Neighbour ringing our doorbell in the middle of the night

[applesauce1]

Our neighbour has just rung our doorbell at 11:15 at night. It is the third time he has done this.

Back story: We have a motion activated flood light outside our house and a steep drive. He has previously complained that when it comes on, it shines into his bedroom window (despite it being pointed as far down as it goes and definitely not in the direction of his windows). In the summer, the light is always turned off as a neighbourly courtesy. Now it is darker earlier, I’ve turned it back on so I can get our baby safely down our steep drive in the dark when I get home from work. I turn the light off at the fuse box when I get in.
On three occasions (twice last winter and now tonight), I’ve forgotten to turn it off and he has come round to ring our bell. Once he rang the doorbell at 2am. Each time he has done it, he has woken our baby.

Tonight I actually went to the door and was extremely upset with him. I told him that I am trying my very best to remember to turn the light off at night but that he absolutely should not ring our doorbell at night as we have a baby trying to sleep. He started to shout at me about it shining through his window and that he would speak to his solicitor. I said I would call the police and that he should get some proper blinds or curtains.

He does have curtains but they are very raggedy and coming down in places.

I called 111 who offered to come out now as he is being a nuisance neighbour, but I asked if they would be able to come tomorrow instead as it would just further disturb my son.

Am I in the wrong? Should I have just apologised for forgetting to turn our light off? I’m still breastfeeding and up twice a night at least with our baby, so I know how it feels to be sleep deprived and I don’t want to be the cause of that for someone else.

As a matter of interest- and never having sold a property- what’s the threshold for disclosing neighbourhood disputes? Would calling the police on them count?

I once had a neighbor who installed a sensor light in his back garden, several gardens across. He didn't think it impacted on me either due to the layout of the gardens. it woke me up ever single time it went off. Your neighbor wouldn't get up and ring on your doorbell for nothing. If you don't want him to do that, sort the light out. You are being very unreasonable.

x3 times in 5 years that the disturbed neighbour has gone round to complain about

More fool him. If it’s an issue complain every time. Or take a small step to do what you can to sort the issue. I mean why get irate over something you can solve yourself.

Exactly what Jacques said. He could have resolved this very simply himself but he chose to go the aggro route.

Back in the day people had torches. (Whatever happened to those?) They also now have illuminated phones.

I can see why people in areas where there is a lot of burglary may have security lights. (Though surely even so the motion-sensitive ones are always getting activated by cats etc?)

But don't people know their own driveways? If coming down in a car, headlights provide illuniination. When walking a few steps - possibly with babe in arms between car door and front door - just go carefully. (Avoid wearing the sort of footwear, where you can't balance. It's better than ruining your feet.) It may be steep, but as long as it's kept clear of trip hazards it's safe. In icy weather, lights are of limited use as small patches of black ice might be noticeable.

I'm glad a solution has been found to the original problem, obviously...

I think ringing your doorbell in the middle of the night is unreasonable. I wouldn’t want to answer the door at that time, and would probably assume there was an emergency. Why couldn’t he come round during the day to talk to you about it? The posts about head torches and torches are just ridiculous. Nothing wrong with a motion activated light, but maybe get a lower wattage one. If it’s disturbing him, it must be pretty bright!

I think the arcs of some of these lights are wider than people think - especially those who have them, because they never get to see their light from the bedroom window of the house opposite. Even pointing down, if you have a light that is bright enough to have been a WW2 searchlight it's going to cast a near 180degree arc of light. the people at the back of us had this once. We could do shadow puppets in our bedroom at night through the lined curtains, and the bloody thing kept on going on and off at the slightest garden movement.

I'm sure the local authority has powers to take action for light pollution.

Thank you OP for taking the criticism onboard. Yes, you must fit a different light, you need an outside light that cuts off after say 1 minute. We have two of those and they don't disturb anyone. They are on and off before anyone's noticed them.

I am going through this at the moment. Our NDN has an outside light that comes on with any movement. It stays on for half an hour. Where I sit in my kitchen, eat my tea, relax, watch telly.... the light is absolutely piercing right into my eyes. And it is coming on continually and I actually go off to bed rather than put up with it.

I am about to have 'the conversation' with him. It is so piercing, me and DH can't even look at it as it's like being tortured with the light in our eyes!

Plurabelle, speaking as someone whose very steep driveway is covered in ice five months out of the year, a security light makes a HUGE difference. It's just not safe without one and a torch won't help you nearly as much. I am the voice of 12 years experience.

If he's only banging on your door when it's on then it most definitely is indeed shining into his window and he has every right to be pissed off.

I'd set it on a timer so it goes off at 9. That's a fair and reasonable adjustment.

”I'm glad you've seen the light”

YABU. It's clearly disturbing him so he has every right to let you know that.

Get a doorbell you can turn off. Dont answer door.

Stopping short of saying leave it on more often!!

Hes being an arsehole. You can get blackout curtains for £20.00, I'd have told him to get some of those and to fuck off out of my face.
I'd report him via 101 online anyway for shouting and carrying on when your in the house with a baby by yourself.
Also I would get the light on a timer and totally ignore him from now on.

I feel so sorry for OPs who come back with a wholehearted mea culpa. It's rare that someone is prepared to say they were wrong, so it deserves acknowledgment at least. But then another fifty posters continue to rant at them because those pages can't be arsed to rtft.

Lolz at all the people who find it hard to believe the neighbour would ring the bell for any reason other than he's being disturbed. People can be dicks and some love something to complain about. It's perfectly possible the neighbour just likes a moan.

When I had security lights fitted, the form said motion activated lights always annoy neighbours. Instead we got lights down the driveway which are on all the time, activated when it gets dark.

They give enough light to safely use the driveway in the dark, but do t cause a nuisance.

Other neighbours have the motion sensors ones and they are awful.

Could you even reduced the wattage of the bulb? I do think you need to try and solve this for your neighbour.

Put a shield on it so it only lights your house

The RING floodlight camera/lights are very effective. The light can be dimmed, the motion sensor managed remotely and on a timer.

My neighbour has a primitive security light and it's very intrusive. I invested in good curtains (at the cost of hundreds) but it's a huge inconvenience.

I don't understand why a house alarm and a good lock system isn't enough for security. If I got security flood lights I'd annoy myself!

It might not be directly shining in hisxwjndow, but its clearly affecting him as otherwise he wouldnt be waking up at 2am!. Leave yourself a note to turn it off. I actually think you have no right to call him a nuisance neighbour, as clearly it's your actions re the light that is the problem. You wake him up so then he comes and wakes you up to turn it off so he can get some sleep.

She didn't call the police, she called the NHS. They definitely won't take action about a floodlight .

All those that say it stops you sleeping, don’t you close your eyes?

@Tiggerofthigh, do you find when you close your eyes that it shuts out all light and you can't tell whether a light is on or off? Because if so, you have incredibly unusual eyelids.

I think the point I am making is that people did manage before the era of bright security lights. Perhaps they just took things more slowly. Our eyes adjust to darkness if we give them time. Most people are just in an incredible rush when they needn't be. It's about balancing safety and security with issues around light pollution and consideration for others. It's always a bit distressing when property owners - some posters here not the original one - have absolutely no consideration for neighbours. To my mind cu.

3 complaints in 5 years?! According to most of mums net that makes you incredibly unreasonable...I'm a bit bewildered at expectations of neighbours, in the real world I very much doubt OP would get so much stick for these 3 occasions .Despite this OP has agreed with the majority (love to see these places where the 3 occasions could cause quite so much distress) agred she is BU and taking on board advice re a timer. OP you sound just as as stressed as your neighbour apparently is and are being incredibly reasonable in taking steps to address his complaints. My neighbour has a flood light type motion detector light, i don't see the issue hav ing had intruders. Did get some thick curtains though!