| Back to Home > Bulletin Board > O/T Off Topic > Topic: How to cut ties with neighbors? |
Topic: How to cut ties with neighbors?
| Author | Message |
| HyancinthGirl | Posted – 6/5/2008 12:12:14 PM | show profile I moved in to my house about 7 months ago next to woman who is a bit older than I. At first it was endearing to have her greet me when I came home, but now it's becoming...stalker-ish. She comes out of her house every night, no matter what time or weather condition, to greet me. Often she'll tell me that I've woken her if it's late. I've resorted to not going home or sneaking in my house by parking my car a block over. We're out of the house by 7 am on weekends because that's when she starts calling. Our yard is a mess because the second we are both out there, so is she. I'm going to have to hire someone. She's walked into our house several times while I've been in the shower and once caught us getting busy in the kitchen after my husband came back from a 2-month contract trip. We definitely lock all the doors and windows and close the curtains now. We bought this lot for the view, which we can't enjoy because we have to keep the shades drawn. I suspected that she was going through my trash because she seemed to know things that neighbors shouldn't know, which my husband confirmed. We keep it in the garage now. We've been trying to distance ourselves from her, but last night her son (who doesn't live near her) came over and said that his mother was hurt that we weren't socializing with her as much. I politely suggested he enroll her in some senior activities to keep her busy. I also told him that he can't rely on us to get her to the grocery store, always shovel her walkway in the snow, and be her general caretakers. He flipped out. That was conversation #7 with him about it. Nothing's changing. This morning, she came over to the house at 5:30 am and was crying uncontrollably. I was supposed to drive my husband to the airport, so I had to take her with me so we didn't miss the flight, even though I had to come all the way back home to drop her off before I drove to work. She wanted me to call out and take her to breakfast. I was an hour late to work. I'm really at my wit's end here. My house is supposed to be my sanctuary, not a prison. We care about her, but, with all due respect, she's not our problem. And I need to be able to enjoy the home that I'm paying for. Anyone? |
| Mag Girl | Posted – 6/5/2008 12:28:05 PM | show profile oh my god- that sounds most awful. How old is she? Is she possibly suffering from dementia or mental illness? SOunds like she might be. Do NOT feel obligated to take care of this woman. The son is only harping on you b/c he likely feels guilty for not doing things himself. If it doesn't stop, if she's elderly, call senior services. If you absolutely have to, call the police and get a restraining order. Report her going through your trash- that should not be happening. I'm sorry...that sounds like a nightmare. But it sounds like she is mentally ill. |
| Nikongirl | Posted – 6/5/2008 12:29:45 PM | show profile Here is where I will dish out some sage Ann Landers advice. No one can take advantage of you unless you let them. Find your spine and simply tell her she is intruding on your life in ways that are unacceptable. Do not encourage conversation. If you see her simply nod - again, do NOT enter into any kind of conversation. If she stands at your door and knocks or rings the bell, let her exhaust herself if necessary and do NOT answer it or open the door. Even if she can clearly see that you are home. You owe her nothing. If you MUST answer the door, tell her in a tone of voice she will understand that you are busy and close the door. Offer no further excuse. Make yourself very clear. The son is putting his responsibilities on you and your husband and has the nerve to get angry with you? WTF??? Remember: You bought a house, not a neighbor. She has seriously breeched your privacy - you owe her nothing. Not conversation, not lunch, not an explanation, not an excuse. Do not allow anyone (her or her son) to bully you. |
| wineaux | Posted – 6/5/2008 12:37:58 PM | show profile I'm going to practice a little tough love with you right now and say, snap the hell out of it! You have encouraged her nutbag behavior by allowing her to encroach on your life to a hideously manic level. She is most certainly mentally ill, and unless you want to wake up some day with her standing over your bed, waving a butcher knife, you need to cut the ties now. Assertively. Her problems are NOT yours, and you should tell the son to back the hell off and get his mother some professional help. She is harassing you. It's tempting to think you should get a restraining order, put up a high fence and get a big guard dog. You should be mad as hell that someone has made your home a prison. You worked hard to pay for that house and should be able to enjoy your home. Just because someone is your neighbor, it does not mean that you need to have any sort of relationship with them. Ever heard of good fences making good neighbors? I don't think you should need to have ANY sort of conversation with the son about her feelings; She is your neighbor, NOT a friend, relative or anyone linked to you by anything other than property lines. It seems that both you/your huband and the son seem to feel that you are responsible for her bad behavior. You are allowing this woman to rule your life. Do yourself a favor and put an abrupt end to it. I have experienced nutty neighbors and it is never fun. The best way of dealing with it is to make a clean break and be polite from afar. |
| beenthere | Posted – 6/5/2008 12:49:31 PM | show profile Calling senior services is a great idea. It sounds like she might be depressed or experiencing some other mental issues and it might be a good idea to get a social worker involved. Also, if there are local churches in the area, you might want to see if they have outreach programs for the elderly. Maybe having other people to interact with could cut down on your hassle. And church people love to talk. My family was very involved while I growing up, and the church people will talk to everyone. I had a neighbor a few years ago who had similar behavior, but not nearly as bad. She lived in the upstairs apartment. But one day I apparently made her mad, and she never talked to me again. Still don't know what I did, but whatever it was, it solved the problem. |
| voracious reader | Posted – 6/5/2008 1:12:30 PM | show profile Most of the advice you've received thus far is excellent. Just want to add my perspective since I've run our local neighborhood watch. First off, not knowing her, but from your description she sounds either mentally ill or has some form of dementia. I'm guessing that she's exhibited these behaviors previously in the neighborhood. The best thing to do is to call 911 the next time she harasses you. Before then, you may wish to go down to your local police precinct and speak to an officer and ask for their advice on how to proceed. While they may not be forthcoming with information regarding her, if they are familiar with her, they will be interested in hearing from you. As far as contacting your local county's social services department, that is also an excellent suggestion. There is, however, a small problem once they open a case file. I'm not an attorney, so don't quote me, but there is a high standard that must be proven before social services can even offer or compel their services. That's why calling 911 is important, so you can have a paper trail. I'm sorry you've been enduring this problem. Your home should be your sanctuary. Please begin taking action before the problem escalates further. Good luck! |
| Grateful Deadline | Posted – 6/5/2008 1:28:05 PM | show profile I would synthesize some of the tips here, adapting them as you need to. It will feel mean at first, but you really have to get rid of this person, not just block her out. I'll tell you why, because I made the same mistakes you're making. I listened to the crying, tiptoed around, the whole thing. My neighbor kepts tabs on my coming and going, my guests, my trash, my mail, my music, my laundry -- it was a nightmare. My neighbor wasn't elderly, but she was way over the edge, and I didn't realize it until it was too late. It's hard when you don't have experience with truly mentally ill people. You want to believe they're not sick, but they are, and there's nothing you can do about it. My situation got completely out of hand. I wish I had cut my neighbor off from the very beginning. I don't want to get into more detail about my situation, but I want to say that the "tough love" advice to ignore your neighbor is the only way to handle it. Live your life. She'll have to turn her attention elsewhere when she no longer gets a rise out of you. |
| HyancinthGirl | Posted – 6/5/2008 3:01:09 PM | show profile Absolutely I enabled her. I don't deny it. This will sound like a cop-out, but I really did feel sorry for her because she was lonely. She was dear friends with the couple who lived here before and her kids truly don't give a crap about her. She's 74 and widowed. I didn't mind giving some periodic help, but now it's too much. I will try the tough love approach. I've been so blessed for the longest time to have super neighbors who have become friends, but it only takes one to really spoil it, ya know? |
| wineaux | Posted – 6/5/2008 4:08:51 PM | show profile Hy, you're heart is in the right place, and I can totally relate. I had a neighbor in her 70's when I lived in CA that was also needy, and I didn't mind getting her groceries, having her over for tea and listening to her very, very long stories about just how wrong I was managing my garden. I saw her dependance and lack of respect for our privacy going in a direction similiar to yours, and I put the kabash on it by being kind and polite when I saw her, but not offering too much and asking her not to knock on the door at odd hours and to call when she needed help, rather than hoofing it over and starting to pound on the door. I told her that I wasn't accustomed to people behaving the way she did and felt she was taking advantage of the situation, and at the same time told her I wanted to help her when she was truly in need, but didn't want to be her caretaker, as my family had our own needs to care for first. Being kind but direct about your true feelings is the only way to get your freedom back. You can start out by telling her you care about her and want to help, but that you are really feeling overwhelemed and are resenting the invasion on her privacy. I really think you got excellent advice about the senior services thing. She certainly has mental issues, and is probably terribly lonely and needs interests of her own to occupy her time. |
| rhino writer | Posted – 6/6/2008 10:57:48 AM | show profile If you know your other neighbors, you can always feel them out for what she's like. Does she do this to all the new people (are you sure she was really good friends with the people in your house before you, or is that just her version?), or has her behavior changed over the years? That might help get you some more perspective as well as ammo if you contact elder services. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 6/6/2008 11:47:16 AM | show profile | email poster Lots of good advice above. This lady is obviously mentally/emotionally ill. Most people that fit those categories don't have a clue about their "bad behavior," so talking to her isn't going to be as effective as other things. One thing that might help is to tell her son that you are aware she clearly has some emotional difficulties and that you are not prepared to deal with them, but you will report her if she repeats certain behaviors (entering your home, going through the trash, the illegal ones) and tell him to put her on notice. Sounds like he feels upset and guilty, but is in denial about what will help his mother -- "a little attention from the neighbors would help." Tell him you're worried abot his mother and unable to deal with her difficulty. Get her son's number so that if she's crying uncontrollably, you can call HIM and stay out of it yourself. Keep contact polite but distant and impersonal. Don't answer the door or the phone, don't respond with more than a smile and a nod to her efforts to engage in more than polite conversation. Definitely establish a paper trail with calls to senior services, the police, whomever. If there comes a time when she needs to be in custody for her own protection, the paper trail will help. Her family needs that paper trail, too, so you're not hurting her by establishing it. Do NOT bring her in the car with you somewhere -- there are liability issues here. The good news may be that even mentally ill people can have some remnant of that old Pavlovian response. They may crave attention, and in some instances may repeat behaviors that garner it for them. It may be that if you cater to poor behavior, it will continue, which isn't good for you or for your neighbor. I know more about all this than I want to, because of my mother's dimentia linked to a very complicated mental illness -- and her determination to live on her own instead of in a group setting. Least helpful things from neighbors include a neighbor giving her leftover medicine for my mother's neckache (hello! can you say drug interaction???) and a caregiver flipping out about bizarre changes in her behavior when the problems stemmed simply from a chain of drug interactions when a new drug was introduced to treat the neck by an emergency doctor who didn't know abouit her ongoing mental problems and the delicate cocktail of drugs she needed to treat them. Good luck to both you and your neighbor. Hopefully, with a paper trail and a little reality therapy, she will get the medical help she needs. |
| caitlinkelly | Posted – 6/6/2008 12:19:07 PM | show profile You don't want to get any more entangled, but does she have more than one son? If not, then he's your only hope. But if you ask him to step up and involve his other siblings -- which of course he may not do -- it spreads the issue beyond you and him. The many points made here about mental illness are good; if you have never personally dealt with it, you have a lot on your plate that is new and unfamiliar to you, while normal to those who have faced it head-in -- one reason the son may well have checked out and be trying to dump his mom on you is because *he* is totally burned out. And if he does not live locally, trying to help his mother long-distance is harder, although certainly do-able. His impulse to get you on board, however wrong, is understandable. Keep calling senior services, any local government agencies, community groups and even hospital social workers until you have help upon whom to offload this troubled woman. There are many people professionally trained in these complicated issues, which can feel -- and become -- emotionally overwhelming quicksand to "civilians." One thing we can forget about non-journos is that we're often very good at staying calm in the face of chaos and at getting actionable information quickly -- while others (i.e. this woman's son) fall into, or choose, helplessness or inaction. A few hours spent googling and/or phoning might fairly quickly resolve this. |
| nandy | Posted – 6/6/2008 12:52:41 PM | show profile This is such a sad situation, and one I can totally relate to. One of our neighbors, someone we have known for over 40 years, is falling into dementia, and it is so sad...and possibly dangerous. He had some strange but harmless habits, like walking up the street and putting people's trash cans back up their driveway after the trash had been picked up, and going though the dumpster behind a small strip mall. But when my father greeted him one day, he did not recognize him despite their 40+ year friendship. He picked a fight over something silly and when my father turned to walk away, he pulled out a handgun (didn't point it at him, but did brandish it). He's a retired policeman, so the handgun was registered, but my father said it was the first time in his life he had to "talk down" a person with a gun and it was scary! Shortly afterwards, one of the local policeman who also knows the family paid a visit to them. Hopefully, he was able to take the gun. We haven't seen this man around lately, but one of his children is good friends with one of my siblings. She says he's doing OK, but that could mean anything from they have him medicated and house-bound to he's been institutionalized. It's very hard on the families because the sick person isn't always in their demented state. The periods of lucidity become less frequent, but they happen, and the family members live for those brief moments when their father/mother is back, albeit only for a moment. It sounds like your neighbor is not quite at the state my neighbor is at, but she needs some kind of intervention by her family. And definitely, if she continues any invasions of your privacy, the local authorities need to be contacted if only for her own safety. |
| HyancinthGirl | Posted – 6/6/2008 4:40:47 PM | show profile I never thought of my neighbor as mentally ill, just lonely, but after reading these posts I've given it some serious thought. Thanks again for the responses. |
| seeattleme2 | Posted – 6/6/2008 4:42:44 PM | show profile I agree this woman has something mental going on, and you need to talk to her son about it, any other family she has, and finally, the police. A restraining order will have no effect. You don't want this woman going apeshit and you DON'T want her committing suicide because anyhting you do triggers a fit of desperation (I am saying this for your benefit, not hers, you don't need the guilt). Talk to her son, find out from him what you need to do--tell him you will report her to Social Services if he doesn't consider her mental health. As a last reort, you can talk to her and tell her you have concerns--take her to social services or to see her doctor (one visit won't kill you). Explain to him what's going on ahead of time--get his name either from his son or from her. There's not much you can do, but shirt of moving, in order to improve the situation for ALL involved--yourself included--I think it's best to do whatever you can to get her help, once, maybe twice. After that, you can get police or Mental Health Services involved. You could have the doctor talk to the son or write a letter as well. Is there anyone else in her family you can contact? A brother, a niece, someone? |
| writesonwater | Posted – 6/6/2008 5:02:12 PM | show profile Also, here's another thought kind of unrelated -- sometimes when a cluster of houses are for sale in a neighborhood, there's a reason. Were there any other places for sale besides yours when you bought it? |
| WordyBird | Posted – 6/6/2008 5:46:55 PM | show profile I hope this doesn't sound snarky, but what glorious crime-free paradise do you live in that you didn't lock the doors to your home in the first place? But, see this is why I have nothing to do with any of my neighbors. In fact, I'm the cranky ol' beach who tells them to keep their stereos down and be more considerate of the world around them. If I were you--and I realize you're a lot nicer than I am so this is going to sound cruel--the next time I caught her on my property, I'd just call the police. When her son has to go and pick her up at the station, you'll see how fast the intrusions stop--particularly if the cops see that she's mentally ill. They'll give him a good talking to. You may seem like ogres to the rest of the neighborhood, but this woman, unfortunate case though she is, is a menace, and sooner or later she's going to get hurt when she enters the wrong house and someone shoots her thinking she's a thief. Oh, and buy a shredder for your trash. |
| wineaux | Posted – 6/6/2008 6:22:27 PM | show profile Do buy the shredder. It's an excellent idea, and everyone should shred absolutely everything that is considered trash that is a document with personal info. on it anyways. She is definetely not carrying a full deck of cards upstairs. People don't get that involved and intrusive into other people's lives unless they are at least a little unhinged. Being painfully lonely can lead people down a road to mental health issues as well. Seriously, what mentally sound person shows up on a neighbors doorstep at the crack of dawn, in a puddle of tears? A person with normal capabilities wouldn't dream of humiliating themselves that way and encroaching so deeply on people they hardly know. You haven't even been there a year, for God's sake. I've lived in my neighborhood for a year and a half and don't even feel comfortable asking my neighbors to take in my mail when I'm out of town, and we are pretty friendly with almost everyone within our immediate vicinity. The bottom line is that for all your good intentions, what she needs is beyond your responsibilities, and you deserve peace in your home. Stand firm! |
| seeattleme2 | Posted – 6/7/2008 6:59:19 PM | show profile People are going to jump all over my ass for saying this ("So you are saying that it's okay for neighbors to go through each other's trash etc etc") but this woman is of a different generation when neighbors were a lot more connected and formed communities. My parents have lived next to the same neighbors for nearly 40 years, and my parents also never lock their doors or windows unless they are leaving the house for days at a time. ..and even then they leave the back door open in case one of us kids comes home or someone needs to get into the house. My parents aren't loaded so there's nothing worth taking much anyway, but it's just not their mindset. They also know everything about the neighborhood kids--where they go to school how old they are, who has what pets, etc. Recently when a strange car was parked on the block with a man sitting in for, for days at a time, it was my mom who called the neighborhood watch patrol and had him come by, ask questions, and run the plates. This isn't a posh area--my parents live in a three bedroom one bath single story house. This woman is of that mindset, left adrift by a son who obvioulsy isn't involved and doesn't care and god knows who else in her family doesn't appear to care much either. This person (the poster) has already gone out of her way to assist this woman as much as she can--this poster would not be comfortable calling the police on the woman or taking other severe action. Sometimes when you give advice you have to take into account the kind of person you are giving advice TO. In either event, I wouldn't get mean or severe or nasty with this woman. She is your neighbor, and she's not going anywhere (yet) and she's obviously mentally unstable. Call around and ask advice from experts who know how to deal with this kind of thing. |
| writesonwater | Posted – 6/7/2008 10:23:49 PM | show profile Seeattle has a good point about the generations. When Grandma lived with the grown kids and the grandkids were next door, it was easier to keep tabs on something like a mental illness. In today's mobile society, dealing with an elder's mental illness from a distance is incredibly challenging. It's possible to set your boundaries and to be compassionate but firm. I'd encourage you to look for that balance -- just think what it would be like if it were your mother. Sure, I know that if it were you'd have taken care of her. Still .. Asking for the help of authorities can be a compassionate thing if her family actually needs a paper trail to have her committed, for example. Pick your way to be compassionate, also. The groceries thing sounds too much -- but her son may appreciate knowing about local groceries that do deliveries for shutins. We arranged to have a rechargeable grocery card at a local store that delivers, and my mum's helper can call in a shoppng list. Whereas if you're shoveling your walk, shoveling hers might not be too over the top. My dad always shoveled the walk of the elderly lady across the street. But caretaking is too much for most neighbors, unless they're very, very giving individuals with the time to do it, or sometimes if they're the same age and have compassion because of that. And it's dangerous to allow her to barge in or be intrusive. These are bad habits, because some neighbor might mistake her for an intruder, for one thing. While setting boundaries, there may be things you can do without putting yourself out. |
