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.

Any Ideas For This Target of A Bully?

I am going through the same thing. I am college student who is saving up to move out who lives eith a disabled parent in apartment complex. The neighbors above us are rude young college kids. The toture started when we said something to the office about them entarining to ludly and arguing before that it was quiet. All of a sudden they started slamming doors hard and throwing objects down that sounded like heavy furniture all hours of the night and blasting music from 9am to 4am. The area targeted is mt room there room is above my room constantly I loud music is bouncing at 1 and 3 am. Everytime I enter the bathroom someone starts slaming cabnients and each time at 4 in the morning someone starts making a banging or tapping noise usually in the bathroom area or by the closet. Because alot of times my mother is sleep she gets mad at me because I am help trying to find solution or venting. I get blamed and because this happens when she is sleep or not by her room but sge has witnessed inicidence she feels I am being to sensitive. I feel uncomfortable in the place and feel dread in reentering. We have notifiedf the rental management but they just give us the run around. The cops will probably be no help because the neighbors are able to but on front and con people by there all american appearance. Things have gotten so bad that it is causing disention in my house my mother doesn't really want hear about the situation and I feel like no one truly believes this is happening. I feel nervous and have anxiety when I return to the residence. I have ocd I feel that they are doing this partly because of I might do things differently and they think it us fun to target me. She tells other families that I am just being sensitive and they start fussing at me. I am looking for suggestions.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

The medical community now recognizes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as resulting not just from war, but from intense stress from a bully / sociopath / psychopath. The daily barrage that a bully is capable of, when directed at one person or a small number of people can result in PTSD. If you have the shakes, severe memory loss, can't concentrate, and feel unemployable - see a doctor, psychologist or psychiatrist. If your doctor thinks you have PTSD you can get one more mark against the bully who has targetted you. It can eventually help if you go to court.

Bullies are everywhere and they cover the spectrum from the small, everyday woman who likes to block aisles in grocery stores, to fellow workers who like to manipulate other 'comrades' into fights, to bosses who push their employees to the limit. Just yesterday I witnessed a woman who used her children to dump on other people. While she was watching, her 10-year old pushed a cart into a woman at the checkout counter. The kid rammed her several times while the woman turned around and looked perplexed at the mother, who stared back. The younger kid in the cart started high-pitched bawling and yelling right next to the woman. The woman finally left, shaking her head and the mother and kids advanced to the counter.

The mother is a major 'B' and she has created a nightmare for some poor overworked teacher who is charged with educating this kid who has been taught bullying - and probably manipulation - on a major scale.

What is her PROBLEM? Maybe she was raised in a bad situation or perhaps she was just born that way and no matter what the parents did, she was a Bad Seed. Who knows. But society pays, because the woman she picked on, and who could have been in a good mood when she entered the store, certainly did not leave that way. How did she drive her car after that? How did it effect the rest of her day? Was it the 'final straw' in the life of a woman already bearing more trouble than a normal person should?

Bullies are costly even on a small scale.

The Bully at Work

Of all the books I have read on the topic of bullying, this one is best to help you understand what kind of person you are up against. It can get a little scary, which is also why I recommend this book - you need to know what is stalking you.

A Reader's Post

This is a very informative piece by a contributing reader: "I am currently experiencing a bully next door.
I took him to court for his constant loud music and parties. We agreed to drop the charges if he would agree to be a good neighbor. Hah! Were we dumb! He was at it three days later, and ran when we called the cops. It looked like we were liars except we video taped the cars sitting next to the fence playing the music, so it was admissable.

We are going back to court for an injunction against loud music, since he just turns it up without parties now. Often it just starts up and he hides in the house. He bought a huge DJ system so he cn play it even louder.

Buy something called a sound snooper and hook it to your computer. It records the length and day of the disturbance and cant be altered. You dont have to get up, grab the video camera and try to prove the music is playing or call the cops who have more to do than run out there every few hours. It is admissable in court.

Now we are installing camera to show his kid standing in front of our house flipping us off while the other kid stands near by with a camera.

Hope this helps someone."

Heavy Cost of Psycho Neighbors

It's been five years since our psychopathic neighbor moved away and we are still struggling with getting back to where we were before he moved next door in 1999 - financially, physically, mentally. A psychiatrist told me it would take at least five years, if not longer, to recover from the PTSD (post-traumatic stress syndrome).

These people are very expensive to our society since they are motivated by the enjoyment of other people's pain. Strange, but true.

Collecting Stories

If you have your own neighbor from hell and want to share your experience, feel free to gripe away. I'm collecting stories for a book I am writing about my own experience, but I also want to show readers the variety of bad neighbors that are out there and how others dealt with them.

Still Driving By, Part II

During the past week, our ex-neighbor has gone out of his way to drive by us when I am taking my husband to work. He sits along the street waiting to see us leave the driveway and then meets us at the intersection where I have to turn left. It has suddenly become a game with him. He obviously only upsets himself. We just shake our heads and go about our business.

5 years and he still misses us. Poor psychopathic loser.

Still Driving By

Almost five years have passed since The Neighbor From Hell moved one mile away, and yet he still drives by. Our street is really inconvenient for him, but he just can't give up driving by, hoping that we see him and get angry. When I do see him, I just look and pass it off. No need getting angry again and again. It wastes my time. He's a loser and he will never be anything else.

Never Tell Them You're Recording

I made two big goofs during our entire ordeal. The first one was when I was so desperate to get him to leave us alone. It made no sense that we had done nothing wrong to him, we had in fact, tried to be cordial neighbors and he was doing all these ugly things to us. Thinking that he would quit if he knew we had been secretly filming and audio recording, I blurted it out. Dumb. That only made him sneakier and harder to document. If I had to do it over again, I would keep the recording secret until I absolutely had to divulge it - in court. By then we would have had even better evidence than we did.

Before you record your bully neighbor, consult a civil rights attorney. That money will be well worth it. We consulted an attorney and got all the pertinent details on when we can record and when we cannot record. You don't want to go to court and then find out that you violated your bully neighbor's rights. Bad move. Make sure you are within the law.

Slander is Their Favorite Game

A bully who hates you, turns to his neighbor and says, "That guy over there is a pedophile." If this is said about you, that's all it takes to become labeled by people who do not know you. And it's especially easy in a neighborhood where one neighbor barely knows the other. It didn't used to be that way - until HE moved in.

We know that our accuser - our former bully neighbor of four years - still spreads the slander - comes back to the neighborhood and gets neighbors stirred up because he is utterly obsessed with destroying us. We did not give him our property, we took him to court for shooting at us, etcetera, and he moved out one day before a trial that could have put him away for several months. The other thing about him - his children exhibit all the signs of having been molested. The vast majority of molestations occur within families.

People we once knew as friends are no longer friendly. They distance themselves and believe the rumor.

Bullies, with their twisted gray matter, need to be distrusted, not believed, distanced, alienated, stood up to, and driven out. But few people have the guts to do that.

I've know this for 8 years, but it was announced today that science now suspects that the brains of bullies are physically different from the brains of 'normal' people. Their brains' pleasure centers are stimulated by witnessing the pain of other people. They enjoy causing people pain, distress, anger - all the emotions we consider negative.

So far there is nothing that can be done medically to correct their twisted gray matter. And nine times out of ten, their families back them up 100%. I saw it with my neighbor and his family. Any relative would defend him to the death. He was a good boy, he never lied.

In the meantime, the rest of us have to endure, run away from, agree with - do whatever we can to tolerate them in free society. And that costs money - lots of money. While we bear the cost of court fees, moving, repairing, mourning the loss of pets that they kill, treatment for post traumatic stress disorder, whatever - they sit there and take pleasure in it.

There is something very wrong about this picture and the sooner the judicial system - especially Fresno's - takes this into their own gray matter, the better.

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