Neighbour knocking door at all hours asking for help

[daisyrabir]

There is a family that have recently moved in a few doors down.
English is not the native language and the family do not speak English very well.

A few times now the older lady has knocked on my door at around 10:30pm at night asking for help.
I did open the door and helped her with her phone issue.

Its like now it’s all the time, she will just come round in the day and night asking for help.

I have young children one of whom is a newborn and don’t want her to keep knocking on my door, especially at night.

She does this to the other neighbours as well.

DP has told me to just ignore the door now.
AIBU?

Eh?

It must be really difficult and lonely to be in a country where you don't speak the language and have no friends. If you wanted to be kind - could you cultivate a bit of a friendship with this lady, but more on your terms i.e. pop in for a coffee at x time on x day. Then she'll get a bit of company and you'll know her well enough to be able to put some boundaries in place without being mean?

A few times the whole family have been at home.

Fucks sake. Ignore her.

We had this with an elderly neighbour, she started shouting through the letterbox if we didn't answer saying i know you're in there Mr Nippy. We weren't ignoring her deliberately. One of the neighbours called her son who lived abroad and he enlisted the help of a family member to get her sorted the soul, she was suffering from dementia.

So I have spoken to my other neighbour who was the first one to interact with her and help her etc.

The lady is really becoming a nuisance to my neighbour.

My neighbour is a single mother who works full time and the lady is knocking on her door between the hours of 5am - 11pm at night on a daily basis.
At the moment her elderly parent is staying with her to watch the kids whilst she works so every time her mother is having to struggle to open the door.

She gave the lady her mobile number and now she calls her mom stop whilst she is at work.

My neighbour is a lovely woman and would help anyone and has been into the lady’s home for a cup of tea etc and she has confirmed that the lady lives at the property with her children and grand children so she definitely has family around.

I may sound harsh but I definitely don’t want to get friendly with the lady and have her on knocking on my door at all hours, like she does to my neighbour.
My neighbour has tried to establish boundaries “Please don’t come after 8pm” to no avail.

We have ordered a Ringdoor bell and in future I just won’t open the door to her as I don’t want her to latch onto me as she has done to my neighbour.

I have young children to look after, one of whom who doesn’t sleep that good and her doing the bell wakes him, it’s not right.

I did discuss the issue of dementia and my neighbour said she seems aware in herself, and doesn’t think it’s that just the cultural difference.

I assume she is from another culture so maybe she is used to have this sort of relationships with her neighbours? I would politely ask her not to come after 9pm. And if she does, ignore her.

Edited: Ah, just seen your update. She sounds extremely annoying - but maybe she is simply lonely? Has she got any family you could talk to - someone who could, in turn, talk to her?

Why shouldn’t she open her own door??

I've recently had an elderly neighbor try this with me. I helped her install an app once and she called me while I was at work. I told her I can't help her, because I did not want her to do this again (even if I was able to help at the time). She never tried it again.

Anyone who is saying she might be lonely - she lives with her kids and grandchildren and is knocking on the neighbours door from 5am to 11pm. Sometimes when her whole family is at home presumably watching her do this.

Any sympathy I had about loneliness has gone.

Any sympathy I might have had for the family has also gone.

’Cultural issues’ - which culture has women knocking on neighbours doors by themselves at these hours?

Her lack of boundaries have me wondering if she has a MH disorder. Not your problem, but if she doesn’t improve (or gets worse) you might want to consider calling police for a welfare check.

Good update OP The ring doorbell is a great idea

Start with Warwick Davi’s and lead up to a Harlem Globetrotter.

I would be ignoring any calls at that time of night if she has a history of calling for non emergency reasons. Tricky to get that over nicely if they don’t speak English. Even during the day I would discourage. There is bending over to be helpful to neighbours but they are taking advantage. Maybe stop answering for a few days to see if they get the hint.

Why of course! A feeble lady couldn’t possibly answer the door after dark 😱

See, as the Mum of huge young adult sons, they are the last people I'd let answer the door. Mistaken identity and all that.
We just wouldn't open the door at all if we didn't know and like the person knocking on it.

You can't just call adult social services just because someone is knocking on your door. What do you think they can do ? (Unless you think there are some vulnerability issues). I used to regularly hear from the shop keeper near a lady who kept visiting the corner shop. Nothing wrong with her she was just a bit lonely in the evenings but she got in the way and drove the shop keepers mad. They regularly used to ring adult care and ask us to go see her. If she has capacity you can't just "get her assessed".

I would just stick my head out of an upper window and tell her rather sharply that it wasn't a good time.

You'd risk your own son?

Men between the ages of 18-34 are the most likely to be attacked by strangers. A tall young man would be a target.

I can't believe you'd put your own child on the line like that.

OP said she's only 50, she's not doddery!

Can you have a word with the othr members of the family, OP? Let them know she's coming over at a frequency and at times of day that are not OK. Could they please speak to her about it or ask her to stop as the message from you isn't getting through.

It's one thing to want to be friendly and helpful. It's another thing entirely to have someone turning up multiple times a day for assistance.

The thing is OP said they’re sometimes in the house when she comes over and presumably know about it already. It just all sounds a bit odd.

Oh stop it.

I suspect that in real life in most homes across the land most unexpected visitors at 10.30pm are greeted by the biggest person in the house. Obviously.

A very fair position to take.

Of course I wouldn’t. It’s his choice.

(Dad is very vulnerable and our son is very protective.

i really don’t like your insinuation, OCDmama, that we would deliberately put our son in harm’s way. Of course we wouldn’t. Nonetheless, he is a big, strong young man. He chooses what he does. Part of what he chooses is looking out for us. Part of that is answering the door to unexpected callers late at night.

Some of the replies on this thread are just nuts.

Yep, this.