I will try to keep this brief! We moved into our house 5 years ago. It is very rural, with just a handful of houses on a dead-end road, so very quiet and no passing traffic. All the houses are very spaced out so no reason to fall out with anyone, you would think!
However, two of our neighbours are very unpleasant and making life difficult. One of them in particular has always been problematic. For example, pre-pandemic they used to shout at people coming to visit us (we have a shared access and visitors had got out of the car to open the gate through to our house so assumed the neighbours thought they were lost or casing the joint). They also complain that we should have our supermarket delivery during the day not in the evening, etc. However, they have got noticeably worse during lockdown and been really unpleasant on a couple of occasions. They can also be very nice when they want to be and will stop for a chat if they are in the mood, so I now try to avoid them in a non-obvious way as I don’t want to engage with them more than I have to.
Another neighbour moved in next door-but-one last summer and has also started being more and more unpleasant. It started with unsolicited advice about our garden and our animals. They then started complaining that delivery drivers are going too fast up the road – some of whom are definitely going to other houses not ours and anyway we cannot control how other people drive! Then a few weeks ago, they started complaining about our dog as he barks when people walk through the right of way that runs behind our house. They say he has bitten them several times. This is just not true as the poor dog has never bitten anyone in his life and is never in the garden on his own so I can’t see how this could have happened without my knowing about it. And if it were true, why would they not say something at the time but continue walking through our garden when there are lots of other places to walk that don’t have a secretly vicious dog lurking in them?! This latest neighbour now glares at us on the street and shakes their head when we go past.
I have tried to keep things civil throughout. I smile and wave, say good morning etc. even if they ignore me. My husband is less tolerant as he now thinks there is no point trying to keep things pleasant and it genuinely doesn’t bother him when people are actively rude to him.
So, to my question if you are still hanging on in there, that is! How would you deal with these people? I understand that they are who/how they are and we will not change them. They have called the police on each other too, so it’s not really about us at all. Our youngest DC finishes school in four years, so we just need a plan to deal with them until we can move after that. I have suggested we get a post box address elsewhere to save deliveries coming to the house and now people can come over again, we ask the kids’ friends to be dropped at the end of the road so they don’t need to drive past my neighbours and risk being yelled at. However, my husband says it’s pointless trying to keep them happy as they will find something else to complain about. I suspect he is right. Neither of us want to confront them and risk making it worse (see police comment above) but perhaps by ignoring their bullying behaviour we are encouraging them to do it more often? Both my husband and I hate confrontation though and worry how unpleasant they could get if we push back. We have had a couple of arguments between ourselves as it is really upsetting me but he says just to ignore them and not to let it spoil our time here.
I just don’t know what to do as it is such an alien way to behave from my pov – we lived in a flat for many years and there was barely ever so much as a cross word among the neighbours despite all the noise, building work etc. that can happen in a block of flats. We are lucky to live in such a lovely place but these neighbours seem to determined to spoil it for us and the other people on the road too. WWYD?