Ongoing Neighbor Harassment

[Frustrated72]

We have neighbors that have been monitoring and harassing us for 2 1/2 years now. Whenever we are outside in our front yard working on it, standing in it, sitting on our bench or just going about normal day to day activity, they are watching us. They have a camera inside their bedroom window aimed at our driveway that turns on fairly regularly. They stand at their kitchen window or living room window and watch all that we do. They also go into their garage and/or driveway and video tape us with their phones. While they are doing all this monitoring, they are simultaneously either calling us names or yelling profanities at us or calling some sort of city representative. The city calls range anywhere from calling the police, to the community development office, animal control, public works and the councilman. There have been times when we have been out of compliance and times we have not. Some of these times we weren't aware we were out of compliance until a city official has come over to let us know. We have had several court dates, paid a lot of money to have our trailer parked in storage and have countless visits from city officials, which takes up our time and has us having to reprioritize any projects we are wanting to work on. The latest incident happened earlier this week. We were outside in our garage cleaning out the garage and they were watching us. They then started calling my fiancé names and then it escalated into threatening him. They threatened to kick his butt several times, as well as end his life. We ended up calling the police to stop them right away. But the end result was my fiancé receiving a ticket for disturbing the police. they were not charged with any threats or anything. We were told they also received disturbing the peace tickets but have no way of proving that is true. We have never once instigated any of this attention. We have never once started any name calling or engaged with them first. Anytime that things were escalated were when we have called back or defended ourselves. The city came by and told us that they are tired of the misuse of city resources due to the neighbor dispute and told us we should expect to go to court every time the neighbors call them. We do not feel it should be our responsibility to be punished because our neighbors are using the city to harass us. We told the director and the councilman that exactly. Another day later, we received a summons to court. We want to know what options may be available to us to stop this neighbor harassment. All we want to do is live our life and be left alone. We want to know if there is legal action we can take against our neighbors for the continual harassment and aggravation. It is very stressful to be worried about who is at the door, who is going to stop by this week, and what threats will come from them as we walk outside to our cars. I also want to add that these neighbors are 75 years old. Its a husband and wife. We are 46 and 49. We have seen them play the innocent victims in several situations (even though they started whatever the incident may be) and have gotten away with it. Is there anything we can do short of selling our house and moving?

 

[FarmerJ]

Have you ever recorded them calling you and yours names ? I suggest you do it and as far as your city inspections goes and talk to a attorney about your states harassment laws and cease just calling the police but talk to your chief of police AFTER you have spoken with a Attorney and lastly go to the building inspectors super visor and your mayor and make sure she/he understands that when you do know there is a code violation you correct it with in a reasonable time and if they don't allow you reasonable time to correct you will not only speak to your attorney about it and also ask a local tv stations consumer affairs desk to see if they are interested in doing a segment about it.

 

[Shadowbunny]

What US State is this in?

 

[Just Blue]

We have neighbors that have been monitoring and harassing us for 2 1/2 years now. Whenever we are outside in our front yard working on it, standing in it, sitting on our bench or just going about normal day to day activity, they are watching us. They have a camera inside their bedroom window aimed at our driveway that turns on fairly regularly. They stand at their kitchen window or living room window and watch all that we do. They also go into their garage and/or driveway and video tape us with their phones. While they are doing all this monitoring, they are simultaneously either calling us names or yelling profanities at us or calling some sort of city representative.

The city calls range anywhere from calling the police, to the community development office, animal control, public works and the councilman. There have been times when we have been out of compliance and times we have not. Some of these times we weren't aware we were out of compliance until a city official has come over to let us know. We have had several court dates, paid a lot of money to have our trailer parked in storage and have countless visits from city officials, which takes up our time and has us having to reprioritize any projects we are wanting to work on. The latest incident happened earlier this week. We were outside in our garage cleaning out the garage and they were watching us. They then started calling my fiancé names and then it escalated into threatening him.

They threatened to kick his butt several times, as well as end his life. We ended up calling the police to stop them right away. But the end result was my fiancé receiving a ticket for disturbing the police. they were not charged with any threats or anything. We were told they also received disturbing the peace tickets but have no way of proving that is true. We have never once instigated any of this attention. We have never once started any name calling or engaged with them first. Anytime that things were escalated were when we have called back or defended ourselves. The city came by and told us that they are tired of the misuse of city resources due to the neighbor dispute and told us we should expect to go to court every time the neighbors call them.

We do not feel it should be our responsibility to be punished because our neighbors are using the city to harass us. We told the director and the councilman that exactly. Another day later, we received a summons to court. We want to know what options may be available to us to stop this neighbor harassment. All we want to do is live our life and be left alone. We want to know if there is legal action we can take against our neighbors for the continual harassment and aggravation. It is very stressful to be worried about who is at the door, who is going to stop by this week, and what threats will come from them as we walk outside to our cars.

I also want to add that these neighbors are 75 years old. Its a husband and wife. We are 46 and 49. We have seen them play the innocent victims in several situations (even though they started whatever the incident may be) and have gotten away with it. Is there anything we can do short of selling our house and moving?

White space for ease of reading.