Difficult neighbour or am I being a tiger mum?

[Tangofantastic]

Genuinely can’t see the wood for the trees here so hoping for your thoughts.
Lived in same semi detached house for nearly 10 years, at first neighbour who I’m attached to was friendly but fairly quickly I realised we are quite different so kept polite distance (one of many examples was when she asked for my help to talk to a bordering neighbour garden about their new trees overlooking her house and she wanted support to do this so I agreed, but when we got there it was a very different conversation to what I thought we were going to have, she was verbally aggressive and rude to this poor lady and I stood there mortified, and later went round with flowers to apologise and say had I known that’s what she was going to do / say I wouldn’t have come with he).
fast forward 7 years and I’m now on my own here with 2 kids, one of whom has autism and sensory needs. He offloads by playing basketball in the front which I make sure is only for 20-30 mins at a time and never past 7pm or before 7am. He does meltdown in and outside house about 1-2 times a day with screeching / shouting / hitting himself/ stimming which most of my neighbours know about and kindly “ignore” as he becomes more distressed with input from people talking at him when melting down. He does need to be outside at these points as inside he is a risk to his little sister and smashes things so I was advised to let him be outside for these meltdowns which last around 15 mins.

over the last year it’s become nearly impossible with my Neighbour, every day there’s a new problem she arrives at my door to talk about: my son making noise, her music students not liking walking past our house if my son is outside (she works from home teaching music) our dog walking past her driveway and setting off the ring door bell, my working from home and she can hear my calls through kitchen wall (this feels unlikely but even if true I can’t not work from home), my bins not being in the right place, and then finally my straw broke so to speak when she arrived at my door when I was mid-work call to say my son had sworn outside (to himself, not at her) when she was walking past with a friend and she wants me to stop the anti social behaviour. I was pretty short with her, explaining I was working and that my son is 10, has autism and does meltdown and I manage that as best I can, he’s in the house 7pm - 7am at least so he can’t bother the neighbours but she just kept going until I had to shut the door on her. I’ve woken up to a note saying she’s installing cctv and will be recording the disturbance from my son and general noise. I feel really upset by it as I try my best, I know my son is challenging but he’s not challenging her, it’s all on my property (Albeit attached to her) but I just hoped for some understanding that it’s not easy and I do the best I can.
what do I do now? I’ve tried being nice, made all the accommodations I think I can, and now I feel relations have completely deteriorated and I simply don’t know what else I can do. I don’t like the idea of cctv recording but it’s her property so 🤷‍♀️

i feel like she’s making me out to be a shameless Style family with a single mum and unruly kids but I try my best. What, if anything, should i do? Thank you 🙏

Yes. Why should the neighbours have to put up with that.

My brother sounds similar to your son. I've heard people ask my mum about him saying diplomatically that they got a fright from the noises he made. She's always apologised while laughing it off and saying that's just him basically. I have no help for you but really feel for you. Hope she eases up somehow x

Thank you! and yes that’s my
worry- every time it feels like she just shifts the goalposts and I’ve dealt with it so far but it is now hurting me because of my son and that’s my break point ☹️

It’s the advice
from his mental health team, and he finds it soothing. I don’t put him out 🙄he goes out by.

I think you’re massively unreasonable to just leave your child outside when he’s being so loud and causing a disruption, especially from 7AM! It’s not discrimination to expect you to at least consider your neighbours? As PPs have suggested, there are a lot of neurodiverse people or people with MH issues (myself included) who would find it incredibly distressing and anxiety-inducing to wake up daily to this. It’s not fair to just turn him out into the garden.

Oh I have neighbours like yours so I can fully sympathise. Mine are absolute hell and we live above them. They can have parties under our window with adults swearing loudly but heaven forbid any of us have a meltdown.
My school refusing ASD child had a meltdown and they called the police saying he was being abused. I had a massive meltdown and they called the police saying I was being abused.

All l cam suggest is you keep a meticulous record of her behaviour and contact the police for each incident (because you can be sure she will be with her skewed narrative). What she's doing is harassment, and as someone that's dealt with 5years of it so far, it's not something that she'll stop

Ah I get it. You don't actually want to be told you are in any way, shape or form unreasonable. The fact you have zero empathy or understanding that women can be triggered by violent behaviour even if not directed at them shows that.

I wouldn't like to live beside that noise either OP, I did once before, years ago and it nearly drove me insane. I reckon the woman must be at the end of her tether and I don't blame her and you just expect her to put up and shut up about it. It's not a one way street. The noise is severely affecting her, surely you can see that.

We had a kid that used to live next door that would go into complete meltdown and smash the place up. If the mother had got off Tinder and paid her more attention I think that might have helped.

Tell her where to go, she's harassing you and she won't stop.

From your posts I can see that you've stopped him playing in the back garden at her request along with your daughter so she's not disturbed now she wants you to prevent him being out the front also.

She's complaining that she can hear your calls when working, by the same logic I would assume you can also hear her working from home while teaching.

Your dog is setting off her ring doorbell 🙄 the same doorbell that disturbs you...

Stop living your life around this woman, let
your children play on their slides in your garden. It sounds like she needs to consider moving somewhere detached if she cannot live alongside regular family noise.

Firstly OP you have my sympathies, it must be very hard with your son and you are doing your best.

From the other side, a friend has finally put her house on the market after living next door to an autistic child who has meltdowns etc and is often outside. Of course no one is suggesting that these children are doing anything other than what is normal for them, but it has truly been a nightmare to live next door to. I don’t think you would realise as obviously you have to deal with your son 24/7 and may understandably be immune to the level of disturbance?

You may also question deep down why someone would feel the need to install cctv to record disturbances if it isn’t really that bad. That just doesn’t make sense. It presumably is bad.

Does your neighbour have any understanding about ND children? Has she interacted with him when he is calm? It may help to discuss this together, although I realise it maybe too late.

Do you not have a back garden: it seems a bit sad letting a 10 yo have meltdowns in the driveway. He gets no privacy.

are you going to allow your son to melt down in the front garden as he gets older OP?

You said before that he was in his room on a call while you were on the work call - was that a different time?

How do you know she was on tinder during the meltdowns?

Because I knew her character and what was important to her ie herself

So you can't use your back garden you can't use your FRONT garden snd she can hear noise coming from your house so she would be able to hear him in your house too....just where is she expecting you to put your child?

Also Google is unclear it seems to say you can record your property and your children but not your neighbours property or your neighbours children? Which is in effect what she is threatening to do

You stop worrying and wait for her next move.

Return him to the back garden, ignore everything else she#s saying

You need to stop trying to accommodate her. Read up on antisocial noise and behaviour and try to worry less about what she doesn't like when it falls outside of this.

You can use your back and front garden as much as you like during normal hours.

If she doesn't like it she can move.

She's never going to be happy.

And would you be ok living next to a music teacher giving classes to a lots of students throughout the day from home, and their parents parking on your drive? You think OP is not puuting up with noise coming from next door music school

How your ex neighbour being on tinder is relevant to the OP?

They don't park on her drive, and op says she can hear the doorbell (!), not any music related noise from inside the house.

I think I'd tell her that you're going to have your children and dog in the back garden where they are safe and have privacy. Good luck to her complaining about children making noise - and bubbles how dare they - in their own garden!

I hate to say it but as your son gets older and particularly when he goes through growth spurts in the next couple of years, people might be afraid of him if he's having a meltdown in your front garden (which I'm presuming is visible to the neighbours/the open street). You know he's a child and that's how you see him but if I walked down a street and a man sized person was swearing etc outside a house (and I didn't have any context) I would probably be scared. The fact that he's swearing "to himself" wouldn't necessarily be very reassuring. I'm sure that the last thing you want is for him to see people as fearful of him, the poor lad, so it might be as well to get him used to going in the back garden again now.

Most of all I just want to say well done to you for being a caring and patient mum, under such difficult circumstances. The kids are really lucky to have you.

You wouldn’t want to live next door to a child who might be in his own garden making noise between 3:45 ish and 7pm? Is it all children you object to or only disabled children?