Can you tell me about your neighbour from hell?

[stirling]

Because I desperately need some perspective. I wake up every day in tears. I've been so unbelievably good, kind, caring and considerate towards my neighbours over the past decade and when I've made any kind of request to reduce noise during sleeping hours, it's blatantly ignored. I think it's this rather than the noise itself that's really affecting me badly. Feels especially bad to be living next door to then seeing as they're shielding and so am I.

Anyway, could you please tell me about your awful neighbours? I'd like to gain some understanding of how bad things really can be so that I can perhaps shift perspective and think, perhaps not so bad after all.

Many thanks

My neighbour tried to dictate exactly what can go in my garden and where and what we needed to change.

Every time we set foot out our front door they were at our backs saying what they didn't like in our garden.

He was told where to go and we don't speak.

What are they doing?

What is the housing situation, rented, owned, housing association. Different scenarios might have different solutions.

My landlord is my neighbour and it's a nightmare. Comments on the garden, if I've not taken furniture to the tip immediately, banging on the party wall if the telly is too loud (it's not loud but I do watch with subtitles now). He has even came into my garden and removed flowers and bushes that he didn't like 😡😡. Was supposed to have moved months ago but the world decided to stop and solicitors are taking aaaaaggggessss to get moving.

Oh and when he sits out on his decking, they see right into my living room. Plus I'm sure he has been in whilst I've been out.

We had a terrible terrible neighbour. Honestly you couldn't make it up so I won't bother sharing the details.

Then, very very unexpectedly, she moved and now we have amazing neighbours. I'm so glad we never found a house we liked enough to move ourselves, I'd have been so sad to leave my house over her.

My neighbours are noisy, inconsiderate and rude. They recently battered my wall because I asked them politely to turn their music down at around 1:30am. They've accused me more than once of damaging their cars. They've accused my cat of terrorising their rabbit. My cats don't get out. They just won't listen to any reasonable conversation, it always turns into an argument.

Well.... just the tip of the iceberg: kids climbing up the garden fence & watching every move & asking for food if we dare to eat outside. (They are fed and watered, just rude).
We have a semi & there is a dart board on the pati wall- constant thud noise from 22:00 until early morning hours most weekends. Their visitors blocking driveway regularly.

(This was a few years ago: every morning without fail, taxi blocking drive when I was going to work or getting home. Obviously waiting for them to move their arse. In the end complained to the taxi company, as drivers were ignorant!)
...

They killed one of my cats and seriously injured another.

They were the worst family of clampits ever. There were about six of them in a small three bedroom terrace. When we moved in, the eldest was a teenager and would shout and scream at the parents constantly. He thankfully moved out after about five years. The dad was constantly out in the garden doing some form of 'man stuff' in his shed all while smoking weed. He would have his mates round in the garden drinking and smoking weed until all hours even on a weekday. The mum was a pisshead who I would see hanging her washing up at 10am whilst drinking a can of Stella on a Tuesday morning. Second eldest son became a drug dealer around 15 and we had gangs of lads hanging around outside constantly. He got his girlfriend knocked up when they were 16. She moved in for a bit, but then disappeared. According to other neighbours she couldn't cope with being a mum and went back home. Their daughter is now being raised by her pisshead granny. The two youngest children in were feral. Daughter would throw things into our garden including once when she'd obviously had an accident, a pair of shitty knickers. She also wet herself on purpose over a bouncy castle another neighbour had hired for their kids birthday. She was 11 at the time. The youngest son once managed to escape from the house at midnight on a Saturday night when all the adults were drunk smoking weed in the back garden and was missing for two hours. We regularly found him in our garden and he would climb over our fence and destroy anything we left in our garden.

I won't even start about the other ones on the other side.

Mine's not really from hell - just purgatory but after the months of lockdown and facing the next year stuck at home - it's veering down the circles of hell.

We have the couple out the back, who have the world's most yappy dog (which is annoying but tolerable except they never bring him in when he starts yapping - which is the second he goes out) but fucking hell one of them is an ugly drunk. They like to get pissed in the garden during lockdown with their immediate neighbours and then they start doing stuff like yelling and making poo noises if they see one of the bathroom lights in our houses backing onto them going on, and she'll start bawling and effing and blinding that anyone's "making my fucking dog bark" if they commit the crime of going into their own back gardens.

Guy on one side is fab apart from power tools a lot - but he's a builder and if we ever have something go wrong he'll come and help us so that one is swings and roundabouts and I'm sure our kids annoy him sometimes.

Pair on the other side - well it's a father and son duo and they're living it up like Men Behaving Badly - barbecues every night from March to October (thankfully they've replaced the stinky one that made me wretch with whatever they were using to light it with the most humongous gas one ever). Have garden parties every few weeks throughout - where they have about 20 of them getting increasingly pissed and singing along to the point you can't sleep in our back bedroom (we've swapped the kids out of that room as a result of his fucknuggetry) - tends to stop about 5am. Sit out in the garden, with a parrot sat on the table with them squarking till late every single night - and he bought a honking horn and vuvuzela for Clap for Carers but they'd do the clap, then his mates would go round into his garden and they'd get pissed - and we'd have random honks and parps constantly the entire bloody week. Egged on by the birds out the back getting pissed and yelling "wooo he's being horny again"... think neighbour thought he was onto something there but they're a lesbian couple!

They're all just getting on my wick now after lockdown. I'm sure we annoy them as much.

Our old neighbours, the man was a total psycho.
Used to hammer on door to say my 4 year old was spying on them when they were stood at the top of the slide in our garden
Reported us to SS because my DS ( whos autistic) used to scream and cry when having a meltdown. When that didnt work would ring the police every time it happened. There wasnt a week it didnt happen. Police were useless.
Spat on my children in the garden as he walked past. Again police were useless.
The mum came to my door sobbing that her daughter was having constant nightmare because my son kept bullying her. She was covered in bruises were my son had kicked her everyday this week. When i told her my son had been off school for 2 weeks with chicken pox she said she didnt believe me. I got the school to write her a letter to confirm. They wrote liar on it and posted it back through our letter box.
Phoned the police and said they wanted my sons arrested for criminal damage for building a den in some bushes across the path. The den consisted of 2 wooden boxes turned upside down placed in a gap in the trees. They were 10 and 7.
Would hang out the window staring at my children playing in the garden. If they came anywhere near the boundry fence they would scream at them to get away. Kids were primary age and fence was 6 foot high. Again we would get they are spying on us.
Made all our lives a living hell and spoiled my childrens childhood for no reason. Will never forgive them. We moved out long ago.

My downstairs neighbour stood strimming the communal grass while I struggled up our external stairs with my 140cm/30kg 10 year old who was at the time having severe myoclonic spasms, and then again when I hauled her wheelchair up. They tried to have us evicted by calling my landlord’s agents and saying my children were running around, knowing full well that at the time my eldest couldn’t walk. I will never, ever forgive them for their spectacular twattery.

Someone has put up ducking windchimes...in Scotland....where it’s windy ALL THE TIME. It’s a slow burn to insanity...

My neighbours are not terrible - they are actually really nice friendly people. It's their kids!! They are pre school age have no volume control. They are out in the garden some mornings at 6:30am!! We were woken by a guitar and a whistle a few weeks back. The recorder was this mornings wake up at 6:45. All day we here Ethel don't do that Ethel stop , Iris stop screaming Iris don't touch that Ethel Iris are you listening... clearly effing not as they are still doing it!!!!! Grrrrr Take out their batteries pleasssseeeeeeeeeee. It's that bad I'm going to the mother in laws for a break for 2 weeks!

Sh1tsandgiggl3s I think you may be one of my neighbours.House out the back from me always lets their two daughters out to play ridiculously early. And they are screamers and realllllyyy like the Frozen songs. I'm in no way miserable and have children myself but I think playing in the garden when surrounded by neighbours should wait until 9.30-10. Not between 6 and 7am...

my neighbour lives alone and has mental health issues and screams all day and night. this has been going on for five months. I am woken every morning any time from 5am by screaming.... and I am currently working from home so listen to it all day until she goes to bed. her care coordinators don't do anything

My nrighbours swear at the top of their voices constantly in the garden (their kids as young as 6 also do), the parents and the teenager smoke so much weed and fit sleeps into my house and dd2s bedroom.

Our neighbours are in their 70s. In the 10 years we've been here they have been verbally abusive to each member of our family for such misdemeanours are my partner smoking at our back door (can't even be seen from their house), our cat walking on the pavement outside their house, my son playing the piano in our house, windows closed etc etc

We have also had damage to our property which we are 100% sure was them as it mysteriously stopped after the community warden spoke to them and said that we'd be putting in CCTV.

We haven't spoken to them for about 8 years and gradually they have fallen out with all the other neighbours, but probably don't realise that it's they who are the problem, not everybody else.

Had one single man one side of us who thought he owned half of our drive. He’d park half way across it every weekend when he’d come to stay (he had a main residence in London). He also padlocked our gate if we dared to ever shut it. Ended up getting solicitors involved as he became unbearable. A harsh letter from them stopped his behaviour.
The house on the other side was worse - crazy young woman with a poor 5 year old girl. Seemed normal by day but by night - OMG - shouting and screaming at her various boyfriends and raves with lots and lots of fellow crazy’s until 4am pretty much every damn weekend. It made me ill. This was over 10 years ago and I will never live in a semi or terrace again. Ever.

Previous neighbours repeatedly kicked heavy footballs into the fence. And would also play football indoors against our party wall.

New neighbours listen to AWFUL rap music (I like all genres - IF it’s good), smoke weed and shout and swear in their gardens every sunny day. They’re nurses so I kind of expected an ounce of compassion but there isn’t any. They rent a non smoking property

Getting new neighbours in 2 weeks and I have been promised that both sides are lovely.

Here’s hoping 🤞🏻

@stirling if you are waking up in tears, panicking and full of dread (only saying this because this is how I was too) then it’s time to move is that a possibility?

Oh my goodness, your experiences are truly awful. I'm so sorry to all of you and thank you for sharing. Doesn't make me feel good, but at least some consolation.

My situation is similar to Sh1tsandgiggl3s.
Neighbours are elderly but their grandchildren (two stocky boys aged around 9 and 7) charge around the house at 6 am on wooden floors, roaring and then run into the garden with grandad.
Ive asked so politely if they could be asked to come down the stairs quietly now that they're older and then continue running shouting screaming after 8am but it's completely ignored.
The bit that really hurts is how much I've done for these neighbours in the past 10 years, gone out of my way. Too long to list. Slightest complaint and I act on it immediately (eg "your hedges are too tall and blocking our light" where 2/3 of their garden had full sunlight, I immediately got someone out to cut it all down at a high cost - involved tree cutting too), the woman has lung problems and likes to sit in the garden all day, so no more barbecues for us etc.
Whereas I have a debilitating bladder condition that keeps me chained to the loo throughout the night, and my request for some quiet before 8am is blatantly ignored.

And now, he's decided to start watering his plants at midnight - stomping around the decking, lights on.

Just feel bullied and dont even know what I've done wrong.
It's a sickening feeling to be living next to people who can be so cruel.

HunterHearstHelmsley that is heartbreaking. Were the police involved.?

It is so hard living with difficult neighbours and I am sorry they are being so inconsiderate. I found I was living in a state of heightened anxiety and constantly nipping at my daughters to not be noisy. There was one time they were banging on the ceiling when my eldest was crying after her injections (when she first became poorly). I then found out they have picked fights with almost everyone in our block and that helped. They have been away in their campervan a few weeks and came back yesterday, and I can feel myself tensing up again.

@HunterHearstHelmsley That is awful. I am so sorry.

Mine ran a chemsex party flat with a side business of regular drug dealing. He lived at number 30 and we’re at 33 so we had nightly calls from the gates where people would misdial asking for entry, and frequent rings on the doorbell too because these people just didn’t give a shit. For years. On top of this the noise of the lift running all night and the paraphernalia and occasional overdose in the car park. It was horrendous.

Fortunately there’s a bit of little used antisocial behaviour legislation called a closure order. Our local community police team we’re very keen on using this and they got the property padlocked for two periods of three months (the guy owned the flat and was locked out) which broke the cycle somewhat. He moved out eventually and calm is (mostly) restored. Though someone else had a party a few weeks ago and one of their guests pissed in the carpeted lift. That’s pretty nightmare to deal with.

Our delightful wonderful lovely considerate neighbours waited until we went away for the weekend, climbed over a 6ft locked gate and mounted a CCTV camera on our wall looking mostly into our garden with it only slightly angled towards their own property. It was that high up we didn’t notice it for 6 weeks. Just one example of many of their twattery, albeit one of the worst.