It is important to try to get along with your neighbors as well as you can, but sometimes they can be so overbearing and demanding that it is impossible.

That was the case for the woman in this story when her neighbors were constantly complaining about her, sending their dogs outside to bark at her, and even sending their kids out every time she tried to smoke since they knew she wouldn’t smoke around them.

She has put up with their harassment for two years, but she is tired of it and is looking for options on what she can do.

Personally, I think she needs to document what is happening and notify the police about the harassment. Read through the full story and see what you think.

How do I address my overbearing and controlling neighbors

Context: I live in a triplex, the two neighbors that I share the house with are perfectly fine, zero complaints.

The neighbor’s house must be wild.

My neighbors next to us own their house. We live just outside of a downtown area, so our houses are pretty close together. The distance between my apartment and their house is maybe 20 feet or so, enough room for me to have a small balcony off the side of my apartment that sits right next to their driveway, and then their house is right there.

They are foster parents and have like 8 kids in the house, as well as 4 reactive, untrained dogs. They have a completely fenced in backyard. I do have a very small maybe 10×15 “yard” and it butts directly up to their fence.

Ok, this shouldn’t be a problem.

Here’s part of the issue, I smoke weed 😱

I try to not be a jerk about it, I clean up after myself and don’t leave roaches everywhere, I don’t smoke inside, I wait to smoke outside if the neighbors are outside.

I use it as medicine. I have a lot of medical issues and it helps me eat, sleep, and manage my pain like no other medication I’ve ever had. It helps me function like a normal person does.

In their defense, pot smells horrible, and it can travel quite a distance.

I don’t smoke excessively, like 3 joints a day, maybe a couple more on a bad pain day. I do my best to be courteous about it. I do not ever go down and smoke in my “yard”, because it is right next to their backyard, and I don’t want to have to hear about the smoke going into their backyard.

I smoked one joint down there after I first moved in just to get yelled at by them about the smoke blowing into their yard. There was no one else outside at the time. They waited 3 days to talk to me about it.

Not to mention, any time I am even remotely close to their fence, they let their dogs out to swarm the fence and bark at me as if I’m some robber trying to hop the fence and steal from them.

Are they sending their kids out to try to get him to stop?

Again, our backyards are directly next to each other, and I have to walk past their fence to get to where my car is parked (assigned parking spot)

I usually sit on my balcony when I smoke. It’s the only private outdoor area I have to myself. Lately, my neighbors have been camping out at their living room window (directly across from my balcony) and any time I go out to smoke, their kids have been coming outside to play.

Yup, they are definitely doing this on purpose.

They play directly underneath my balcony in their driveway, despite having an entire fenced in backyard with a trampoline and play set in the far back.

I’m not a jerk, so when I see the kids come out I put out my joint and go inside until they’re done.

However, the other day these people left the window open, and I overheard them telling the kids to go outside and scare me away, so I know they are doing this on purpose, and I am pissed about it.

Yeah, these neighbors are being awful.

These people have picked on me for just about every little tiny thing they possibly can since I’ve moved in two years ago. I had the audacity to play music with my windows open one day, it was 1pm and I was playing Sade, and got yelled at about being loud.

Mind you these people will take the leaf blower out at 9pm to blow away the sun dried dog piles they’ve let pile up in their driveway all week. They call my dog “aggressive” for watching them from my balcony with no barking and no hairs raised, despite two of their dogs trying to literally jump their fence to attack me multiple times.

The neighbors are obsessed with this woman, it seems.

I have multiple videos spanning the last two years of these dogs cornering both me and my dog, snarling at us any time we have the audacity to be outside at the same time as them.

I avoid being outside around them at all costs now. I can see their front porch from my kitchen window, one day I was making coffee with a big tshirt and shorts on, but you couldn’t see the shorts under the shirt.

Through my closed window I overheard the mom screaming at the top of her lungs about how she was gonna “beat my ***” for “dressing like that around her kids” again, mind you, my windows were closed and I was fully dressed inside my OWN apartment.

She is going out of her way to avoid them.

After that I went out and bought those fake plant privacy fence things and lined the side of my balcony facing them so they couldn’t see into my apartment. I also went and bought window film coverings and covered the windows I have facing their house, and I have stopped using my balcony staircase that goes down directly to my car because it runs alongside their fence.

And again, any time I’d use that staircase they’d let their dogs out to swarm me at the fence and spit on and snarl at me through it. Instead I walk all the way around the other side of my house, go through my other neighbors driveway to cut across to get to my car.

What more do they want from her?

I have done everything in my power to keep the peace with these people, but I feel like they’re tormenting me at this point. I don’t sit by certain windows IN MY OWN APARTMENT.

I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on privacy things just to try to give myself ONE outdoor area on my own property that I can enjoy without being watched by them.

I’ve gone days without smoking before because they wanted to keep their windows open at all hours, despite it being 50 degrees outside, because they know I won’t smoke if there’s potential of them smelling it and complaining to me about it, which has landed me in urgent cares and emergency rooms for not being able to eat or sleep for days or my pain becoming too much to manage.

They really have it out for her.

The dad loves to take phone calls outside, pacing back and forth in his driveway or on the sidewalk in front of my apartment, I’ve overheard him talking bad about me many times and exaggerating things to make me sound like the worst neighbor ever.

He’s called my landlord to complain about me, which resulted in me getting reprimanded for being “loud”, only to receive a very formal apology from my landlord a week later after both neighbors that I share this triplex with shared the truth about the situation.

She needs to set up cameras and get this stuff documented.

There’s so many things that have happened that I’m completely glossing over because this is already getting so long.

What do I do about it?? Two years of me biting my tongue and doing what I can to avoid them has not shown to really help the situation at all, and at this point I’m just tired of walking on eggshells in my own space.

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You can hear the frustration in her voice, but she isn’t doing anything about it.

I am not an awful neighbor, I’ve had awful neighbors before and because I know what it’s like I try very hard to not be that person.

It’s awful that I haven’t used spaces that I pay for on my own property in over a year because these people won’t leave me alone or give me a lick of privacy.

My own neighbors in my triplex have never complained about me once.

While it doesn’t seem like she is as innocent as she claims, there is no doubt that the neighbors are seriously overreacting. In my opinion, she needs to document every interaction and start notifying the police about harassment.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

Yup, she needs to stop worrying about them.

This is a good suggestion, though.

Here is someone who says she can start reporting them right back, which does make sense.

Let the neighbors do what they want, but ignore it.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a community who realizes their mistake after restricting parking to residents only gets guests and delivery drivers towed.

This commenter says to just ignore them, though.

She has put up with them long enough. Now it is time to ignore them and report them to the police if it doesn’t stop.