We’re in a difficult situation with our next-door neighbour. To be blunt, she’s a nightmare. Over the last 3 months, we’ve had all 3 emergency services at her house mulitple times. The police know her by name and visit regularly.
Before, she was constantly shouting, screaming, and making noise. She had toddlers in the house, and instead of parenting them, she would yell at them to “go to sleep” and carry on loudly. I genuinely worried for the children, so when social services stepped in and removed them, I felt relieved for their sake.
Unfortunately, since the children left, things have actually become worse. She now has friends over at all hours, plays loud music through the night, and openly takes drugs.
Reading this, you might imagine we live on a rough council estate, but in fact, our home is on a nice main road. We own our semi-detached house, but she rents the one attached to us. Her landlord is now aware of the situation and is trying to evict her, but it’s proving difficult. She hasn’t paid rent since the start of the year, the house and garden are a mess, and she’s contesting the eviction. People like her rarely leave quietly.
While it’s not a pleasant environment, I’ve come to terms with it and hope she’ll be gone soon. My partner, however, is really struggling. The noise, drugs, and music at night mean we often get very little sleep before work. He has a safety-critical job, which makes the lack of rest even harder for him.
He’s increasingly angry and has started making extreme comments — wishing she would die, saying he’d like to burn her house down, or that even death would be “too good” for her. He says these multiple times and not just once as a passing comment. I understand his frustration because I’m living through it too, but I cope by compartmentalising it and not letting it affect my day-to-day life. He says he can’t just “ignore” it and insists it’s ruining his life.
We’d been talking about important relationship milestones in the near future, but now he’s saying it’s not the right time or environment because of her. I don’t want to put my life on hold for this neighbour, but he doesn’t agree. He feels I’m dismissing his feelings when I say he needs to work on his mentality, and that’s causing tension between us.
Am I being unreasonable by expecting him to manage his mindset? Or are we letting her control our happiness and future? And how do I support him in this?