Hi all, this is a long post so thanks in advance if you read. I’m not sure if it’s in the right place either. I’ve name changed as I’ve spoken to people about this in real life, plus there is always the chance neighbour could see this but I’m getting really frustrated and I’m not sure what my next step is.
I’m having problems with a neighbour, or should I say they have problems with me and seem to be trying to bully me out of my home. We’re both rented in terraced houses, they are private and I am housing association. The neighbour on the other side owns her home, is absolutely lovely and we chat to her regularly. My son has hearing difficulties and ADHD and when we first moved in we had very little support with this. He now has medication as well as other support services from his school and consultant, we are supposed to be getting a referral to sleep clinic within the next few months as his meds haven’t helped very much with that. We’re actually coping better than we ever have right now and I’m constantly so aware of the problems my son has such as being a bit louder than you might normally expect (though nothing excessive or after 11pm that would be grounds for a noise complaint or anything like that), I have put things in place to avoid this affecting others. When he is at home he wears slippers and I’ve had thick carpet put down, and rugs where carpet isn’t possible. I’m constantly reminding him that everyone else can hear things louder than he can and to be careful about this, I’m not really sure what more I can do as obviously some noise is normal when living next to another family. I also hear things like their kids, their washing machine and their arguments, even sometimes in the middle of the night they shout at each other but I accept it’s normal living in a terrace and to be honest not my business.
At the beginning of last summer neighbour was heavily pregnant and came round screaming at me around 9pm on a Friday night that we are being too loud, she’s sick of constant banging and that my son should be in bed anyway by this time and I’m a terrible parent, she will call social services. I said I’m happy for her to do so because I have already asked them for support with his medical conditions, which affect his sleeping pattern, which they couldn’t do at the time. I started recording the interaction because she got aggressive when I didn’t react badly to this threat. She’s quite a lot older than me (I was a young mum) and she threatened that she would ‘smack’ me if she wasn’t pregnant. I didn’t want to get involved in any kind of argument or altercation so I stayed very calm and only went to the window not the door and said I’m happy for you to report anything if you have genuine concerns, I wasn’t worried because I know I’m doing everything I can and that has been advised. I rang non emergency police about the implied threat that night because I was quite nervous about what would happen next. She has a partner who I don’t know very well as I’m usually at work and so is he during the day, on evenings I’m completely alone here and you never know what people might do, I was shaken up at the time and so was DS.
The following week I was mowing my lawn and there are some small bushes on the boundary (front gardens are open plan), that I had been told were mine when I moved in (but I don’t really care about either way). I pushed them up just to mow underneath them and she must have been watching me because straight away she was screaming out of the window at me that they’re hers, how dare I touch them, then started that I’m ‘bringing the street down’ and ‘poisoning my child instead of disciplining him’. My son was at school he wasn’t even with me, but luckily my mum was and she witnessed the whole thing. Her partner came round that evening and apologised to both of us for her behaviour. The police called me back a few days later to ask if I wanted to pursue anything with the recording I had but as he’d apologised I said no, I don’t want to rock the boat, just keep it logged in case anything did happen in the future. All has been fine since then - we don’t really talk or see each other that often but I have always been civil. A few weeks ago she asked if I had noticed any issues with rats in the garden (I haven’t) and that they had and could I mention it to my landlord as they could come out for free but that if they got someone out they would have to pay for it. I did this because I thought what harm could it do to me and what difference does it make to me if it saves them money I might as well help. I was clear to my landlord that I actually haven’t had any problems with rats though, just that neighbour reported it to me.
That brings us to last week, when I received calls from social care and my landlord saying that they have received complaints about us. The complaints accuse that there is constant screaming and swearing coming from my house which is just not true at all, we have mouldy food in pots and pans on the side (I have a dishwasher, my kitchen side is literally always empty as everything goes straight in), that my son has no routine, never goes to school and only ever eats sweets (can barely get him to eat at all with his appetite killing meds!), and that the smell of cats is emanating from the house. We have 2 cats and I clean their trays every day, and we have visitors so it’s not just me being nose blind but to smell it from outside the house there would literally have to be wee and poo everywhere! I had actually contacted both social care and landlord when the original incident happened as the police advised to do this, and then contacted my landlord again after the 2nd incident to ask them where the boundary actually was as it wasn’t clear on the deeds I downloaded, so they were already aware that the neighbour was angry with me.
My area manager nipped round last week had a quick look around and said there are no problems, and social care has spoken with DS dad and school and I have received a call today that of course there are no concerns and there will be no further action (well actually they are going to try and find someone to write a letter to consultant about speeding up the sleep clinic referral which will be really helpful) but I’m just wondering if there is anything I can do about this neighbour. The complaints are clearly malicious, but they could just keep putting different reports in? I don’t know what I’ve done to upset them this time. I really don’t support anyone making out like women are hysterical or emotional but she is 6m+ pregnant again and this happens, again. Of course she could be more sensitive to smells and noise but I really don’t know what I can do more than what I’m already doing. Surely this is some kind of harassment? If these things were true they would probably be grounds for eviction. Does anyone have any advice please? I have considered going back to the police but I don’t actually have any proof the anonymous complaints were them. I could tell by the way the complaint was worded with things she had said word for word to me before that it definitely was them. It seems like they want me to move but not only can I not afford to, I don’t want to! I just want to live peacefully in my home :(