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.
Kick his ass
This will resolve OPs problem by moving them to prison but their mother will still be in trouble.
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.
Shit advice.
Escalating the situation will not improve it.
It’s your mama, with cancer, really being hurt here. Ethically, that gives you options. Sucks for your neighbor, he can’t help it.
Fastest solution is to wait for him to leave the house and post a lookout. Make entry and destroy every speaker you can find. Decorate broken items with something that is a feature of his behavior such as a common phrase or food item.
When he gets home and throws a fit, call the cops on him and deny everything and act frustrated and put out. Talk about your sick mother. This may fix it. Ifi not, at least make it much better.
Well. I think we found the schizophrenic neighbor.
absolutely insane take
I’m being downvoted to hell for it, but I’ve done similar things in the past. I’m used to corrupt ineffective cops, sometimes you just have fix shit and be done with it.
IDK, it’s redneck but a quick frame up would at least end the noise.
I would agree with you if this person wasn’t schizophrenic. This would only worsen their symptoms and probably lead to escalations that would result in further property damage or violence. At that point you are feeding their delusions and even justifying them.
Yes. It’s cruel, but if you pushed him far enough, he would be committed. Op hasn’t been able to get effective help from the government/social system.
Sounds like he’s older and there are physically stronger people in OPs house so if it escalated, they can defend without much trouble.
Cancer mom beats schizophrenic neighbor. If causing the neighbor to decompensate gets her peace, so be it. This is not a difficult ethical problem, the expedient solution is just illegal.
I’ve done and will do a whole lot to take care of my loved ones. Society sure isn’t.
You sound fucking insane, dawg.
Well, dawg, I’ve spent most of my life living in a completely different world than most posters on Lemmy.
And yes, I hunt, fish, eat meat, drive a truck, have a beard. I also talk funny. I have castrated calves. Been backup in large deals. Dealt with thieving meth heads. Done amateur surgery.
I don’t live in my mother’s urban basement eating chicken tendies.
But yeah, that’s my white squirrel.
Counterpoint, I know lots of people that also do/have done lots of those things who also aren’t complete psychopaths
I recommend moving some place with proper sound isolation between neighbors.
Or build a “room within a room” to insulate your own house, but its a very expensive retrofit
Some people can’t afford to just move, like if they are dealing with cancer, for example.
People don’t live in shared dwelling residences because they thought they’d really enjoy sharing walls…
Sharing walls shouldn’t be noticeable if the walls and floors are designed property
And yet every single apartment complex has paper-thin walls, because landlords want to maximize floor space instead of eating up square footage with thicker walls. Also, proper sound insulation costs big money. Like thousands of dollars per wall. Landlords building shitholes to rent don’t care if the tenants can hear each other fuck through the walls.
The correct approach would be to keep calling the police/making a complaint every time it happens, build up evidence etc. perhaps speak with someone with legal knowledge. Complain to local authorities.
Or fight back, the way I imagine doing it is to get a huge amp pressed against his wall and blast death metal for all hours he’s trying to sleep.
Also glitter bombs/dog poop/piss disks through his door until he gets the message.
Pay someone to steal his speakers.
Don’t pay someone to steal something. The police will treat conspiracy to commit theft much more harshly than blasting music.
Perhaps I should have put a /s, agree, dont pay someone to do it, they can sell the speakers afterwards anyway
/s
You’re right.
If you’re going to do that, don’t get caught.
Yup, keep calling so you can make a paper trail. Cops don’t know it’s an issue unless you tell them, so keep calling and keep making reports. Once enough stack up, they’ll be able to take action. But you need to prove a pattern of behavior, and that takes more than a single call. Get police reports, even if they don’t take any action. Take video when it’s happening too, if you can.
At the very least, start a notebook of dates, times, and any disturbances or interactions you have. If you talk to him at all, write a summary of the conversation in the notebook. If he is blaring his siren, note the time and approximately how loud it was, (refer to other references, like “rock concert”, “lawn mower”, “whisper”, etc if you don’t have a dB meter. Get a dB meter and audio spectrum app on your phone and note hard numbers, if you can. If it ever goes to court, that notebook will be admissible as evidence. And in court, the party with the paperwork wins. Again, your goal is to prove a pattern of harassment, so having documentation will go a long way.
Keep things legal, so he doesn’t have any ammo to use against you. Also, provoking him is likely an awful idea; He has already proven that he is hostile and unstable. You don’t want to give him any reasons to get more aggressive.
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.
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.
Second this. Keep calling. 8 months at a time… With 84 years it’s not that many times isn’t it?
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.
Keep calling the police. If they don’t want to do anything I’ve found that telling them if they don’t help you that saying something like “okay well me and my mates will ‘sort him Jim out’ ourselves” kicks them in to action.
I did something similar 2 years ago when I found the address of a guy who stole my bag. They didn’t want to help until I implied I might confront him myself, possibly with a weapon.
I don’t really have any experience with situations like this, but I’d be cautious of suggesting such things to the police. Worst case they don’t do anything, and something happens to the neighbor and suddenly you have a lot of trouble waiting for you.
I know here in Germany you can create a log of all the occurrences of your neighbor being loud, and if it is excessive a court can order your neighbor to be silent. If your neighbor then breaks the order, the police will actually do something. Not sure how things work in the UK tho
Somehow I read it as your brother having schizophrenia and got really confused.
Continue to involve authorities, but u fortunately mental health funding keeps getting slashed. There may be a social worker centre you could reach out to for more information.
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.
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
If its actual radio, you could get a small bluetooth radio transmitter (you can buy them at best buy to connect your phone to car selecting the frequency, don’t know if you will find a strong enough one to broadcast to his place from bestbuy though) and then you can choose what sounds come out of his speakers, your favorite music, audiobook, porn, silence?
This might be illegal if you’re transmission is too strong, check local guidelines
oh boy would this trigger his delusions
“This is the voice of God. I am giving you a divine order to go seek mental health treatment at an intensive inpatient care facility immediately.”
(/s, obvs. don’t do that lol)
Dudes probably got dementia or something
I don’t know how it works in the UK, but if possible I’d look into getting a protection order against harassment. Definitely gather whatever evidence you can (a security camera might be a good investment), but with someone like this they may very well tell on themselves if it goes to court. A reasonable person wouldn’t be doing something like this in the first place, so they may well make it readily apparent that this is the sort of thing they think is acceptable in a court room. Especially if they’ve admitted to you to doing it on purpose.
If you’re able to request police body camera footage, it might be worth it to do that after calling in a noise complaint, and if you share a hallway you might be able to record the interaction yourself if not. If you rent and do share a hallway, consider asking your landlord to install a camera in a shared space so that you can get footage that way. Make sure to check the laws in your area regarding consent for recording. If you’re allowed to record secretly, maybe you can get them to admit it again on camera.
I had a similar situation to this with a transphobic neighbor who was doing this for about 6 months. A court date got it squared away, because she told on herself to the police while on our hallway camera. It might help in your situation too.
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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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If you want to go the unethical route, tell the police that he’s wandering naked in his yard waving a knife and yelling threats.
Maybe after enough calls, he’ll get committed, which it sounds like that’s where he needs to be.
This is the best idea in the thread and will yield immediate results. If the neighbour is unwell enough to harass a random family then getting them committed might actually be doing them a favour.
