To ask whether we are nightmare NB or are they? And what can we do?

[advicepleaseandpfm]

Neighbour is in his early 70s - wife lives with him and they have a grown up son (he is married but wife lives in Asia and has their three children there). We knew they were a bit brusque when we moved in but we always got on with them and rubbed along - we tried to. I do remember one occasion when we had just moved in and someone fell over on the path outside their house and was bleeding, I saw it went out and helped them.
These neighbours sat in their lounge watching me while I called an ambulance - I was actually a bit upset because they are able bodied and have children and grandchildren, but their call if they don't want to help. I thought 'what type of neighbourhood are we in' - during lockdown they broke most of the social distancing rules and had relatives in the house. So I knew then maybe they weren't our cup of tea and in fact one of their grandchildren stayed and he was only 7 and was out in the local park all day and tried to set fire to some of the playground equipment and also wrote in permanent pen on the swing and slides.
Anyway that's the background and he did also say when we moved in 'it's a quiet neighbourhood, we make the noise around here'.
So we got a dog three years ago.
The neighbour started complaining about our dog barking, our dog is vocal but and does bark, but only for a few minutes and she goes to bed when we do. It can be annoying but where we live there are much noisier and more persistent dogs barking! And if she does bark in the night it's because we have foxes that scream in the park near us. I'm woken by them first. We play music to make sure she can't hear in.
Neighbour starts banging on the wall, telling us to shut up our dog. Even when its just a few minutes. On one occasion they set off fireworks in their garden then when our dog barked they banged on the wall. It gets really nasty where he's threatening to kill the dog and us. Swearing in front of our daughter and calling us awful names.

We ended up reporting him to the police. He then reports us to the council for noise nuisance - he sends a diary to the council and the officer calls us to tell us that the noise the dog makes is not unreasonable and because it's not all hours everything is fine. He'd put 2pm barking for a minute on the diary.

These neighbours do play loud music and they do have loud music every afternoon. I don't mind this - but the previous owner of our house was an elderly lady so maybe he's not happy about having a family of five here.

Anyway it gets to the stage where a few weeks we slam a door (actually our teenager slammed it) and we have the neighbour's son screaming at me and my husband out of the back window. I end up writing a letter and posting it through their door - saying we love our neighbours we don't want anything nasty to happen and I also said if we had to move - the neighbour is shouting at us to move - then is no guaranteed it won't be a younger noisier family who might make more noise.

Apparently that was seen a 'threat' and the son threatens to beat up me and my husband! We report to them to the police who are now looking at prosecuting. while this has gone on (for nearly two years) the neighbour has followed me down and up the street and shouted at me behind my back. I'm at least a foot shorter than him and he does it when no-one is around.

He's also done some other weird things I confronted him a few weeks ago he'd been drinking and he admitted that the dogs didn't make that much noise and his wife was ill so she was in pain and that kept him awake most nights. He said his grown up son had to put electrical wires up and needed to go to bed at 8am and get up at 6am. He said he'd been living here 48 years and had bought his house from the council so he should stay and we should move - I pointed out I have a primary and secondary school child.
For the record I start work at 6.30am from home for my job and I also have chatted to neighbours who tell me he's known for shouting 'bitch' out the window at women he doesn't like.
This morning (we are waiting for the police to update us) he tells my husband we are selfish scum and only think of ourselves (he knows both DH do volunteering and he knows what job I do) and that all our neighbours hate us and we need to move. Our dog did bark at 11pm last night - as we were out at a very rare fund raising event. We don't hold parties and now don't any family or friends round as we are scared of making noise. We want to move and rent out our house and live with our family nearby - and then move when my daughters finish school (one will be doing exams next year). How can we resolve this, he wants us to move - but we can't. Should we go round to our neighbours and see what we can do?

Train your dog not to bark , as a bare minimum.
Barking dogs drive people insane and most dog owners just don't get it or care.

Sorry to hear this OP. My neighbours are similar - in their 70s, lives in the house 50+ years, non-working adult son at home, don’t maintain their property or things like shared drains (which they legally should) but then doesn’t allow us to maintain boundaries etc either. Stores Luton Lorrie’s on the street and drive blocking all our light and his back yard is a scarp yard (but it objecting to us replacing the existing g 4ft fence with a 6ft one (we own the fence)). Steals anything left in anyone’s front garden and then lies. They wind up the whole otherwise very quiet.
mine are nasty but aren’t as threatening or abusive as yours. I’m planning on out living mine as will lose too much money and property is in low supply here. I think you’re doing the right thing renting yours out - just beware that if the new tenants log police complaints then it’s more on the record for your house - they are t going to care about the impact it has on the saleability of your property. Maybe put a ‘no dogs’ restriction on?

You shouldn't have mentioned the dog OP, Mumsnet notoriously hates dogs and despite the fact that this man is clearly an absolutely batshit lunatic who has literally threatened to physically harm you, people will side with him because "DOG BAD" and they simply can't get their brains past that point to "neighbour has actually admitted the dog isn't noisy".

Honestly people like this never, ever change. If you can move, do. If you can't, completely grey rock. Record him any time he's behaving threateningly and keep reporting every single time. I'm so sorry you're dealing with this.

They’re problem neighbours.

However what I will say (and I say this as a devoted dog lover and owner of a vocal dog myself) it’s not acceptable to let your dog bark for ‘a few minutes’ while you’re in the house. That’s a long time for a dog to be barking, especially in the middle of the night.

From what you have said it sounda like this neighbour man is in a really bad place. He confided in you when drunk and his sick wife is probably taking a huge toll. If nothing else has worked, have you tried just trying to start again with them. Kill them with kindness, that sort of thing. It sounds like your letter was worded wrongly 'we dont want anythijg nasty to happen' does sound like a threat tbh. I might try and do something OTT nice as a gesture as a last resort, say you want to clear the air and start again. Take the higher ground and if that doesnt work then tbh im not sure what you can do.

Yes, contrary to what’s widely accepted, having children and grandchildren doesn’t make someone a kind person - not sure why people make this assumption, especially given that many parents even abuse their own children. I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with this. It must be very distressing.

OP, I’m so sorry to hear what you’re going through. I have to say I’m gobsmacked at the amount of people that are mentioning your dog barking being an issue rather than the man following you down the street shouting at you with your young child in tow. Whether it’s a man, woman (or dog I suppose 😉 ) who follows you, intimidating you, it’s not on. If you are able to record it, any of it, please do and this can support you if you need to take any of it further.

in relation to the dog barking, what would people prefer, something going on / someone breaking into their house and your dog stay quiet? And yes, I have a dog, who barks at cats / birds in HIS garden, barks when a low flying plane flies over as to him it’s definitely a UFO bless him and more importantly, when HIS ring doorbell gets pressed. Although we’ve noticed, when we’re out and it gets pressed, he doesn’t bark or make a sound typically. Yet when we’re in and it goes off, he’s the first one at the door barking. But it’s all to protect his family. And to be honest, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

good luck OP!

Update. We've been keeping our 'heads down' and neighbour was away for a few days (unusual for them). He gets back and matches around to at least one neighbour telling them that we (DH and I) told him that they hated him!
We've done nothing of the kind.
I'm also getting spammed by house selling sites via texts. I gave both sets of neighbours my mobile number back in March 2020 (pandemic) to tell them if they needed anything to let me know. So they've got my mobile no.

That's definitely stepping into the harassment category - but that is relatively easily sorted. You get yourself another SIM card - put the one you currently have that is getting spammed on to a PAYG tariff and get a new number for the new SIM card.
Put the SIM that's getting spammed into a drawer and only check it once a week.

Give the new number out to only close friends and immediate family and school and doctor.

I'm not sure if there is a way that Ofcom can remove your mobile number from marketing spam but if they can, you might start there as that would be easier than having to change your number but I really don't think they will cease what they are doing unless you send them a Cease & Desist letter via your solicitor.