Nosey neighbour

[Foodieasfuck]

We live in a cul de sac. There are a few houses at our end. One lady lives alone. She’s mid 70’s and seems to spend a lot of time alone. We all tend to look out for her and do what we can to make sure she’s OK. She does have a daughter who visits every now and then but apart from that she has no visitors.

We recently had some work done in our garden…(this is relevant). We’ve just been away for a few days and whilst we were there my ring doorbell shows a person alert and low and behold there is our neighbour, with her phone over our gate (it’s tall so she wouldn’t be able to see in) taking photos of our garden…she then stood there going through them all on her phone, didn’t quite get what she wanted so took a few more… she took about 10 in total.
I didn’t see the footage until a bit later so it wasn’t live (otherwise I would have spoken to her there and then), I just watched and couldn’t believe what I was seeing… at first I was annoyed, then I found it funny and now it’s just really cringey and, now that I’m home, I feel like my privacy has been invaded.

The devil in me wants to go and speak to her about it and then the nicer side of me thinks she would be mortified and never leave her house again and I should say nothing. Worse things are going on in the world.

What would you do?
AIBU for wanting to tell her?

You could always knock in her door and ask if she wants to pop over for a cuppa and to see the garden, as you know the fence is too high for her to see over...

Could she have dementia and be displaying signs of inappropriate behaviour?

Perhaps she wants work done herself and thought she'd see what sort of job your guys had done.

Is there any chance that any work you had done infringes on anything to do with her house, even down to noise perhaps? Thats the only reason I could think someone would want to take photos. Aside from that, I think you're right in that she's elderly and would probably be mortified if she realised you saw this. Perhaps wait and see if she does anything else weird and then bring it up.

I’d go and tell her you saw her taking photos and ask her why, if she’s concerned about noise etc.

I’d knock the door and say ‘thought I’d pop over as I’ve just caught something a bit funny on my ring doorbell camera… looks as though you were taking photos of our garden. Is everything ok- you are more than welcome to come and see it in person.’

lol to the PP that suggested dementia only about 3 posts in

It odd but I don't see its done any real harm. If just leave it, it'll only make things awkward if you bring it up.

Thanks all… the work was finished a couple of months ago. I think she was probably just having a nosey…
I’ll monitor it and see how things go.
im not going to mention it.

OP you’re more tolerant than I am. Good job you weren’t nude sunbathing that day!

To be honest this is probably something I'd do as I love looking at what people do with their gardens and houses. I'm one of those who watches endless gardening programmes, homes under the hammer, redecoration programmes etc. I expect she was probably just being nosy like me 🫣. Not meaning any harm, just intrigued with what you'd had done. I wouldn't do anything or say anything just presume she was looking out of curiosity.

Maybe she wants to show someone what you’ve had done? An adult child looking for similar, or a friend.. or maybe just to gossip a bit with someone about the latest goings on in the road? It’s unlikely she’ll have done it for a truly malicious reason, unless you’ve built some colossal structure she wants to complain about

Pop over and make a light comment about how nothing is secret these days because of ring doorbells, then offer her to have a look at the garden and say she only has to ask but can she not trespass again in future.

Maybe she wants a quote for similar work doing to her garden. See it as a compliment?

If she was up at your window taking photos of inside I would say something, but I don't see much harm. She's told someone you had work done and maybe wants to show them.

Or maybe trying to get some ideas foe her own. She knew you were away and thought you wouldn't know.

lol she knew we were away! Haha 😛

I would let this one instance go. I suspect she was just curious and didn't mean any harm. However, if she does something like this again, I would definitely have words with her.