What's the worst thing a neighbor has ever done to you?

[Evianontoast]

What's the worst thing a neigbour has ever done to you?

I'll go first: he tried to block the sale of my home at the last minute. We were 50% freeholders, with him owning the other 50% (technically our homes were masisonettes but I always referred to it as our "house"). He didn't like the person we were selling the house to (based off a brief description) so attempted to block the sale and said that he was "sorry and good luck when you put your house back on the market". Our lawyer wrote him a letter to remind him that although he was 50% freeholder, he was not entitled to say who we sold our 50% share to based on personal preference (you can't hold auditions for neighbours!). He was shocked that we got lawyers involved (it's almost as if he didn't realise buying a house is actually quite a serious legal commitment!). Very nearly lost us our sale and caused us a LOT of stress. But all worked out in the end when our lawyer threatened to pursue a breach of contract on his part when he refused to sign some paper work over a personal preference on who would be buying the property. Then had the audacity to say we were ruining his life - you chose to buy a 50% freehold, mate, no-one forced you!

But I got my (very petty) revenge: Just before we moved out, he put up CCTV on his property looking into our (private!!!) garden and on to OUR drive - presumably, so he could keep an eye on the new neighbour once they moved in. It was one of those ones that activates and sends an alert to your phone if it detects movement. I am an early morning outdoor exerciser so would make sure to do all of my starjumps and lunges on MY drive at 6.30am right in front of the camera and was always very amused to see the little "activated" ring light up, followed by the lights coming on as he clearly checked for an intruder - I hope you enjoyed the 6.30am wake up alarm a few times a week, Mr!

Wow some of these stories are horrific. Im unsure of our new neighbours. Very noisy and untidy and I suspect strange goings on with young child in the house im concerned. Nothing as such to report but was wondering;

1. Is there any way to check if house is owned or privately rented?
2. Any tips on security? Im hoping vid doorbell is enough but contemplating CCTV also

@Sum2021

Wow some of these stories are horrific. Im unsure of our new neighbours. Very noisy and untidy and I suspect strange goings on with young child in the house im concerned. Nothing as such to report but was wondering;

1. Is there any way to check if house is owned or privately rented?
2. Any tips on security? Im hoping vid doorbell is enough but contemplating CCTV also

@Sum2021

If you have concerns about strange goings on with young child in the house please do something today.

If you are in the UK ring the NSPCC or contact your local council Safeguarding Team (details will be on local council website).

@Louise5754 2012, we live in norfolk, police don’t often have much to do!

A new neighbour Complained to many other neighbours that the couple at number 666 were rude because they ignored him when he walked past and called hello. It was running the community atmosphere, people these days, blah blah blah.

The people at 666 are my parents. My mum has moderate hearing loss, my dad is profoundly Deaf. They use sign to communicate. Neither would hear you calling hello, and both would struggle to reply.

Other than that , their neighbours are great, many have learnt some BSL so they can chat about the weather!

@MissMarplesGoddaughter what do you mean strange goings on with children?

[quote purpleme12]@MissMarplesGoddaughter what do you mean strange goings on with children?[/quote]
See post by Sum posted at 02.36.

Yes sorry it was supposed to be addressed to her
Noisy and untidy doesn't seem very sinister
Wondered what was meant by 'strange goings on with children'

Accused my husband of threatening them with a gun. DS1 was on an elite training scheme gor potential international clay shooters at the time.He hadn't and never would even though they were utter barstards who tried so hard to drive us out of our house because we wouldn't let them have our DCs per cat.
They also phoned social servicessnd said we were hitting the boys and tried to get DH sacked from a voluntary role by telling lies about him. Happily there were witnesses to what had actually happened which was them shouting abuse at him and him just standing there ignoring them.

Lied about us. She worked as a nurse and would tell me when she was on nights so I could keep the children quiet. I didn’t let them play in the garden on those days, we didn’t play music etc.
When my mum was in hospital ndn marched up to her, post-op to tell her my children were ‘trouble’. And another near neighbour, a nurse on a different ward told mum I was horrible because I encourage my children to be extra noisy when ndn works nights.
Prior to that we’d chatted amicably, I thought. Fuck em.

When my aunt died cousins put the house up for sale. The ndn made it his mission to prevent the sale and put his own sign, with arrow, saying don't buy house next door. Weird, I know.
Apparently he had fallen out with my uncle 20 years before because uncle had an extension built, uncle had been dead 8 years, and ndn had obviously plotted his ultimate revenge.
Cousins eventually found a buyer and he approached ndn and explained he would need to repair gable end and due to limited room would need to erect scaffolding partly on ndn land but would put everything right and pay compensation.
Ndn refused, which was his right, however the repair was a safety issue that would benefit ndn too.
Buyer said fine but I'm buying property anyway and until work is done I will rent property out cheaply to any undesirables that care to live here.
Ndn soon saw sense.

Threatened me with physical violence because he could hear my alarm clock. A very ordinary not very loud alarm clock.

I'd only recently moved in and he wasn't yet aware that my other half was a burly six foot+ policeman.

Our family home was a semi detached and our next door neighbour was a reverend. When her husband died and she moved out, the church housed a vulnerable man from the parish in there. He became victim of ‘cuckooing’ and ended up with a delinquent teenager living with him and many of his friends coming and going.
Our houses must have once been joined as a single property because the attics were one large space. One day, I realised I couldn’t find my laptop. Asked stepdad and sister if they had moved it. Nope. Turned out that said teenager had, for months, been going up into next door’s attic, walking across the beams and coming down into our house via the staircase that had been installed but never really used. He’d stolen my laptop which contained all of my final university work and it later turned out many other things including my recently passed mother’s rings and mobile phone (a shitty brick - but had all her final text messages from hospital on it).
My stepdad kept all his tools and bits in the attic and when the police went next door, they found all his power tools! The stupid kid had cut all the wires off and stripped the copper out to sell instead of actually trying to palm off expensive power tools.
The worst part about it was that my stepdad was a bit of a Neanderthal and hated going to the cash point or using a debit card so would draw hundreds of pounds of cash out at a time and keep it in his wallet. Wallet went missing one day and he thought he’d dropped it in the street. Twatty kid probably had benefitted from finding a ridiculous amount of cash 😑

@Greenandcabbagelooking - this reminds me of a previous neighbour who told me she didn’t like the woman who lived in our house before us because she never waved back when neighbour waved to her. Although neighbour did recognise previous owner had ‘some problems with her sight’, she thought this was very rude. Our vendor was blind! She had a guide dog and on meeting her it was immediately obvious she could not see anything.

Gave me a tiny insight into that mentality of individuals who abuse people with disabilities because - to give an obvious example - they refuse to believe a wheelchair user can’t walk.

Came home to find half our kitchen roof missing.
We lived in an end terrace of 4 houses, originally built for the town's laundry or part of an estate. 3 of the 4 had professionally built extensions and our neighbour was a single parent and wanted one too. Her mother lived at the other end and was quite well off.
So, on holiday (at a friend's villa) she met a builder who said he could build her an extension for £5000 (1990s). Our kitchen, in the outrigger went down to the back yard wall. Anyway, her super builder dug out the footings and one day told her that she could only have a low roof, and she wasn't too happy. To make her new kitchen ceiling higher he got a local roofing firm guy (used the firm's van and threw a sickie) and took off 2/3 of of the slates on one side of our pitched roof, and joined in her extension roof, with some sort of gully. We were hopping mad.
Needless to say, the relationship between the ndn and the builder soured when she made it clear he wasn't getting paid in kind. We consulted a solicitor who did £100's of work before doing a credit check.
Mr Murphy, that was his name, was an undischarged bankrupt.
With hindsight, we could have claimed he'd stolen our slates and guttering.
Only revenge we did get was ringing the building inspector at the council who, surprise surprise, hadn't been called out when he should've been, and they had to dig out to show the footings.
We sold and moved. Hope the new buyers - there have been at least 2 since - haven't had a problem with the roof.

Queen Bee neighbour told our very elderly next door neighbour that she would make sure that no one else in the cul de sac helped him if he did not object to our planning application for a small extension at the back of the house. Elderly neighbour was about 90 and relied on people in the street for lifts, gardening and shopping. He was really upset about it.

We were burgled, and neither of our immediate neighbours could be arsed to check that we were ok. They definitely knew about it because the police visited every nearby house and also leaflet dropped to warn everyone. A few weeks later we moved away and didn’t bother to tell them when we were going or say goodbye. We’d had pretty good relationships with both sides up until then.

[quote Bagelsandbrie]@Louise5754 2012, we live in norfolk, police don’t often have much to do![/quote]
😃

This one makes me laugh now, but when we were early twenties we moved to a neighbourhood full of old people! (I'm not being dramatic it really was a retirement community) anyway our elderly neighbour used to mow the lawns of everyone's property at the front, as they stretched out across all the houses.

One week, after I'd not brought my bin in the minute that the bin men had been (DH and I were out at work!) he took against us and used to mow the lawns of everyone except us!

He would physically leave one square patch of grass to grow outside our house and mow everyone else's! It was bizarre at best!

@CatonMat

Painted my front door white.

Why??? And where were you when it was being painted?????

When I was a child about ten she stabbed my tortoise with a pitchfork

When I was a teenager our NDN shot our cat with an air rifle, breaking his thigh. The same night another neighbour's cat was shot in the front paw and another in the kidneys, which killed it. We called the police and NDN swore blind it wasn't him and he didn't own an air rifle, even though we'd seen him in his back garden doing practice shots.

@Loudestcat14
That’s awful

@JhsLs

Our family home was a semi detached and our next door neighbour was a reverend. When her husband died and she moved out, the church housed a vulnerable man from the parish in there. He became victim of ‘cuckooing’ and ended up with a delinquent teenager living with him and many of his friends coming and going. Our houses must have once been joined as a single property because the attics were one large space. One day, I realised I couldn’t find my laptop. Asked stepdad and sister if they had moved it. Nope. Turned out that said teenager had, for months, been going up into next door’s attic, walking across the beams and coming down into our house via the staircase that had been installed but never really used. He’d stolen my laptop which contained all of my final university work and it later turned out many other things including my recently passed mother’s rings and mobile phone (a shitty brick - but had all her final text messages from hospital on it). My stepdad kept all his tools and bits in the attic and when the police went next door, they found all his power tools! The stupid kid had cut all the wires off and stripped the copper out to sell instead of actually trying to palm off expensive power tools. The worst part about it was that my stepdad was a bit of a Neanderthal and hated going to the cash point or using a debit card so would draw hundreds of pounds of cash out at a time and keep it in his wallet. Wallet went missing one day and he thought he’d dropped it in the street. Twatty kid probably had benefitted from finding a ridiculous amount of cash 😑

My aunt and uncle had similar- except he'd removed the bricks in the separating wall to create a hole to get through. Took us ages to work it out as he replaced the bricks every time.

What's worse is my family are the hunt/shoot/fish type and the gun cabinet was in A&U attic. They had to be removed to the police station for safety until it was worked out how the thief was getting in.

Just remembered another. First house in 77, 1930s semi. We had a wash-house in the back garden, joined to the wash-house of the house we weren't attached to. In line with the side wall of the house was a low garden wall leaving a very wide, easily a car width, between the 2 houses. Some houses in the road had taken down their back gates and built garages where the wash-houses had been.
There was a covenant on the deeds saying that although we owned the land up to the middle of the gap each of us had to have access over the whole width.
Winter 78/9 we put the house up for sale, moving out in early April 79. Came home one night to find that the ndn had taken down the wall along the side of his front path, and rebuilt it down the centre of the path between the houses, so that he could drive his car illegally over the pavement and park in his front garden.
We knocked and pointed out we were supposed to be access all of it. He just shrugged his shoulders and said we were moving, so what were we going to do about it. Lovely!
Beresford Ave in Bebington.

Thats the thing nothing I can put my finger to. Also not sure if child is there all the time or just weekends. We are a 1930's semi. E.g. heard glass smashing across what sounds like a wall and 10 mins later shouting/screaming child. Very very strong weed smell. Lota of shouting and swearing and children shouting/screaming. Recently moved in and not even sure who lives at the property and nothing 'real' to report so more of a hunch and peicing things together. If I did see/hear anything I would report immediately do not worry.