We moved into a new apartment (we currently rent) in January of this year. We live in a triplex (I think in the UK, this would be a one-up, one-down flat), and we share the same entrance with the people who live in the upstairs apartment. Upstairs, there is a divorced mother-of-two, who shares custody with her ex. Her boyfriend currently lives with her, but according to the landlord, he isn't on the lease. At first, the woman seemed nice, but her boyfriend came across as slightly odd. He works an early shift, and he makes no effort to be quiet when he clomps down the stairs and slams the door shut at 5 in the morning when he leaves, and his car which he parks just outside is super loud, and he revs the engine a lot before he leaves. My husband often works night shifts, and he's always careful to tread lightly down the stairs so as not to disturb anyone, and gently closes the front door. There have also been occasions when my husband has greeted him in passing, and the guy has literally ignored him... but again, maybe he's just a huge introvert? But still, weird af.
Not long after we moved in, the bathroom ceiling began leaking, and it did some water damage. The plaster was peeling off, and my husband bumped into the boyfriend and asked him if he knew what was causing it, since their bathroom is directly above ours. The boyfriend was adamant it was the pipes at fault. We approached the landlord about it, and they investigated upstairs to find that water was leaking through a gap in the bathroom floor. The landlord sealed it up, and the landlord also mentioned that he's been trying to get into upstairs' apartment for a while to fix the issue, and that the boyfriend was a bit dumb for not having put a towel down or used a shower curtain properly to prevent water from getting on the floor. He also went as far as to say that he reckons the guy has a bit of a screw loose, and seems a little 'psycho.'
Not long after that, it was about 10 o'clock at night, my son (three years old) was sleeping, and I was relaxing in the living room watching something on my phone, when I heard someone come up the stairs and rattle the doorknob. I freaked out, cos I thought it was someone trying to get into the apartment, so I ran to the peephole, and when I looked through, I saw a random guy walk upstairs. A few minutes later, the same guy walk back down with the boyfriend (I'd seen this guy visit the boyfriend before, so I knew it wasn't a case that he was trying to get into the wrong apartment), and when they left, he quite deliberately slammed the door super loudly three times. It was a miracle it didn't wake my son...
The sound of the door banging woke my husband up who had been sleeping, and I told him what just happened. My husband confronted the boyfriend when he came back home not long after, and asked him who it was that rattled the doorknob, and the boyfriend said it was his cousin. My husband respectfully told him that it wasn't ok for him to do that, and also not to bang the door repeatedly late at night when our kid was sleeping. The boyfriend wouldn't even look my husband in the eye, and he muttered some excuse about how the door sometimes gets stuck.
A week or so later, I'd ordered a package from amazon, but it arrived late in the evening and I didn't realise it had been delivered. It had been left outside the front door to the building, and there was a photo proving that it had been delivered intact. That same night, our downstairs neighbour was having drinks outside with a few people, and they sounded drunk, and the boyfriend was also there. My husband had been invited, but he was too tired and had declined. The following morning, my husband opened our apartment door to find my parcel destroyed. Someone had opened the box, taken out the moisturiser, squeezed most of it out, and then replaced the lid. It must have been one of the upstairs neighbours who had brought it up and placed it outside our door since no one else has access to the property besides the landlord, but of course we had no proof that they had been the ones to also tamper with it.
My husband said maybe it was their kids who did it, but why would they see the damaged parcel and just leave it outside our door instead of speaking to us about it? And I can't imagine someone from the street would see the package, tamper with it, and then leave. If someone wanted to steal it, they would have just taken it.
This incident was the tipping point, so we told the landlord about what's been going on, and asked if we could install a camera outside our apartment door for our own personal safety. The landlord said that was absolutely fine. We put the camera in visible sight at the top of our door, and when my husband reviewed some of the footage, it was clear from our neighbours' looks that they were not happy with the camera being there. Soon, the mother came knocking, and said she's noticed the camera, and asked if there were any issues she should be aware of. My husband calmly told her about the destroyed package, and she said it was her boyfriend who brought the package inside, but didn't go any further into whether it was her kids or her boyfriend who'd tampered with it. My husband didn't accuse her, since we had no solid proof, but he did mention the shaking of the doorknob and the deliberate slamming of the front door, and since I'm left on my own with our toddler son while my husband works night shifts, he wanted to install the camera before things escalated. She then proceeded to accuse my husband of being aggressive towards her (he wasn't), and even went so far as to say she didn't know what we were doing with the footage of her kids, which is absolutely disgusting considering we are parents ourselves, and they're the ones which are set on creating conflict.
The day after, an amazon delivery guy came to deliver a couple packages to the building, one of which was for the upstairs apartment. When I handed the package over to the neighbour, she gave me a horrible look and snatched it out of my hands. So who's being the aggressive one now??
Was installing the camera the right thing to do? I'm nervous about whether they'll try and make life difficult for us, and it's made living in such close quarters really awkward. We have no idea why they turned against us, whether it was simply because we raised the issue of the water leak. I do feel a lot safer having a camera there when I'm on my own. People can be so effing weird!