Neighbour has told our village I am a thief

[crazyneighbour123]

NC as obviously outing

Last night around 8:30pm a delivery driver asked me to take a parcel for a neighbour a few doors down and said he had knocked my door as my gate was open (all houses on my street have a gate and a pathway to the front door, roughly 20meters). The parcel was 2ft high and 2ft wide and heavy so I managed to push it along my hallway out of the way.

Here is the issue. At 6:50am there was banging and when I say banging I mean banging on my front door. I ran downstairs worried something was wrong and hoping it wouldn’t wake the whole house up.

It was my male neighbour who is in his 40s who didn’t bother to say hello only said where is my parcel. I explained it come last night let me get it. As I was pushing it down the hallway towards the door he said ‘ no need to be so dramatic there’s no need to pretend it’s too heavy that’s why you didn’t bother to bring it over last night, you just could not be bothered’ . I was shocked and just said how he wasn’t in thats why the deliver drive gave me the parcel and it is heavy. He then said he was in but was having his dinner and it was raining so didn’t answer the door and I should have had some respect and done the polite thing and taken the parcel to him. I started laughing as I thought he was joking. He then tried picking it up and realised how heavy it was and how far he had to go with it told me the least I can do is help him carry it back to his house I laughed and said I couldn’t. He then called me a waste of space. I then told him ‘ I hope there’s weights in that box cause you bloody well need them’ and shut the door.

He has now posted on the village Facebook (I know social media is the root of all evil) and has bad mouthed me and called me a thief and a chav and that everyone should be careful around me as I will try and take their deliveries to keep for myself. This is not true and unluckily for him I have this all recorded on the ring doorbell. You can hear us both word for word and see how angry he is in the video. Question is would I be unreasonable to post it onto the village Facebook group or should I just send it privately to the main admin person. My only issue with sending it privately which is the more mature option is the main admin owner walks her dogs with him so not sure if she would fully make the other members of the group aware of what actually happened? I could just try the private route first but it’s making me feel awkward going out today that everyone in the village thinks I’m a thief.

YANBU - post it on the Facebook group so the whole village will know the truth

YABU - send it only to the admin privately and hope she does the right thing

OP. Has. Already. Dealt. With. This.

Read her posts.

Ha. You certainly are! I think we're (UKers at least) all overdue our bedtime. I'm certainly tired and grumpy!

@SchoolTripDrama Seeing as you know just oh so much about Facebook, you might want to keep in mind that people can search for the posts you’ve put up in the third screenshot you posted and identify they relate to a specific town and then identify the group they came from very efficiently if they take into account the number of members, provided by your first screenshot. They can quite easily from there identify you personally from your profile picture that you left on the bottom of the screenshot. You should probably ask mumsnet to take those down.

Think I would post the whole thing on Facebook.
Its clear proof of your innocence

Keep it short and sweet
“Just to clarify what happened with xx parcel that I took in.” “ just in case there’s any confusion”.
Tbh I’d forever think people would be thinking bad of me. This will clear it all up.

Ok ok ok
just bothered to read the last posts
Good job OP
Looking forward to seeing his response.

See a lawyer with a view to suing him for defamation.
Demand a full public apology and that it is printed prominently in all the local papers and social media.

Just post the video to group, why are you even dithering? There's such a thing as being way too soft for your own good sometimes.

Well, approximately 500,000 comments to FB every minute of the day. I could be wrong, but I strongly suspect that's a few more than get posted to Mumsnet. Of course some of this half million might not all be connected to that village's group. Even so it's a bit silly to claim that no-one bothers with FB.

Personally, if I had the time and money, I'd sue the neighbour for libel and defamation. Given the evidence it would be a slam dunk and fairly amusing.

He won't respond because he knows he was in the wrong.

This

What is your village FB group like? What are posting rules and is it possible that he's breached the rules of the group or is it an unpleasant free for all? I would talk to the admin rather than responding to him or sharing the video, unless they've already actively taken his side.

Didn't RTFT

I'd do this

Sorry, missed the bit about them walking dogs together, but you could still message the admin saying that what he's posted is untrue, and asking whether his post could be taken down and replaced by a reminder of the rules if any, or if not, whether you can have a right of reply.

By all means keep the video, and even let the village grapevine know that this is recorded, but you could start by responding with your side of what actually happened, and your shock at his reaction and what he's posted about you. Surely not everyone in the village is going to agree that if you're asked to take a parcel, it's up to you to take it round immediately, especially as it's very heavy and it seems reasonable to think that he wasn't in.

I've fortunately had pretty good neighbours on the whole, who were always grateful that I had taken parcels for them. Once with a heavy package which was a bit in the way in my very small hall I knocked on the door after a couple of days and said I had a package and would he be able to come and get it? He did so. Your neighbour's reaction is not normal. Even if people know him and don't know you, they may be able to see his good side but not assume that everything he said is true.

Well some in the village may not know him well enough to make a judgment. I know if I were accused I would defend myself. He is trying to publicly shame the OP so she should be free to defend herself and publicly shame HIM.

Sure...........

Absolutely this.

I bet he has form for this type of behaviour, you won't be the only one

You can be sure that you are the not the first or only person that this person has been difficult with. Just ignore it. His rant says more about him than it does about you. Please tell me that if any other parcel is ever delivered to you for him that you will flat out refuse to accept it. Let it sit on his porch and disintegrate.

But how do you do that without having it be a “he said, she said” never ending Facebook posting? He is not worth the time or effort to refute him. Be the better person and ignore him. If those that don’t know his true colours yet, they will at some point.

Oh FFS OP, you need to cancel the cheque!

🤭

Personally, if I had the time and money, I'd sue the neighbour for libel and defamation. Given the evidence it would be a slam dunk and fairly amusing.

You don't need any money, just the will to no let some nasty piece of work get away with nothing more than a slap on a wrist, or not even that. Stupid and arrogant as he is, he probably left a trail of undeniable evidence of slander. Any no-win no-fee lawyer would gladly sink their teeth in a such easy and deserving prey.

He's a regular Mr Heckles. Does he have a monkey in a tutu?
(Nicely handled btw OP!)

Contact the admin, see what they think. If they’re a decent human being, they’ll take the post down, remove him from the group and post an apology and an explanation.

Yep, post it.

Post a message saying that this is untrue and people are welcome to view your doorbell footage to see what really happened!