Dealing With The Daily Barrage

In our case, our NFH (Neighbor From Hell) slung verbal garbage our way almost every day. Many of them were threats. The only way we found we could deal with them was to file with the local court for a restraining order and to document everything they did to us with a diary and videotape. If you get the order then just keep calling the cops to report a violation of the court order every time. It's really wearing, but it is about the only way we found that we could fight back. Finally all the court appearances and fines drove him out and we now live in peace. It's a damned hard road. No easy way to deal with it, I'm afraid.

A Fine Line Between Caution and Paranoia

Trying to maintain a balance between caution and paranoia is tricky. A few years ago, I became concerned that my former neighbor might sue me because of this blog. I took it down, lost all the previous posts and responses, all because I was slipping into paranoia. It is one of those more costly sides to post traumatic stress disorder that can hang on so long - long after the predator has left. Since then, of course, I started up the blog again. My paranoia has subsided just from getting out there every day and living the way I want to.

Notes to Yourself

A predatory neighbor from hell loves to tear down and destroy. You have to fight back by keeping upbeat messages on your refrigerator, bathroom mirror, in front of your exercise machine, wherever. My husband drew a picture (stick figures) of the neighbors moving out in a moving van. I wrote simple signs - "I am a force for good," "Evil will consume itself," and other positive statements. Within six months, our neighbors moved out and I attribute at least some of that to our positive affirmations. Hang in there, stick together and think positive.

No Mediation

Having lived through the hell of an NFH for four years, I can safely say that mediation with one of these people is unwise at the very least. NFHes have a talent for building trigger buttons in their targets. You get sick and tired of certain phrases or looks or whistles, whatever, and the NFH knows it. They then use that trigger in a mediated meeting and you are wounded again. If you don't go ballistic on the spot, you are lucky. Mediation with a serial bully or predator or psychopath is NOT a good idea.

Dealing With A Lying Neighbor

Our NFH told lies better than we told the truth and that was a real problem. He said we were racists, which we are not, but most of the police appeared to believe him, even though we offered them videotapes showing we did not call him or his family names. In fact, our NFH called us names. Most cops did not want to watch the tapes - I think because of the 'bad cops caught on tape' television programs.

Why Don't You Just Move?

Moving away from a predator is a lot harder for some people. Financial situations, in particular, make it difficult. In our case, our place needed a lot of work just to get it into selling order. Painting our two-story needed scaffolding and with our predator's penchant for shooting and using a wrist-rocket, we would be in peril of being shot and falling. No thanks. We didn't have much choice but to hope the cops and the courts would do their job.

Writing

A few months ago, I finally began writing about my experiences with this predator. Today I worked on the most disturbing part - his accusation that my husband and I are racists. We are not and never have been, but he knew that by accusing us of that it would undermine anything we tried to do to stop him from harassing us. The cops appeared to happily believe him and easily dismissed our complaints. We are white, he was Hispanic. They apparently preferred to believe him, rather than believe he could be pulling the race card. It made our lives all that much more difficult.