I don't know if this is the right forum to post on but I thought that here there may be people with the knowledge to advise me. If there is a better place for it then if you tell me I'll get it moved.
I'm newly retired (early this year) and live alone. New neighbours moved in in 2022, a couple in their late 40s. She seemed very quiet and a bit depressed. We gradually got to know each other and she used to come in and have a coffee or we'd do some gardening together on weekends when her husband (he's an NHS worker) was on rota. She wasn't someone who talked about herself much, so I didn't feel I knew her.
Earlier this year her low mood shifted and each time we met she seemed happier and more chatty. I've been away a lot since March in my camper van and on bucket list trips, coming home for a week or so now and then before setting off again. I came back home properly in mid September after a couple of months in Australia. I'm doing an MA at the local university and I needed to be here for that. Her mood and behaviour has changed again. She's very 'up' and she started turning up at my front door and ringing long and hard until I let her in. She'd walk in and tell me she'd come for tea and then walk round my kitchen helping herself to food from the fridge and talking non-stop — and not always making sense. On one occasion she went all over the house telling me what colours I needed to paint each room and that I needed to replace all my furniture. It was plain that she was on a manic high. I've had colleagues and a couple of friends who are bi-polar and I recognised what was going on.
It's continuing. She phones me several times a day, demanding that I go round there or to tell me she's coming over to me or just talking endlessly about some new idea or theory she's come up with. I respond every couple of days and then impose limits on the amount of time and attention she gets from me. On a couple of occasions when I've had to end the call because I have other things to do, she's been rude. I'm doing what I can to hold some boundaries, but after I turned off my front doorbell, she turned up at my back door, let herself in and stripped all the petals from a vase of flowers on the kitchen table. I didn't realise she was there until I came downstairs and found her. It was a shock and freaked me slightly.
I managed to catch her husband when he arrived home that evening and mentioned what was going on and he said she's bi-polar but has always refused drugs or help. She just says this is how she is and people can take her or leave her. He also said that when she gets really bad he leaves home until she's come down again. He recommended I keep my doors and windows locked, remove anything valuable from the garden and park my camper van and car elsewhere, because in the past she's smashed vehicle windows during psychotic episodes.
I noticed last week that his car wasn't on the drive and that there were lights and music on in their house through the night. There have been lights on increasingly late for a while now, so I'm guessing she's not sleeping and things are peaking. I deliberately arranged to be away over much of the weekend and I didn't answer her phone calls. I'm back now, but I've parked round the corner so she won't see the car and know I'm home. I crept around without putting the lights on last night and crept out again early. I don't know what to do now. I feel very uncomfortable hiding away like this, but I'm also nervous of encountering her in her current mood.
Any advice from anyone who'd been through something similar would be appreciated. I understand that other neighbours have complained to the police about noise, lights and intrusive behaviour but nothing has happened as a result. I suppose I may need to move out too, until she crashes.