Hi all. So glad I found this site! Thanks to you Diane our moderator and to all who add so much to the conversations!

My situation is unlike most I have read about thus far. I live next door to a psychopath/Psychopath. I want to know how to either let go and accept the fact he is our neighbor or do what I can to encourage him to leave. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Our neighbor and his wife came into our lives about 6-7 years ago. He is our neighbor because he charmed my husband into selling him the property. We used our own attorney and did an "owner finance" loose contract. Big Mistake!!!

In the beginning this neighbor borrowed everything we had; lawn mower, tractor, log splitter, chain saw, compressor etc.... This borrowing behavior went on for 2+ years then escalated to the point that I became angry and repeatedly asked my husband to tell our neighbor he could no longer borrow our stuff. One night after I received a call from another neighbor who lives directly across the street from the "bad boy". She informed me our neighbor had been using our tractor constantly for the past two days despite the fact tractor was making some terrible noises especially when in reverse. The tractor was also left out in torrential rains for several days. At that point I became so angry with my husband I informed him I was going to call the "bad boy" and inform him he could no longer borrow our stuff. Unfortunately my husband and I had angry words with one another. I persevered , made the telephone call and the borrowing stopped. Thank heavens!!

Coinciding with this borrowing issue we learned from neighbors down the street some very disturbing information....
The "bad boy" had vocalized to several people he wanted to "do away" with me. He even had a plan. (Unfortunately I learned about this about one year after he had vocalized this.)

The "bad boy" stalked a neighbor who is a fine gal, wonderful mother, nurse and someone I have known for nine years. The "bad boy" had followed her in his vehicle on a daily basis, texted her up to 80 times a day and tried to turn her against her husband. She thankfully took the brave step to make him stop by going to his home and in front of his wife tell him to take her number out of his phone to leave her alone! She also took the necessary steps to block his number from her phone.

This "bad boy" has come into our home without invitation while we were away on numerous occasions. (We now have a 6 camera security system.) He has also felled a tree from his property onto our property and then stated a storm was responsible. (There was no storm.)

His 2010 taxes went unpaid and ended up going to a collection agency. There were finally paid only after our attorney informed him we would start foreclosure proceedings.
His 2011 taxes were paid December 31, 2011. They were due May 31, 2011.
He refuses to provide proof of insurance on his home to us.
His payments due on the first of each month are never received until the last date of the grace period.

I love to walk in our neighborhood as it is a 2 mile route. The problem is I must past his house going and coming. I stopped walking for a couple of years because on two occasions just when I was passing his house he came running out of his house as if to scare me. Now I either walk when I know he is not at home or I take my smart phone with me and just before I get to his house I activate the video in case he does something stupid I can at least video tape him.

Sorry for the long description. The problem is I live in fear with this person living so close to us. He is calculating, enjoys making our life difficult, refuses to play by societies rules, is very angry and hardly ever works. Although none of my business I have heard yelling coming from his home and worry for his wife and two children. His wife use to be friendly and appeared normal. Now when ever I do see her she reminds me of a robot. Expressionless, much heavier than she once was and walks with a very slow gate.

I would love to know what others think. I already have a good understanding of psychopath's behaviors so I don't need support in that department. What I need support with is knowing what more I can do to keep myself and my family safe from him. I not only fear he will once again come to our home uninvited. I fear he will purposefully poison our lake in an attempt to kill our beloved farm animals or dogs. He has threatened he will "take care of" any animal we have that come onto his property. (I know he will kill them.) Thanks so much in advance!!
Cynthia

Hi Cynthia, welcome to our community. I am leaving for the day so will think of a better answer but just for now have a couple of questions.

Can your lawyer make any changes to the contract? I would do a background check and see what his past is all about.

Is there a way to fence your property to protect your animals? I have a 6 ft privacy fence on about a 1/2 acre and it cost around 4K. People here use those wire type fences but I prefer a privacy fence.

Di

Diane,
Thanks so much for your response! Indeed we have discussed our situation with our attorney and from what I know there is no changing the contract at this point. My next question to our attorney will be to see if we can alter the contract to include money for the insurance and taxes. Kind of like an escrow account if you will. I believe we will have a good case since the "bad boy" has had to be consistently prodded in the past to pay both taxes and insurance. BTW in the time we have held the mortgage two checks have bounced and 5 have been received past the due date. I can assure you this will not happen in the future because all mortgage payments are being sent to our attorney.

And yes we do have a six foot privacy fence coming up our driveway which I affectionately refer to as the "Wall of China." Then where that fence ends we have a farm fence along the other property line. This I know helps to some degree, but I also know from experience the "bad boy" tends to act at night when no one is watching. I also have been made aware from another neighboring neighbor this "bad boy" likes to sit in the woods just along the property line and watch us. Scary stuff.

What are the steps I can take to do a background check? I do think this would be a good idea. He has had five (5) brushes with the law between us and the nurse friend of mine that I mentioned in my earlier post. He has been told by the police to never ever contact my friend, electronically or otherwise again or he will be arrested. The local police know his character is of a questionable nature and I do have their non-emergancy number in the event he does something. I also will not hesitate to use 911 if need be. My understanding is the "bad boy" had a lot of trouble in school with regards to fights and such and I do remember him bragging about what he use to do when he lived in an apartment prior to moving here. He would put dog poop in his neighbors mail box and if the neighbors were too loud he would go to the basement and turn off the cold water when the neighbor was taking a shower. Lastly, I need you to know I did get my gun permit from our county and keep a loaded gun in the night stand beside my husband. God forbid I ever have to use it!

Please also know we have owned this property for over 30 years and have no plans to move away. Instead I would like to figure out a way to settle my soul if you will and not feel as if I have to be on guard all the time. I find myself hating to leave the house at times for fear the "bad boy" will do something. I love this house and all we have built here. We have a plethora of animals from week old lambs to and 18 year old dog. This is our home and we love it so very much.

Just thought of another question please.
I know and understand you do not have crystal ball however.....is there any way to predict future behaviors for someone such as our neighbor? My research has led me to understand the issue of lack or conscious and the need to be the best at all costs. My only hope is that one day he will do something to someone else and end up in jail or similar. And as I stated before I worry about his wife and two kids. Would it be an OK idea to try and reach out to her or should I just leave well enough alone?

Thanks again for all your input.
Cynthia

Hi Cynthia, I have some business things to clear up so will post later. I have a meth house next to me (luckily one house away but we are all in terror of them and we live right across from the elementary school) and the family who enables the "clan" sure has Psychopath tendencies. I will share with you what we are doing since I set up a secret neighborhood watch and have developed a great relationship with the local police department. The relatives own the house but if it my last breath I take I will get rid of them before they ruin our otherwise nice neighborhood.

Di

Diane,
My heart goes out to you! What terrible fear you must live constantly. And I thought I had problems. I look forward to chatting with you further. Thanks again so very much for your support. Currently I am reviewing the mortgage contract word-by-word with the hopes I can find a loop hole. My fingers are crossed.

Hi Cynthia,

First off, hoping you find that loop hole, think you will.

I was very terrorized by them when the grandmother who is a rich older lady who lives in the Country Club here showed up on my doorstep last week. I would never let her in again but boy did I get taken by a very pathological liar that she turned out to be. She said that the police had given these druggies my address as the one who had been calling them in. It was very, very hard to keep in my center position. I don't know where it came from but I played the who me, I have a hearing disability and I certainly can't hear that far away (I don't and have no idea how I came up with that one). She went on about what a nice guy her grandson is and a bad childhood, the poor victim ploy. I listened to her and stayed pleasant and 4 times she brought the conversation back to blaming me. I actually was so stunned and one would think I would have caught on that I was being set up by her lies.

I did have a rather sleepless night thinking that the police had done what she had said and went to the PD and met with the Captain who reports to the Chief of Police. I was just stunned and very upset.

My elderly neighbor who is in her 80's said something to me that got me to thinking over the week end and I put the pieces together. She said those ____ family have been nothing but trouble in all the years she has lived here and said, don't ever let that woman in your house again. So, I started thinking about the pathology of this family and came to the conclusion that what she was saying made no sense, she was setting me up to try and scare me off. She was a crafty old gal (the grandmother) and during the conversation she actually suggested that maybe I should move. She showed no empathy for the fact that we live directly across from the playground and my concern was one of these idiots might fly down the street and harm a neighborhood kid. She clearly didn't pass my empathy sniff test.

The more I thought about the grandson and his ability to play the victim, my view of him has changed and feel he is probably a Psychopath who happens to be a meth addict. The grandmother really painted him as a victim so the pieces started to fall into place.

Then it all added up, I had been taken in by her accusations. Her grandson is a full time loser and has a 15 year license suspension for driving and convictions for DUI's. We got him, I had engaged my neighbors and we set up a secret neighborhood watch because we knew he was driving and we wanted to catch him. Our mission was accomplished and he got nailed while driving, lol. Her excuse was that he had a bad childhood and was a poor victim and had told her that he had blanked out and 'forgot' about not having a license and only realized it when he was caught. She wanted to land all his problems off on me. She doesn't know that we got him caught driving because the word got around through our group and someone saw him driving across town. She was trying to nail me for the police coming by the house on disturbance calls. For the last few weeks it has been like being at a production shoot for the show called "Cops". A few of them got hauled off because those types usually have warrants etc.

I called the head officer at the PD and apologized for being taken in by her lies and thinking that the police would ever give out such information. Now we have an excellent relationship. I sent him some flowers yesterday to make a public apology since I am sure the florist truck never pulls up to deliver flowers to an officer, lol. He had investigated what the officers said and I didn't want the police force to think I was some nut case and know the we consider them our friends and allies and admit that I made a serious mistake because she set me off in such a panic.

Now we are going to have to tackle our next objective since he will be getting sentenced in the next few weeks. We want to try and get him caught driving again in hopes he will get a higher sentence.

I have calmed down and am more focused, I am lucky my one boy Marcos (a rescued dog) could have passed the test at the police academy. He is usually in the front of the house and he barks when he sees anyone coming or going from their house, lol.

I have sensor lights at the front and back of my house (Home Depot, free delivery for $40 per set) and got my neighbor whose back door faces the back of my house to install some also. I needed to replace my storm door and bought a security screen door, they no longer look ghetto and I found a great one on Amazon for $180 including delivery so I no longer have to be holed up with my door closed and can enjoy the fresh air. I was working with my "kids" to not bark when people walked by with their dogs etc. but now I have pulled back on that, they can bark whenever they want for now.

I think this family is a nest of Psychopaths. They sure enable bad behavior. Whether this guy started out as a Psychopath is hard to tell because meth addicts can exhibit the characteristics of one.

I would recommend going online and checking this guy out. My neighbors on the other side were the ones who looked up his criminal past so we knew he had a suspended license so we put the word out and waited.

I am thinking this guy you are dealing with will more than likely come up with a bad past, they all have some dirt, it just takes some digging.

As far as your concern for his wife and kids I can really understand that but for now I would lay low and set up a secret watch like we did and keep the pressure on. We got permission from the police to call in whenever we felt there was a disturbance. We didn't know his roommate was also driving on a suspended but when the police showed up when we had called in a disturbance call he was stupid enough to drive around the corner and they checked and hauled him and his vehicle off.

Next we are going to have to get the city to get in and test the house because we want it torn down, check out the ordinances where you live, they have some about homes that are a neighborhood problem and if he gets called in when he makes a peep, the more the better. I made a good contact with the assistant to the Mayor and will get onto that once we see that he gets sent back to prison.

If you haven't already, I would recommend getting some sensor lights and putting them up wherever you can. I can give you the ones that I found at Home Depot, they are excellent and good for the weather here. The great thing about my security screen door is that I can get fresh air and I also can see out but people can't see in so if that old bat comes around again I just won't answer the door. My neighbor said if she shows up at her house she plans to call the police for her harassing us.

Like you I refuse to move because these losers are in my neighborhood, there are a lot of good people that live here and I refuse to be held hostage by these losers.

Di

Hi,
We have had to put up with a psychopathic neighbor for 2 years now and the police are absolutely useless. We live in town and have a corner lot. The psycho has 6 or 7 vehicles and parks one always and 2 most of the time in front of our house. He does this so he can have an excuse to come over and harass us. The police keep telling us that he can park there and he can walk all over in my flower beds which are in the public right of way. They are telling us that harassment is okay as long as it is done in legal ways. We are at the end of our ropes but do not want to move.

This spring we are going to put a privacy fence 6 feet tall on the south side and part of the west side of our property because he stares at us when we have company. He also lurks around in the dark.

We are looking into getting this stuff for the front windows of our house so that people cannot see in during the day but we can still see out and have the sun shine in.

He tried to have me arrested for watering my flowers so I want to check into getting a professional sprinkler systems put in and set it to a timer. The psycho claimed I was excessively watering and the police almost gave me a disorderly conduct ticket for it.

We are so mad at the police and that they do nothing. It is like we are being held prisoner in our own home. There is much more I have not mentioned yet.

One thing that seems to be called for is that you are supposed to avoid these psychos, but we have asked that he leave us alone several times and it doesn't happen. It is hard to avoid him when he is constantly in your yard because he keeps his vehicles over here. We call about his overtime parking in front of our house but then the police just come and chalk his tires and give him another 48 hours to move the thing.

What does avoid him actually mean and how does a person do this?

Hi Laura, welcome to our community. Sorry to hear about your situation, I had to go through and make my inside look less visible, thankfully there aren't Psychopaths in the neighborhood but meth addicts.

I tried that film on my window as a test and decided it was too hard to get it straight and instead put up sheers and found the sheers are easier and let in more light but you can't see in during the day. With pets I was also not sure how the film would even hold up. I don't want those losers to see that I have anything inside to encourage them to try and get in. I also installed sensor lights (if you are here in the US), I found the best ones for the weather and distance at www.homedepot.com, have a 6 foot privacy fence that I put in for my "kids" and already had that.

I don't like feeling holed up in my own home so I had a security screen door installed which is great, I can see out but they can't see in. This way I can get the fresh air and better than a storm door which could easily be a point of entry. I was training my dogs to not bark when they see someone walking by with their dogs but I stopped that because I don't know how to teach them to not bark at someone innocent in case someone trying to get close to the house comes by.

Since the police aren't able or willing to do anything it makes it even harder. Try your best to hide your actions, we set up an informal neighborhood watch so it isn't just me calling them in so they can't know it was me. I would encourage you to fly under their radar as much as possible, the more they know you are doing the less likely they will be to move on and find another target.

I am not sure that moving would prove anything, chances are you might find neighbors that are even worse, sadly. I would try my best to make myself as safe and as invisible as possible.

Di