Weird Neighbours interfering in everything that happens here

[User57327259]

I moved house about a year ago. It all seemed fine at first even friendly. I got a new kitchen and all hell broke loose! The fitters were booked for 3 days. All the cabinets had been delivered a few days earlier. The old cabinets were taken out and put out of sight. The second morning a neighbour came to speak to me about having the old cabinets moved. The job was not complete yet so until all the waste was ready to be uplifted the items were out of sight. The fitters were walking about but none of t he neighbours spoke to them. On the last day I was going out and another neighbour (male) spoke to me very nastily and even threatened what would be done with the waste. I was nervous enough as I was heading to an hospital appointment. I told him not to threaten me. 2 days after that the wife of the male spoke to me about speaking back to her husband. She can not see that a threatening male is not to be tolerated these days. She did not apologise for his behaviour. He is a weird person who thinks he has the right to decide who parks where etc. He is also seen creeping around after dark. He checks on the bins a lot. Just weird behaviour in my opinion. I will not tolerate any abusive men. The other woman seems to either do the bidding of this man and wife or perhaps she is just as weird.

Currently they are blocking the car park to ensure that certain cars can only park in certain places. The weird man has even measured the width of each parking space.
I have no idea what to do about all this. I thought I had moved to a nice area but this conduct really upsets me as it is just so weird. Weirdness is so difficult to understand. What is achieved by making people have to park further along or creeping about in the dark?
I think I have landed in a place which seems to be inhabited by older people even though it is not age specific buildings. There are no children here. Residents are over 70. There was one younger resident in her 20s but she moved away sunddenly. The houses are mostly 2 bedrooms and some 3 bedrooms. It is strange to have about 70 houses and not one with any children.
It is creeping me out the conduct that goes on here. A lot of houses have changed occupants recently.
AIBU to think this is very strange

On the plus side this thread has now made Edinburgh Live without the drip feed and the feeling there is don’t move to a nice area and introduce yourself to new neighbours by leaving rubbish in communal areas.

So if the bins are communal too he's entitled to look into them. Yes it's weird but often people put things in the wrong bins (eg rubbish in recycling bin) or things they shouldn't (tins of paint, electrical goods) so I can see why it would be checked.

Obviously he shouldnt be agressive, but perhaps he's annoyed that the new owner has no idea about living somewhere where there are communal facilities.

I agree. I think you sound extremely unreasonable. If it was absolutely necessary to leave anything in a communal area, I'd let all the neighbours know in advance, and tell them when it was going to be removed.

I feel sorry for you User57, but it would appear from some comments that your neighbours are on mumsnet!!

That's what I thought! 😂

Honestly, it was obvious from the start that OP's account was incredibly biased and one sided, and that she is clearly quite unreasonable. It's a complete diatribe about how everyone else is weird and objectionable and she has done nothing whatsoever.

Try and reframe some of her comments...rather than "he threatened to pile up the cabinets by my door so I couldn't get in or out" (the gullible posters thinking that he "threatened to barricade her in the house")...isn't it far more likely that he polited suggested that OP keep her crap neatly by her own door and not spread around the communal spaces because she appears to think she can do as she pleases?

I’d also be really careful on the CCTV and ring door bell if the outside areas are communal.

Just to really clarify, the cabinets were not cabinets when they were put outside OUT OF SIGHT. They had been dismantled and were now a pile of pieces of wood or to be exact pieces of whatever non wood materials kitchen cabinets are made of. It was a neat pile not scattered all over the place.
I don't know how to deal with people who want me to keep the old pieces of cabinets in the house and bin men who will not go inside houses. It does not seem an effective possibility.

I think OUT OF SIGHT, to use your caps, probably made it look more like fly tipping dumping. Honestly, you don't have to accept abuse nor unwarranted intrusions, but being neighbourly works both ways. It would have been polite if you had let them know beforehand what would be happening. Without prior knowledge they probably felt no choice but to badger you until it was gone.

On the plus side, with NDN like these, you probably won't end up with any car parking issues or crime. They just sound old and bored.

I thought out of sight was better than in full view considering that it is a nice place or was.

I did not think I had to go round neighbours to advise that I was having work done since it is my house and I am paying. None of them have ever said to me that they are having work done.
I was polite and friendly. I am always polite and friendly I am a quiet neighbour no parties or even music playing when I sat outside.
We do have car parking issues as people use this area to drop off cars before going to the town centre to ensure a parking spot for free. He never tackles those people they are mostly couples or families. He does not tackle those who bring there dogs to walk in the gardens. It looks like it is just me!

They weren’t out of sight though if people saw them????

And you don’t leave rubbish out until bin day, you put it out on bin day. Most councils have the power to fine you if you put it out too early because it’s antisocial

To see the pile of fake wood a person would have had to walk into a place no-one goes or sits, and is out of sight from anyone passing.
This kind of rubbish is not for the regular bins collections. This is called a bulk uplift and has to be arranged through the bins services at the council

You have my sympathy. We have lived peacably alongside our neighbours for well over 30 years, and in recent weeks they have turned into loons.

They are no longer on my Christmas card list.

Communal means that it's the OP's garden too. Leaving the units neatly stacked up while it's clear there is ongoing work, shouldn't be a problem. All it needs is for one neighbour to ask for an update on plans to remove them - it doesn't mean they have a right to badger the OP or be rude. Most normal people would just assume the OP will move the old kitchen as soon as her work is done. They'd only really be put out if the rubbish was spread out all over the place or there for longer than a week or two.

They just sound like people with too much time on their hands - so long as the OP isn't hogging all the parking spaces then her neighbours have no business policing the cars, let alone measuring the spaces. That's weird!
I think grey rock is the way to go - just say it's in hand or not their concern and carry on. Ring the police if they do anything as batshit as pile up the cabinets against your door.

OP,
If you are feeling harrassed and targeted by this man and your quiet enjoyment of your home is being interfered with call 101 and report him.

Ask for a reference number and give it to the management company.

Do not tolerate it and do not move because of it.

The idea that you have to go and ask you neighbours for permission to have work done in your home and use the communal area as storage for those works short term is batshit mental.

as the OP says, nobody comes and asks her if they decide to have work done on their houses. It’s insane.

people like the OPs neighbour are not normal and should not be normalised.

I agree.
I'm blessed with my polite distant neighbours which I have carefully cultivated by being politely distant too!

We are most consideratevof those
around us in a very urban setting but I'm wouldn't tolerate this for a second.

Older bossy men get on my tits.
Older bossy men sticking their nose in my business would be dealt with very firmly.

He needs to be told to back off, unambiguously, preferably by the police and the management company.

“The idea that you have to go and ask you neighbours for permission to have work done in your home and use the communal area as storage for those works short term is batshit mental.

as the OP says, nobody comes and asks her if they decide to have work done on their houses. It’s insane.

people like the OPs neighbour are not normal and should not be normalised.”

^I agree, I feel sorry for you OP having to put up with those dickhead neighbours

I feel your pain User57327259! We've moved into an apartment complex after selling our house, until we find something a bit bigger to buy. We had the old dead plants outside our apartment removed and new ones planted. The old compost was put into a wheelbarrow and my DH took it into the communal woods to spread there. Within 5 minutes he was accosted by one of the first female residents to move in here. Since then it's been non-stop! Parking wards, complaining that people park on their fake double yellow lines they painted themselves INSIDE the car park. I had one woman who can't reverse tell me I'm spoiling her life for parking where I did because she's not good at reversing. We have an elderly man who pushes his shopping cart between cars and has scratched them. They're batshit crazy! Can't wait to move out.

Forgot to say he was accosted for spreading compost on soil!

Ok so it’s a pile of broken up fake wood cabinets. Doesn’t sound nice to look at or particularly safe, especially if visiting grandchildren are using the gardens.

What I don’t understand is why they couldn’t be collected immediately? You knew when they would be smashed up and removed from your house but didn’t want collected until what sounds like a week later? What other rubbish are you waiting for? Why wouldn’t you have it removed at the start? As too cheap to book two collections.

You mention communal gardens, allocated parking, retired people and a property management company. When you have these factors you often get people policing the neighbourhood sometimes to an obsessive degree. Your cardinal sin was not to inform the retired group Captain of your work schedules, rubbish removal schedules and you didn’t seek their permission! etc. They tend not to approach big, hairy men for the same crimes because they’re cowardly. I expect one of them has clocked the Ring doorbell so you probably won’t get many knocks on the door now.

Some of these people need more hobbies and a course on neighbourly relations. If you’re having any more work done send them an hourly schedule with lots of brightly coloured symbols on it 😉 It’ll give them something pretty to look at.

@Pollianne goodness it is as if you know these people so well. I have not seen a big hairy man in this vicinity, just a bunch of dweeps who like to think they are something when actually they are the gossipmongers. It is just a pity that there are no big hairy men around here but this crowd would not take a man like that on. He was not even successful in controlling this somewhat small female - horror of horrors that small woman answered him back. I bet that gave him worries.

I would love to give an hour by hour full technicolour schedule for the next work that is being done but I do not have the workmens' details yet. Like height weight and how many pies they can eat in an hour.
I now just go in and out of my house in a rush every time.
You should see what another neighbour has done now and not a word has been said so far. One rule for the flying monkey and another for me clearly.

@Fancylike It was not a pile of fake wood cabinets - it is piece of cabinets which are all made out of contiboard as usual. The cabinets were been dismantled. There were no smashed cabinets at all
You have raised an interesting point. Despite this area being so full of older people, there are no visiting grandchildren. There are no children seen here at all , none living here and not visiting ones either, which is very strange.
The council binmen are never called here to standby outside a property which is having work done. Do they do that in your area?
It does not matter what I have done or what I may do in the future it was never going to please "the geriatric enforcement crew"

Why didn’t your workmen take the crap away every day? Or you take it to the dump?