Hi friends, love the subreddit, forgive formatting I’m on mobile, blah blah blah.
Recently my partner and I moved into a new house and pretty soon after had a yard sale where we ended up meeting some of our new neighbours, including Hedra (fake name). Hedra struck me as a little odd, and after she left another neighbour explained to me that Hedra and her siblings all have some kind of developmental delay that mean that still live with their parents, despite being in their late 30s/early 40s, and likely always will. Hedra has a job, friends, and boyfriend, can drive, etc., but is essentially like a teenager mentally.
From our first meeting, Hedra decided that her and I are “soul sisters” and best friends. I was normally polite, as I was to all our neighbours, but Hedra has clearly latched onto me in a way that makes me uncomfortable.
Since then, Hedra has come by our house several times (5 or 6 over 2 months) to chat and invite me to a “girls night”. Every time she comes by she rings the doorbell several times and will bang on the window until someone answers. I always check the door in case it’s a package.
I don’t want to chat, but the major issue here is that Hedra just won’t leave. Every time she stops by, it’s a 20-40 minute, one-sided conversation.
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I work from home, and when she stops by during the day I go to answer the door thinking it’s a package and she sees me through the door’s window. I’ll say to her, “I can’t talk now, I’m working,” and she’ll continue talking through me saying this repeatedly until I basically shut the door in her face.
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She’ll stop by when we’re cooking or eating dinner, and I’ll say, “I can’t talk right now,” but she does the same thing, continues talking until I essentially have to shut the door in her face.
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She stopped by once while I was just getting out of the shower, and knocked so insistently I was worried it was police or fire dept. or something, so I went to get the door in my bathrobe. Despite it being freezing cold outside and I was clearly half naked, and me saying “I can’t talk right now” repeatedly, she put her foot in the door so I couldn’t close it and talked at me for 20 minutes while I held my dog’s collar with one hand and my robe shut with the other.
Obviously, there are several potential solutions that all come with issues.
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We’ve talked about getting a video doorbell, which I’m sure we will eventually, but they’re expensive and to be honest, I feel like we should be able to shut this situation down without relying on simply avoiding her.
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I’ve told her repeatedly that I’m not interested in a girls night and that I can’t talk because I’m busy, but short of slamming the door in her face I don’t know how to get the message across that it’s time to leave. I could simply say “I don’t want to be friends with you and you need to stop coming over,” but two things prevent me from doing that. 1) I don’t know if it would make a difference—Hedra seems to have a memory problem, and will repeatedly ask me the same questions, tell me stories she’s already told, or expect me to know information that I would have no way of knowing. Telling her to buzz off seems like something that would be forgotten pretty much instantly. 2) Hedra has mentioned in several stories about other people that she has violent tendencies—she has a big, aggressive dog that will attack people, she claims to have beat her boyfriend’s ex with a baseball bat, and also claims to have thrown a man over a deck railing and broken his leg. I have no idea if any of this is true, but she is significantly taller and heavier than I am and works a manual labour job, so if she wanted to I’m sure she could do some serious damage to me, not to mention to our house or car.
I’m at a total loss. Obviously I want to be polite and kind, especially given that her lack of social understanding seems to be at least partially not her fault, but the time for politeness is done. Every time the doorbell rings I panic. At this point, I want her to go away, but I don’t want to hurt her feelings anymore than necessary and I definitely don’t want her to harm me or my property. I’m pretty good at setting and enforcing boundaries and have done so with other people, but I’m at a total loss here.
My partner is of the same mind as me, and also doesn’t know what to do when she comes to the door. I tend to get the brunt of her attention because she’s fixed on me, although he tries to run interference.
What do I do? Help me reddit, you’re my only hope.
TLDR: Adult neighbour with mental age of teenager won’t stop coming to my door to “chat”, won’t leave when I tell her I’m busy, and has violently attacked others who upset her (according to her own account). I want her to stop coming over, but I don’t know how to do so a) effectively; b) safely; and c) with as little harm as possible.
Submitted January 04, 2019 at 05:49AM by that-bitch-again http://bit.ly/2Sxg2kR
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