Odd neighbour

Teyla Emmagan

OP, you should speak to your community Guard. I don't honestly understand why you haven't done this already. It doesn't mean you're accusing him of a crime, you can just get their advice on the matter and you will at least be on their radar. The Guards hear everything, you should never be hesitant to approach them.

You can also buy fence panels made out of recycled plastic, not wood (in case it is the lack of timber causing the delays).

I would also be knocking on the door of the next door neighbour and telling them that X makes you very uneasy and can they please ensure they are always there if he is in their back garden. You are going to have to speak to them anyway if you are putting a 2 metre fence up between your properties (which I hope is your intention).

You need to get the fear of upsetting other neighbours out of your head. Even living without them in peace has to be better than this creep. Go to town on him hard and start with the Gardai, even to just have a record of what he’s doing on paper. The other neighbours won’t be much use to you ever and too much is put into appeasing them in this country as a whole.

Is a nod in the street from one of them worth all this?

Mr.Wemmick

Oddneighbour wrote: »

Hi OP here,

Today when I was home from work he was in the next door neighbours garden doing some 'gardening' at the time that I would be arriving back from work.

I just drove off and parked up elsewhere for a while.
I spoke to the contractor re my fence, he said with shortage of materials at moment, it could be at least a month before he can do the fence.

Careful that you're not giving in to his control of you. You driving past and parking up away from your house is not good. He's in charge of the situation, not you.. he probably senses that, the creep.

There's an opportunity here for you to assert yourself and show him you're in control - good experience for future repeats of anything like this in your life.

Wearing large headphones for example will stop you being forced to speak to him, just nod and walk straight through to your door. It'll be difficult to do, but once he sees you do not give a ****e and will not engage, he'll stop. No matter how much he tries to talk, cut it dead and keep going. A nod of the head. Look bored. That's it. Full stops. Live your life and walk past him.

The fooker, how dare he think he can control you and how you feel in your own home.

Stay strong, OP.

LegacyUser

Hi everyone,

OP here,

Thanks for your support and advice.

I'll try to explain the layout at the back of the houses as best I can.

The houses are old 40s/50s terrace houses, directly at the back of each is a longish narrow strip of garden. There is a private road running along the back by of all of our gardens in the back yard area of our houses. This is the road area that he uses to walk up and down on, so he can float along behind our back gardens. Behind that private road, each house has another small piece of land or allotment so to speak. The big problem is the fact that he is in and out of my next door neighbors house several times a day, when they are gone to work, he could still suddenly appear to 'garden'. I peeped out through the blind the other day at the type 'gardening' he was doing, he was lightly moving a take along some soil, pausing to stare over to my house or stare around the garden in general, if anything he ended up leaving more of a mess on their footpath! If he loved gardening that much, he would tidy his own garden ( which is littered with junk and rubbish) and stop getting people from the neighborhood and town to do his outside chores in his own garden!! In my opinion, this sudden interest in the neighbours garden is just to have a good gawk at my back yard and house. I have to keep the blinds at the back closed all day because of him.

tara73

I don't know if this is a wind up at this stage, but I ask myself what else do you want from this thread and posters? It's post 185, thread started 3 1/2 months ago, advice is repeating itself on and on and you're not even commenting on it really, just some new bits and pieces of information on the situation in every post.
Get the high fence or hedge and go to the guards, and all other advice is here to chose from too. I don't think there's anything more we can advise.

LegacyUser

tara73 wrote: »

I don't know if this is a wind up at this stage, but I ask myself what else do you want from this thread and posters? It's post 185, thread started 3 1/2 months ago, advice is repeating itself on and on and you're not even commenting on it really, just some new bits and pieces of information on the situation in every post.
Get the high fence or hedge and go to the guards, and all other advice is here to chose from too. I don't think there's anything more we can advise.

Hi Tara73,

OP here.

The wheels are in motion and I've started to implement the advice e.g. camera, booking a contractor to do the fence etc.

I'm not looking for any new advice as such, I honestly just thought that the people who have posted here would appreciate an update and some context as to the layout of the gardens at the back, as someone here on the thread had a question about that.

Also, this issue is an evolving and ever changing one, due to the nature of my neighbour's behaviour.

leggo

I do like OP's who update tbh so sound OP, we do get invested!

Purple Mountain

Would you not just bite the bullet and call into the house beside you and speak to the female there and tell her that you're creeped out by him peering in over your hedge?

LilacNails

Purple Mountain wrote: »

Would you not just bite the bullet and call into the house beside you and speak to the female there and tell her that you're creeped out by him peering in over your hedge?

And expect her to do what? The op has stated he seems to be very good friends with them, so it sounds like it would take a lot of convincing.

Glad to hear ur taking action op, next time ur watching him throw the blind have ur phone at hand to catch him on video, if ur cctv isn't covering that area. The more evidence u can get of this creep peeping into ur private space, the better.

Purple Mountain

LilacNails wrote: »

And expect her to do what? The op has stated he seems to be very good friends with them, so it sounds like it would take a lot of convincing.

Glad to hear ur taking action op, next time ur watching him throw the blind have ur phone at hand to catch him on video, if ur cctv isn't covering that area. The more evidence u can get of this creep peeping into ur private space, the better.

Maybe someone just needs to be made aware of how the OP is feeling and see things from her perspective.

riclad

He s friends with the next door neighbour he's a odd weird creep but he is not breaking the law
Sounds like he s retired
Being creepy is not against the law
Blank him or say I. M busy
Do Not get into conversation with him
When the fence is up just enjoy your garden
Your fence will need to be 7 or 8 feet if you want to stop him looking over it
I don't think his creepy behavior warrants going to the Gardai
My neighbour lives by himself
Some people like that peace and quiet
There's no harm in that
As longs as hes friends with the neighbours there's not much else you can do
apart from putting up a fence

qwerty13

@ Riclad: just because this man hasn’t actually acted illegally does not mean that he’s acting like a nice or normal person.

There’s lots of behaviours that aren’t strictly illegal that can be creepy and uncomfortable and intimidating to a woman - especially one living alone.

However, I don’t understand the OP’s slowness at protecting herself. Not that the OP should have to protect herself, but I don’t understand how the only suggestion acted on was a fence. There’s been a lot more - and very useful - suggestions than that.

If it were me, I’d set up every precaution that I could, and then go to the police each time this man crossed the rules.

leggo

riclad wrote: »

He s friends with the next door neighbour he's a odd weird creep but he is not breaking the law
Sounds like he s retired
Being creepy is not against the law
Blank him or say I. M busy
Do Not get into conversation with him
When the fence is up just enjoy your garden
Your fence will need to be 7 or 8 feet if you want to stop him looking over it
I don't think his creepy behavior warrants going to the Gardai
My neighbour lives by himself
Some people like that peace and quiet
There's no harm in that
As longs as hes friends with the neighbours there's not much else you can do
apart from putting up a fence

You’ve made this point several times now, you don’t need to keep saying the exact same thing.

JustAThought

In fairness she has also put up a camera on the front of the house. The communal pathway/road along the back of the houses is a new point she has ‘recently’ explained. There is a house not far from me that the owners cannot sell and it has one of these shared ‘runs’ across the back of the houses with the bordered owned gardens at the opposite side of it. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it - thought they’d all be done away with decades ago by common consent. That really is a big issue and would be a dealbreaker for me in buying a house no matter what. Perhaps
that’s why the OP feels so trapped and exposed. He lives there next door so has a right of way past her back windows and door and she cannot legally block him off. It’s an old fashioned communal way of living that he might like and be comfortable with but that clearly does not work for her. If there were young kids next door or naturalists it would be a similar scenario - she can’t block them out - it’s a communal space. I’d hate it regardless of the house. And it relies on common social values, total discretion or total tolerance to work. For her, it’s clearly not working.

riclad

That's really odd , he just hangs around the neighbours house even when they are not there pretending to garden
I think in every estate there's at least one odd person who annoys people or acts in a strange way

riclad

riclad wrote: »

That's really odd , he just hangs around the neighbours house even when they are not there pretending to garden
I think in every estate there's at least one odd person who annoys people or acts in a strange way

He does not live there,
He is friends with her next door neighbour
He acts like a stalker
He can go into the neighbours garden anytime he wants to

LegacyUser

Hi OP,

Not sure if this helps but I have a weird experience of my own. Bought my first house in a nice area (but I guess you never know who your neighbours are until you move in). I'm quiet enough, but I would always smile and say hi, bye etc. My now husband is the opposite..Mr. Chatterbox. Anyways, bought the place and spent three months renovating whilst living elsewhere. We would have been over in the house everyday working on it and checking on builders etc. The neighbours desperately NEEDED to know what we were doing... like we were insulting them by getting so much work done... in their minds insinuating that their house isn't good enough (from the comments made to us). I would be in the house dripping in sweat and turn and see them peering in the window and it would scare the hell out of me. If family turned up to help us, they were straight out sussing them out. Comments were made to my husband's family that I was very quiet and don't talk to them... and they had this couple sussed...they just said that I was the worker out of me and my husband and that if we wanted to move in soon we needed to crack on with the work... my husband would always stop for a chat to be polite even when time wise he shouldn't have, and didn't necessarily want to. Anyways.. time came to move in...day one...we didn't yet have blinds in the kitchen and I came down in a towel after my shower to have breakfast. Sitting at my kitchen table eating...I look up to see the husband next door peering over the fence..with his child and a disposable camera taking photos... im sure it was to see what we did to the house rather than me...but I cried and felt so violated like you can't imagine. I wanted out, and so did my husband. Our families were telling us to give it time even though they felt it was wrong too. We stayed three months before putting the house up for sale. Going to and from the car made us both feel sick. They would be staring out the windows at us...would suddenly need to get something from the car when we were outside. There were plenty more incidents. Have since heard many crazy stories about the couple. They dropped over scones once.. my husband threw them in the bin saying they were poisoned... Just to say.... I'm not sure that just fencing will work.... we had high fences ...but everyone ended up buying us bamboo plants as gifts for added privacy. It's awful anyone can make you feel this way..but you can't change them. If it were me, I would be gone.

riclad

Some people in rural areas are like that , they want to know everyone's business and expect you to stop and chat anytime if you want to stop people looking at you leave the blinds down
I think you'll be fine once you get a fence up and have more privacy
I know a woman who lived in a house by herself she had two large alsation dogs
I presume she had em for security
She had no problem with anyone or any neighbour

Hannibal_Smith

Mod Note

Riclad you've repeated the same thing many times now. It's up to the OP to heed or ignore whatever advice is/is not relevant to them, not you. If you have nothing new to offer by way of advice to the OP, please move on to another thread.

Thanks

HS