will often fixate on something extremely tedious and try and create drama in order to fill all of the spare time with which they now find themselves.

Some of them will despise the young for being young or maybe be envious that you still enjoy and have a purpose to your life and, instead of thinking how they could get a hobby or join a club and make their own lives more fun, they set themselves up as a detective to investigate and prove the 'guilt' of other people 'perpetrating' the normal everyday non-criminal activities that most people do.

This is not being ageist at all, as plenty of older folk lead full and enjoyable lives and plenty of younger folk have nothing much going on to excite them, although work and children often keep them occupied.

Those in this group who have embraced online lives are likely the sort who come on MN as self-appointed thread police. They'll troll-hunt and try to pick apart every little detail of a harmless post, instead of just reporting any genuine concerns. They'll deliberately click on a thread and engage with it, adding plenty of their own comments and demanding to know why anybody could care less, without a trace of irony. They'll ask why you aren't at work, humourlessly read you the riot act and warn you seriously when you ask if you should bury DH under the patio for eating the last jammy dodger, tell you that you're obviously very lucky and (again, the irony), can't have much going on in your life if this is your biggest concern. Don't you know that some people have to walk ten miles a day for fresh water and you're complaining about an annoying work colleague.

I like being pleasant to strangers and passing acquaintances, but I honestly have no time or interest in getting involved in running their own lives for them when I'm busy enough with my own.

neverornow · 30/10/2019 12:28

He might be considering buying the same type of car and just having an innocent look at the interior etc.... pop out and say hello next time he's (innocently) admiring your car

tisonlymeagain · 30/10/2019 12:32

I would find it very bloody odd. Once or twice? Fair enough. More than that? I'd be questioning their sanity rather than their motives.

Dixiechickonhols · 30/10/2019 12:35

DH got a new car this summer. It was from a dealership in midlands (We are up north) and apparently one of first of the model in the Uk. Several people came over if they saw me, one even knocked at the door to ask what model it was. I was clueless so they came back and did same when DH was there to ask him. I was surprised as a car is just a car to me.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 30/10/2019 12:35

I love the way people some discount all of the obvious probabilities such as well-paying jobs, inheritances, savings, credit/finance etc when they see somebody with a nice new-ish but hardly Lewis-Hamilton-league car, and instead just assume the far, far less likely scenario that they must be dealing in drugs.

Notice how, although they're happy to spout their 'I reckons' to the neighbours and anybody else who'll listen to them, they're never quite confident enough in their convictions to report them to the police....

BarbourellaTheCoatzilla · 30/10/2019 12:37

Is he actually coming onto your drive? Say to him, I'm not sure why you keep coming onto the drive but we have a security system that alerts us every time someone does. We can see from the security footage you have entered xxx times since xxx date. Please stop or I will ensure I take this further. I'd have to say something just to stop the notifications tbh.

TenPenceMix · 30/10/2019 12:40

What a fucking weirdo. That would do my head in too.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 30/10/2019 12:41

Admiring a car and approaching you to ask questions of interest about it aren't odd behaviour, as aren't stopping to do a double-take when you pass one.

Constantly hanging around one, staring at it and pawing at it - but then running away when the owner comes out - IS very odd behaviour. Anybody else would stick around and say "That's a lovely car you've got there - I was just admiring it."

Strugglingtodomybest · 30/10/2019 12:41

Older people may not be used to the habit among younger people of even relatively modest means using finance to purchase brand new cars every 2 or 3 years. This is something that has only become affordable/the norm in the last 10 or 15 yrs or so. He may be confused by what he perceives as a bizarre gap between normal incomes and new cars appearing on your drive. 30 or 40 years ago a brand new car appearing regularly was probably a sign of having some dodgy income on the side, unless you are really rather wealthy.

^^ I'd put money on this being the answer.

AlessandroVasectomi · 30/10/2019 12:43

We get on well with our neighbours, having lived next door to them for 31 years. They are in their 70s whilst we are in our 60s. Since I retired I have had the time and money to indulge my passion for cars, so whilst when I was working I bought fairly workaday cars, I have bought two more prestigious models within the last 5 years.

After I’d had the first for a few weeks the neighbour happened to be at the end of his drive one day while I was reversing out and he rather sneeringly remarked on the new car as I slowly passed him. I thought it rather uncharacteristic of him and put it down to a warped sense of humour rather than jealousy, but I’ve never forgotten the odd way he reacted.

A couple of years later I traded that model for a plusher model of the same make. I’d only had it a few days when his wife buttonholed me on the drive and complained that the alarm had gone off in the middle of the night. I thought she and her husband must be losing it as I sleep directly over the drive - and at that time of year I had the window open - and I heard nothing all night. I can’t imagine how I would have slept through the alarm as it is absolutely ear-splitting close to. I don’t want to fall out with my neighbours, but I sent her away with a very polite flea in her ear.

Some people clearly do have a problem when others treat themselves to nice cars.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 30/10/2019 12:43

Oh Greenleafer , please please please scatter some talc on the seat or something - he'll be wanking himself into a froth that he's caught you out in drug dealing and will make a total fucking pillock of himself over it!

Also, if you can take stills photos from your dashcam footage, I would do that and stick them over the windows.

AND I would make sure that there is a solid boundary between his property and yours, and that he would have to actually open a gate or something to get onto your driveway.

He sounds like a total busybody dickhead who is petty and just trying to make trouble for you Angry

GabsAlot · 30/10/2019 12:44

UNlock it everytime u see him standing there and then lock again might freak him out

if it carried on id go with the note through his door asking him not to stand too close as its setting off your cctv

nosy old git

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 30/10/2019 12:46

"Older people may not be used to the habit among younger people of even relatively modest means using finance to purchase brand new cars every 2 or 3 years. This is something that has only become affordable/the norm in the last 10 or 15 yrs or so. He may be confused by what he perceives as a bizarre gap between normal incomes and new cars appearing on your drive. 30 or 40 years ago a brand new car appearing regularly was probably a sign of having some dodgy income on the side, unless you are really rather wealthy."

But this is madness - anyone who drives a company car (assuming that's still an option in the UK now, might have been taxed out of all comprehension, I don't know) will have it upgraded every 3 years max, as far as know!
So you WOULD be getting a brand new car, every 3 years, just because of your job.

LuluBellaBlue · 30/10/2019 12:46

I’m laughing at all the various suggestions here. Please OP do tell us if you go with any of them and what happens (hopefully not a heart attack!)

aHintOfPercy · 30/10/2019 12:49

Sounds like he has fixated on you and your DH. What a creep he is spreading lies about you to the neighbours. I would go with a PP's suggestion of putting a note through his door telling him that he is repeatedly setting off your security notifications by coming on to your drive and you would appreciate it if he would stop. He sounds like he has very low self esteem if a neighbour buying a new car prompts him to rush out and buy a better one. I would be very wary of him if I were you OP.