I have been dealing with a VERY unhinged neighbor for a while now and I just found this sub and am looking for the space to vent. I can’t even begin to include all that’s happened on here but I’m going to provide the highlights to give everyone context.
So to paint the picture, I live in a little 1b/1br duplex. The place is basically a rectangle and along the whole side of the house I share a wall with a couple next door. The first 8 months, we got along just fine. Both the husband and wife seemed a little strange, but just figured maybe they were a little awkward. Fast forward to last January and her whole personality changes. New years day she sends a very aggressive text demanding her husband be able to park in a spot that my partner had been using (an undesignated spot that 8 months prior she told me was my spot, despite me telling her that the spot was undesignated and she could park there). I tried reassuring her that the parking spot was not a problem and being as kind as possible. Since my partner at the time didn’t live with me I had no issue giving her the spot, but I was shocked at her complete 180. I called her on the phone with her permission because I wanted to clear the air since her texts were so different from our normal interactions. Over the phone she just bitched me out and then sent me an awful text after hanging up on me. At this point I’m confused because I’ve agreed to her request so I have no idea why she was being so mean. The next day I sent a calm but firm text letting her know that I was not to be disrespected but again she could have the spot. She responded to more hatred and I sent a final text a few days later wishing her the best but reiterating that any issues be handled respectfully. Even that did not go over well.
Fast forward a few weeks later, there are no issues with parking because my partner no longer parked there. Now she’s become very upset about the noise. So much so that she starts running over to my door, POUNDING on it, and running away. She does this 3 times in the span of 2 days. Once at 4:30pm when I was listening to some music and twice one night at 10pm when I was baking. I open the door the 3rd time in time to catch her and she yells at me for always making noise. She continues to text me asking me with crazy requests throughout the next month (she once asked me to turn my tv off and I hadnt had the tv on the entire day). And for context, I know we share a wall and do try to be very mindful about my noise but it feels like I can’t even live in my place without tiptoeing around it. Eventually, despite me wanting to keep texts open for documentation purposes, I decide to block her number because I was becoming so stressed at any text I’d receive from her. A few months later, she POUNDS on the door at 4:30am while I am out of town and my partner is dogsitting. He forgot to turn off the bob ross channel we keep on for my dog (at a very low volume) and she yelled at him for keeping her husband up. She would also bang on the walls whenever she didnt like what I was doing. Mostly when I’d cook/bake or put dishes in our out of the cabinets.
The final straw happened last summer though. My partner moved in with me and began parking in the undesignated spot because he now pays rent too. On two separate nights she comes to BANG on the door and run away. The 2nd night it happens, I decide to knock on her door and let her know that my partner has moved in and that she can talk to the leasing office but if she bangs on the door again I will call the cops (I finally ordered a camera to come in the mail the next day). Despite me knocking several times she never comes to the door so I try again the next evening. She finally comes to the door and I have my phone ready in my pocket to record the interaction. I havent said a word when she opens the door to say she was there first and some contradictory stuff about parking and then slams the door on me. So through the door I say my piece about my partner moving in and calling the cops if she does this again and I walk away. I’m almost to my door on the other side of the duplex when I hear her on the phone with the police asking for help because her neighbor is harassing her. I walk back up to her after that and she yells at me saying she hasnt been banging on my door. She asks me to leave her alone and starts accusing me of EVERYTHING she has done to me. I cant argue with crazy so I just go home and wait for the cops to come. She even comes and knocks on my door and shoves her phone in my face to show me an email saying the spots are undesignated (which is exactly what I had been telling her) and I just stand there neutrally until she leaves. The cops finally come but theyre outside and dont know who made the call. I fill them in and show them the video and apologize for wasting their time. They go talk to her and after that things are quiet for a while. I have my security cam up and it’s definitely helping.
But then this past january shit started up again. She keeps banging on the wall all at the oddest things/times. Any time we have anyone over (which is rare) and any time I’m in the kitchen and once when my kitchen timer was ticking... It started really stressing me and my partner out. Any every time she does something wild, I always smell weed coming from her apartment (and coming from her, any time I’ve had a face to face interaction with her) so I’m worried with substances involved that something crazy could happen since she’s so off the rails. We’ve also noticed that stuff usually happens when she’s home alone. From the beginning I’ve been documenting things with the leasing office so we went to them looking for solutions like being able to move units. They were validating but didn’t offer any real help. They mentioned possibly allowing us to move units on 2 separate occasions but when I kept following up, nothing happened.
So the banging on the wall has continued (she also plays loud music which doesnt stress me out as much because it’s a muffled sound, not a jarring noise) but otherwise it’s been relatively quiet. Until this weekend when she called the cops on my partner at 11:45am on saturday because his dad and 2 siblings came to town and they were cooking breakfast. The cops were nice to my partner fortunately, but we are just really over all of this and ready to move out this upcoming September.
It’s just SO frustrating sharing a wall with someone that is not based in reality!!! It’s like there’s nothing I can do to avoid this mess because even me doing everything in my power to just ignore her/be neutral hasn’t helped at all.
And anyways, that is all. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for listening to my ted talk.