my neighbour is gaslighting me

[doggodilemma]

I just feel like this is the only way to describe my feelings right now.

There's a lot of back story but I will keep it simple.

The other day at 1am, my neighbour climbed over the adjoining gate and knocked on our front door, my dog barked in response and I had woken up at the sound of his leg hitting the gate and then startled further by him knocking. My biggest fear is being broken into and I am in therapy for this and OCD behaviours around it (locking doors etc).

My dog is yappy, but to ensure that they don't bother anyone, especially at night, they are in bed with us. I wake up at the slightest noise because of the fears I have.

Next door is split into two flats, the man who climbed over (old man / potential dementia but seems fine) and a couple upstairs. The couple upstairs messaged me to say that from their perspective they heard barking that they thought was our dog but his behaviour is unacceptable. Old man has been ranting to them all morning because I put a letter through asking why he did it and he was afraid I'd call the police apparently.

I have Ring doorbell footage that shows silence as he comes over the gate and silence until the moment the first knock occurs on our door. I know my dog was in bed because when I woke up at the noise of someone climbing over our gate I was fully conscious and saw dog on bed and said 'NO!' to barking and then the knock happened and I shouted to DH "OMG someone is actually there"

FWIW, he bangs on our adjoining wall when he thinks the dogs are barking. This has happened when our dogs aren't even with us and at my parents (like before holidays etc)
Our whole street has dogs, it's always loud and my dogs only bark at post man / other dogs outside our house barking. So there's always another dog it could be plus loud foxes.

What also doesn't make sense is why I would hear him climb the gate but not my own dog barking for all the apparent time before the moment it occurred.

I feel like I'm going mad. Old man climbed our fence this morning and stuck his head through my kitchen door causing me to scream again - he wanted to clear the air and semi-apologised.

Not sure what I am asking for here but please help!

To be clear:
I don’t know if he has dimentia and have NO reason to think he does except for this behaviour

I feel like he’s gaslighting me because it CAN’T have been my dog barking as she was with me in my bed / door shut, but he keeps telling me it was and I’m feeling like I’m going mad.

So is he accusing your dog of barking earlier than you heard it and disturbing him, so he came over to complain via the gate? Just because other dogs bark does not make it ok for yours to.

Her dog WASNT BARKING it was asleep in the bedroom

The couple upstairs messaged me to say that from their perspective they heard barking that they thought was our dog but his behaviour is unacceptable

Even the other neighbours believed it was your dog!

Get a doggy cam?

Sorry my OP was confusing I’ll start again.

back story summarised: old man is very funny about noise, makes couple upstairs life a misery, he’s banned them from getting water at night / going to the toilet etc.
he hates dogs barking, mine do at reasonable times and events.

he always thinks any barking is my dog. even when it is impossible to be.

at 1am, he banged on my door but I was so scared by it that when I went down and saw the flashlight from his phone at my door I didn’t answer (in case it was a burglar and they pushed past me). I then assessed the Ring doorbell footage and saw it was him. I messaged couple upstairs and they said they heard barking so assumed he did it because of that.

In the morning he went out all day, so I wrote a letter asking to discuss. He has been threatening to me in the past and usually asks to only speak to my husband / man of the house. I am a bit scared of speaking to him.

today he has had the letter, got a ladder, at the back of the house he’s climbed the fence and shouted into my kitchen where I was making breakfast. I screamed in shock. He then said he was “letting me know they were barking”. I said that they can’t have been, he told me I was wrong. He then said “sorry if it was another dog”

hopefully that clears it up. I have always thought he maybe has dimentia because his behaviour is weird but he always remembers our names and has no other signs of illness. I was just trying to piece this together.

yes it is gaslighting to keep telling someone that something happened when I know it didn’t but know I no longer trust my brain.

It's not necessarily gaslighting. He may well totally believe its your dog barking, it can be hard to zero in on exactly where a sound is coming from, and he might just simply be mistaken about which house the barking is coming from.

Either way, it's irrelevant. You need to speak to him face to face and tell him clearly and simply that it is unacceptable under any circumstances for him to climb over your fence to access your property without permission. If he wants to speak to you he needs to ring the doorbell and wait till you answer the door. At the same time you can tell him that your dog sleeps in with you, and so you know that your dog is not the one barking in the middle of the night and that you will continue to ensure your dog doesn't do that. Don't be drawn into a discussion about anything, just repeat those two points until he gets the hint.

Oh to add to the gaslighting thing: he also told me the whole Road heard my dog, that everyone around us switched on the lights and asked him what had happened. This just didn’t happen, I am friends with all the neighbours. I also am a light sleeper.

@ZeroFuchsGiven because when he knocked, my dog did bark!

@Isaidnoalready but op admitted hers does bark during the day but thinks it is acceptable as others do too.

If he admitted he may have been wrong on this occasion surely that resolves the matter. Even if you don't answer the door he does take somewhat extreme measures to contact you. Was he climbing over the gate in the night or just today?

@LIZS my dogs bark for about 10 seconds a day when the postman comes (which isn't every day, we don't get a lot of mail) - I work from home and stop them immediately if they try because he is very intolerant to it and I want to be neighbourly.

He climbed over the fence at 1am too. He always climbs over the fence. He also didn't use the doorbell, he banged on the glass, which at 1am is very bloody scary. (I live in an urban area)

Well this is completely different to what you said in your previous post.

I am VERY involved with people with dementia and you did say in your first post that he was 'gaslighting' you and you thought he had dementia and i can assure you that anyone with dementia would not have the mental capacity to gaslight anyone.

Just out of interest though - how tall is your front fence and also your back?
You said he climbed over your front and you could hear him and then he got a ladder to scale your back fence to shout into your window to apologise for climbing your front one.

TBH - you sound dramatic!

Yes, this exactly. But now he's convincing me it was my dog when it was impossible and I keep trying to see if any other cameras activated beforehand to prove or deny my innocence. He keeps going round to all the neighbours to attempt to get them to attest that I am wrong. It's making my mind so confused!!

I have asked him many times to stop banging on my walls /climbing my fence but he refuses to listen.

Also the whole point in having a ring doorbell is you assess it whilst they are there rather than be so scared and THEN assess the danger after the event!

I said potential dementia, which I've explained again that this is what I've thought it could be. I have no evidence he has dimentia.

Front gate you can step over from his property as we have steps going up to the door (typical victorian house) and back fence is 6ft because...well, we have dogs.

I don't think it's dramatic to be afraid of someone harassing me. The police have been involved before, again, I said there was back story. But I wanted help with the current situation which is: him telling me/everyone it was my dog barking when there is no evidence to that only the contrary.

Wow! This old guy gets worse by the minute!

I can only imagine, if one or two more people think you're being unreasonable, we'll suddenly discover he has a history of murdering any dog that dares to bark and wanders the streets at night terrorising the neighbourhood with a gang of vigilantes!

What?

Totally agree with this advice.

No excuse for him to approach you the way he has so you may need to sort out your fence so he can't climb over. The ladder business is totally unacceptable and invasive. That must have been very frightening.

If he is particularly sensitive to noise this may be an ongoing problem, particularly if he's convinced it's your dog. If he does it again perhaps report to the police who may be able to steer him in the right direction if this is a dementia issue.

A friend of mine's dad ended up getting run over on one of his nighttime wanderings. Not your responsibility but putting it on record may get things moving if he's becoming a problem to himself as well as others.

I think it would have been better to include this info in your original post. The background is relevant I think.

If everything you have said is true and you're not misrepresenting the situation, i think you have a right to feel a bit threatened by this and be uncomfortable with it. Whether or not its gaslighting perhaps depends on whether he genuinely believes your dog is barking or is deliberately lying to you. Although I have come across people who say that unintentional gaslighting is a thing and it still makes you feel the same whether they intend it or not.

Anyway, regardless of whether he is deliberately gaslighting you and regardless of whether your dog was barking, its still unacceptable to climb over someone's fence, especially at 1am in the morning. I think you need to try having a conversation with him and just keep it simple - that regardless of the reasons you don't feel comfortable with him climbing over your fence or popping his head through the door uninvited. I would put this in writing and then report to 101 if he doesn't stop. If they investigate and it turns out he has dementia then hopefully he'll get the help he needs. But at the moment he just sounds like an unpleasant and potentially threatening old man and I don't think YABU for feeling the way you do.

Also, if he feels so strongly about the dog barking he needs to make a complaint to the council and allow them to investigate whether it really is an unreasonable disturbance. His concern about dog barking is not an excuse to be rude and threatening and climb over your fence!

Anti vandal paint? And one way film on the glass in the kitchen so you can safely ignore him

Just read this, ok so the issue here is he said at 1am he thought your dog was barking. Obviously at this point it wasn't your dog but, probably other times it was.

Maybe instead of diagnosing him with dementia, maybe he is just an elderly man who is annoyed with all the dogs barking and keeping him awake (whether that be yours or others).

Dementia is such an unbelievable thing for any person to have and it really is sad that in 2022 if someone acts 'odd' then it is suggested that they have dementia.

The most loving/ lovely, kind, generous people that i have ever met have dementia.

He’s not gaslighting you. He’s just incorrect and probably confused.

For it to be gaslighting he needs to know the actual truth, but be trying to convince you of the falsehood.

Tell him he is not to climb the fence. Tell him if he does it again you will involve the police.

And tell him you know it is not your dog barking, and stick to your guns on that. There is really no need for you to be doubting yourself here.

Why would a dog barking set everyone off. Tell him not come in your garden at night. Say sorry to the other neighbours about the dog. Then move on. If he continues reiterate that he is not to disturb you.

Dementia is not “an unbelievable thing for anyone to have”. It is very common. And unfortunately people who live alone sometimes do have to rely on neighbours spotting the signs and involving social care if needed (in our case by getting the police involved who were able to make a vulnerable persons report to flag it up).

Ignoring the fact that dementia exists helps no one.

Goodness me. What did you write in the letter to him and did you genuinely scream?