We have an 83 or 84 year old neighbour who is said to have schizophrenia. I live with my mum and my brother and we live in the UK.
He has it in for my brother, accusing him of all kinds of weird things like “he’s stealing my water supply” “he’s blocking my TV” “he’s cloning my phone” “he’s going out into the garden at night making wolf noises to wake me up” (we have foxes visit our garden often, and you can hear them in the streets also).
Last year he started blasting his radio every day from 7:30 AM until 10:30 to 11:30 PM. Then, on most nights at 1:30 AM he’ll set off an extremely loud siren and then start screaming and occasionally throwing stuff at the wall/his room. My mum has cancer and she really does not need this.
I went over to his house about the noise, giving him the benefit of the doubt because he’s hearing impaired and has hearing aids, but then he explained to me he’s doing this on purpose to stop my brother from sleeping during the day because my brother is “going into the garden at night making these wolf noises to wake me up”.
We ended up calling the police on him last year, and shortly after that, he stopped and was silent. We had 8 months of silence and now he suddenly started again. The radio, the sirens and the screaming at 1:30 AM. We’ve done nothing to him.
My mum found out that the radio or TV (whatever it is) isn’t just in one room, it’s in EVERY room of his house (we live in a joined house). She found out that when it goes off, they all go off at once, so my mum concluded he has his radio/TV hooked up to some speaker system aimed at the walls. He knows my mum isn’t well and he’s been doing this for 2 weeks straight now. It’s so loud you can hear it over EVERYTHING, even games, films and music. I can hear it in the garden even. Constant low frequency noise that reverberates in every room in our house.
We did call the police Friday night and he hasn’t done the siren at 1:30 AM since but he wasn’t setting the siren off every night before that either. It’s keeping us all on edge. He doesn’t have a wife but his niece occasionally visits to tidy up his garden. We don’t have her contact info though. He apparently refuses to take his meds because he is the type of person to think he’s always right.
Sorry for the long post but I can’t sleep because I’m on edge about being woken up soon after going to sleep. Wasn’t sure where else to post this where I can get some quick replies.
You need to get a wolf statue to put in his garden so that can become the locus of his night terrors, be sure to put a speaker in the wolf statue so you can make it talk to him, then claim that you (as the wolf, naturally) are God, and you have granted him the power to walk through walls
I mean, if cops arent doing shit, and the neighbor aren’t listening to reason, you have to take matters in your own hands.
Make the same noise they did while they sleep. See how they like it.
Escalating conflict with someone with delusions of persecution is exactly the wrong thing to do.
Not knowing the system in the UK means I can’t give very good specific advice. You may be able to contact a local mental health network and there is a good chance they will know him. Let them know what is going on in as much detail as possible and suggest that he is increasingly agitated and alienating himself from the community. It sounds like this gentleman needs a conpulsory treatment order or whatever the UK equivalent is.
UK equivalent is known as sectioning
Even if he does have delusions of persecution, he only has them against my brother specifically. he knows my mum also lives here and is terminally ill, and still feels like it’s okay to subject the entire family to this
Yeah do that if you want to get stabbed to death. The neighbor has mental health issues.
Maybe don’t engage in a war of escalation with unstable people
In game theory, the best strategy is called “Tit For Tat”: Be nice at first, but strike back (in equal proportion to what they did) if they refuse to cooperate.
OP already tried being nice. You can’t live life being a pushover.
A society cannot be tolerant of the intolerant.
This only works with rational actors
Phone the police again, phone the council and make a noise complaint, then phone citizens advice bureau for free advice on where you stand. If he is a tenant complain to the landlord as well. Very sorry to hear all this and hope your Mum is ok because #fuckcancer
Thank you. Will do. I was worried the police won’t do anything because it’s not blasting at night. I’ll give them a call! Mum’s doing the best she can and I’m doing my best to take care of her
Most jurisdictions, including councils and their relevant bylaws, prohibit any type of nuisance behaviour. It matters not if the nuisance manifests during day time or not. What matters in context of noise is frequency, duration, volume, intensity, droning and pitch. You, as property owner or tenant, have a right to the peaceful enjoyment of your property.
The council’s environmental health officer is typically the appropriate POC for these matters. They may ask you to provide a journal of events (you can write this retrospectively if this is a regular occurrence), and/or they may choose to attend themselves to verify during times in question or if you advise them as such.
Out of council hours, they usually ask for the police to be called so there’s a record/independent witness. There is nothing stopping you from calling the police during daytime.
The council may ask you if you’re comfortable to try and talk to the offending party to resolve the issue. Decline this vehemently and state that you fear for your safety (especially since this guy appears to be mentally ill!). Let them deal with the matter, it’s their job.
I feel bad for the bloke who’s ill, but conversely you do not need to suffer from his illness, and neither does your mum.
I wish you best of luck.
If you own the house, and you live in the UK, then bear in mind you legally need to disclose formal disputes with neighbours when selling the property. Might not be worth the hit to the property value from getting the council involved when in practical terms there is very little they can/will do.
I’d echo what others have said about phoning the police and social services. Maybe try to catch his neice next time she’s round.
If all else fails phone the local newspaper and contact your mp, good luck
We’ve phoned up the council, council sent him a letter but he’s continuing (with the siren and the loud radio/TV). The siren played again at 1:36 AM last night now the radio/TV is blasting. We’re about to send him a letter saying if he keeps this up for the next few days we’re going to get a solicitor
Have you talked to the Council? They normally have officers who sort shit like this out.
Show him YouTube videos of the fox making the same noise? Hopefully you can convince him
If calling the police gave you 8 months the first time, I’d say calling them again is a logical step. It clearly had an effect last time.
Call them every single time. Press charges. If he can’t/won’t learn to behave and the cops never arrest him, then you might need to switch to a lawsuit. I didn’t know how the laws work in the UK, but it sounds like you need to go full (legal) agro. Maybe there’s a law that can get him locked up in a mental hospital; talk to a lawyer.
Second this. Keep calling. 8 months at a time… With 84 years it’s not that many times isn’t it?
If it was me I’d personally call the police every single night that the neighbor does this. 2 things will happen. 1. The cops finally take more drastic action and the issue is solved. Or 2. The cops tell you they can’t keep responding to this and tell you to stop calling them. Either way, i would call them every day and see what happens. I think that’s really all OP can do realistically do, other than moving…
If I was calling every day about a legitimate issue (blasting an alarm in the middle of the night is legitimate), and they told me to knock it off, not only would I keep calling, I’d start calling every elected official at every level - municipal, county, state, federal (I’m in America). The police chief, the mayor, my city councilman, my county commissioner, my congressman, and my senator would all be getting daily calls and emails, and I would make sure to inform them that the reason they are hearing from me is because local police officers (name them if possible) refuse to do their jobs and address the problem.
The issue would be resolved within the week.
Fair enough, however I personally have little faith in local government and law enforcement so your milage may vary on that one.
Eventually you’ll get someone who will figure out that the best way to get you off everybody’s backs is to deal with the old fart next door.
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You’re probably already keeping a detailed log of every incident, and recording evidence - keep doing it
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Go to the local council environmental nuisance team
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They provide a noise meter (or sometimes app for your phone) to record proof
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After a few incidents they can serve him with a noise abatement order
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If for some reason they won’t, as long as you’ve followed the process above you can apply to Magistrate’s Court directly for a noise abatement order and both parties will get summoned to put forward their sides.
Currently going through this, the council wrote the order, took it to my neighbour, who promptly talked them out of serving it. Said he’d be quiet. Wish it worked like that for parking tickets.
This guy councils.
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I’m really sorry this is happening it’s fucking rough. I’d refer him to social services as well, he needs MH treatment but won’t do it himself. He may be bad enough for them to section him IDK.
He’s also likely with your local doctors I’d ring them too.
Start going out in the garden at night and making wolf noises. This sounds like an untreated mental health issue. If no one (council, cops, ambulance) is going to respond to the current levels, try to increase them. Consider calling in a welfare check rather than a noise complaint.
Do they still sell those novelty toy mics that broadcast and speakers pick it up?
I’m not telling you what to do with that, but there are many options.
Having dealt with similar situations before, that definitely sounds like schizophrenia. Unfortunately, short of just moving, there won’t be much that you can do directly, as ultimately getting any real solution for anybody involved is going to require professional intervention. You very likely won’t be able to convince him out of whatever incorrect beliefs he’s dug his heels into.
I would try seeing if he has any family you could reach out to. It’s likely not safe for him to be living alone anymore, and he needs somebody to help care for him. If not family, it may be worth putting in a call to whatever social services you have in your area.
Mental disorders like this generally don’t get better on their own. Especially not at his age. He needs help before he hurts himself or somebody else.
Exactly my thought. I had a next door neighbor develop schizophrenia, accuse my roommate and I of talking to him through the electrical sockets, and eventually attack us outside our door. He was taken away.
A friend of mine had a similar issue. Also UK, West London a guy was blasting his car stereo every night in front of his garage, often till 8-9 pm, in some cases during the night while having some weird people over. It was very loud, walls vibrating, etc
Various neighbours called the police on him at least 5 times but nothing happened, he turned off the music for a while, ignored the cops and turned it back on after they left.
They told them they need hard proof to do anything, this would involve getting a regular recording of the music and they should measure the decibels and vibrations to prove how disturbing it is to start anything. It was just the most bizarre way of telling people the local council and police will do nothing. Who the fuck has this kind of equipment and knowledge to do this?
Needless to say nothing happened. My friend moved to another place because of work within 6 months.
I do hope in your case the local law enforcement will be more competent, I wish I could give you an actual advice instead of a story :(
I’ve had success imagining the reaction a bully is looking for, or expecting; Then giving them a reaction that confounds whatever they had in mind. Don’t play their game. Make a new game for you to play. One they won’t understand.
My first thought in this case, is to stop by and give him a list of requests you’d like him to play the next morning. If he immediately refuses, just ignore what he says and thank him, because his sound system is way better than yours. That interaction will confuse the hell out of him. He might just stop. If he does or not, go back the next day and ask why he didn’t play your request list. If he did play your list, go back and thank him. Then give him another list of music from someone else in your family.
That’s just off the top of my head, maybe you can come up with something better. Just remember to make it your game, not his.
Yeah, I ain’t got the energy for this.
I’m an American so I don’t understand why you haven’t just put a couple 30 round mags through the wall with your AR-15?
Get like eight to ten shitty things delivered to his house every day. Either something he’ll have to pay for like a pizza, or something just completely useless, like a cheap spare part for something he doesn’t have.
Obviously, use his name and don’t use your real phone number. He’ll have to deal with all the trash constantly.
Won’t really solve your issue, but it’s good revenge for him being an asshole.
Oh and sign him up for all the flyers and coupon books you can. Just like a torrent of junk every single day, never ending.
