Harassment, Stalking, Misconduct Harassment by Neighbor

[jsabatini]

My situation is that I have a neighbor that lives in my development. the town homes are attached so my home is attached to his. for sometime now we have be dealing with his loud offensive music and have tried to settle this as neighborly as possible. it has gotten to the point where we have not reported it to the police and to the board of the community. they sent him a letter and since then he has left us alone, until this past weekend. he is now accusing us of "keying" his car which we of course did not do. we share a driveway and he assumes that since my car is parked next to his that I keyed his car as some type of revenge. he was screaming and threatening my wife and I on the street that day, we immediately went to the police and reported it. he subsequently went to the police after they spoke with him and reported that I did it with no proof at all except for the fact that I park my car next to his and have done so for the past two years. he now has posted signs in the widows of his car that is parked on the street in front of my home that states "Joe and Gina key cars". my questions is how do I stop this harassmenta and is this a crime?

 

[NYClex]

If the neighbors conduct is a crime depends on your local laws. Probably it is not yet, but it could rise to the point where it becomes "disorderly conduct" or "harassment" or "disturbing of the peace" or however it may be called in the state where you live.

But there might be some civil liability issues. The sign in the car might be defamation or false light, and the unruly behavior might be a private nuisance.

The problem is, both of you will have to live door to door in the future, therefore one would really hope you could find a way to solve this without having to build the Berlin Wall between your properties.

Is there somoeone on the community board who both of you might trust and who would be able to mediate? It is not about what happened in the past but what will happen in the future. It would really desirable for both sides to come to a truce, if not peace, and you probably need some neutral third person to get you all together to agree to that.