I’m an extremely light sleeper and struggle with insomnia, so once something wakes me up, it’s pretty much impossible for me to get back to sleep. I also can’t sleep if I don’t have any fresh air or if I can smell something strong or hear anything.
My new neighbours have been waking me up every single morning, around 4 or 5am. Their back doors creak and they always slam them and the smell of weed is potent enough to keep me awake for the rest of the morning. Sometimes they’ll come out multiple times at night, midnight or 2 or 3am.
I don’t have anything against weed, but they’re smoking it constantly and the smell bothers me. It makes me feel like I can’t relax in my own home.
They also keep inviting their friends over even though we’re in a lockdown. They have parties every weekend till 4 or 5 in the morning, which is fair enough, as I’ve had a couple myself, but they don’t even try to be quiet. They laugh extremely loudly, smoke, talk, even scream. As someone who struggles with anxiety, this stuff makes me even more anxious. They also have very loud arguments at least once a week.
Here’s where I might be the asshole - I have a reactive dog. He barks at people when he sees them over the fence. He’s very anxious and territorial. We are working on this with a behavioural therapist, but it’s obviously still an issue. I am SUPER conscious about this and as soon as he starts barking or I notice him getting triggered in some way, I call him back inside.
I’m also very conscious of playing my own music loudly or disturbing people in any way. If I’m listening to music on a speaker, I usually lower the volume AND close the window, so I don’t disturb other people. So maybe I just have unrealistic expectations of other people because I do the same for them?
Tonight I let my dog out into the garden. I’ve been really depressed for the past few days because my cat died earlier this week, so I’ve been finding it hard to get out of bed, let alone walk him.
He just wanted to pee, but he went insane and started barking a lot. He usually comes right back in when called, but he wasn’t listening to me at all, so I looked out to investigate and saw my neighbour lighting a spliff right in the middle of his garden. It was dark and there was no reason at all for him to be standing there. It looked like he was intentionally trying to provoke my dog.
I don’t expect people to have sympathy or understand what it’s like to own a reactive dog, but he could have just sat by his back door where he usually sits until my dog went back in.
I ended up venting to my boyfriend and I’m pretty sure they overhead. I don’t want to have negative relations with my neighbours, but they’re making me really upset and I can’t tell if I’m overreacting.