Like a sizeable minority of people we had upsides in the early stages of the pandemic but then there were stresses and strains (and worse) that built up.
I think our neighbours, who have a licence to cross our yard for rear access to their property, went through the same.
The wife and children were fine but the husband became intrusive and overbearing. Basically there were endless “appearances” and “interventions on our property. It started off with looking for pets in our garage or asking for the kids to use our swing. It moved on to a ludicrous idea of “everyone getting together to eliminate the rat problem” even though they were the ones who had just bought chickens and these are old country properties. Oh, and the chickens roamed free, including in our yard, so he would appear outside the kitchen window regularly chasing them.
I had builders doing work in the garden last summer. At 8am they would arrive, at 8.20am neighbour would arrive with coffee on a tray. Then come back and collect it, using this excuse to ask questions about what they were doing and generally nose about.
He invited friends to access their house via our yard and park in it without permission.
My builder accidentally removed an item belonging to a different neighbour at one point. In response to other neighbour’s complaints builder returned it with a bottle of wine which he left in other neighbour’s garden. Nosy neighbour entered said garden and removed bottle of wine (presumably he wanted to have the special job of handing it over to the intended recipient -this happened months later as recipient does not live here). Intended recipient was therefore angrier for longer than was necessary as he did not know for months an apology had been offered.
Finally we informed nosy neighbour we were replacing the fence on my land (not affecting his access). We gave him notice fencers would be coming to quote. When they arrived he intervened to begin discussions about height and length of fence with them trying to negotiate direct over my head.
He also encouraged his children to ride the bikes around our yard. Tbh this was annoying but because of lockdown I felt pressured to do my bit.
My husband, who is very mild-mannered, eventually told neighbour “there is no Backstreet X committee”. After that he backed off a bit.
Unfortunately his gardening work has greatly reduced the plant cover between the gardens so whilst it’s been a few months now since anything weird happed I still don’t feel relaxed. I feel monitored.
Any thoughts? It really affects our quality of life. Should I put it down to the pandemic and let it die down? He is a sahd and looking for a role I think.
Any experiences listened to with gratitude.