pyscho neighbors

[Ann_]

We just bought our first house approx. 8 months ago and from the very start we knew that we would probably have problems with one of our neighbors because of their weird and bullyish behavior, for example the wife would come over to our house at 8:30 at night and tell us her wierd problems and the husband never even spoke to us. We where always very nice to them though because thats how we are and number one we didnt want any trouble and number two we knew they where wierd. We knew that other neighbors have had problems with them but they really didnt seem to care because they didnt live next door to them. To make a very long story short, we became their target a few months ago when we got a legal survey and what they thought was their property turned out to be ours (they are the kind of people that think they own everything). Suddenly they started coming over, calling and debating our survey and threatning to sue us, always nice we encouraged them to get their own survey if they had a problem (that has yet to be done). In the meantime we put a chain link fence around our whole property. Here are just a few of the things that they have done to us since getting our survey:
1. they toilet papered our house and threw lunch meat on our cars (they have 3 kids we have none and when I caught them she got mad at me for getting upset and told me, "they where just getting off steam and I told them to do it!"
2. Last weekend the whole family was ouside yelling threats and saying things like "they will be sorry"
3. Weekley they throw trash in our yard
We just want to be left alone, as a matter of fact a small section of their fence turned out to be on our property and we let them leave it! They are so full of hate and they pass their hate onto their kids and encourage them to do stuff to us. We dont know what to do because calling the cops will probably make it worse. They are seriosly pyshco and will try and harm us or our property.
It's hard to deal with this because we really never did anything to them. Does anyone have any suggestions for dealing with these kind of people? By the way they own the house and their is no homeowners association. Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[NYClex]

I fear the neighborly peace is ruined anyway. The best advice would be to take your house, put it into a pick up truck and take it to the opposite end of town.

Since your truck won't be big enough now what else can you do: Not too much. You should warn them that you will prosecute any instance of trespass. Should you see any of them enter your land, or do anything to or on your land call the cops. Hopefully that will show them that you mean business.

Have a camera ready to catch anything they do, preferably while they are doing it.

DO NEVER get into any physical altercation and also avoid even arguing with them. Rather call the police, it is their job to deal with that, you don't want to get into deeper trouble by getting physical.

Be consistant with that. Call the cops and press charges. Experience tells me they won't stop harassing you after the first time the cops showed up and admonished them. Probably not even after the second time. Only consistancy might make them think twice. Sadly, sometimes nothing helps.

If they cause any damage, sue them. Of course, that only works if you really can prove it. That's why you should have the camera. Of course they will be smart and do things when you are not around.

May be you should get a big bad dog. That often helps best to keep undesirables from your property. But with that too, always follow the law. Don't give them any reason whatsoever to go after you.

There is no easy solution to such a problem.

 

[Dusty]

We had a similar problem on our block. One "bad, bully neighbor" consisting of 2 paranoid, alcoholic parents with 2 out of control, drug & alcohol dependent, teenage sons. All the neighbors were terrified of this family. We knew the father had loaded guns in the house. Although everyone on the block feared them...the majority of the neighbors wanted to "turn the other cheek" and avoid all conflict so they "pretended" everything was all right despite the fact that these bully neighbors violated everyone else's right to enjoy their homes and property.

Nothing seemed to work: calling the police only seemed to make this family happy...they enjoyed the attention. They seemed to thrive on it and bought a police scanner so they could monitor when the police were going to arrive on their doorstep. The police assured us that "time" was on our side and eventually the boys would grow out of their bad behavior...not so, these boys are now in their late 20's and still living off Mom & Dad and the Government.

We have two big German Shepherds and a security system so we know the "bully boys" won't be breaking" into our home, although we constantly worry that they'll poison our dogs. However- the BEST STEP TAKEN by the majority of the neighbors on our side of the block (which faces the bully family) which has proven the most beneficial thing we could have done to "tone down" their ruckus, violent, disorderly behavior is to install outside security camera's with a continuous loop pointing directly at their home...this has really dramatically improved the entire situation. We have seen a big improvement.

It is so sad that one family can ruin the peace and beauty of home ownership for others. I hope your situation improves but I honestly think that if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't have stayed (I was stubborn...didn't want the bully's to win) but would have immediately sold my house...and moved on. It is just too exhausting to be on edge and vigilant all the time. Your home is suppose to be your haven and refuge...for us, it has demoralized, exhausted and frustrated us.

 

[Ann_]

Thank you so much both for your responses. Dusty, it is nice to hear that someone else has gone through this but discouraging to hear the outcome. It seems so unfair that the law doesnt protect us against people like this. I am so disgusted with our society today, people like our neighbors should be put on another planet where they can terrorize each other. We also have two dogs and they are part of our family so I am terrified that they will poison them. Our dogs are only out when we are home and before they go in the yard I do a yard check.
I hope things work out for you and if you have anyother ideas on how to deal with this please let me know.
Thank you so much!

 

[AnnB]

same situation

My husband and I built our dream house 4 years ago, what a nightmare our neighbors have made it into! We just want to live here peacefully, respectful of our neighbors and they will have non of it. They (mostly the wife) has used antisocial behavior to harass us trying to provoke a feud and we will not participate in it. We ignored her so long that her tactics have escalated to the point that we eventually called the police and have hired an attorney. Needless to say the situation has escalated and their behavior has intensivfied.We are now in an intense situation in which the husband doesn't want us to tell him how to live on his property ( which we haven't ever told him) but they want to annoy us and dictate how we live on ours. Jim Belushi is going through a similiar situation with Julie Newmar in Las Angelas,CA. These type people are mentally disturbed and have antisocal personaltiy disorder. Go to the website: nononsenseselfdefense.com, there you will discover the psycho neighbor you are dealing with, ( type in stalking). I hope your situation works out, ours is still undetermined. I look forward to hearing from anyone who has been through this. Good must prevail over evil!

 

[moonwalk]

Consistently Harassed

I'm sorry to hear about your situation, my wife and I (in our 40's) have been in an unspoken battle with our physco paranoid neighbors for almost the last two years.
We've lived in the neighborhood for four plus years, and they for 3 plus. When they initially arrived, we had them to a BBQ or two, Our kids even swam in their pool once.

Once we had our pool built, there has been nothing but trouble. The have overgrown shrubs (honestly up to 20 feet tall) that overgrow into our yard and I spend a good 3-4 hours every other month trimming them back. When we asked, witnessed by the city code enforcement guy, for them to trim them back a little. they of course said they would and didn't two months later, I called the city back and had them cited, they cut it back and put up . . . get this, plastic sheeting (8-10 feet tall) it looks awful. To make matters interesting, bad neighbor guy, went to the city and presented a two page doc of what he thought we're code violations, and proceeded to harass the City Code Enforcement Guy.

Enforcement calls us, tells us what is legit and not . . . and asks if we think anything else is out of whack at bad neighbor . . . so we told him. Many of the neighbors have complained about this individual, we don't know what started it, and we love our home and most of our neighbors . . . but we're not going to let him bully us out.

My only advise is to familiarize yourself with the municipal code, and start making calls and formal complaints to city code enforcement, call the police when ever you are verbally harassed or threatened. And stay on the right side of the law. I like the camera idea, but it just seems wrong to have to do that on my own property. If anyone has any advise, please . . . I can never have to much wisdom, especially on this subject. Thanks for posting.