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Neighbor drama
Hello,
I would really appreciate some input on the issues we are having with the neighbor behind us.
I will do my best to keep this brief.
One night, my partner heard a loud noise on our roof and went to investigate (on-going issues with wildlife). He went to look out our window and accidentally saw our neighbors across the way with their bathroom blinds open and in a state of undress.
He unfortunately happened to lock eyes with the male neighbor, who now has him branded as some kind of weirdo. Neighbor proceeded to waive his tablet around and now keeps it in their bathroom window as if threatening to record him.
A couple of points to note:
They insisted on keeping their blinds open at night
Other neighbors have seen them as well on different occasions
Last I checked, we are allowed to look out of our windows
My partner was mortified. He is by nature a very kind, respectful person and would never want to invade anyone's privacy. Unfortunately we were dealing with other more urgent issues when this all occurred (a serious injury at work, an immediate family member took their own life) and therefore never attempted to clear the air with the neighbors. I'm not sure that they would have been all that receptive anyway; Mr. has previously demonstrated a rather ferocious temper - swearing and screaming for all to hear.
We have tried to just continue on with our lives, hoping that they will see that we have no interest in looking at them. It has been well over a year now, however we still get the sense that they are angry.
If we are in our backyard, Mr. likes to loudly drop words like police and *court order,*especially if they happen to have company. Partner suffers from anxiety, so these comments really stress him out.
What if anything, should we do? It would be wonderful to be able to relax in our yard again. Moving is not an option, and frankly I don't feel we should based on principal. It makes me so angry that they are bad mouthing my partner to other people.
Thank you all so much for your input.
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I hate to tell you this but both the neighbor and yourselves are assuming way too much hear without having every tried talking to each other. By your own words, here is how I come to this conclusion. It starts here: He unfortunately happened to lock eyes with the male neighbor, who now has him branded as some kind of weirdo. To that I ask, has the neighbor actually spoken such words to your partner, is your partner a mind reader,(a rare coincidence but could be true) or are you both guessing from the movements of this male neighbor? I can't say your idea about the tablet is for real happening 'now keeps it in their bathroom window as if threatening to record him. If you had a tablet, one only, would you stop using it and leave it 24/7 sitting against your bathroom window? Either it is one tablet and there are times its being used and not in the bath window or this is an older non functioning one they have put there to intimidate. If you can say 100% for sure that you know its for intimidation, then you have a psychic ability if you learned this from something other than your mind reacting to what it sees.
At this point, I will say there is something not normal about him. If he were a nudist, he would not be looking to show off to neighbors. A nudist is mindful of how others may not be comfortable with seeing someone else undressed. This I can say from being one occasionally and knowing others who are. Most people would have curtains in windows for their privacy and especially the bath room where at least treated glass that lets light in but you can't see out is what the bath window is made of. I can't think of any newer homes that don't come without this kind of glass or older homes where the majority are untreated. I have been in enough peoples home restrooms over my life to know I can count on one hand windows that were clear and had no curtain. My first idea was to ask my self why a person would want all windows in the house clear and able to see out of at any given point in time. I came up with only one thing, a phobia. Your partner battle anxiety. And I used to have an anxiety but no longer. However I can understand to what extent a fear/phobia or anxiety which again for me was fueled by fear, will make a person do a certain behavior, one that may be detrimental to being at least civil if not making friends. So lets say, the neighbor has a fear that someone will sneak up on him to do no good, maybe break in. They would want all windows to be clear so they can see out and see if anyone is approaching their house. Of course, having motion sensing flood lights that come on, an alarm system and having a large dog that is vocal enough to make its presence known would seem things such a person would do also. So if he doesn't, but has a phobia for whatever reason that makes it a need to see out his windows, he doesn't have to make sense to do what he does. There could be something quite wrong in how he thinks, maybe a mental disability or mental illness. YOu have heard him yell and cussing, and heard his voice raised in temper, hopefully not towards you or other neighbors but just what you hear coming from his home and yard. What of a partner for him, wife or girlfriend. SHe may be the mousy quiet abused person who is verbally abused by this man who doesn't sound like he has a patient or kind bone in his body. My ex was like that. Now I have compared my own experience in my past to this man and have imagined all the rest about a wife. I said this on purpose to show you how easy it is to guess based on our experiences or the little info we have. Yeah, he might be an asshole but it is better knowing for sure that he is or not by taking a chance to right to make things right.
You must have discussed this with other neighbors to hear from them that they also have seen into their house. Whether it has been on inappropriate times such as when they are in the bathroom or having sex, that wasn't said. So I can't comment on that other than if he is a sadistic exhibitionist, he might want to be seen and then pretend he is angry at you for seeing something he wanted you to see in the first place.
After a year you sense they are still angry. However you did not sense what things you have heard or experienced further with him that say he is still angry at you other than words you hear through the fence. If he is really that angry, he would not string it along a year before calling police or getting a court order. If you really stop and think about it, rather than reacting like your partner out of anxiety, you'd see he was tossing words around only to play cruelly with the emotions of anyone he felt are not self confidant and well adjusted enough to see this for what it might be and not letting it bother you. As far as I can tell, he has not come onto your property threatening you, just stays on his side. If he is purposely using the words you claim to have heard, knows you are in listening distance then it sure sounds like he enjoys intimidating people. Would he call police to tell them someone was looking in their bathroom window? The police would probably laugh at him if they heard he doesn't have his window covered or treated. They might come out, check the distance between the houses, talk to you to see which window you saw him out of and look for themselves to see how much of that bathroom they can see. A person who doesn't want to be seen ever would never take that chance. Would you stand in front of a clear window totally nude unless you don't mind being seen? If you don't want to be seen, you wouldn't do it, right? I used to be married to a guy who was so inconsistent and stuff like this reminds me of him. In the end, it was discovered by a psychologist that he did indeed have mental illness, not the kind totally obvious to strangers, but the kind that allows him to cruise through society without others catching on to it, unless they saw him on a consistent basis such as those he worked with (he was let go from many jobs) or neighbors, close friends, family and marital partner (me). Your neighbor could have some things wrong with him that most people do not see but since you are neighbors, you are seeing enough to at least feel something is not right, even if you have no solid proof, the kind that could stand up in court. Now if you were to call police and tell them about the incidence and how you feel the neighbor is meaning and threatening you now, whether right after the incident or now a year later, there would be no grounds for them to arrest the neighbor for choosing to not use blinds or something and likely they would tell you there was nothing they could do. However, who knows what laws are on the books in a city as there are many that have crazy laws such as no chewing gum in a business district. Someone from Arkansas told me to look up laws in Arkansas if I didn't believe him that even a non resident visiting go spend a night in jail for pronouncing it wrong if heard by police or someone in a government position. I have a feeling that if you have little children in the house who could accidently see the neighbors undressed, it could become a different issue entirely. Anytime nudity or anything sexual comes up with children involved, it can become an issue with the police. You did not mention any children.
What I am most curious about is knowing what kind of neighbors all of you were before the incident. Were you just nodding neighbors, no words spoken, not showing any interest to meet, or were you neighbors who talked, knew each others names and on occasion spent some time chatting away. I had one elderly neighbor across the street I clicked with enough to become friends with and trusted enough to have her pick up my kid if one was sick and had to leave immediately but it would take me too much time for the kid to wait for me to drive
home. I would purposely go to meet my neighbors always with muffins or cookies I baked as a reason, and gave them my name and number, right after moving in. Then I did the same anytime I had a new neighbor which happened four times that a house sold and i got new neighbors. I was not close with the others, nothing in common to be friends but I know how a neighbor can be weird. I had a next door neighbor who was great until we had a shed built in the back of our yard that came with a second story and small window above the barn like doors. We had that much stuff to store. He started complaining to us that we were trying to see into his yard and spy on him and his wife. The wife was sickly all the time, lots of medical issues so she wasn't even outside hardly at all, he was the only one I saw on a consistent basis. I asked him to come over and he could climb upstairs in our shed and look out and see how much I could see if I happened to look out. Our fence was wood and high enough that we could barely see the tops of heads of taller people so we couldn't see anything while on the ground. There was no window we could see in, only their back patio could be seen. I did lots of gardening so I knew by lack of voices they rarely used it. So asking if this was okay with him, that I promised I d o not spend my time in a hot shed staring at his patio when they are out, I asked if growing taller vegetation againsat my side of fence so the view of their patio was blocked, if that would be okay with him, He said yes. We planted bamboo as it is fast growing. We knew it could spread underground and was invasive. So it was planted in the plastic buckets they came in. They grew tall quickly and it satisfied him but broke out on the pots and spread unfortunately. I knew he was imagining a scenario that would never happen, that he had a fear, and since it was less likely that he would soon miraculously be cured of his fears, the next best thing was do something to help allay his fears. But in my situation, at least we were talking neighbors and he knew that he could voice his concerns to us. My husband was not as outgoing as me so it fell to me to meet neighbors. This is how it should work, even if neighbors weren't perfect and had phobias or anxieties.
Can you tell whats coming? I want to suggest you try to talk to him. I know you both won't ever be bosum buddies but if there was a distorted thinking reason why his bathroom window was clear, one shouldn't bring that up as a person will become defensive and not willing to even have a tentative friendly basis with a neighbor. If he were my neighbor, we might go over with a card and cookies. In the card, I would say something like "I know its a year since it happened but we never apologized for the incident when my partner happened to notice you at the bathroom window. I don't know what your reason for not having the glass treated for privacy and I understand that is your choice, but I would like to let you know we heard a loud sound, thought maybe it was some kind of animal in the yard and was looking out the window at that time closest to where we heard the noise and that is when the eye caught movement in peripheal vision so on thinking the animal was now in your yard, we looked and that is when you and I saw each other through the windows. I was too embarrassed at having caught you that way and wanted to apologize now that I got the guts to say something. (YOu might both go over but you do the talking for your partner if he can't or won't. )Then maybe at the end, put 'would you be willing to come over for a bbq as our guests one of these upcoming Saturdays? The reason I would put that is that if the person is willing to forgive and forget and be a friendly neighbor, such a person is more likely to agree and come if it can be sometime that works for them. If they act grouchy, no encouraging smile, or simply accept the cookies and card and say nothing and close the door, or simply not accepting your peace offering and just shut the door, then you can know that he is an asshole and it wasn't anything you saw or did that was wrong, He's the one with an attitude. Only a small percent of population is humans who are loners, and/or unfriendly and just mean down to their bones at the whole world, not just you. I would mind my own business then and not talk to them, and ignore whatever I hear them say through the fence. I am very outgoing. I am very vocal too if I feel something in my world needs to be addressed, something that is hurting others, not me necessarily. I don't suggest you do it but if they have friends over and you can be sure those people are out there in the yard, try to hear a whole sentence, not guess at a few words. But if you hear him say something like, "One day, my neighbor next door was peeping in my bathroom window, I should have called the police and reported him as a peeping Tom and had the police check him out. If I heard such a statement clearly spoken to his guests, I would have a retort to loudly speak through the fence, sounding as if I am defending myself which most people feel they have to do, but I would be saying it so the neighbor would hear what I have to say. This is after he doesn't accept my apology, even though I did nothing wrong. I have the balls to say,
"I tried to explain this all in a card to him (that he ignored or refused to read saying which it was) how it was accidental and I was looking for a wild animal in the yard when looking out the window. I was not a peeping Tom who repeatedly on numerous occasions looks into his bathroom window. He would know that if he'd read my card and accepted my apology for the one time incident. It would not have happened if his bath window had been frosted or a curtain in place. That leads me to wonder how you deal with using his restroom when there is a chance someone could see inside. He may threaten to call police but they would laugh at him, because he chooses to keep every single window clear of any curtains or such and It wasn't someone on his property peering in the window on purpose, just accidental. It is no crime to look out the windows of your own home. Imagine not being able to because a neighbor will assume you are purposely trying to see him nude. I hope you know what kind of person he really is if he holds a grudge a year later. If I were you, I'd look closely at this person you are spending time with." And that would be my way to let him know that I am not happy with him being an asshole of a neighbor and having embarrassed him in front of his friends. They don't need to see my face, just hear my voice.
By the way,if you do write a card, take a photo of it with your cell, the outside and what you wrote in it. If he does make a nuisance call against you just to spite you, it becomes handy to have proof of what was in the card you gave him or having the actual card he refused to take, if you ever have to deal with the police.But I am sure you both have nothing the police would even see as something to give you a warning about other than just stay away from him, don't try to interact and if he gives you any trouble in the future, give us a call. I was a caregiver of a new client who was mentally disturbed. It was 15 or 20 minutes until my shift was done and at that point I would call my company on the customers phone to log out via a phone recording. I reminded her that the company will question why I clocked out early. She screamed that she wanted me to leave immediately, so I said, I would as soon as I called my boss and told her what was up and then I'd clock out so I don't get in trouble. While I was busy with that, she secretly called police. What they heard was that someone was in her apartment and refused to leave when she told them. The police were in the area and knocking on the door the moment I got off the phone. SHe told her story but the police had gone through this with her countless times where she got mad if I did something my boss told me not to ever do for a client, there were rules. ANd thus I was about the 20th caregiver she'd had since being approved for help. The company said I was the last chance they were giving her. The police said they understood my position, didn't need to talk to my as my client called them frequently all over a caregiver not doing something she asked them to do that was against her Drs rules which the company advised me of. I was not in trouble with the police. All they said was that next time someone with mental problems starting losing control like that threatening to call police, get away from that person, don't spend a minute longer even trying to reason with her. She can't be reasoned with.
Police are often called to situations where the one who called in was obviously wacko and the other is not and by the circumstances, the one reported to police is not the problem and it is easy to see the caller is the one with issues. It has happened several times in my life and I have never been questioned much, and let go on my merry way. I wouldn't worry because even a nuisance complaint won't stick. A nuisance is someone playing their music too loud late at night, or someone throwing their trash over the fence into neighbors yard, allowing they dog to go poop only in the neighbors yard. No one will ever be banned from looking out their own window. It falls on the neighbor to make sure their windows are properly covered if they don't want to be seen.
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