AIBU to refuse repeated requests from my neighbour for supplies?

[freecalpol]

AIBU to say enough is enough? DP thinks I’m being mean and unkind and is irritated at my ‘attitude’ towards our neighbour.

She regularly knocks to ‘borrow’ something. At first it was baby wipes, then Calpol. I gave them to her on these occasions as it was late and she hadn’t long moved in so I assumed a level of disorganisation due to the move.

It continued and if it’s just me home I’ll ignore the door or say ‘sorry we don’t have any of ….’ (Whatever she is asking for) .

I work long hours and I’m exhausted. Last night at 11 pm she knocked in a panic asking for Calpol . I said fine I’ll give you one dose in the syringes but you need to buy some yourself as soon as the shop opens or get it delivered . Dp said I should have given the bottle. I have work today so wanted to get some sleep. At 630 am she was hammering on the door and saying that her dc temp had spiked and she needed more. I told her from the window no - the shop opens soon or order it or just sort something else out as I’m not a pharmacy.

Dp says I’m mean and that hopefully the child is ok. I snapped at him and said if she can’t meet her child’s needs maybe I’ll call SS to see if this is information that adds to anything they already have as she seems to be struggling and the fact it’s now impacting my life isn’t fair, so yes she needs support but not financially from me supplying medication for her child. He said I was malicious to even talk about SS.

There are people who are happy to be disorganised as they expect someone else to manage things for them.

My old neighbour used to use us as corner shop. Either at the door or she had a key and would take things - milk, eggs, toilet roll, washing powder, tins, bread. We put up with it as she did do things for us.
10 years it went on, then she was on holiday and we took something from hers and she went mental and stopped speaking to us.
Then used to see her rushing out to the shop at 10.50pm to get milk before the shop closed.

If she isn’t managing financially then she needs help which you can’t give.

I find it a little strange that she never has these things in case of illness. As she does it often enough, she knows what she needs to have in if her child has a temperature. I also find it strange that she is repeatedly knocking next door instead. I wouldn’t use someone else’s opened medicine like Calpol. Even when buying in the shop, I’d check for seal not being open etc.

The thing that a lot of people don't seem to appreciate is that, if OP has Calpol and other baby/small child supplies in her home, that's because she has a baby/small child herself.

Unless she has deliberately overstocked, to compensate for some other random parent repeatedly not bothering to buy enough for her child, giving her own supplies away could put her own child's needs at risk. A bit like a modern-day baby-based version of the parable of the wise and foolish virgins.

This isn't a discussion about what you specifically would do though. I haven't seen anyone say you're lying when you claim you'd offer to look after her child while she went to buy Calpol and be fine with any consequences.

I would have probably given 2 doses the night before but told her that I wanted them replaced. That way she would have to buy her own bottle. I would not have given the whole bottle as you always have to keep some in case your child needs it.
I do not think the OP was being unreasonable because this is a repeat request and the OP isn’t her stick cupboard.

Ah yes but those self-righteous posters are clearly not concerned about the OPs child(ren) just the neighbours child.

Then don't interact with my answer if you don't really have anything to add.

I've been in the situation where I realised that I wasn't helping by "being kind".

I had a friend whose life fell apart through no fault of her own and suddenly she went form being fine to struggling. Like you, I couldn't bear to think of her children being without, so when she popped round and said could she borrow money to get new shoes/food/cereal etc I always gave it.
And she paid me back at the end of the month.

But each month she owed more and more by the end.
Because at the beginning I gave £25 for shoes, and she bought shoes.
But then she started asking for £25 for shoes then appearing the next day saying they'd gone to buy shoes but seen a DVD of something they really wanted to see, then had ordered pizza because it was a treat night and they'd had a lovely night but now they still needed those shoes.

It got to the point she would owe me £200-300 at the end of each month, which we didn't really have spare, and she didn't get that much in pay so she was starting each month money down. I then realised that by just freely giving, I was enabling her to make "bad choices" because she knew she could come back and ask again so she didn't have any worry about spending more - but then she'd have less money the next month.
She was always going to be rich in the next 6 months in her mind!

So I started not having money always. So if she popped round for £5 for cereal then I didn't have the money but she could take a box. Or £25 for shoes and I'd have only £22 in my purse.... just to make it clear she couldn't come back the next day.

When she moved away I discovered she'd been doing the same to at least 3 other people, so when I thought she was owing £200-£300, it was closer to £1000-£1500 at the end of each month, so she was starting each month in debt. One of the others she rarely paid back too - when she left she owed him around £2k.

Now the issue was that she was struggling, but she had no ability to say "no" to herself in the face of something she wanted because there was no accountability. When I started tightening up, then she did start being more sensible. And at times the money she owed me, a good half had gone on treats that I wouldn't have spent money on (like ordering pizza in) because we couldn't afford it.

I realised that in "being kind" I'd enabled her to get into more debt and put her in the situation that was ultimately worse for her.

Some absolute arseholes on here calling the OP heartless for something that is not her responsibility! WTF? The OP has already stated that she has already given plenty of calpol. It is the neighbour’s responsibility to get her own bloody medicine for her child. There was no mention of the child being seriously ill. I can’t believe people are condoning the behaviour of a a cheeky cunt of a neighbour who thinks it’s ok to bother a neighbour at all hours just because she can’t be arsed to buy her own calpol.

@freecalpol maybe you could use the same strategy as @Lemonorzo?
Ie do it back to her in the hopes that she will go mental and never speak to you again.

Nobody has compared her to a dog at all. It's a standard behaviour/consequence learning cycle that is common to a great many intelligent species who understand how it works.

Except that a dog can't actually buy stuff from the shop (unless a human maybe tucks a note and some cash under its collar and hopes the assistant will be kind) or use Tesco Whoosh... so whilst she isn't being compared to a dog, she is repeatedly showing herself as less capable than a dog could be.

To me this feels like the woman is a prisoner in her own home with an abusive partner. It appears she isn’t allowed to get these items for herself or her child. I’d be reporting it to SS in the sense she appears vulnerable.

Wow - rude.

she sounds like she needs some support, establish who she has around her as she may have absolutely no one else. She might benefit from early help / increased health visitor input x

I know this might be hard to get your head round, but people can add things to a discussion that are about other people who aren't you.

OP has said she has friends and family round so it doesn’t seem to be that she is isolated

I’d have helped when she was first moving in, as like you, I’d have thought she may not have been organised or unpacked, but I wouldn’t have helped further after that.

You're not a free supplier of whatever your neighbour hasn’t bought at the shop. Your husband sounds like an idiot. Why should your money be used for buying calpol, baby wipes and boxes of cereal for neighbours. He’s mad.

In our first house, our neighbour asked us to take her child to school one day as she had had an emergency. We did it. Then she asked in a non emergency situation a few days later and we said no. Talking to one of the other neighbours, it turned out she had tried this with previous neighbours, one of which used to be running around doing everything for her whilst she sat at home.

In one off situations/emergencies it is kind if you can help, but any more is just being taken the piss of.

No doubt the be kind brigade will arrive if they haven’t already, always willing to tell others they should be helping more and that they would have done it themselves, only it’s not them having to do anything. Same old cheeky fuckers.

She's already given her one entire bottle- are you suggesting OP needs to continually buy Calpol for this neighbour indefinitely? that its her responsibility to go out and purchase more and more bottles purely for her neighbour?

Doing the right thing is different from being a pushover, and also different from doing nothing and turning away.

The child can’t be that young as it’s eating cereal

and relying on calpol with a fever isn’t always wise either - sounds like the poor kid gets dose up a lot

Who's doing nothing? Surely you're not referring to the OP who has provided this woman with Calpol on multiple occasions? The one who is doing nothing is the mother who walks past it in the shop and doesn't buy it because she can just beg it from her neighbour for free.

It shouldn’t be on the OP to have medicine supplies in stock for a neighbour with form for not having them!!!!

OP hasn't done "nothing" and "turned away" though has she- so what on earth are you on about?

Constantly providing a cheeky fucker with their requirements just enables and strengthens the cheeky fucker to continue. Stop enabling the cheeky fucker and she can fuck off and be a cheeky freeloading fucker elsewhere.

Ah a changing of the guard or tests of loyalty while abuser hovers doesn’t equate to support