Urgent advise needed re neighbours!

khague

Firstly i apologise if this is in the wrong section but i am officially at my wits end.

We have lived in our house for 4 years and originally had no problems till the next door neighbours boyfriend moved in. We reaslised they were a little strange but over 2 years things have turned into a nightmare. We have caught him looking in our house especially the bathroom and they have to get everything we get. We thought it was jealousy at first as they are around 40 and we are 23 and 25 with a 2 and 3 year old. However, then we overheard them saying if we can have kids they will too, so then they decided to extend their house like us also.

This is when serious problems started, they came over our boundary and we involved surveyors etc, and decided we couldn;t afford to proceed with a legal battle as they are 3 inches over and were advised they would 99% not be made to take it down just offer us small compo? Anyway since then they have tried everything to make our life hell. They have tried reporting us for everything going and tried to stop us rendering our house? Anyway we thought as we had it done last friday we could just try and ignore them. Unfortunately not as today we have recieved a letter from council saying they are reporting us for noise nuissance!

Now i really don't know what to do, we can't afford to move and i really don't want this to end up affecting our kids especially seeing as we have just found out our daughter has lifelong diability.

I'm sat here in tears, so if anyone has been through anything like this or knows what i can do, i'd really appreciate it.

Also they have been spreading gossip about us to the reszt of the street and all we want is a quiet life and we know they don't like it because evryone wants to know everyone's business.

BitterAndTwisted

They can report you for noise-nuisance but that doesn't mean that you are causing any. Ignore these idiots, their gossip-mongering and live your life.

angelsmomma

Not having a go here but I am interested to know why you first thought they were jealous because they are around 40.

khague

just because we are young and have come in and done the house up, we are lucky to have what we do for our age but have worked hard for it, neither of them next door work and when we do something they have to copy. I'm not exagerating because i know it sounds pathetic but its true. we extend, they extend, we get new car they get new car, we have kids, they have kids. thats just the big stuff, if we get asda delivery next time they do, and if we swap to tesco then they do too. Its laughable and i don't get it?

maninthestreet

OP - Keep a diary of 'incidents' involving these neighbours - maybe you can use the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 against them.

FireWyrm

Depends how far you want to take it and how nasty you want to get. You could play them at their own game. Report them to the police for trespass and lewd behaviour the next time you spot them peeping into your house. Be careful though, these disputes tend to escallate alarmingly. Alternatively, write them a letter, tell them to back off, that you dont want anything to do with them and that you'd thank them to keep their nose out of your life. Any further behaviour on their part will lead to prosecution for harrassment and anything else you can think of.

LongTimeThinker

khague wrote: »

just because we are young and have come in and done the house up, we are lucky to have what we do for our age but have worked hard for it, neither of them next door work and when we do something they have to copy. I'm not exagerating because i know it sounds pathetic but its true. we extend, they extend, we get new car they get new car, we have kids, they have kids. thats just the big stuff, if we get asda delivery next time they do, and if we swap to tesco then they do too. Its laughable and i don't get it?

Probably what you dont want to hear but cant you just ignore them and get on with it? So what if they get Asda delivered, then switch to Testo when you do. Same with the new car, does it really matter?

Not being harsh or anything but life is too short. Some of the other things sound worrying (looking in the bathroom?) not sure what to do about that. Our neighbours annoy the hell our of me but for different reasons so I can sympathise but I would look at them copying\keeping up with the jones's as amusing and learn to ignore it.

khague

we would love to ignore them and have tried to but they keep trying to report us for noise nuissance, trespass etc when we've done nothing! I don 't know how to make them back off!

celyn90

LongTimeThinker wrote: »

Not being harsh or anything but life is too short. Some of the other things sound worrying (looking in the bathroom?) not sure what to do about that. Our neighbours annoy the hell our of me but for different reasons so I can sympathise but I would look at them copying\keeping up with the jones's as amusing and learn to ignore it.

A practical solution would be to get some frosted glass put in - or some opaque sticky stuff if you don't want to replace the window. I know you shouldn't have to - but it would be an easy way to stop it.

FireWyrm

khague wrote: »

we would love to ignore them and have tried to but they keep trying to report us for noise nuissance, trespass etc when we've done nothing! I don 't know how to make them back off!

Fine. Counter report them to the Police for harrassment. If you've done nothing wrong, you have to fight them. I dont know why they are doing this, and it might be worth a quick knock on the door to find out. Even a stand up argument in the street would be better than sitting and seething over how they are bullying you. It's times like that even decent people start thinking about letting tyers down and getting back at them, unfortunately, you're on the moral high ground and you'd better stay there in case this all goes to court.

LongTimeThinker

khague wrote: »

we would love to ignore them and have tried to but they keep trying to report us for noise nuissance, trespass etc when we've done nothing! I don 't know how to make them back off!

I know what you mean, its easy for people to say ignore them (my wife does it to me all the time!) but try to let some of the things go over your head.

Like the Asda and Tesco thing, the cars etc. Try to ignore that side of things and concentrate on the important ones (noise nuissance complaint, tresspass etc). Not really much help I just read your post and can sympathise and the first thing I thought was let the petty things go, which will reduce your stress\annoyance so you can tackle the others.

/\ /\ Good idea with the frosted glass BTW /\ /\

HTH