Her Neighbor Is Obsessively Monitoring Every Move and Reporting Every Minor Infraction to the Landlord—Pushing Her to Force a Permanent Halt
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Having a creepy neighbor is a horrible experience, but it gets even worse when they are trying to get you in trouble with your landlord.
What would you do if the neighbor across the street was always watching you and trying to find the smallest things that you do for which he can report you to your landlord?
That is what is happening to the woman in this story, and after she asked him to leave her alone, she noticed that he was reporting even more things to her landlord, and now she is worried that it will cause problems with her housing.
There is no doubt that this is a serious situation that she needs to take action on right away. Read through the full story and see what you think she should do.
Creepy neighbor (M45ish) watches me(F36) to complain about me to my landlord (F50’s)
For some context, I (F36) have lived in the same duplex for nearly a decade.
This seems like a great deal.
Last year the owner of the home moved out and offered me the downstairs apartment in exchange for keeping up with the yard work.
They told me I could do whatever I want with the yard and to treat it as my own. I agreed and have done a lot to the backyard, but have mostly just kept the front yard tidy.
Ok, she is clearly living up to her side of the bargain.
All I have done is kept the wisteria pruned and allowed the ivy to grow over the retaining walls, but have kept it tidy and off the sidewalk. This is important later.
I have a next door neighbor I will call Steve (M45ish). Steve is a handyman who has done a lot of work for my landlord over the years. Steve’s house is a disaster.
He definitely sounds a bit odd.
There’s junk spilling off of his porch, dying plants still in nursery pots, and his house is in total disrepair. I don’t care about it at all, but it’s important context given his current complaints.
Over the years, Steve has made comments about the amount of Lyfts I take, won’t speak to me or acknowledge that I have spoken to him when I am with a man, asked me for a can opener at 9pm (ladies??), and has told me he calls the city to report cars that have been parked for too long or too close to my driveway.
The landlord must think he does a pretty good job.
One day, Steve told me my car that I was saving up to fix had a tow notice and he had found a guy who wanted to buy it. How convenient. This is a short list of his comments…
After I moved to the downstairs apartment, the landlord asked Steve to put in a new backdoor. Steve came over to take a look without the landlord present.
He is kind of creepy.
As we were talking about it, he says to me, “Well, I’ll have to put in a threshold which will make it harder for you to walk around barefoot in the yard” His upstairs windows overlook a portion of my backyard.
In the fall he got angry at me for leaving about a shovels worth of leaves in the gutter when it was leaf pick up day. He also raked up the leaves I left on the parking strip to kill the grass. All annoying and weird, but I let it go.
She was smart to set some boundaries.
Anyway, this past January Steve came over as I was pruning dead branches in the front yard. Yes I know it’s early, but it was during a stretch of warm and dry weather.
Steve starts asking questions to the point where it becomes clear he doesn’t think I should be doing this at that time of year, but doesn’t want to say it outright.
At this point I am so over all his meddling that I send him a text the next day outlining how he’s made me uncomfortable and that I’d appreciate some neighborly anonymity.
This has to be intentional.
Steve did not take kindly to that and denied everything and quickly ended the conversation. Steve has since avoided me.
All was well and fine until Steve tore down his fence, which included the fence separating our properties. Steve tore it down in February, built two of the three sides, and left my side untouched until July when I finally contacted my landlord about it.
What is with the delay.
My landlord checked in with Steve and told me the fence would be finished by the end of July. It was not. I contacted my landlord again in September and the owner was very frustrated with Steve and said they’d call him and let them know it had to be done.
I know the owner spoke to Steve on the phone for quite a while. Days after, the fence was built.
If the landlord had a problem with these things, she should have told her.
A few days after the phone call my landlord texts me to let me know they’d be coming by the house this Saturday. Yesterday my landlord comes by and starts hacking at the wisteria I’ve been pruning for years and cut the ivy all the way back over the top of the retaining wall.
The wisteria was starting to crowd the sidewalk, but was by no means blocking the path. I go outside to say hi and my landlord tells me they are going to start coming by once a month just to check on things.
Apparently there is no issue.
Although they didn’t mention Steve by name, my landlord mentioned taking on a few other tasks that Steve had made some comment to me about in the last year.
My landlord did not indicate any problem even when asked if there had been complaints. They remained friendly and neutral and reiterated their plan of selling me the house one day.
It sure does look like Steve is trying to get revenge for what she said.
However, none of it sits right since neighbors and people walking by always complimented the yard and wisteria. Other than Steve apparently, everyone else thought my yard looked tidy and beautiful.
So, that’s where I am. I feel like Steve has blown everything I’ve done this year way out of proportion to make me the evil tenant. He cares so much about keeping the neighborhood nice, but doesn’t seem to look in the mirror often.
She is in a difficult situation to be sure.
I haven’t told the landlord anything about how Steve has made me feel uncomfortable and I am wondering what, if any, action I should take.
Should I tell the landlord how uncomfortable Steve has made me feel and how he meddles in my business? Should I wait and see if venting his grievances were enough and now he’ll leave me alone?
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Thinking things through is a great first step.
I really really don’t want to move. I would like to think the landlord has my back given everything that’s happened, but I still feel the need to cover myself.
I am just so sick of this man watching me and trying to meddle in my life and I want advice on how to make it stop.
She should put up cameras and start documenting every interaction just to be safe. If she talks to her landlord before she has any proof of anything, it could backfire.
Let’s see if the people in the comments have anything to say about it.
Gathering proof is important.
Telling the landlord is a good idea.
This commenter thinks she should just ignore it. That seems like a horrible idea.
Here is a really good point.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who got fed up with all of the cars parking illegally on his vacation land, so he had them all towed.
This commenter says that she should report him.
Her first big step should be getting proof of what the neighbor is doing. After that, she can start reporting him.
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