To be scared of my neighbour? Weird noises at nights...

[Mikadua23]

So this is going to be very messy and long..
We moved here 2 years ago, we live in 2 semi detached house and our neighbour is on our right.

We live in cul de sac and the area is very quiet and peaceful.
I dont work right now due to taking care of our young child and being pregnant with our second so I am home all days.

My neighbour is a man in his ( I believe 50s)
He is very shy when you try to say hello but usually kind, we don't have problems and never had.
He lives alone and have no family or friends, nobody ever visited him for the last 2 years..
He was always alone on christmas, easter or other celebrations..
We would check on him through the covid situation when he would not leave his house for few days at all and we would do some food shopping for him, he was very happy with the help.
I would give him christmas cards but never had one back (not that I expected him to give one! I have purerly felt sorry for him)
I would also give him a portion of christmas dinner last year and he was very happy although never really came back with dishes , he just left them outside our door 2 weeks after..

Our landlord did say to us when we first moved here, that our neighbour is weird and nobody in the road likes him but I never asked questions.

I wouldn't care about the way He chose to live if not the fact that he works night shifts every other week and every time he leaves the house, you can hear noises from his house like someone is still inside which is odd because he does live on his own.
As I mentioned before...
He never even had a friend coming over...

We share walls and it usually takes about 5 mins after he leaves around midnight and then you can hear someone coming down the stairs inside his house .

I dont know why, I am scared of this man and always find him a bit weird, it shouldn't really be in my intesrest whats happening inside his house but the whole thing is just odd.

Despite all this..

He never goes anywhere except his job where he works 12 hours shifts around 4 times a week.

Aliens

Severely agoraphobic partner or child?

@HappydaysArehere

I would knock on the wall when he is out and see if there is an answer. Or ask your dh to knock at the door and if anyone answers say you were worried there had been a break in.

Yes, because if it is someone housebound, terrifying them and making them feel uncomfortable in what is likely their safe place is definitely the way to go!!

Maybe twin brothers who live together and you've met them both but not seen them together???

@NewLifeInTheSouth

Exactly!
You never know what’s going on behind closed doors and there’s too much evil in this world today to not be suspicious!
I personally couldn’t just assume it was a relative because surely you’d hear them in the day too?

Anyone watch that programme on C5 where the police were catfishing paedophiles? Almost all the men they ended up arresting were sat in their houses all recluse like with the blinds down all day grooming kids 🤮 Blegh!

OP if you are genuinely worried then please call 101 and explain what you’ve posted here to the police and let them decide whether they’ll investigate or not. Or, do as PP’s have suggested and get your husband with you if you’re scared and don’t want to do it alone and knock, loudly a few times when you hear them.

Either way, if you truly believe there’s another person in there, perhaps held against their will then you should really do something (other than posting on MN)

Clearly not some form of abduction as the person is moving around freely.

Two options, someone housebound for one of many possible reasons Ie agoraphobia
Noise travels and it’s not actually from his house.

Paralysed with fear because of footsteps on the stairs next door 😂 heard it all now.

I just found my DVD of The 'Burbs, am going to watch it. Sorry that doesn't really help, OP, but to answer your dilemma, I would suggest casually mentioning the noises next time you see him and say you were worried that it was a burglar.

[quote Silversmithster]@NewLifeInTheSouth

Exactly!
You never know what’s going on behind closed doors and there’s too much evil in this world today to not be suspicious!
I personally couldn’t just assume it was a relative because surely you’d hear them in the day too?

Anyone watch that programme on C5 where the police were catfishing paedophiles? Almost all the men they ended up arresting were sat in their houses all recluse like with the blinds down all day grooming kids 🤮 Blegh![/quote]
Ffs this post is like Daily Mail moral panic bingo.

Hysterical, unsubstantiated froth about "evil in the world today!" Check
Single introvert man "probably a paedo!" Check
What a load of old shit

I don't really understand the replies here. People do get abducted and held in regular houses. If there's definitely someone in the house then the person wants to be kept a secret or the man wants to keep them a secret. Personally I would go to the police station and have a chat.

OP how do you know this mystery person only gets up when he goes out? You can’t possibly distinguish the other noises as only ever being him, he may have an elderly mother who is being cared for all day and then when he leaves for work she gets up and makes a cuppa.
Having said that I love a good mystery! I’m going to guess elderly relative who is mostly bed bound. There are lots of people who keep blinds down, don’t go out much etc etc, I’m sure there’s a person like that on every street.
In all seriousness though if you’re genuinely concerned that there is someone there against their will then call the non emergency police for a welfare check. If you’re not concerned about anything illegal leave him alone.

If something doesn’t feel right to you hun then it’s probably not and you don’t want to risk raising your children next to a potential psychopath/kidnapper/pedo/weirdo 🧐

It’s this sort of nasty, speculative behaviour which leads to people who are a bit different being victimised. I’ve lived in small communities. The local “weirdo” attached to all kinds of nasty rumours is almost invariably somebody with a learning difficulty, mental health problem, autism etc who doesn’t behave the exact way others think they should and their “strangeness” snowballs into rumours that they must be sinister. They start keeping themselves to themselves to protect themselves from the bullying and whispering – but of course, this reclusiveness only attracts further rumours. They can’t win, can they.

Hearing footsteps in the house of a reclusive man who OP has assumed lives alone but actually has no idea whether he does or not because he keeps himself to himself, isn’t evidence that he’s keeping somebody hostage and certainly isn’t evidence that he’s a paedophile for fucks sake.

@Bridezillamaybe

I don't really understand the replies here. People do get abducted and held in regular houses. If there's definitely someone in the house then the person wants to be kept a secret or the man wants to keep them a secret. Personally I would go to the police station and have a chat.

Ok even if you believe that hostage/abduction situations are common enough to be a consideration (which they are absolutely not), surely you can see that it's insanely unlikely that there is a hostage in the semi next door who is being left alone for four 12 hour night shifts a week with the run of the house?

Dog/cat/ghost?

@jadfiewahnds

LOL OK 😂 you keep telling yourself these things don’t happen and the world isn’t an evil place and I’ll just take my tin hat somewhere else. It could be nothing and I may seem scaremongering to you... but you can’t disagree with the state of the world and the vile ways of the people in it surely?

All I’m saying to the OP and anyone who may have be experiencing something similar is to be vigilant and if you don’t feel comfortable or something doesn’t seem right then call the police or 101. Simple.

Call the police. If people called the police when something odd happens many of the child abduction cases might have ended a lot sooner. Maybe the person is too afraid to leave. You dont need physical restraints to be restrained. You can hear someone in a house that no one else is supposed to live in. Tell the police that. Stay anonymous.

While abductions etc do happen, it's more likely that he has someone living with him but. Given he appears to be incredibly private, he probably just didn't want to let the OP know his specific living arrangements, and the OP has just assumed he's living alone.

I don't really understand the replies here. People do get abducted and held in regular houses.

But according to OP they have free run of the house when the person is out. Damn peculiar hostage situation! The people you are referring to who are held hostage are locked in basements or soundproofed rooms within rooms etc. They are not free to go up and down stairs, walk around, right n the water etc. The fact they can do this means they have escape routes if they wanted and worse case scenario, being a semi, they could bang on the walls and scream as they would have nothing to lose.

@CFLandlordStory

Call the police. If people called the police when something odd happens many of the child abduction cases might have ended a lot sooner. Maybe the person is too afraid to leave. You dont need physical restraints to be restrained. You can hear someone in a house that no one else is supposed to live in. Tell the police that. Stay anonymous.

‘A house that no one else is supposed to live in’

Ehh, says who? The reality is that the op doesn’t know whether or not this man lives alone. She thinks he does, based on her nosiness and conversations with others, but she doesn’t know for certain.

You can hear someone in a house that no one else is supposed to live in

Unless I have missed something that’s never been established though. OP just assumes he lives alone. OP - has he ever had a conversation with you where he has stated he lives alone and no one else lives there? If not, why are you presuming this to be the case, apart from not meeting the person or them going about daily activities in the same fashion as yourself?

The OP is dreaming of the guy standing g over her with an axe. I think it’s possible OP’s mind makes mental leaps that are not necessarily rationale in general as it going from a guy who lives alone and leaves dishes on the doorstep (during a pandemic) to standing over her trying g to kill her with an axe is one hell of a leap for the subconscious.

Bloody hell.. how do some of you function in daily life if you think every single man who keeps himself to himself is a “pedo” or murderer.
Some of the comments are vile.

Have you googled his name, town and 192 as that says who he has lived with

You haven't said whether this night noise is a recent occurrence or has been like this since you moved in two years. Just because he doesn't live his life like the rest of the cul de sac shouldn't make everyone dislike him.
If he 's working night shifts then he must sleep sometime during the day, can you hear movement in the afternoon when he's returned after midday?
If in the unlikely event he's holding someone captive, they have ample opportunity to bang on your wall and cry for help.

He must have given you his number for you to message him so the simplest thing to do is say "Hi Jim, I've always assumed you lived alone but is everything okay as I can hear someone walking about the house when you're on night shifts"
A relative of mine is a bit of a recluse by choice. Retired and only has one other visitor apart from me. They will exchange pleasantries with neighbours but keep to themself as they told me they don't really like people and are very shy.
If they watch TV during the day, the curtains are closed because the sunlight reflects on the TV screen. Also if they go out during the day, they leave curtains closed despite my telling them, it's an open invitation to potential burglars!