This sounds like an exaggeration but my upstairs neighbour hates me and seeks to be a constant irritant in my life. This is a very long and sorry saga. There was an incident about 2 years ago which I've posted about in which she tried to persuade me to pay for an appliance to be fitted to her boiler because the noise made by my turning the hot tap on and off in my home was causing her "mental distress". I said I was prepared to go halves but not to pay the entire cost of this as I didn't believe it was necessary and she ended up calling the environmental health to make a formal complaint against me. The environmental health decided essentially it was her responsibility and said she needed to fix it, which absolutely enraged her and she has never forgiven me. The post is below if anyone can be bothered to read it.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3611051-To-think-if-this-bothers-her-that-much-she-should-pay-to-get-it-sorted-herself
Since then she has done a variety of things which however much I try to rationalise I can only put down to spite:
- complained to the council and the property freeholder that I close my front door too loudly (I don't but I have a child who may once or twice have done this -- something which I don't always have perfect control over)
- complained to the council that I'm dumping things in her wheelie bins (I have not done this once)
- complained to the freeholder of my property that I'm a "nuisance neighbour" for unspecified reasons which boiled down to my having briefly had an old bed frame propped up in my back garden for 48 hours before it could be removed
- put nasty posts about me on the local WhatsApp group about the bins issue - -which were called out by other neighbours as "bitchy"
- Taken photographs of my wheelie bins
- Accused me of "spying" on her via social media (I have no idea what this is even about)
My approach up to now has just been to ignore everything and not respond to the complaints. I'm a middle aged woman with a 10 year old child. I'm not perfect at all but I'm a very long way from being a nuisance neighbour: I live quietly and with minimal environmental impact. The very occasional times I have left something in my garden, for example, its been a temporary stopgap while waiting to have it removed. I never play music late at night, I'm in bed by 11pm etc.
In the past week she has now installed something upstairs (possibly a fan or a dehumidifier) which makes a huge amount of noise all night and which has forced me and my DD to sleep in the living room because neither of us can sleep through it in our rooms.
I don't know how to approach this. I can't deal with it any more: its affecting my ability to sleep and thus to work. I know that if I drop her a polite note or a text about it it will prompt another furious burst of invective or a slew of complaints to the council etc. Her mental health is clearly extremely fragile and I have some sympathy but I'm also not prepared to be held personally responsible for her problems and to get attacked in front of other people who know me.
After I learned about the WhatsApp chat comments (from a friendly neighbour) I asked my lawyer to draft a letter asking her not to post defamatory comments about me on social media but have held off sending it because I thought it would be needlessly inflammatory. I just want to keep my head down and not get in her way. But I will defend myself if she is spreading untrue and defamatory things about me.
But now I essentially have a short-term and a long-term problem: how do I ask her to deal with this noise problem without triggering World War III and longer term, how do I politely but firmly put my foot down about this constant barrage of complaints and attempts to rile me about non-issues. I've considered filing a harassment complaint but I've been told that this can be an issue as you have to declare it when you put a house up for sales so I'm keen to avoid having to do this if I possibly can. I just want a quiet life tbh.