Situation with neighbours, would like advice

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worried33
worried33 Online Community Member Posts: 990 Championing
edited June 30 in Everyday life

So I had some new neighbours move in late last year, they introduced themselves, and told me if they was making any noise to let them know, they wanted to be good neighbours.
Not long after this they asked me if they could share my wifi which I agreed, and they also started asking me to lend them money, which I agreed to keep good relations as they were been quiet.
They were paying me back each month.
The problems started when they misled me, one of them seemed to relate to me and started inviting me round for dinner, to sit outside, basically to hang out, but the majority of the time, I would get invited and then nothing happened. On a couple of occasions I prodded asking if its happening as I dont like being messed about, and some excuses were given. Both of them are on PIP, which I believe to be for mental health. This contributed to my kind nature of wanting to help and to accept the offer of friendship.
They started arguing a lot, and I later learnt these arguments were about me, one of them didnt want anything to do with me, she had no problem knocking on my door for money for her drinking money, but it seems as it turns out she had no interest in friendship, when the more friendly one came round she would actually get angry, banging the floor, and even run round to my flat in anger, I learnt she is actually quite controlling, holds on to bank cards etc. and the more friendly one was noticeably scared of her.
Then one night the angry one gave me a load of abuse on my phone as she didnt know where her partner was accusing me of hiding her in my flat.
At this point I probably should have just cut off all communication, but I was convinced by the more friendly one to try and make it all work, they were both very secretive from each other, so if I leant one of them money, they told me to not let the other one know, she pestered me to add her as a facebook friend, the reason being her partner wont see the messages, so more secrets.

At this point I wanted to move on and cut them both off, but didnt know a nice way to do it, and didnt want to end up with nightmare neighbours making my life hell, so I kind of just responded to the occasional message, but ignored at least half of them.

Then one day the internet goes down, the nicer one comes down about 1am, to wake me u banging on door desperate for the internet to come back on, and then told me she is going to get evicted and wants to chat tomorrow about it, I told her she cant come in but we can chat outside about it, she told me to ring her when is a good time.

I didnt ring her but texted her the next day to tell her a good time for me, the next thing that happens her angry partner comes down telling me to stop pestering them, being pushy, and to stop manipulating her. She was hurling all sorts of abuse at me. One of the nastiest people I have ever met.

I also recently put up a camera, on advice from the police, I was victim of a public nuisance crime not long ago, and I put the camera exactly as they advised, it covers my front door area, and all the area in front of my bedroom. It shows their gate right in the background, but nothing other then that, their path way is blocked by my bedroom bay window. They have also acted suspiciously themselves, e.g. they have admitted in the past they watch me through my windows, on occasion not long after I turn my light of to go sleep I will hear a knock on my door, a giggle and then a few seconds later someone enters their flat. So it is also there for security because I dont trust them. The 3rd flat neighbour has no issue with this camera, but the angry neighbour has got really angry and claims if I dont move it, she will force the issue within 2 days, without saying how.

If they didnt want to be friends with me, they did everything wrong, introducing themselves, inviting me round, inviting me to sit outside, begging to get me to add them on facebook, also on one occasion I listened to how they felt everyone judged them, and I told them I wont judge them, but they have ended up judging me and treating me like some crazed lunatic. Whilst it was them knocking on my door at weird hours asking for stuff, I dont know if the whole thing was an act to play me, or just that its a massive misunderstanding.

She is saying she is coming to my door within 2 days to give me money for wifi, but I want to cut them off, if they want nothing to do with me then its everything, I also made the point that why have I needed to unfriend her, when I am supposedly harassing, she can unfriend and block me by herself.

This is all very distressing, as I said she is quite possibly the most unfriendly person I have ever met, and its caused me a lot of mental distress.

Comments

  • mokki
    mokki Online Community Member Posts: 28 Connected

    you maybe need to reach out to someone you can trust, the landlord of the place you’re staying at, close family member or outside support of some other kind,

    You can’t deal with this alone my friend

    The first step is to reach out to people you can talk to and explain the situation you are in

    My advise is record everything that happens from now on, Date, time - and a brief explanation of what happened, write down everything no matter how small it seems

    It will help you later on

    Good luck

  • Catherine21
    Catherine21 Posts: 7,292 Championing

    Oh I feel for you toxic people bring you down I had a well so called friend she completely took over my life at that time I'm my life I didn't want to offend and I didn't know how to say no so the devious sinister opportunist use this to thier advantage it brings you down so down so much trouble it's good you have a camera put them up everywhere I know it's hard but Just cut them off they will try everything from rudeness to kindness back to aggression manor when they can't get you to bend its very hard to shake these characters off but you can just blank them walk past them like they are not there will take consistent action don't slip don't fall for thier traps you deserve peace and quiet being a nice person sucks at times save your kindness for yourself and all the other good people you will attract met to many people like these characters myself and looking back I think why did I entertain them knowing they was using Me and talking bad of me you can change this stand still stop and give them no more of your brain time ps life is so much better when you say no without guilt fear remorse good people deserve nice friends I wish you the best

  • worried33
    worried33 Online Community Member Posts: 990 Championing

    Thank you, I am actually scared of her at this point.

    Given the advice, I have now made a text log of what I can remember of our interactions since they moved in it isnt precise and might be missing some bits as its me trying to remember 8-9 months worth of interactions but better than nothing, I plan to have a phone recording in my pocket from now if we ever end up talking for whatever reason. As a problem here is a lot of the stuff happened outside of the messenger.

    My sister is coming this morning to cut my hair, she already knows a lot of this, and did advise me to not budge on the camera already but this was before this escalation, she had also advised me to cut them off ages ago saying I was being used, but I will tell her about what happened last night to get her caught up on it.

  • mokki
    mokki Online Community Member Posts: 28 Connected

    well done!!

    You are doing all the right things, logging the altercations, confiding in your sister and sharing with us all here.

    Just stay calm, never interact first and keep any conversations with them short and polite.

    You are definitely on the right track

  • mokki
    mokki Online Community Member Posts: 28 Connected

    well done!!

    You are doing all the right things, logging the altercations, confiding in your sister and sharing with us all here.

    Just stay calm, never interact first and keep any conversations with them short and polite.

    You are definitely on the right track

  • Community_Scope
    Community_Scope Posts: 1,914 Empowering

    Hi @worried33

    I'm sorry to hear about this situation, it sounds incredibly stressful. I'm going to pop you an email in a while from the online community team so please keep an eye out for it

  • MCMikey
    MCMikey Online Community Member Posts: 30 Contributor

    A horrible situation; I think enough has been said about how to proceed/remedy, or at least I cannot add further. But don't let these interactions negatively change you so that you become unfriendly to new people in general as human interaction is usually good for your own wellbeing. Some caution perhaps I would say in lending money as this can introduce frictions (take time to get to really know people before lending).

  • worried33
    worried33 Online Community Member Posts: 990 Championing

    It will probably make me less open to new people sadly. In the past I was always a kept myself to myself, I on this one occasion gave it a chance and this happened.

  • Passerby
    Passerby Posts: 777 Championing

    The following is the advice I give to people:

    Try to maintain a friendly and respectful relationship with your neighbours, but never be friends with your neighbours.

  • worried33
    worried33 Online Community Member Posts: 990 Championing
    edited July 1

    My sister took it upon herself to message them on facebook which I wasnt entirely comfortable with given the advice to not start any interaction. She initially doubted me as they put on a good act, I wasnt happy with that from her. But luckily for me, the facebook messenger log has a lot of evidence in my favour, it wasnt hard to find messages on there of my neighbour asking me why I am not responding to calls and messages, and also also my neighbour lieing to my sister about things she taken from my house, and evidence of that was on my chat. My phone log also shows a ton of miss calls, in one case 14 calls in a minute, my neighbour trying to get my attention.

    The first thing my neighbour did when my sister messaged them was tried to ring me, I didnt answer the call. My sister said she thinks she has come to an agreement with them to leave me alone in peace, but I will continue the advice on here I was given to log and record everything that happens.