To be upset about angry neighbour

[Confusedandanxiety]

I live on a social housing estate in London. My garden fence was blown down in the spring storms, when I had reported the repair to the housing association and they eventually came to fix it last week.

On Sunday a neighbour who is also a tenant of the housing association knocked on my door. I said hi and smiled but he didn't respond. He said "have you had your fence done?". I responded "yes, the housing association did it". He then said that he had CCTV and they had put the fence panels and concrete posts and some tree branches in his skip, that he had taken the tree branches out and put it in the communal area between our houses, and if the rest wasn't removed by Tuesday he would dump it on my driveway. I said I didn't know that had happened, but I would contact the housing association on Monday to explain what their contractor had done and ask them to remove it. I also restated it wasn't a private builder I'd arranged myself, but a housing association repair. He then repeated if it wasn't gone by Tuesday it was going on my driveway. I replied that I would definitely contact them.
My next door neighbour opened their door then he said hello to her in a friendly manner and walked off.
It's hard to get it across written down, but his tone was basically really angry and intimidating, even after I'd explained.
He directed his anger at me (instead of the housing association contractor) for something that I didn't know anything about so the whole thing was a shock.

I felt scared and jittery, it reminded me of when I was in a DV situation years ago, I went inside and cried.

I thought it was unfair to threaten to put it on my driveway and effectively punish me as the housing association contractor had put it in his skip and I didn't know about this. I was frustrated because it's out of my control when they would remove the stuff from his skip. I was worried about how I would lift the stuff off my driveway to get my car out if they didn't remove it. I live here with my daughters, an don't have another adult as support.
The housing association is also his landlord so he will know how things go with them and what they are 'like' with the time it take to do repairs.
It sounds ridiculous but it also really upset me the way he was angry with me when I didn't know anything about it and hadn't done anything wrong, but switched to being super friendly with our neighbour.

I contacted the housing association on Monday and fortunately they arranged for their contractor to remove the rubbish and they called the neighbour (they have his details as he's also their tenant) to apologise for what their contractor had done and say it would be removed.

I'm still upset and on edge when the doorbell rings two days later. I haven't seen him since but the skip is still there, and I'm worried there might be stuff in there that he will dump on my driveway or come to my house again. I do have anxiety disorder so accept these worries may be unfounded!

Sadly this is typical behaviour of a lot of people today. Whether their issue be with a retailer, public transport or just general life, they take out their irritation on the first person to hand, rather than whoever was actually responsible for the problem.

Sounds like you were polite back, and got the issue resolved quickly, so hopefully he won't repeat his twatishness again. As another pp said, he likely would not have been so aggressive if a man had answered the door.

Do you get help for your anxiety disorder OP?

He was right in that the contractor was yours, working on your behalf, so it is up to you to ensure they don't dump stuff in his skip. He will have to pay to have your stuff removed, or wait until your contractors have emptied his skip to carry on with his work, which is unfair. How he reacted though is a different matter, was he standing over you shouting, or was it a cross interaction?

He was a nasty agressive arsehole. You did everything right and have nothing to ne ashamed of. The situation is now resolved andby rights if he was a decent person he would come around and apologise for his previous agressive behaviour and thank you for sorting it out with the housing association so quickly. He probably won't do that but that will be because of the aforementioned arseholeness. Your ongoing anxiety however is not his fault, but is part of your anxiety disorder. Unfortunately the world is full of arseholes (fortunately outnumbered by non-arseholes) but it's impossible to live your life without ever coming up against them, so learning some techniques to manage this would be good. You are ok.

I'm livid on your behalf OP.
If you were a 6' tall 6' wide bloke he would have changed his tack immediately.
Nasty little bully. When you inform the council of the issue, I would then report him separately. 😡

Huh? Your comment makes absolutely no sense. I have no agenda other than offering my opinion about what the OP has shared , which I assume she was soliciting since she posted here asking for opinions.

@saltinesandcoffeecups If the OP found it threatening then it was threatening. He clearly wasn't being polite and discussing the issue in a constructive way so there's no need to defend him

If it were me, I'd pop round with a small gift, apologising for his inconvenience, checking everything is now sorted and hopefully that will mend bridges. He could have handled it better of course but it's best to do anything to avoid falling out with neighbours in my experience.

He sounds like a twat. They put it in his skip, not his front garden so presumably not much of a hassle for him to clear up. That aside, he should just have contacted the HA to begin with rather than give you shit. He could see you hadn’t dumped it there so pointless blaming you.

He sounds understandably upset, however it wasn't your fault and he shouldn't have been intimidating.

However it sounds like its been sorted easily so you don't have any reason to be anxious now.....

Take a breath.

Fair enough for him to be annoyed. NOT fair enough for him to be bullying and intimidating over something that was not your fault and which you got sorted out quickly.

I bet he would not have behaved that way towards another man. Can’t believe there are so many apologists on here for his behaviour.

And do NOT go round there with a gift as has been suggested above! Why reward intimidation with fawning and apologising? It will just convince him he was right to behave that way.