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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to think something is 'off' with neighbours

200 replies

dancingmonkey · 25/03/2022 17:31

So about a year ago we had a lady and her young baby move in opposite us.
At first she it's appeared she was single but after a few months I noticed a guy around a lot and seemed to be living there. I can't put my finger on it but they were an odd match and I once saw him leave the house, go to the car- he seemed to put something or collect something from under the wheel arch?! And then walk past the house and into the park..Anyway that might be totally irrelevant just weird. After a few months this guy moves out and within days they was another guy there who had seem to have moved in. This guy was very muscular and 'hard' looking! Didn't notice anything particularly weird about him but just how he literally turned up days after this over guy and was now moved in. Fast forward a few more months, and it's happened again! Within a matter of days one meat head guy has left and another moved in!
I forgot to add actually while second guy was living there a police officer did turn up to the house and was peering through the living room window. They were definitely in and seemed to be hiding?

So now this other guy is in. When guy number 2 was there the women got a new car and now he's gone a new car has arrived. She and new man are driving this car.
I can't work out what the hell is going on, or is it actually nothing? Bf thinks witness protection but im not sure really what that involves. House is council if relevant.

Any ideas?

OP posts:
NurseBernard · 25/03/2022 20:55

I have no idea what I’ve been doing with my time….

But I have no idea who’s coming and going from my neighbour’s houses. At all.

Maybe I need to be much more nosey observant.

Thoosa · 25/03/2022 20:56

Everything mentioned have been things that happen to be happening as I open the curtains or go out the gate etc. and it's impossible not to notice things like different men and cars.

So you’re not as intrusive as you sound and there could be a hell of a lot you’ve missed? So stitching these fragments of overseen things together could be giving a misleading picture?

UsernameInTheTown · 25/03/2022 21:01

Won't be lodgers if it's a council gaff, clipboard lady is bound to be council something, house check up maybe?

Original poster
dancingmonkey · 25/03/2022 21:02

@Thoosa

Since you WFH yourself (well in between stickybeaking) you are extremely bloody unreasonable to think you can judge that “she doesn’t seem to work” just from watching her come and go. Grin That’s actually epic nerve. Unless you’ve planted spy cameras in hr house?

Your neighbours probably think you’re a cam girl. Shock

I don't expect her to be working as she has a young baby. Neighbours can assume what they want, I run my own business from home
OP posts:
Bytrgrewd · 25/03/2022 21:03

@LoisLane66

The big D.
Ah of course…Donkeys
Thoosa · 25/03/2022 21:06

But that isn’t what you said. You said “she has a baby and doesn't appear to work so perhaps financially vulnerable”.

You’re guessing. There’s no such thing as “appearing to work”. You can’t tell from your curtain twitching if she works, where she works or what she works as.

This really is an unpleasant thread, insinuating unsavoury things about a new mum, on no evidence.

WomanStanleyWoman · 25/03/2022 21:10

@NurseBernard

I have no idea what I’ve been doing with my time….

But I have no idea who’s coming and going from my neighbour’s houses. At all.

Maybe I need to be much more nosey observant.

Same here. I’ve no idea how often my neighbours have visitors, much less who they are.
KateofGhent · 25/03/2022 21:13

P.S. Sorry I just posted wanting to know what cuckooing was, I hadn't read full thread, and someone upthread has just explained it.
Love the time travel idea that someone has posted earlier, too !

Metabigot · 25/03/2022 21:14

Well I got offered today a job where the interview went so badly I'd written if off!
Still awaiting the internal promo position but goes to show.. you really cannot tell!

Will hopefully have 2 offers next week but good to have a fallback.

Hearwego · 25/03/2022 21:15

I did think that maybe the guy isn’t officially supposed to be living there , a single mother on benefits.
But the change in guys seemingly living there does seem a little strange. If they’re not doing any harm or causing a nuisance, I’d be inclined to let it go.
Then again I am quite nosey !

Metabigot · 25/03/2022 21:17

@JorisBohnson2

Well I got offered today a job where the interview went so badly I'd written if off! Still awaiting the internal promo position but goes to show.. you really cannot tell!

Will hopefully have 2 offers next week but good to have a fallback.

Wrong thread guys
Mangogogogo · 25/03/2022 21:25

I know a lot of people on here love to tell people to mind their own business but most of our safeguarding and vulnerability reports come in from concerned neighbours. It is heartwarming that neighbourhoods are looking out for each other tbh and here people make it seem like because you’ve seen your neighbour 4 times in 3 months you’re stalking them. Absolutely bizarre

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 25/03/2022 21:25

@EvilEdna1

Those men are not leaving. She is a serial killer specialising in a certain type of man. Draws them into her web with the offer of lodging and then......

They will need to dig up her garden.

Exactly ! Has she got a nice new patio that is getting bigger every few weeks ?

Or is she a particularly lazy gardener and want to have it dug over without any effort so she's spreading a rumour about What's Under The Slabs ?

Thoosa · 25/03/2022 21:26

I’m thinking now about hard life as a new mum was, and how much worse it would have been if I’d been rehoused into a council estate with hostile neighbours in the middle of that time.

Maybe she has some problems. Maybe she doesn’t. How is some nosey article over the road gossiping about their random surveillance of her helping her at all, though?

Imagine how she would feel if she read this and recognised herself. Sad

SucculentChalice · 25/03/2022 21:26

I had a neighbour like this - young mum with a child, didn't work. Notably unfriendly - I could just about get her to say hello. When she moved in, she seemed to clearly be in a relationship with her partner but he disappeared after a few months and a new man visited - it wasn't easy to miss this as he repaired his car in the middle of the development's road. Then the original man came back and disappeared a few times, during which times the second man would come back.

Then everyone disappeared one day and the garden was left strewn with their possessions, well mostly the contents of rubbish sacks. House wasn't in a great state and the door was left half hanging off.

A few months later, I read a report in the local paper that she had been found guilty of benefits fraud.

My guess is that the first man was her partner and had been necessary for her to rent the house (private landlord), as he seemed to have a job, but then had to move out because of the benefits. And the second guy, well I don't know but I think she was maybe two-timing the first guy with him when the first guy was away with work. Definitely saw her snogging both of them so not her brothers or anything!

Bizarrely, the first guy's works van is still parked in a visitor space and only moves very occasionally!

Thoosa · 25/03/2022 21:27

Sure. Social services rely on people speculating in the Internet. Of course they do. Hmm

Crankley · 25/03/2022 21:28

toconclude
Living perfectly happily in the real world here without being a nosey judgemental arse, thanks

Same here.

OP, you should go and demand your neighbour tell you what's going on. It's not like it's absolutely none of your business is it. Hmm

Don't you know curiosity killed the cat?

Thoosa · 25/03/2022 21:28

@Mangogogogo

I know a lot of people on here love to tell people to mind their own business but most of our safeguarding and vulnerability reports come in from concerned neighbours. It is heartwarming that neighbourhoods are looking out for each other tbh and here people make it seem like because you’ve seen your neighbour 4 times in 3 months you’re stalking them. Absolutely bizarre
Try again.

Sure. Social services rely on people speculating in the Internet. Of course they do. Hmm

PandemicAtTheDisco · 25/03/2022 21:39

Our street is full of drama. Stroppy adult son scrounging off his retired parents - screaming when he can't get any money, brick-damaged, innocent house in the middle between feuding neighbours throwing bricks at each other, menage a trois next door, retired, ex--con peado with his young, barely legal girlfriend and his dodgy old mates boyracing their flashy cars down the street, drunk couple arguing every weekend that spills out onto the streets whilst their young children try to get them both inside beore the police arrive.

I moved here because it's supposed to be the good side of town - when I lived on the bad side I had no trouble ever. I want my respectable neighbours back!

BOOTS52 · 25/03/2022 21:42

Shocked that you seem to spend so much time wondering about your neighbour. I could not care if neighbours running naked in the green across from us here once they are quiet which they are. Never been a nosy person and don't wish to start now. Those men could be family visiting. If it women that were coming and going would you be saying she was moving in her lesbian lovers. Not fair to gossip and speculate and your nose stuck at your curtains. Used to have a ex neighbour like this and glad not there any more and have no neighbours across from us now.

NotNotNotMyName · 25/03/2022 21:50

PandemicAtTheDisco I love your name 😍

WomanStanleyWoman · 25/03/2022 21:52

@Mangogogogo

I know a lot of people on here love to tell people to mind their own business but most of our safeguarding and vulnerability reports come in from concerned neighbours. It is heartwarming that neighbourhoods are looking out for each other tbh and here people make it seem like because you’ve seen your neighbour 4 times in 3 months you’re stalking them. Absolutely bizarre
Oh come on. There’s a big difference between a neighbour contacting social services because they’re genuinely concerned for someone’s safety and a curtain-twitcher gossiping because the neighbour has had a few male visitors.
Gottamakesense · 25/03/2022 21:53

I think it could be cuckooing, based on professional experience of similar-sounding situations. I hope not. It would be awful if she is being exploited.

PukkaP · 25/03/2022 21:55

The fact that someone is muscular doesn't make them a meat head

dayswithaY · 25/03/2022 22:00

Seems very similar to my neighbour. She's a serial dater who moves them in, then they move out and it's onto the next one. She told me she's on Tinder and is clearly v successful.