“It Kept Me Up at Night”: Young Woman Stressed Over Elderly Neighbor’s Odd Habits
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Have you ever had a neighbor whose behavior you couldn’t quite figure out? What I mean by that is that you weren’t quite able to decide if the neighbor was being creepy or friendly.
In this story, one young woman has a neighbor just like that. She isn’t sure if she’s overreacting to his behavior, but she finds some of the things he says and does creepy. She really doesn’t like living next door to him, but for whatever reason, her mom keeps inviting him to celebrate the holidays with their family.
The man might just be lonely, but she dreads every interaction with him.
Is she overreacting? Let’s read the whole story to decide.
AIO To My Neighbors Behavior?
I, f 20, have recently gone through a domestic violence situation with my ex that required me to get a Protection From Abuse Order and an abortion, since I couldn’t bear putting a child through that.
I am still mentally, emotionally, and physically recovering from this traumatic experience and I need bits and spouts of peace when possible, even small things like reading on the dock, watching Disney+, and taking my dog, Sasha to the park, which I have recently started to do, since the weather is getting warmer and it is staying lighter out later.
Plus, I am home everyday, since I have dropped out of college due to this situation and being so miserable there.
She lives with her mom, and one of the neighbors is causing her stress.
My mom and I have this neighbor, D, who is in his 80’s, and I feel as if he is taking away peace and joy from certain things and has behaviors that are borderline stalking???
For example, he’ll text my mom at 6:30 in the morning when he sees her taking Sasha outside to go to the bathroom asking if she wants some coffee, even though she has work in a few hours.
The few times she has accepted, his house was so messy that there were flies everywhere due to rotting fish on the counters.
Here’s another example of something that annoys her about the neighbor.
He also bugs us while fishing, saying that the hooks we use aren’t “big enough”, and that my mom is, “doing it wrong”.
He even took the fishing pole out of her hands once!
He was bugging us while fishing today and has ruined fishing for my mom.
Then, the neighbor introduced her to someone.
Today, he introduced me to a woman named V, who is in her 30’s and said that she would come by once a week to help clean his house.
This is not news to me because he has already been paying someone to come clean his house, but I don’t understand what is being cleaned, since it is still messy.
I was taking Sasha outside while she was introducing herself and I got the impression that they were stalking me, since Sasha had to go to the bathroom and had a small accident due to being excited.
I politely had to excuse myself and they still stood on the porch, watching me and Sasha.
She found V’s questions creepy.
I hate being watched, especially when I’m taking Sasha outside, since I feel as if we need leave and privacy so she can go without distractions.
V then asked me how old I was and I said 20, to which she replied that her son is 17, and that, “not like she was trying to set him up, but to see what teenagers have in common.
I nervously laughed in response. Like??? A 20-year-old and a 17-year-old??? What do they have in common with each other??? What does a 20-year-old have in common with a child???
I found the whole conversation and interaction to be very icky, creepy, and predatory.
It’s odd that they keep involving the neighbor in their lives if they dislike him so much.
They asked where my mom was so V could meet her and I said she was busy.
I feel like now not only has fishing been ruined, but that taking my dog outside has been too and now that we have to worry about now a second person coming around and bugging us.
We also have invited him to family holidays and my whole family, including my parents, have commented on how uncomfortable it is to invite almost a complete stranger and buy them presents.
Why is he celebrating Christmas with them?
At Christmas this past year, he was being very annoying and making us all give him our wrapping paper the moment we were down unwrapping each gift, and my sister brought that up to our mom and how I was trying to take my time and be thankful.
We just started throwing the wrapping paper in his direction because we didn’t care.
I understand that he is a lonely man that doesn’t have his family inviting him over for holidays or the women he takes shopping inviting him, but why should we feel obligated to invite an almost complete stranger over when everyone clearly feels uncomfortable?
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I’m not trying to be rude here, I’m just genuinely asking why we need to go out of our way for someone that can be rude and pushy? I don’t want any judgment and I want some genuine advice and to hear from anyone that has had any experience with a difficult neighbor like this.
I’m assuming her mom doesn’t think he’s creepy. She’s probably including him in the holidays because he’s a lonely old man and she feels bad for him. He doesn’t have to be included. It’s a choice.
It also doesn’t sound like he’s stalking her. Standing on your own property while a neighbor walks by is not exactly stalking. Stalking would be more like if he was following her or going out of his way to spy on her.
I think she’s overreacting. Let’s see if Reddit agrees.
This person thinks moving would be a good idea.
This part confuses me too.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about neighbors who were sick of their hedge getting demolished, so they put a surprise inside.
Another person points out that the age difference between 17 and 20 isn’t really that creepy.
This is most likely what’s really going on.
She has dealt with her fair share of trauma, and her emotions are on edge. She’s not seeing this situation clearly, which is probably understandable.
If she hasn’t already, she should talk about her feeling with her mom since her mom seems to the one inviting the neighbor over for the holidays and agreeing to have coffee with him. I doubt that her mom finds the neighbor creepy at all, and she probably has no idea her daughter feels this way.
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