Neighbor Keeps Staring At Woman’s Husband, But Gets Offended When He Turns Their Security Camera Toward Her
Magnific
Living with a difficult neighbor already is quite a challenging task, but it gets particularly embarrassing if you cannot even relax in your garden without being under observation.
Recently, one couple found themselves disturbed by a stranger staying at their neighbor’s place who kept staring at the husband despite numerous attempts to make contact in a polite manner.
After the neighbors asked them to change the positions of their security cameras since the man suffers from PTSD, they decided to move one camera.
However, after continued staring, confrontation took place, which resulted in a rather alarming development for the wife while she is alone with her baby.
What would you do?
Check out the full story below.
Advice on how to deal with strange neighbor who stares?
We bought our house a year ago.
Our next door neighbors are a lovely elderly woman (we’ll call her Rose) and her middle-aged son. There’s a short chain link fence between our backyards, so we have a clear view into their yard and vice versa.
A few months ago, a younger man moved in with Rose and her son. We assume he’s a relative of some kind.
We were never formally introduced, just started seeing him in their backyard. This man is quiet, keeps to himself.
I’ve tried waving or saying hello to him but he averts his eyes or pretends he doesn’t see me. It’s whatever, I figure he’s not social and I’m an introvert so I don’t judge.
Things get weirder when they keep trying to be friendly to him.
Then one day, Rose approaches my husband (we’ll call him Josh) and asks him if we can turn our security cams away from her house. She says the young man staying with her has PTSD and doesn’t like to be watched.
We compromise and turn one camera away, the backyard one, so this man can feel more comfortable. (FYI, we never learn this man’s never. Still don’t know it.)
A couple weeks after that, this man begins staring at Josh.
He stands in their backyard and stares, then stops as soon as Josh leaves the yard or goes in the house. He’s never stared at me, btw.
Josh is a friendly guy, so he’s tried waving, saying hi, making small talk, but this man never responds. Just continues to stare.
Things reach a boiling point.
Poor Josh is baffled and unnerved by this behavior.
I was mostly ignoring it, until this morning. Josh and I were sitting in the backyard on our patio drinking coffee.
Suddenly Josh whispers to me, “Why is this guy staring?” I look over and see the back door of the neighbor’s house is ajar, and the guy’s head is poking out. He’s very clearly looking over at us.
I shrug. What can ya do?
But Josh is fed up.
He starts walking toward our shared fence, calling over to the guy, “Hey! Hey buddy! Can you hear me? Why are you looking over here?” His voice is loud but his tone is mostly just curious.
The guy continues staring. Josh gets to the fence and continues yelling over to the guy, asking if there’s a problem, why is he looking at us, etc.
At this point, Josh’s tone is starting to switch to anger/irritation.
He tells the guy that it’s not okay to continue staring and pretend he can’t hear us. The guy still says nothing.
So Josh walks back to our house and turns our security camera to face their yard, as it used to.
But there’s an important detail.
The guy continues watching silently.
Josh says, in a definitely irritated and unfriendly tone, “Fine. If you watch us, we’ll watch you.” Then Josh goes inside.
I stay seated on the patio chair through the entire interaction. I stay there when Josh goes inside. The guy goes inside when Josh does, but comes out a minute or two later.
At this point, it’s relevant to mention that my husband is white. Most of our neighbors, including Rose and her house guest, are Black.
Those who aren’t Black are Latino/Hispanic. I’m white and Filipino but I look Latina. What I’m trying to say is: my husband is the only white guy in our entire neighborhood.
Then something unexpected happens.
Anyway, the guy comes out and starts speaking out loud (to himself?). This is the first time I’ve ever heard his voice, by the way.
He says things along the lines of, “Can’t believe this white guy turned his camera toward me…I can’t look with my eyes but he can look with a camera…Gotta protect white people I guess…” and so on.
He’s clearly angry.
Then, he starts using his phone to film our house and security cam, all while explaining what happened. His narrative seems to be, “I looked at this white dude so he threatened me and turned his security cam to face me.”
It’s a very complicated/sensitive situation.
This is when I decide to go inside. I relay what the guy said/did to Josh. We’re both baffled.
I’m desperate for advice, because I’m often home alone with our baby and I don’t want to deal with a an angry man living next to us. Is there any way to resolve this situation? Have we done something wrong?
Should we just ignore him and stay away? My husband is going to try talking to Rose next time she’s home, so we’ll see if that helps.
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If anyone can offer insight into this man’s behavior, or advice on how to proceed, I’d be so grateful.
What did Reddit have to say?
A good idea.
Yup.
Duh.
Another opinion.
Hmmm.
Lol.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who wants peace and quiet by the pool, but finds guests and loud music instead.
Another reader chimes in.
I like this comment.
This is quite complicated as several aspects come into play simultaneously: the reaction of the neighbor who obviously feels uncomfortable about being recorded, his continuous staring, and the understandable wish of the couple to feel safe in their backyard.
It was a decent compromise on the part of the homeowners to agree to change the position of the camera, however, this does not necessarily mean that the couple should put up with uncomfortable behavior forever.
On the other hand, switching the camera so that it would capture images of the neighbor’s yard in the heat of an argument, which was then followed by racial tension, does not seem to be a very effective solution.
Perhaps, it would be best to talk to Rose calmly and document all instances that cause concern without resorting to confrontation.
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