To be this upset a bully who reports me to police gatecrashed coronation street party

[HairySatsuma]

Having singlehandedly organised a street party last year for the jubilee - inc risk assessment, paying for insurance, street notices, spending £500 by the end - that was a great success I stupidly did it all again this year for the coronation. I bought most of the bunting, put it up, arranged tables/chairs/canopy, decorated the canopy, went round the whole street 4x to get everyone involved, blew up an awesome balloon display, licked paper chains to decorate, contacted neighbours to remove cars, organised music, plates etc. Same as last year only a handful of lovely neighbours helped; it was pretty much all me.

But it was 'gatecrashed' by a neighbour I didn't invite who's just moved in to my building and has caused me incredible stress and anxiety - I've recently recorded high BP for the first time in my life. He's a leaseholder, I'm a freeholder and he does whatever he wants without permission. I stopped him undertaking work in a communal area about which I knew nothing. He called the police. I asked him to remove a Ring doorbell at the communal front door he was using to spy on me (not paranoid; another neighbour confirms) and when he missed two deadlines I removed it myself, told him I had no intention of keeping it but needed written assurance he wouldn't re-install it before returning it. He called the police claiming theft. Both times the police told him I was right and he needed to apologise. But the time wasted sorting all that out and writing to him to list his many misdemeanours meant I missed the deadline for official street closure which almost scuppered the whole event.

He bangs on my door, he turns up at my back door, he calls me and harangues me on the phone to the point I've had to tell him I want no direct contact with him as I consider his activity to be harassment (there's tons of other incidents). So when he walked into the party I asked him to leave. He refused and said it was his street and he therefore had every right to be there. I pointed out I'd organised the whole thing. But he was supported by two sets of neighbours who literally did nothing to help or contribute yet argued with me and then went down the pub with him when it came to clearing up (they're not friends yet; he only moved in two months ago and one of them knew of the problems).

I'm so upset that it's ruined what should have been a great day and was an even better success than last year's only because of huge cost to my time and purse. The guy's an entitled bully and I recognise him striding in to the party was part of that behaviour but it still made me cry out of anger and frustration that he was benefitting from my hard work and these two couples who just turned up and had a great time felt they could tell me what to do. AIBU?

@Dalekjastninerels Crikey, how many times do I have to keep saying I'm taking on board the consensus! But! How many people would attempt to benefit from the hospitality of the person responsible when you'd caused so much trouble for them - calling the police because you've been stopped doing something you had no permission to do that involved their space and rights and dependent on lying both times.

What work did he want to do the property that started all this?

So he returns from holiday and discovers that people are outside his window making a noise and setting up a party.

A street party. Not a private event.

The noise is so bad that he has to shut his window.

The event is right outside his property.

So he decided to not have to put up with the noise and instead go and join in.

His behaviour was/is irrelevant to his attendance at the party, as it was not a private party.

Glad you are taking the consensus on board; but you really aren't as you are saying he should have attended.

Should not!!

Could Mumsnet please have an Edit Button?

Thank you, @saveforthat. Yes, I think that's the case. Even if he was entitled to go I don't think he should have considering his attempts to get me into trouble - being reported to the police is stressful and time wasting even if you end up vindicated. As I said street parties are usually organised by streets and if that had been the case here I'd have had to lump it. But he'd wasted so much of my time as I was trying to organise it that to me it's just wrong he then benefits.

All I will say is I'm glad I don't live on this street

@Dalekjastninerels I think it's possible to hold two positions. I had no right to tell him he shouldn't have been there. But considering the trouble he'd caused he shouldn't have gone. I doubt I'd do this again as I'm just not willing to do this amount of work when someone who causes me such stress benefits. To be fair, there are too many people now who don't do anything or even say thank you; I know I can't be that altruistic - daft - a third time. But as it's likely he'd do the same again I guess I won't.

Even if he heard you on the phone etc, he had no way of knowing it wasn’t organised by ‘the street’. He couldn’t have known you’d organised it and paid for it single handedly (that’s really not a normal thing to do so I doubt it would have occurred to him).

Dear lord shut up about organising the street party allllll by yourself- that was your CHOICE

Perhaps he's just a normal person who thought

'oh, a street party for the coronation, I'll check that out' rather than be thinking about you all the time like you seem to obsess about him.

Maybe he thought
'I'll get one of those ring doorbells so when I order a KFC or my mate Pete comes round I'll know about it'
like hundreds of thousands of other people. Maybe it's nothing to do with spying on you.

It seems like you want everyone to dance to the beat of your drum and he's just living his own life.

It's very likely he doesn't give you a second thought whereas you can't concentrate on anything else,

I get that OP, but I think people find it odd that only 1 person organised a street party. That isn't normally how they are organised. He might not have known you were the host.
I think it's a missed opportunity to make peace. In the long term having a feud with a neighbour is going to be terrible.

You definitely should not organise any more events. Nobody else cares and it seems to be a burden to you. You seem to want people to be grateful for this street party that none of them wanted.

I don't believe you that the police said you were right and made him apologise when you took his doorbell and said that you wouldn't give it back until he assured you he wasn't going to put it back up.

They say that in almost all neighbour disputes the complainant is almost always the source of the problem. It really does sound like you have an issue with people living their own lives the way they choose to. It sounds like you finally met your match and he isn't prepared to be bullied by you. Stop antagonising your neighbours and perhaps find a hobby. You do seem to have an awful lot of time on your hands.

What did you refuse to allow him to do that started all this?

There's lots of information I didn't include; this wasn't isolated behaviour. But there's nothing I can post if you decide that despite the evidence, I'm lying, is there, @MetalFences. I mean, there's no point in this thread at all if respondents are just going to go, yeah, well, don't believe you so there. There's only a point if you trust what I'm saying to be true as you have no evidence otherwise and you agree or disagree with it as stated - particularly when I'm not exactly winning on the information as stated.

What have I said that suggests I have a problem with people living their own lives, @CaroleSinger? And if someone complains a neighbour has encroached on their boundaries they're likely to be the problem themselves? Or if their neighbour plays death metal through the night it's actually the person 'listening' who's the problem? How does that work? And all those folk moaning about kids bricking their windows... well, it's the people complaining who are the real problem. Come on. Make sense. 'They say.' Sure, dude.

I was harassed for over a year by some loon of a neighbour. I wasn’t the only one who called police out on them.

They assumed I was the only renter on the block at one point and started a petition to only allow owners to use the communal space.

It brought many of us together. I never stopped using the space even community events.

A lot of people have asked about the work he wanted to do at the start of all this. It’s hard not to wonder why you haven’t answered this.

@Climbles I'm not sure that's what it's about but... when he first took possession he had to get permission for extensive refurb works that involved moving his front door. I pointed out difficulties with the position and suggested moving it nearer mine which his architects hadn't considered. But I almost immediately reneged on the grounds I'd overlooked how much it would increase noise from the hall straight into my living room. He was pretty miffed I wouldn't sacrifice peace in my main living space so he could have a bigger kitchen.

But I don't think that's it. Apart from that he's just done what he wants as if he owns the whole property. Like when I stopped him doing building work that is a freehold issue and involves a communal garden he called police and claimed a neighbour was obstructing his entry to HIS garden. When I removed his Ring doorbell he didn't tell police he hadn't obtained permission to install it; it was against the lease; he'd ignored two deadlines to remove it; and that I'd immediately written to him to tell him I didn't intend to retain his property (so isn't legally theft) but that he needed to abide by the lease. The leases stipulate what can be done to communal/freehold areas and he just does what he wants.

I really think the issue is you.

Funny how some neighbours took his side and the party you organised all by yourself with no one else helping you even though you were busy writing him a letter with everything you find wrong about him

Look, @lowlythirdremove, I've already made clear you can decide just to fight everything I post or argue with what I post when you can't prove I'm lying - what I'm posting is all you've got whether you like me or not. There is nothing I can do to persuade you that he undertook work for which he didn't have permission; it doesn't matter what that work was. I can tell you the police agreed with me and told him to apologise. What can I do if you don't believe that? Do you want a signed witness statement from the rozzer? Here's another idea: try going with what I'm telling you as if it's the truth and arguing from there. You're never going to be in a more educated position than me as an experienced freeholder and the police. Where would that leave you? I should have ignored his contravention of freehold/leasehold law?

I just can't believe that the police would tell someone to apologise to a person who had taken their doorbell and refused to give it back to them. It doesn't make any sense that they would say that to him. I can't believe it's true.

Yea I’d be annoyed as well. Paid fees, gained permission to move front door, neighbour suggested it was moved elsewhere, so a bit more money paid out, had a word with the builders to see if it was possible only for neighbour to come back and say actually no.

So he sought permission for his refurbishment. As a freeholder, you were one of the people who would grant permission. You suggested a modification to his plan, he changed the plan accordingly and then you refused it? And the reason you refused it was because of the modification you suggested?