Harassed and excluded by villagers

[thearctic]

Hello

Hoping to get some perspective from writing this down and to hear some other insights. At the moment the only solution seems to be to move house.

We live in a small village and another local family have been harassing us for several years. It began with a falling out over a shared right of way. They attempted to claim it as their own but we were able to prove it is shared. That came to a conclusion a year ago, but the other family seem unable to move on.

They have continued to harass our family and our children. There are verbal attacks, shouting/name calling, verbally abuse towards my children, following and watching us. No opportunity is missed; if we see them, they react.

We avoid them where possible, but there is a playground nearby which we all use. Avoiding them entirely would mean avoiding the playground and my children missing out on playing with friends.

The other family have developed friendships with our other neighbours and those neighbours are now frosty with us. Not all our neighbours, but a small handful.

The police take the view it's a civil matter.

Not what you want to hear but honestly I'd move
Life is too short for this crap.

You need to decide if it’s a long term home or you want to move in the short term.
Different courses of action to take based on that decision.

I don't want to talk to anyone else. It would feel like we're pitching ourselves against them and encouraging people to take sides. I really don't want that kind of atmosphere where we live.

While I can understand why you'd want to take the high road, by not talking about it to anyone else in the village you're just ensuring that only their version of events gets heard.

OP I know what this is like - not the actual argument as I did not have one with my former next door neighbour, but that did not stop her from making our lives hell by spreading I don't even know what about me and DP around the neighbourhood. She was the world's worst gossip, and although we gave her no ammunition at all, she invented it. For several years most neighbours either never spoke to us (small cul-de-sac, houses really close, where you had to walk past everyone's house), or one or two forced themselves to say Hello only when I said it. I still don't know what poison they were fed, but for ages I had to steel myself before leaving the house. It was really difficult and stressful to hold my head up, knowing there was nothing whatsoever that I had done, but that people did believe something. We did eventually move, but not because of this. Now live in a lovely village where everyone behaves normally and is pleasant. I am not suggesting you move, or that you have to put up with it. Just sending you my sympathy because I know how awful it feels to be blameless when people think you are guilty of something but you don't know what they have been told. And there is no way of putting the record straight. I was polite and friendly, and that was all I could do, but it did not feel enough defence, especially after years of it. Hope this situation resolves itself for you soon, as stress like this is very bad for health.

Move. As others have said, life is too short. People move for far less.

How awful that people behave like this. What are they lacking in their lives that makes them behave so reprehensibly. Sometimes people take how they behaved in the schoolyard into adulthood. I would move too. Sometimes moving on and not trying to understand why is the route. But awful that you have to.

Where was the shared right of way op, was it in some way over their property! As in are you now able to go through their garden in some way and that’s why they were fighting it?

It doesn’t excuse their behaviour, but if this took several years to come to a conclusion it seems there is a lot more to this legal fight that may have caused the ill feeling?

@hyacinth, thank you for writing, it's a very similar situation here. Some days I feel so low.

I can live with people not speaking to my husband and I - though it's far from ideal - but it affects our kids and as they get older I fear the other family will see them as fair game and pick on them even more.

Moving is not an option at the moment but will be in a few years. We could potentially move out and rent while renting our house out.

As someone who lives in a village you have 2 options:

1. Move

1. Embrace village life. Get known by key people in the village - volunteer at the fete, the church hall, the bake sales. You don't have to 'get your story out' but it will slowly become known that you are not a nutter, and the key people will remember that your neighbour is a nasty piece of work and when your name comes up, they will respond that they know you and how lovely you were helping out with the litter picking.

I did option 2 a bit half-heartedly and it paid off. You don't even need to put that much effort in.

If it won't disadvantage you too much I would move, more for your DC then you.
I do think that if they are like this it is probably well recognised locally, you won't be the first people they have turned their vitriol on.
But if it's a small area and their family are long standing residents with interconnections even though people know it's nonsense they are probably just nodding and tutting.
If they have DC in their family/extended family in the school your DC attend it would be best to move.
If not then you just need to remind yourself most people know they are idiots and as long as it doesn't affect the DC hang on till you can move on your own timetable.

Take care, I can imagine it is very difficult

I came to say what @AnnaMagnani said.

Join in and be sociable in all the places they aren't. Don't ever raise the subject, just muck in and avoid falling out with anyone else. Join everything. Church, WI, bowls, scouts, whatever's there.

Thank you everyone for the supportive posts. It helps a huge amount.

Never buy a property with shared access. I haven't known any go that well.

People who have lived in a community for a few years always seem to think they can rule the roost. Its wrong that you cant just get on with your own life without kowtowing to the local lords and ladies.

I cant imagine anything more claustrophobic than living in a village as I am a very private person. I would not have the time, inclination or temperament to be crawling up their backsides and getting involved with the local fete etc.

The less I have to do with neighbours the better as I hate the things. I was brought up in a community where everybody knew everyone's business and hated it. Full of whingers and snitches.

We had similar with our next door neighbours. When new neighbours moved in they would be introducing themselves immediately and the new neighbours would be frosty.
After a few months the new neighbours would become more friendly, saying hello first rather than me when we meet, stopping for chats etc.

This is our family home, we've been here for 20 years now and mainly ignore next door. I'm not nasty and am still considerate to them. When they had no electric I reset the switch box for example but I no longer take parcels for them or instigate contact.
I love our home and feel a part of my community, yes I did the pta, helped and organised community events and was asked to stand as a parish Councillor. It really depends on how long you want to live in your home for.

Ideally we do not want another house move but it is something we are considering and looking at options for.

We have been blocked from volunteering at the local church because the other family had a word. It's difficult because they are very involved in everything and their standing in the community seems important to them. In that sense, they will always spend far more time on endearing themselves to the community than we will.

This is not uncommon in rural areas particularly if you’re seen as interlopers from outside the area.

Same thing happened to some friends of mine, the dispute started over right of way just the same.

In the end they just moved, wasn’t worth the aggro.

@adventurealice

I'd keep your head down if you want to sell. You'd legally need to disclose this if its ongoing or recent

This.

Op, I am really sorry.

I knew a lovely couple who retired to an area that is notoriously frosty to 'Outsiders'.

It was visually lovely, but the were so unhappy, because of small minded attitudes and gossip...and yes, a shared driveway entrance was also an issue for them.

They moved back to where their grandchildren are, hundreds of miles away, and are much, much happier.

We had neighbours like this and found out that the previous owners had in all likelihood moved because of them. We moved in the end, not really because of the neighbours, but we made sure our next house had its own driveway.

Can you afford to speak to a solicitor about this?

@thearctic

Ideally we do not want another house move but it is something we are considering and looking at options for.

We have been blocked from volunteering at the local church because the other family had a word. It's difficult because they are very involved in everything and their standing in the community seems important to them. In that sense, they will always spend far more time on endearing themselves to the community than we will.

Ugh...How Un Christian is that..

I'd move.

What small minded people they sound.

Like being back at school again.

If you do move, sell to the noisiest people possible!

Happens in most villages. Lived somewhere like this once.

Just keep ignoring them, they’ll get fed up eventually when they find someone new to bully.

Don’t be tempted to join your local Facebook village chat page though.

You shouldn’t have to, but if I were in your position I’d move. People like your neighbours just don’t seem to know how to live a life without conflict.

We had a similar situation-without the smear campaign in our old house 20 years ago. The neighbours just couldn’t leave us be.

We hadn’t been planning on staying in the house forever, but they definitely speeded up our move. It turned out that they did us a favour, if we hadn’t moved then, we wouldn’t have had the house that we’ve had 20 very happy years in. We’re in the process of selling just now but just to move onto the next stage of life.

The neighbours on the other side of them ended up moving 6 months after us, and the neighbours were part of their decision

I know oh so much about this. You need:

A harassment diary.
Video evidence (be very careful how you get it as the moment you start filming you can be accused of harassment).
Money to pay for an ex parte civil injunction.

You can't change your neighbours minds so let that go. The police won't help until you have a civil injunction (and even then they'll only visit when ordered to collect fines by the judge). I would wear a bodycam and let the police know when harassment occurs (just don't expect action). It's very hard to get a criminal conviction for harassment but easier in the civil courts as the judge will make a decision based on how likely it seems that this true, rather then beyond all reasonable doubt.

I don't know why people say just move, like this is possible or easy.

Interesting how others are saying this is common in villages, I've never seen it to this extent over something so small.

I am very rural but the nearest village is the one I grew up in. My parents would certainly still be classed as Incomers by the older locals despite having been here nearly fifty years. There's a great deal of that which goes on,

Lots of people come and go, there are lots of issues. People fall out all the time but never like this.

I've never known one family be targeted and "blocked" from doing things.

I have seen a systematic bullying approach if you like, taken on one individual who was placed in temporary housing there but that was a vigilante type issue not an individual falling out.

I don't even see how it's possible to be blocked from a church volunteer role without a criminal conviction.