We have had problems with our neighbour for years. He is in his 70’s and spends most of his time in his shed. He hates animals and shouts abuse whenever a neighbourhood dog barks. When our cat went over the fence into his garden he threatened to shoot it and dispose of it in a black bag. We reported this to the police at the time. He is a bully. He has shouted at my mother. She has seen him looking over the fence into our garden. We have a lovely neighbour who told us that he walked past her while she was gardening and said “look at that fat a** in the air”. We tend to avoid the back garden completely even with our dogs and two young children as we feel so uncomfortable.
Today my three-year-old daughter was playing with the dogs in the garden. She had such a big smile on her face running around with them. The dogs barked once or twice and this neighbour started shouting over the fence on a tirade about dogs barking. My daughter looked so frightened.
I am generally a quiet, polite person and I avoid confrontation like the plague but this involved my child. I think my protective instinct took over. I marched up to the fence and said “don’t you carry on like that with my child in the garden!”
He then shouted “The dogs are barking. They shouldn’t be exercised in the garden. Take them away for a walk!”. I said to him “Dogs bark. Dogs are allowed to be in the garden. If you don’t want to hear dogs barking then maybe you should move to a quiet house in the country.” He then started shouting “I don’t understand you, love. Speak English!” I said to him “I am speaking English.” He kept shouting “Speak English, love. I don’t understand you.” I said to him “Are you deaf?” When he repeated himself again it became obvious that he was making an issue about the fact that I have a foreign accent. I am an English-speaking South African, a British citizen, and have lived in the UK since 2006. My ancestors are English and Welsh. I don’t speak any other languages. I was speaking clearly. So I said to him “So you’re xenophobic. That wouldn’t shock me.”
His response was “I’ve seen you walking in the road with the children. I’ve seen what you look like.” This was obviously a comment about my weight. I had my son last summer and still carry some baby weight. I said to him “Well at least I can change that but you will always be horrible.” He replied “Yes, I am horrible.” I said “Yes, you are.” He then replied “If you want to talk about horrible I’ve seen what you look like. That’s horrible.”
Can you believe that a man of his generation could speak to a woman like that? To a mother of small children? He is of such low-level intelligence that when cornered he hit back with comments about my appearance. He is a chauvinist pig.
He then said “well keep the dogs out of the garden and everything will be fine”. I said to him “You are a miserable old prig.” The perfect word for him as he thinks he is so superior. He just said “hah!”
My daughter looked scared so I told her to get out of the garden away from “that horrible man” and we went inside.
This happened hours ago and my cheeks are still burning. I feel so angry and just had to share.