Harrassment/ Stalking/ Escalating

What is the name of your state? Florida. This is escalating and no one will help. To make a long story short, current 2 weeks. My 13 year old son has been complaining of the neighbor jumping up and down waving at him, he also said "it looked as though he was grabbing himself", we all live on acreage, and I did not see the guy do it, but I have caught him staring at my son and waving and standing at the back fence staring at me through the windows. This past Sunday I was doing the dishes and caught movement between his two big trees in his back pasture where he has a piece of tractor. It was his "head" peeking above the equiptment, I grabbed the camcorder and zoomed in and he was staring right at me, the camcorder was there because I have been trying to get his behavior on film. He then noticed he was being filmed and ducked behind the big tree trunk, the footage is a full minute plus, as he tries to hide. He then walks out from behind the tree in a dead stare, right at me, just stands there staring. Husband watching through blinds, son freaking out. 10 minutes later my husband tells me to get the camera again. This time he is just on the other side of the fence, sitting in the grass staring into my kitchen window, I zoomed in on him "chills" staring right at me, he then leans back and bends his legs at the knees and spreads his legs, stays like that for a minute or 2 and then winks and nods down "at himself" and then looks back at me. The next day I took the video to the sherriffs dept and told the lieutenant what was going on, especially with my son. He told me that being that he was on his own property and was not "exposing himself" he was not breaking the law. He looked at the video footage and said it was bizzare behavior but he still had not broken the law. To make matters worse, when I came home from the sherriffs dept the back door was wide open, still in the locked position. I had told this neighbor many months ago that someone was coming into my home. He said it was really easy to open a door like that, just pull out real hard. I called out the sherrifs dept and asked to have the door fingerprinted, he would not beacuse nothing was missing and there were no pry marks on the door, but my personal clothes were all over the floor, but because I had a cat in the house, it was excused. My extension cord was "cut" for the hot wire to my horses paddock. But did not notice that until after the officer left. Yesterday my son came in the house freaked out again and said someone had taken apart the outside phone box, sure enough, the cover was ripped off and "everything" was hanging out. I called out the phone repairman and he was here this morning, I asked him if this could have been done by lightning and he said absolutely not, he has it as malicious damage. I called out the sherriffs dept again and got the same cop as the door incident, by the way, he told me that if I wanted fingerprints off the door I could do it my self". I told him the phone company verified it was not done by lightning, he asked me if It was going to cost me anything and I said no. He then told me that he would not do a report on it because I did not see who did it, and it was not my property but the phone companys. I said OK, I told my son to get the extension cord and showed it to him, again he asked if I saw who did it, I said no. He said he could not help, I told him I wanted to file a report, and he said a piece of paper would not help, he freaked my son by saying, paper doesn't help a bullet fly through someones home. I told him that the extension cord being cut was "mailicious damage" and that "it was going to cost me money" and I wanted this crap documented because it is escalating, he humphed at me and gave me a case #. What the H@#$ can I do? This is only a small example. I have held back calling the police until now. But now we are scared, my husband works out of town and is only home on weekends, PS I had 2 dogs, I now have one, the agressive one turned up dead mysteriously back in April.

The problem is - your neighbor has done nothing illegal, and you have no proof that he did any of the things you say he's done. So until he does, or you do, the cops can't do anything.

If I were in your shoes, I'd make sure that I got an alarm system installed, and that I had a gun (and that both I and my son knew how to use it safely). To keep him from staring in your windows - put up blinds. Have your son stay away from that side of the house. Plant fast growing hedges along your fenceline.

Paintball guns are safer and hurt enough to keep someone at bay. Chrone it up real high and trust me you shoot at someone, they won't come back.

Good idea, tigger!

I have one here. I REFUSE to have a real gun in my house. I don't believe in the whole.. put the gun one place and bullets another.. what am I going to tell an intruder..."wait right here.. the bullets are over there".. NOT and I won't have a loaded gun with children in my house. You aren't going to kill someone with a paintball and if they aren't wearing protection it hurts worse...

Well, it occured to me that they may well have a gun anyway - since they have enough acreage for horses (not that that means anything, thinking further - it's a 2 acre minimum here, so may not be more than that in FL). I do like the paintgun idea, tho. So much so, I might get me one...

Get a Tippman Custom 98 and use marblizer paintballs with a 9 oz CO2 tank. The Tippman that I have shoots straight as an arrow and needs little maintenance. My husband said where you buy it get them to Chrono it at 200 f/s or higher

You are very right. You and your family are very much in danger. My background is in Clinical Counseling and although I do not work in the field anymore because of long standing back problems, I have worked with people like this man who is harrassing you and it is a difficult situation to deal with. Do you know anything about him or his family? Does this man work and if so, what type job? I bet this is not the first time he has done this.

I know how frustrating it must be that the police will not or cannot do anything because of the laws. Definitely get something for protection and have installed double dead bolt locks or even better on your doors along with installing a decent security system. I do like the idea of getting a paintball gun but also keep mace or pepper spray on hand. You really need to catch him coming into your house or making a verbal threat to you and/or your family. Record telephone conversations and keep your camcorder ready to record him at any time so that you can get a Protective Order served on him ASAP. At least then he will know you mean business and when he goes against it at a later date he can be picked up by the police for it. However, with some of these loonies that makes no difference. Sad to say but some people have had to move out of their homes to a new town, etc. to get away, but I would not recommend this at this time yet. Anyway, I sincerely feel for you and will pray that God keeps you and your family safe and that this man stops this nonsense. You may PM me if you like.
Take Care....April

this may not be the best advice

i like the paint ball idea too but this guy seems like a real coward and isnt going to do anything while you are there. since the cops cant do anything to him that also means they cant do any thing to you!! the old sayings are true "good for the goose , good for the gander" " turnabouts fair play" dont do any thing illegal or to put yourself or family in harms way but once a bully has been hit in the nose they leave you alone!! but like the title says this may not be the best advice cuz without personal knowledge of the man it may not work and only backfire.

Can you get a RO

Have you spoken with the police to see about getting a restraining order against him? If you are fearful of him and it appears he has made several attempts to frighten or initimidate you then it seems you would have enough incidents to get a restraining order...

Just a suggestion....

Update

Hi all, thank you all for the replies. The latest. On Monday my neighbor called me all excited. The sheriifs office stopped by her house. ( Two propertys north of me and asked her if she knew anything about the neighbor giving me problems. She said yes she knew who he was and he was a psycho freak! Good for her! They then asked if she had heard anything about him being a paranoid schitzophrenic. (He has called the law many, many times, saying that someone ( pointing the finger at us) was messing around on his property. He has also accused my son of shooting bb's at his horses) My neighbor told the deputys "everything" that he has been doing to us, including what we have on tape. They then told her about him saying that he was acussing my son again of the bb thing because his horse had welts with scabs. (These are bad reactions to fire ant bites, my horses have them also). She gave the deputys my phone number and they called me. The deputy was very nice, he did not bring up the bb thing right away, the first thing he wanted to know about was what type of problems we were having with him. I let it roll, ran my mouth for a good tem minutes. He asked if my son had a bb gun and I said not exactly. I told him I would explain after I asked "him" some questions. I asked him if he saw the bumps and he said yes. I asked him if there was a round scab in the middle and he said yes. he asked me if my horses had any bumps and I said "yes" I told he he was welcome to come out and take a look because these are bad reactions to fire ant bites. I then asked him if bb's were strong enough to penetrate the hide of a horse and leave scabs, would there not be embedded bb's? His response was that he would believe so, and that was the problem, the neighbor could not produce any bb's, even though he said he had been digging them out under the scabs. That is when I told him that my sons rifle was a pellet gun, not a bb gun and that it takes silver colored pellets that look like an hour glass and he has not had any for over 2 months. He then said he was updating the report with everything that I had told him along with what my neighbor had told him and then he gave me the case number, he said that they have been keeping the same case number instead of making a new one everytime he calls them, which has been numerous. I believe in the old saying, give someone enough rope and they will hang themselves, especially since they asked my neighbor about him being paranoid schitzophrenic. What do you all think about that?

ps about ro

Cannot get a ro unless he commits an actual act of physical violence first, lovely huh?