Neighbour’s mysterious notepad...

[JensonsAcolyte]

The neighbours to the side of us are a retired couple. Pleasant enough to speak to, but a bit on the nosy side.

Their house is immaculate, not a weed on the drive, front lawn and hedges always trimmed. Ours, erm, isn’t. Same for the back, which they can see from their windows. He has commented.

He always puts everyone’s bins back, pretty sure this is not a neighbourly kind gesture, they are collected from opposite his house.

Over the road have caught him chucking cat poo on to my front garden from his (we do have a cat but so do most houses).

Neither of them can walk past my house without craning their necks to look in the garden/windows.

Whenever we have work done he is straight round to find out the details.

Anyway, recently I’ve noticed that he has taken to walking around with a notebook and pencil. We went for a bbq over the road last night and he was out there taking notes on his driveway.

I would so love to know what he’s taking notes on! It’s obviously a shitlist of some sort, or possibly a Covid Police logbook.

AIBU to ask him next time I see it? DH says I need to leave it but enquiring minds must know.

Id definitely ask him. If he's going to be so bold, so can you be. If like a pp said it's possibly dementia related, at least you'll be able to keep an eye out for him - offer support and so on.

@JaneJeffer

Maybe he's sketching and is going to present you with a painting of your house.

When you see him just shout
Put your notebook away John.
Nobody likes a grass!

Fair enough you say you had covid back in January right? But you could still get it again. I am not hiding in my house at all I live in the country and walk several klms everyday and even though we have a huge amount of outdoor space I didn't invite people around every day,why am i not surprised you had it and just because they say its alright to have people around in your garden doesn't make it right .I can just imagine you having a lot of horrified neighbours with that carry on and if everyone carried on like you guys this pandemic will go on for a lot longer

This is your cure

Herring your own notebook was also my own thought!

It would be even funnier if all the neighbours at the BBQ appeared and began walking up and down taking notes at the same time when he does it

@Hollywolly1

Fair enough you say you had covid back in January right? But you could still get it again. I am not hiding in my house at all I live in the country and walk several klms everyday and even though we have a huge amount of outdoor space I didn't invite people around every day,why am i not surprised you had it and just because they say its alright to have people around in your garden doesn't make it right .I can just imagine you having a lot of horrified neighbours with that carry on and if everyone carried on like you guys this pandemic will go on for a lot longer

By 'carried on like you guys' do you mean following the rules??? People are allowed to meet outdoors now. Doing this sensibly has huge benefits for people's mental health, we have sacrificed a lot over the last year. When would you suggest we should start to see others again? What is the point that this becomes acceptable for you if not when it is legally allowed? (Not trying to be argumentative here just genuinely trying to understand your POV).

I think you need to up the ante here. Sod a notebook. What you need is an A4 lever arch file and a fully equipped pencil case (including highlighters), and a dictaphone.

He gets his notebook out, you flip open your file, select a highlighter and start mumbling into the dictaphone.

Or you could go high tec and carry a video camera around with you?

I would be very temted to give him something worth writing about ,use your imagination but dont do anything illegal and dont get caught ,he sounds like a bit of a tight arse and they are usually very easy to wind up ,have fun with him ,just dont let him know its you !

He sounds annoying but I think it’s a bit sad that you and the other neighbours gossip about him. You complain that he comments negatively to you but, in return, you seem like you put a negative spin on everything he does. It’s weird that you are judging him for putting the neighbours bins back and pointing at plants and then complaining because you ‘assume’ he might be judging you.

The notebook thing does sound odd though so who knows. Might he be noting birds in his book 🤔

It sounds like he's got nothing better to do.

My in laws (also show garden people) have become very petty over the last couple of years. They live in a naice area where everyone has plenty of off road parking and get very wound up if cars park on the road, even though its a wide road with masses of room for emergency vehicles even if cars parked both sides. Their annoyance is magnified ten fold if it's outside their own house on the raised kerbside so absolutely legal. The last time we went FIL leaped out of his chair numerous times because he heard a car and wanted to check where it was going. He gets particularly wound up about the 'white polo' that is a persistent offender. He doesn't actually do anything about these cars he just glares out of the window. I think he might enjoy it. I wouldn't put it past him to have a notebook to write it all down in.

With the bins, it’s actually not terribly helpful. He blocks access with them. It’s all quite petty really.

He literally just wants them away from his view. They’re not outside his house, but in the parking bay across from him. So he moves them in front of other peoples houses. Ours is often in the way of getting DHs car off the drive. Neighbours get theirs blocking gates etc. It’s definitely pass agg.

But hey ho, it’s less far for us to then drag it in so I’m not actually complaining.

I hear you re bins OP. Neighbours at my old house were also retired with little else to do and they would pointedly tell us 'we brought the bins in for you' the second we got out the car after whole day at work. He left them by our side gate even though the entire time we lived there, the bins always lived in the bin shed out the front, opposite side to the gate. Why couldn't he just leave them on the pavement for a few hours? It made literally no less or more work for us whether we moved them from side gate or pavement to bin store. And the pavement where the bin men left bins was very definitely outside our house, not his. It was just passive-aggressive act designed to put us in our place, not a kind thing neighbourly act to help- because if he wanted to help, why not move them directly to the bin store?!

@Hollywolly1

Please let us know when it is right

He sounds like some of our neighbours.

Most of them moved into the street when the houses were new-builds in the 1970s.

I knew they were nosey (eg next door neighbour commenting that we must have been somewhere fancy when I hung evening clothes on the line), but the WhatsApp group started as community Covid support has revealed the full extent.

They seem to forget it's a public group and are currently posting borderline defamatory and certainly nasty comments about a new neighbour who's had the temerity to put up 'too many' sheds in his garden.

Accompanied by pictures of his garden and sheds from the vantage point of one of the houses.

We too used to get PA comments about bins and gardens when we were both working FT and running after the kids.

Most of the women were housewives and I don't think any of them have the first idea what family life is like for couples who work.

The OP's neighbour probably thinks women should be in the kitchen when they're not gardening.

Yanbu but just ignore ignore ignore. Don’t engage. If they say anything, your grass is too long , you have too many weeds etc just smile and nod. Honestly I really really understand how annoyigg Nd and weird neighbours make your blood boil but it’s really really not worth it. Just take silent pleasure in the fact that you have occupied space in his brain you haven’t paid to rent. He is definitely annoyed and take a glimmer of pleasure from that.

The coronastasi are out in force again

just because they say its alright to have people around in your garden doesn't make it right

it actually does

why am i not surprised you had it

you do know people don’t get covid from breaking the rules?

you do know people don’t get covid from breaking the rules?

Actually, they do, not all the time, but it can be the case.

It can also not be the case. Most transmission happened in care homes, hospitals and workplaces

Yes, but that still makes your statement that people don't get covid from breaking rules incorrect.

Does GDPR in any way come into this? If he is taking personal information without having a good reason. Or an excuse to scare him- 'you know GDPR still applies even with Brexit'.

It's none of your business what's in his notebook. You both sound as bad as each other, stop looking and it won't bother you anymore.

Or next time your neighbours over the road have a barbecue, how about they include these elderly neighbours, be friendly and then just ask him about the notebook?

It all seems very tense.

Yes, but that still makes your statement that people don't get covid from breaking rules incorrect.

You don't get it from breaking the rules. You get it because you have been exposed.to it. You may or may not have broken the rules

When my Dad was in the Army, a builder had failed to sell about half the houses on his new estate, and had offered the unsold houses to the Army for use as hirings. Hirings are houses used by soldiers and their families instead of Army quarters, and only families proved to be of good character are placed in hirings. The people who had already bought houses were furious, and there were petitions, people protesting etc., to stop this happening. The local newspapers, radio and TV had given quite a lot of publicity to it all.
One Friday evening Dad had a message to say that the Army had decided not to go ahead with it, and they would be informing the builder on the Monday. My Dad and his friend may(ahem) have gone (in uniform)to the estate on the Saturday with clip boards and tape measures....

You do sound like loud, noisy neighbours, with over-frequent and noisy visitors during lockdowns, and probably very little awareness of others.

But I wouldn't waste a notebook on you!