To go round and give my neighbour a piece of my mind?

[StylishDuck]

We've lived in the house for 18 months (me, DH and 2 DC age 2 and 5). Neighbours across the drive are a couple in their late sixties. The husband has got this kind of "status" in the street. He waters everyone's plants, looks after their houses when they're on holiday, washes people's cars... etc. We've never asked him or encouraged him to do anything like this for us. I've talked to him a few times and he's come across as a racist, intolerant, set in his ways old man. So aside from a polite "hello" when I see him or his wife I don't take much to do with them. My DH is generally more chatty and has had a few more conversations with him. DH has had a few mild altercations with him when he's overstepped the mark in terms of comments about things that we do on our own property that are nothing to do with him, really trivial stuff like how we put rubbish in our bins for example. DH has always diffused them fairly quickly.

That's the background. Today, DC and I are at my parents for a festive family do. DH followed half an hour behind us. He told me that after we left neighbour approached him in the street and basically had a go at him telling him that I was not neighbourly/friendly towards him, I don't talk to him, we're nothing like the previous occupants of the house and apparently the situation has reached "boiling point". DH was a bit like but told him it wasn't appropriate for him to be saying things like this about me, that he doesn't know me and suggested he spoke to me directly about his concerns as he doesn't speak for me. Neighbour implied that as my husband DH should be apologising profusely for my "behaviour" and ensure that I toe the line in future

Now he's obviously a few sandwiches short of a picnic and quite frankly I want nothing more to do with him but the feminist in me is seething internally at the implication that DH should be in charge of me somehow. But part of me thinks there's no point in saying anything because he's not going to listen to anything I say and I would just end up getting more annoyed. DH thinks I should just ignore him.

WWYD? (Sorry this is so long, and a bit ridiculous!)

DH just took some rubbish out to the bin and was treated to a 5 min tutorial on how to change the bulb in our outdoor light that's been broken for a while now. WIBU to leave it a few more months before fixing the light just because it clearly annoys him so much?

He was overheard a few months ago lamenting to his wife that he couldn't understand why we didn't take more care of our garden. Now I have to say, neither of us have the time nor the inclination to garden. We keep the grass cut and everything else is fairly low maintenance. We got a gardener in to tidy it up before the winter and arsehole neighbour came blustering round to shout at DH because apparently they made a mess of his garden! By this I mean a few leaves blew over the fence

It's actually all quite exhausting. I can see how it would be amusing from a distance though. Maybe one day we'll laugh at it...when he's dead and buried.

Best thing to do is cut him off at the pass 'nah mate, don't wanna hear it, go tell it to someone who gives a shit'. . .

I'm guessing it shows where I'm from though!

Sounds as if you live in a 1980's sitcom OP. Wasn't Richard Brier's character in Ever Decreasing Circles a bit like that?

She said she was "sorry about the way her husband broached the subject but they've been feeling for a while that they've been getting ignored
this is just their good cop/bad cop routine, she plays nice to reel you in so that he can work on you until you submit

Does everyone else invite them over for coffee and cake on pain of ostracism? Stop and chat with them (ie listen to their 'instructions') whenever they meet on the street? Is it that everyone (else) pays lip service or follows their 'instructions'? Bollocks to that! That's not being 'neighbourly', that's living in a stalag!

I think that pretty much sums it up. Everyone else in the street seems perfectly normal and I can't help feeling that they just let him do what he wants to keep the peace. I just can't do it.

“i wonder what the wife is like ?

Deaf as a post.”

Take your cue from her.

What? What was that? Can you speak up? In my left ear, my right one isn’t so good. How did I lose my hearing? Oh, I use to do a lot of shooting in my younger days.

Dead creepy stare.

Haha @LazyDaisey

Funnily enough I am actually deaf in my right ear which I suspect is what this has stemmed from. If I'm bundling the kids into the house with them chatting away to me he's maybe said hello and I've not heard him because he's been on the wrong side of me.

He is a few nuts shorts of a Cadbury fruit and nut bar! Jeez what a pain , has paranoid neighbor ever considered that theres actually nothing wrong but you are simply reserved/shy? This is me and some folk say I come across as wierd , snobby or must have a problem? Um no I'm just quiet sometimes shy and floating about in my own little world

It's actually all quite exhausting. I can see how it would be amusing from a distance though. Maybe one day we'll laugh at it...when he's dead and buried.

Under your patio? 🤔 🤫 😉

Let it wash by - seriously not worth getting into a long-running battle with a neighbour. Nothing worse.

Be the bigger person and turn the other cheek. Least said and all that.

@Raspberrytruffle This is also it (aside from the deafness). I am a very shy reserved person, DH is much more outgoing. I hate confrontation too, so as much as I get hot headed and angry at things like what happened yesterday I'm not really likely to go round and say something because I'd probably end up bursting into tears (out of sheer frustration more than anything else).

Under your patio? 🤔* 🤫* 😉

We don't have a patio...but maybe we'll decide we need one soon...

He sounds way to invested in other people's business to me...

A patio to sit on under your colour changing outdoor light watching the kids bouncing merrily on the trampoline.

My MIL got like this with ALL the neighbours just before the dementia set in.

Everyone had it out for her, they were gossiping about her, people were blanking her. The bins were left out to annoy her personally, the next door neighbour was banging all the time (he wasn’t). And how very dare people park in front of their own houses She would go round and ‘confront’ people who had annoyed her. Obviously she managed to piss literally everyone off on her little Estate.

We just thought it was some bizarre phase, because she had retired and was bored shitless. Turned out it was the start of her illness and we all missed it.

However he could just be a dick? Just ignore him or occasionally wave. He’ll soon get bored and move onto the next drama.

I have an annoying neighbor (also a retired man) who does similar. I think that it is why it amuses me to read of other people who have to put up with one too! Mine loves to come over and tell me how to do stuff. There is nothing that he doesn't have an opinion on how I can do better, and it matters not in the slightest that I never ask for his advice. I think it is because I am female that he thinks I need his important manly advice. I now ignore him.

Things he has done the last year:

• asked me about 15 times how I heat my house as he doesn't think I am doing it right
• ordered up and put a speed bump in my and my other neighbour´

s drive. It isn't his drive but he thought we should have one.

• Cancelled the snow-plough for the street a he thought it was too expensive. Told no-one and we discovered a day heavy snow fell and no-one came to clear it.
• Annoyed the teen who cuts the communal grass so much with his bossing that she refused to do it any more.
• Whistles at the neighbours to get them to come to his door as he cannot be bothered going across to the street to talk to them.

He sounds a bit of a narcissist.

(The first one, but yours also @sonjadog)

Mine is not a narcissist, I think. Just someone who doesn't respect other people´s boundaries, who thinks women need a man to guide them and with too much time on his hands.

Haven't read the whole thread but look up the drama triangle
DO NOT GET SUCKED IN
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpmandramaa_triangle

I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of even mentioning it. Show him that his opinion means nothing to you and the only way you can do that is continue to ignore him. He's not worth bothering about.

I'm very childish so I'd go out of my way to be friendly with the other neighbours very loudly and obviously so he can't help but notice. And continue ignoring him. Even better if you can have a dinner party and invite everyone but him. Show him it's not you who isn't a 'good fit' for the street. Honestly how dare he.

I have a man like this on my street. My ex used to call him king of the road. He lets his dog get out all the time and wander into people's houses and must be avoided at all costs because just catching his eye will lead to having your ear chewed off.
There was a spate of vehicles being keyed a few years ago (when they were parked in the 'wrong' places) and another neighbour was completely convinced that he had done it. No idea if it was true but they were sure.

Oh lord, he sounds like my mums old neighbour. Seemed friendly and helpful enough at first...we soon realised he wasn't helpful, he was controlling. Everything had to be done his way. He controlled the flats. He seriously thought he was the boss of the block, it was utter madness. Complained about my mum constantly saying how she was loud. From her tv being too loud-it wasn't, her door being too noisy-it wasn't, the floor creaking-it was, so council came and fitted new floor-still complained, to my 9 month old son running around the flat all day long-again he wasn't, he was a just crawling 9mo who was there for 4 hours a day. The anti social behaviour team kept trying to explain to him that my mum was not doing anything wrong-again he found that hard as it was 2 women who visited him. He hated me and my mum because we could see he thought women should know their place and that really brought iut my feminist fighter He'd leave bossy little notes in the communal half-, putting rubbish in her own incorrectly 'stop pinning the door open' etc... yet he did it, so when I said to him there's not one rule for you and one rule for the rest of us Barry (not his real name) he was absolutely floored. It all came to a head when he went completely psycho one night and was threatening to kill my mum at 4am! The police were called, it was scary as hell. He was moved by the council 2 weeks later! Assert you female dominance and let.him know hes not the boss and if you want to ignore him, you jolly well will!

Not quite getting my head round the geography OP. If his garden backs onto yours, surely he is in the adjacent street and not yours?
Or has the festive season scrambled my faculties more than normal??