Dear Bel
I am at my wits’ end and angry at the lack of a peaceful life. Two times I’ve moved out of the house due to selfish, rude neighbours.
Because of my traumatized neighbors, I suffer from severe mental illness. My alarm used to go off at 6:30 AM, and I would be awakened by very loud music. The issues were not resolved by arbitration, and I was forced to leave my home.
My second home was fine for a couple of years, until one neighbour retired and decided to ‘save’ a parking space for his 40-year-old daughter until she returned home. He would hurry to get his car moved so that she could find a space.
Eventually, I had to have a disabled bay fitted by the council because of my disability, but when another neighbour (with Parkinson’s) took to hitting my car every time he returned home, I started to feel quite down-heartened.
My mental health was affected and I attempted to regain my normal life.
However, I decided to move again. This time from London to a quiet culde-sac that had a driveway leading to my detached house. For a while, it was bliss. Then, neighbours left and new residents moved in. Nightmare. They block my driveway by parking over the kerbs that have been dropped. I am refused assistance by the council
Two children from the next-door tenant are constantly hitting my fence with their soccers. They’ve even hit me in the face.
She is a youngish woman who has a ‘man friend’ who stays over for ‘favours’. When she’s mowing the grass, she plays loud music.
So her friend, her man, moves his cars for her so that she can easily exit her driveway. He is aggressive and blocks my driveway often.
Can I find the peace, quiet, and space I need to live in my home? Are you chasing something impossible? It is my desire to feel relaxed and comfortable in my own house, free from the intrusions of these rude, ignorant people.
This is an issue that affects many people. However, I also recognize the benefits of living in a community where everybody gets along. It is so disappointing that I haven’t achieved it.
I’ve tried the friendly approach, but nobody wants to know. How do you find out?
JENNIFER
Bel talks to a woman this week who claims she’s cursed by her ‘neighbors from hell’
This letter sounds very similar to the one that I received in TN. You complain about shop assistants’ vindictive actions and include mentions of suicide, mental health and victimisation.
I can’t give advice to both you and TN, because it is too risky.
These situations can be very frustrating and worthy of empathy.
I think it is obvious that both of you would benefit from professional guidance, as you seem to be carrying the seeds for unhappiness deep in your souls.
Maybe you are familiar with the story about the individual who moves to a new area and asks the local people what their lives were like. She replies in terms similar to yours and TN’s: that the people were unfriendly, selfish, mean-minded, bigoted, bullying —entirely horrible.
She then inquires about the people of this place.
‘Oh, unfriendly, selfish, mean-minded, bigoted, bullying — entirely horrible’ is the reply. You are correct.
Do you see? It is true. Many people live with horrible neighbors who ruin their lives. Your email sounds alarm bells.
Those prurient words, ‘man friend’ and ‘favours’ are unpleasant. How many footballs actually ‘hit you in the face’?
What superhuman sight makes you so sure that, in those other places, ‘everybody gets along?’ Might they just try hard to live and let live?
And if you were to move into such an imaginary place, would you still find your neighbours ‘rude and ignorant’? It worries me that you throw off: ‘I made numerous attempts at my life.’ It sounds just one vague cry for help in a letter full of them.
I don’t doubt that you find neighbours difficult, but what do you mean by, ‘I’ve tried the friendly approach’? Which form was it?
Your email is so full of anger, unhappiness, and misanthropy that it’s hard for me to believe how friendship could be defined. You want Easter eggs for the footballing boys. A glass of wine with the ‘youngish woman’ while you chat to her about parking woes and ask for a bit of help? Do you want to give a friendly wave rather than glow to your boyfriend?
Perhaps your anger and dislike of others are a result of loneliness? It is a shame that your dissatisfaction seems to be following you everywhere you go, as well as the mental disorder that I felt in that letter from TN.
However, I suggest that you both consider the possibility that you are at fault as well as other people. Therefore seeking professional counselling would be a good idea.
My friend’s plagued by a serial groper
Dear Bel
My friend (much older) needs my help.
Sue, a retired carer, became close friends with an elderly couple who moved to sheltered housing in the area three years back.
She is kind and willing to help. If a man calls to ask for help, or just to see if she could go around, she will gladly assist in any way that she can.
The problem is his wife is in a wheelchair (she’s 73 and he’s 68) and I suspect their sex life is over.
Before, he was warned by his warden not to inappropriately hug female residents. The most recent incident was when he stood behind a lady, put his arms around her body and his hands ‘accidentally’ went on her breasts.
He said he was a hugging kind of guy. Now he ‘accidentally’ touches my friend and she says it makes her skin crawl.
She has her teenage daughter do the housecleaning for him and he is doing the same inexcusable touching. I think he only does it when his wife isn’t there.
When he wants, my friend will take him to the shops and touch his legs.
She says he has overstepped the mark and doesn’t know how to deal with him. He told her how nice she looks ‘in the see-through cotton dress’ she wore when it was hot.
She was upset by the comment, as she could barely see her legs through the fabric when the sun shined through it.
She has become attached to the couple (caring for free) and doesn’t want to cause upset. However, she is aware that her husband’s behavior needs to change. She doesn’t know what to do.
CAROL
What a painful situation — for your friend, her daughter, other women in the sheltered housing complex and the warden.
However, it’s also very sad that the husband and wife should write. If the man’s wife has no knowledge of his behaviour, she is doubly vulnerable, in being disabled and liable for a shock if somebody makes a complaint.
Yes, I feel sorry that the sinner is here. We don’t know his circumstances. His behavior can be pretty terrible.
Bel Mooney’s Daily Mail Column: More
There must be something done. It would be immensely sad for this man’s wife were your kind friend to stop wanting to help them because she is revolted by the man’s behaviour.
It would be wrong of her to let her daughter, a teenager, be exposed to unacceptable leers and touch.
For whatever reason, I’d first remove the teenager. The daughter may have a male friend who wants a little extra money to push a vacuum cleaner around every other week. Your friend should now have a serious discussion with the complex warden. Inappropriate touching, hugging, or comments must stop. It is my hope that you will listen to me.
It would be immensely sad for the man’s wife to be deprived of help because her sexually-aware husband couldn’t keep his eyes and his hands to himself. So the warden must intervene — in no uncertain terms.
Imagine how awful it would be if Mr Huggy were one day to get ‘handsy’ with a woman who complained to the police. The warden can also ask if he has any problems he can’t talk about, or whether he can cope with his wife at home.
Your friend should also tell him that he will be shopping for you if she gives her a list. However, he can’t take her with her anymore because there is a new deal each time she meets a friend who has problems.
Presumably, the man’s wife is always at home when she visits and so this slight change — as well as the removal of her daughter and the talk with the warden — might do the trick. That is what I hope.
And lastly… a message good for the soul
Is it possible for the universe to send you messages? It is.
In 2004, after I’d finally decided to leave my long, unhappy marriage, I wandered in the direction of John Lewis’s household department. Bright display signs proclaimed, “Restore!” Renew! Re-start! The intention was to encourage the purchase of a new ironing board or kettle, but I thought: ‘Yes, right — it is time to renew my life.’
At a time of real crisis months earlier, at the door of a mission in California I was handed a little religious card which said: ‘Always go forward, never turn back.’ The words meant so much I still have that card. Since then I’ve seen messages on the side of a bus or in a shaft of sunlight …
More encouragement came at the end of May this year, when I was feeling very down at the prospect of packing up all my mother’s possessions.
The Holburne museum in Bath was my favorite. It made me feel so happy. We went to see the new exhibition of drawings by David Hockney (on until September 18) and there on the wall at the start of the show was the above message — a glorious shout of pink positivity, in Hockney’s own enlarged writing. Ping! This message pierced my heart, telling me that life is short and I must cherish it.
I was moved by the simple words. Even without that pink message, the wonderful drawings (made between 1963 and 1977) themselves encapsulate the artist’s own joie de vivre. Brilliant Hockney is now 85 and still paints, taking advantage of the moment, and finding his creativity in every thing he does.
David Hockney’s wonderful message of optimism