To think maybe my NDN is a murderer?

[notanoccultexpert]

Ok, I'm going to try and make this as short as possible, but at the same time, not miss any details out. Lived in our house for 30years - about 16 years ago, a family moved in next door. Mother, Father, 2 sons and 2 daughters (who all appeared to be in their mid-late 30s). 2 daughters drove and worked, 2 sons don't drive and have never worked.

Due to his future behaviour, we nicknamed one of the brothers 'Hulk' (he's also quite stocky), so to make things simple here, we have Hulk and 'Gentle' (his brother).

Incidents when my kids were young:

1. Hulk told me he was keeping a log of when my children made noise in the house
2. Hulk splashed bleach on my ex's car when he parked outside their house for literally a minute whilst picking the kids up
3. Hulk shouted at my young son for knocking to ask for his football, and when I saw him and Gentle next, I had a go at him for it. Gentle was 'holding' his brother back, like he would attack me.

My other neighbours don't like them, THEIR neighbours don't like them.

Over the years though, I got in the habit of saying hello and it became friendly enough. Time passed and the father died, then the mother died, one of the sisters died. I knew all this because they either told me, or, in the case of the sister, they had a big funeral procession, the hearse was parked outside the house for a while, and Gentle told me she died from kidney disease.

ALL through this time, I only EVER saw Hulk out in the garden with Gentle, gardening. Only ever saw Gentle and his sister go to shops, or laundromat. Literally the only time I would see Hulk is if he was with his brother out in the front garden, or gardening in the back garden. None of them go out a lot, but if one of them was walking down the street, it would only ever be Gentle.

Last year my daughter and her partner had a bit of a parking dispute with our other neighbours. They are nice but a bit fussy, and they always asked my daughters partner to move his car when he came over...he never parked outside their house, but they felt like they needed 'more space' for their daughters car. So he would move it, out of courtesy. Until one day he didn't, which resulted in their daughter 'having' to park outside Hulks house (she really didn't need to, plenty of space outside her parents house) - so an argument between them two occurred. A few weeks later, Hulk had asked us about the back yard fence, and we noticed some vines coming through from his side. He denied it, so I opened my back gate to show him. My daughter was also there, as was his sister, and he was stood about a foot away from me (I couldn't back up cos our cat run was behind me). Because he kept rambling, i eventually said, anyway, I've got to get on...and he literally just stood and stared at me, no expression for about 5 seconds....after about the 5th 'I've really got to go', i managed to end the convo and get him the hell out of my yard. Me and my daughter were really weirded out by the way he just stared and ignored me.

But, during this convo, he kept bringing it round to the parking dispute - telling my daughter re our other neighbours 'don't let them dominate you' - not kidding he kept coming back to it, and he must have said this about 6 times...so weird. I mention this because his language was so strange...it was a parking dispute and a small one at that.

So after this strangeness, I realised I hadn't seen Gentle for a very long time. And once I realised it, I started noticing that now only Hulk was doing gardening, and it was only Hulk who went to shops with his sister (they ALWAYS go out together).

And then we (my kids and me) started talking about their back garden. It's not a huge garden, but they already had two sheds side by side at the back. The rest was really lovely flowers. Until Hulk razed the flowers, concreted over and put a massive shed on it. If you look into their garden from our bedroom window, that shed takes up about 70% of the space, then the two sheds at the back as well. There's literally no garden space left, so what he's keeping IN the sheds, no idea.

But where is Gentle? Shed went up after Gentle 'disappeared' because he wasn't helping like he usually would have. I liked Gentle. He would even knock on the door if he needed help with council or anything. I find his brother weird. Now you'd think if Gentle had fallen ill, Hulk would have mentioned it to me during that conversation. The family dynamic is very strange anyway, but I can't stop thinking about what happened to Gentle.

So, what do you think? My kids were saying maybe call the police - but what would I say?

YABU - probably just ill or died
YANBU - he's definitely killed his brother

Thanks

Nope! Next Door Neighbour, and Neuro Diverse. I think you have misunderstood an awful lot of posts on here.

@WeeGeeBored

Thank you. I hope I didn't come across as harsh, I wasn't trying to come down on you. I just thought that some people might direct blame at the OP, which wouldn't have been fair.

She didn’t say anybody had learning disabilities. Another poster invented this.

Indeed!

Almost funny this poster mocking others about this when they had misunderstood the acronyms entirely themself.

No wonder there are so many crazy responses on many threads if some people don’t even understand the posts they’re responding to and instead are assuming they mean something different that they’ve invented. Why not simply ask what an acronym means the first time they see it, if they’re are not familiar with it?

No I never misinterpreted her abbreviation of NDN nor have I ever said she literally stated the family were vulnerable. She heavily implied it by her description, hence the majority response of posters agreeing that a welfare check was advisable.

Yes she did later clarify she never intended nor expressly said that Hulk has a learning disability, but took some time before she was able to see that her characterisation of a Hulk coupled with her description of him & his family, played into unhelpful & damaging stereotypes that disabled people have to fight daily. Like 1) He is a “Hulk” & 2) therefore a “murderer”.

Hence why other posters made (what they thought were humorous) comments that her description of Hulk reminds them, of Katie Price’s son. Which they rightly retracted & apologised for.
Maybe RTFull Thread? And apply some nuance.

What happened now OP? Still reading on here?

Posters agreed a welfare check was advisable because of bizarre and creepy and quite intimidating behaviour from one man, and a man who lived with him suddenly disappearing when he was frequently seen in his garden or in public previously, and the fact that the second man hasn’t now been seen in months. At the same time the first man with the very bizarre and intimidating behaviour has concreted over part of his garden and erected a shed (when he already had two others) which apparently he is never seen using for any purpose at all.

At no point in her description to the OP mention learning disabilities or imply that these people have learning disabilities. Please quote the posts where you think she did so if you still wish to claim that she did.

You have fabricated these things and pretended they were implied by her description due to your own prejudices and stereotypes. All she described was a really weird man behaving in an unhinged manner, and another man who lived with him - who seemed quite private but kind and gentle - having suddenly vanished and that she is concerned about him. If you decided this meant they had learning difficulties then that is entirely your own prejudices manifesting themselves. There may be myriad reasons for this which have nothing to do with learning disabilities so it’s a very odd assumption to make without any evidence of this. I’d argue such an assumption is actually ableist on your part.

“Nuance” doesn’t mean “inventing things that other people haven’t said, then having a go at them pretending that they’ve said the things you invented in your own head”.

@notanoccultexpert might never find out?

@PlanetMayou clearly cannot see the link between what the OP said & described about her neighbours’ behaviour & the fact & it is a fact, that some (not all) other posters agreed a welfare check would be advisable b’cos they could be vulnerable & have a learning disability or possible ND.

Inferences they made based on her descriptions of their behaviour & how that reads.

It wasn’t as you seem to want to think, people thought her title contained letters NDN & misunderstood them to mean NeuroDiversity or a Neuro Developmental condition.

I’m not going to read the thread for you but literally by page 2 these inferences start coming.

So no, the OP never stated it & I’ve already acknowledged that. More than once. But she highly implied it.

And ultimately apologised for it. Ok? Got it now?

I think the inferences of some sort of vulnerabilities come from the fact that one of the brothers has interacted in a challenging way to the point of the OP feeling intimidated, and most people don't behave like that over minor issues without some underlying reason. Plus the disappearance of the other brother.

I actually think it's progress that people are commenting from a more empathetic perspective rather than going the torch and pitchfork route.

As others have said, a welfare check will do no harm, and may in fact be productive.

It is a great shame that society has become so atomised that tragedies do happen and fly under the radar because "none of my business" even in the face of red flag bunting. There's a vast difference between unobtrusive concern and being a busy body.

@GustavMunchkin

I still think it's inaccurate and unfair to say that the OP "implied it". That would mean that she suggested learning difficulties/neurodiversity of some kind without explicitly saying those words.

I don't think her posts suggested learning difficulties or neurodiversity. If other people read them that way, then that's on them and their (mis)interpretations.

I did initially consider that there MIGHT be some kind of neurodiversity involved, BUT, I also acknowledge that the OP didn't imply this herself in her posts.

@SorcererGaheris ok well vive la différence.
As I said done did, some didn’t. It was still a factor in her overall vote.

@GustavMunchkin

Of course it was a factor, I just don't think it's fair to blame the OP so much for that.

Fair enough if you think she made a lapse in judgement in not clarifying her own position (that she sees no evidence of disability) earlier. But it seems unjust to put the way the thread has gone on her shoulders so much, as some people seem to be doing. People are responsible for their own misinterpretations.

Requesting a welfare check was definitely the right thing to do OP. When you live next door to someone so long, of course you notice their habits and who they hang out with. That doesn’t make you nosy or judgemental.

I’m on ‘distantly friendly’ terms with my neighbours but I know (without snooping on them) that they leave for work roughly the same time we do, that their daughter visits every Friday night and arrives around 6pm, that most weekends they order a pizza etc. I’m not sitting there with binoculars and a notepad - you just notice the routines of the people you live in close proximity to.

However, I’ll add that it’s also easy to build up a hypothesis in your head and then everything you see seems to confirm that. During lockdown, one my neighbours started getting a series of men turning up to the door most days. In our minds (probably because we were bored during lockdown) we decided she was supplementing her furlough income with sex work. I doubt very much it was true (very over active imagination!) but everything we saw seemed to ‘confirm’ it. 😂

Still, if you’ve not seen this neighbour for about a year, you’ve definitely done the right thing.

Very well written. I backed up the OP too and mentioned the man being vulnerable (not for reasons others have fabricated!) but due to signs of coercive control from the brother.
I hope the OP will return if she gets un update from the Police, although I am unsure if they would inform the neighbour of the outcome of the welfare check?

Like I said opinions will differ on a forum. Peace out ✌️

Posters misunderstanding commonly used acronyms and assuming they mean something else rather than asking for clarification, or posters interpreting the OP’s comments to mean something she didn’t actually say, is not the OP’s fault.

I agree. OP sounded like a nice person who is genuinely concerned about this man. I don’t think the police would inform her about the outcome, but knowing the police intend to check on him may put her mind at rest a little. We need more people to actually care enough to report such things especially when it involves someone who seems vulnerable, or children.

Sadly so many well-meaning threads on MN, end up with an OP pile on. Sometimes MN is a showcase of the angriest people on the internet.

The OP does not have knowledge of the family or any diagnoses they may have. She is also not qualified to diagnose learning difficulties or conditions like autism. She clearly has no knowledge of how these conditions may present.

Therefore she made judgements made on her own ill informed observations based on physical characteristics and ‘normal’ social interaction.

The fact that she never claimed the family is vulnerable or that any members have LD or ND is meaningless.

Her description of the man she calls Hulk could be a description of a man with autism and poor social skills and impulse control given his history of never having worked and living with parents as an adult. But her juxtapositioning with his brother - who may also be autistic given his history of never having worked and living with parents as an adult but with a different profile which means he has better impulse control and social skills - labels the former as a potential murderer.

There is no evidence to suggest the bulky man in his late 50s with poor social skills and impulse control and lived with his parents until they died and has never worked is aggressive or controlling or a murderer rather than vulnerable.

With no knowledge or evidence it is sad that neighbours and PP are so willing to brand him and start nasty rumours whilst professing care as to the well being of his brother.

Absolutely this. Well said.

As usual, a couple of posters bang on and on and derail the thread. Talking shit and making shit up.

I'm curious as to whether you think he's murdered the brother, or also other family members. You can request copies of death certificates publicly, if you were so inclined. When I write that out though it starts to sound batshit and think it's one to leave with police. It sounds to me like the most plausible explanation is the brother is very ill - but are they getting medical support?

This thread is absolutely crazy . OP you did the right thing