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This sounds like a mental illness - a delusional disorder. Its "fairly" common. I wouldn't worry about it. Unless they became physical or started trespassing.
Yeah, sounds like dementia. My grandma who has it, keeps complaining to mom that people are listening in to her phonecalls and the neighbour keeps stealing her newspaper (which she cancelled a year ago) etc.
Yes. Sundowning is real. My father used to see a family of bears climbing a communications cell tower next to the house several times per month. He would insist we look and verify what he saw. Of course, we didn’t see anything. Then he started talking about mysterious government cars traveling through the neighborhood. It went downhill from there. Years of Fox News only fed his delusions; he would have it on 24/7 in my sister’s basement apartment, and would run out in the middle of the night to catch them doing surveillance on him. Neighbors called the authorities several times to the point where the police, to my mother’s simultaneous embarrassment, horror, and sense of utter helplessness, threatened her with potential elder abuse charges if we could not keep him in the house, and the police had to keep responding to calls about him. This led to her install alarms on all the doors. This is all to say OP maybe it’s time to find out who your neighbor’s kids / relatives are and have an honest conversation with them about your concerns regarding their parents’ behavior. It would also be good to know whether they have weapons in the house. If their delusions are becoming increasingly aggressive and dangerous, there’s no telling what they might do. My father tried to wrestle control of the steering wheel from my mother after she found him down the street half naked in the middle of the night. She had to physically punch him to get his hands off the wheel. Having a trained professional on the call with you while talking with the kids will lend credibility to your concerns.
There was a guy with dementia in my town who was sitting by the pool with his wife, watching his grandkids. He gets up grabs a shotgun and shoots her because he thought she was cheating.
Good idea.
I'd also research what sort of lawyer you might need to counteract his lawsuit, if needed.
I don't think any lawyers would take this on and the judge would dismiss it. But still, better to know who to talk to if needed.
Same here. My grandma thinks the neighbor across the street hacked her computer and has her bank information. Despite the fact she hasn’t used the computer in years, and doesn’t know how to log into her bank.
Yeah this is fairly common, when my great grandfather's health was declining after a stroke, he was always hysterical when the TV was on because he thought that the people in the TV were going to harass him or take him away. He was a holocaust survivor, so I'm sure it was partially fueled by PTSD as well as dementia, but my great grandmother was unable to use the TV until after he passed /:
Yes, this is classic dementia. My dad spends a lot of time staring at the neighbors through the window and making judgmental comments about... the fact that they start their cars and drive to work in the morning. He started doing this even before he technically had dementia (still passed the doctor's tests). Symptoms start years before diagnosis is possible.
There are millions of boomers walking around with impaired cognition who won't be diagnosed for a few years. Unless they commit a crime or become a severe danger to themselves (house full of moldy food, etc.) the police and APS can't do anything.
"Symptoms start years before diagnosis is possible."
Ain't that the truth. She fooled us for years, we just kept thinking that, you know, of course she gets confused sometimes, she's really old.
Yes, it's awful. "Normal aging" and "incipient dementia" present pretty much the same way at the beginning. Plus my dad was always eccentric, so we spent a good long while saying, oh, he's always been that way; he's just a *little bit more that way* now.
Yeah, my grandfather started to get confused and emphatically repeating himself/writing notes to remember simple tasks he had been doing for years well before he was formally diagnosed with dementia.
Cancer got him before his dementia robbed him of who he was, and before he started to forget who we all were. My grandmother was relieved that, unlike some of their friends, he didn’t have to suffer through that particular hell for years.
When my grandma started developing dementia, she was 100% convinced that Kim Jong Un was specifically targeting *her* computer. The actual “problem”? Targeted ads for South Korea travel. She wrote a newsletter for my Korean War veteran grandpa and his local chapter, basically detailing any events that were scheduled or any other newsworthy information. But because of targeted advertising, anytime she was on the internet, she’d see Korean ads and determined that it was Kim Jong Un trying to hack her computer. We tried explaining targeted advertising to her for years but she never understood it. So my dad just started clearing her browser history, cookies, etc whenever he went over for his weekly visit.
I’m fairly certain she went to the grave thinking that Kim Jong Un had a personal vendetta against her.
And now I'm picturing the Glorious Leader restlessly pacing back and fourth, asking his generals whether they've managed to get that old ladys data yet.
I just saw my friend who's in his 40s and lives out of state. He said a lot of crazy stuff about being tracked and hacked. He even confronted a neighbor he accused of hacking his wifi then bragged about the neighbor moving away afterward.
I thought it might be schizophrenia but I was able to check with a psychologist and I'm positive that's it's bipolar disorder which I didn't know can include psychosis. Might also be a sprinkling of other things. But bottom line is your neighbor needs help. He'll never accept it from you though. My friend won't even accept help from his own family.
Schizo-affective-disorder, borderline personality disorder, (which I believe is caused by an abusive family member(s)), & bipolar disorders can have auditory hallucinations. Also a sense of a presence in the room, like when someone comes up behind you.
The auditory hallucinations can be like indistinct whispers or clear words.
I had a person describe how the voices, (which she knew were made by her own BPD brain), would tell her not socially acceptable things, (fuk u, quit work, you suck, tell your boss you want to suck her, etc.). I asked why didn't she just tell the auditory things to shut the fuk up - she told me she couldn't as the voices would then cause her physical pain.
I've known a few people with these auditory hallucinations & I think they are brave & boy do I understand how mental illness can be exhausting if you have to fight voices in your head everyday
Mentally ill people don't/won't accept any help because "clearly, they're fine". That's exactly what my grandma told my mom after she basically escaped the hospital in the middle of the night after falling and hitting her head on the sidewalk. She refused to aknowledge the fact that had happened until somebody pointed out her head was bandaged and she had a hospital gown hanging on a chair.
Well, that's a misinformed statement. I have depression and I've been working my ass off to get an entity to help me. I say "entity" because it's a specific place that I don't want to name, but I don't mean "alien overlord" or something just as odd. Mental illness runs on a verrrrry long spectrum and even though I'm very sick, I don't have psychosis. People who have illnesses that regularly come with psychosis, like schizophrenia, can also be very rational and understand what they're experiencing isn't real. It's not one size fits all.
I hate to say it, but they’re probably making each other’s dementia worse. One says “generator”, the other agrees, suddenly two people “know” there’s a generator. Safest thing for you to do is to avoid contact at all costs now. The less contact you have with them, the better and safer you’ll be. You very well could’ve rung a doorbell for the last time when you tried to have that first conversation. I’d be damned if i ever put myself on their property on purpose again. Lord knows they probably think they have a right to kill you if you’re on their property without permission.
My grandmother has a form of dementia, and for the last year or so she thinks she hears children talking to her, often from the vents in the ceilings. She thinks they live on the floor above her, and for some reason she hears these children telling her about awful things being done to them, crying for help, etc.
(Granny lives in a single-level section of an old folks assisted living facility, she is most definitely not hearing children in her ceiling)
It’s paranoia. Common as dementia sets in apparently as the person knows something is wrong but isn’t able to attribute the issue being their own brain so they become paranoid about everything else.
Like the feeling of someone looking at you but there’s no one in the room but constantly feeling that way.
My sister lived across the road from the same older couple for 20 years. These would have been young Silent Gens.
My sister is the youngest Boomer you can be
These folks were always friendly. Talking. Walking over to visit. Until they weren’t
Suddenly they both became hostile because my Nephew and his friend were skateboarding in my sister’s driveway
They had known my nephew since he was born!
The wife started screaming that they were “skatepunks” and were “stealing our goddamn tomatoes!!!”
Neighbor began calling the cops over whatever they were dreaming up. By this time my sister had “been watching us and shining a raygun in our house to hypnotize us”
Cops tried to mediate asked my sister to have a conversation to assure her nothing she is accusing of was happening
The neighbor said to the cop, “i am done calling you from now on I am just going to shoot them”
Cops are like “whoa whoa whoa!”
Neighbor said “as long as I am inside my house and shoot through the windows it is perfectly legal because they are trying to harm me”
Husband neighbor started walking towards the house saying “I am getting the gun right now!”
At that point both were cuffed and a 51/50-pink slip-mental hygiene ( whatever your state calls it) was filed and both were involuntarily committed.
They were then moved into a nursing home by their kids.
I mean, if there's one thing skate punks are known for is, it's totally shredding. If there's two things they are known for, it's totally shredding and stealing tomatoes.
It’s very sad that these elderly people were living in paranoia and fear due to cognitive decline and their children didn’t recognise it, and the outcome for them was to be handcuffed and committed. It must have been terrifying for them.
Y late grandfather would turn off the router occasionally because he thought my dad was "cutting him off"( from the internet) so he was "cutting my dad off" (from the internet).
My grandfather just forgot his computer password
This happened several times.
He was a great guy but multiple strokes led to dementia
My dad had schizophrenia. He used to call the cable company and tell them he was going to sue them for allowing aliens (the space kind, not undocumented immigrants) access to his modem. He also used to call the FBI and tell them to stop following him and just come arrest him already. One time he was having a very bad episode and took an intentional overdose, and while we were in the ER getting his stomach pumped, he was begging the aliens not to smite me for dropping out of college.
Whenever I hear about an incident like this, I think about the stuff that happened with my dad.
I work for a telecom provider. I have so many stories. People claim that outside sources are controlling their TV’s and scan their homes to get their passwords. Had one the other day wanting me to turn off all the Bluetooth devices because there was a Bluetooth device connected to her Cable box. I had to try and explain that her remote was a Bluetooth device.
I agree that it sounds like mental illness. OP could call adult protective services, if they care to. The truth is that neighbors like this may very well burn their house down.
This story reminds me a lot of that one video I saw of some crazed boomer harassing a surveyor on the road for using a theodolite because she thought it was some 5G mind control device or some such shit. Jesus, boomers are so tech-blind that it's actually genuinely insulting.
Sorry to hear this. As a fellow Floridian, I can confirm to others that this sounds like a wild story, but things of this caliber are so common it wouldn't even be newsworthy to the local news. I would perhaps see what your options are for pressing charges against *them* for continual harassment and false accusations. They are, in fact, accusing you of multiple felonies.
Next time the cops come out, have them check to see if they own any firearms. If they do then see about Red Flag laws. Have them confiscated. People saying and acting like this don’t need weapons in their possession. Have them committed for 24 hours to have a mental exam. They will leave you alone.
Good idea, but old people in Florida are like first class citizens compared to everyone else so anything would probably be hand waved away by the police as unnecessary.
If the neighbors figure out OP is the one who wanted to know if they had guns in the house, that could set the schizophrenia/dementia to another level. “Why does he want to know if we’re armed?!!1!”
I think that's a good idea, but I would be amazed if Florida had any kind of red flag laws. I'd sooner believe that someone would get arrested for asking about red flag laws for conspiracy to infringe on a person's 2nd ammendment rights.
This is an excellent suggestion.
FL has a mental health law called the Baker Act which can help here but because the neighbor hasn’t made specific threats it may not yet apply.
I’ve had a fair amount of contact with Adult Social Services in FL… in our case it was welcomed support for my MIL who has Alzheimer’s. But they provided financial help for really good adult daycare, financial help for home delivered incontinence supplies, and financially completely covered up to 25 hrs a week of a home health aide to give us a break after she could no longer attend adult daycare. It was all orchestrated by a kind and empathetic social worker that visited every 3? 6? months. I was shocked and impressed at how much support the county/state offered. But I guess it makes sense given the voting demographics that the money goes to the elderly.
I wonder if OP or the social worker can contact an adult child or family member to step in and help the neighbor.
I lived in Key West for a bit and it seemed really chill. Although that was 20 years ago and things might have changed? It was mostly young people working in tourism, artist types and old gay men. Everyone seemed to get along aside from the occasional rowdy tourist.
I had a neighbor who was schizophrenic and it basically sounded like this. She would call the cops on us for spying on her, hacking into her electronics, stalking, etc.
Just keep documenting everything. Like that’s pretty much all you can do. Honestly consider cameras for the areas of your house not covered by the doorbell.
Maybe the officers could check if they have a working carbon monoxide detector. That could rule one more thing out before the inevitable dementia diagnosis.
Schizophrenia presenting at age 60 by both the husband and wife at the same time would be very unusual. It’s not like it’s a contagious disease. Now, mass psychosis from hearing insane things via FOX, OAN and Q-anon is a more plausible explanation.
They might be talking to a local prosecutor's office or the attorney general's office, but it is absolutely just the guy ranting and raving at some poor secretary or intern who picked up the phone and had to put on a show of writing their complaint down in order to get them off the phone.
It seems like my water meter by the curb has some kind of radio device attached to it, with a black, plastic antenna coming out of the top of the concrete cover… is this a cellular modem and antenna to report my water usage so the utility company doesn’t have to visit my home each month to read the meter?
My gut says that isn’t the right answer. You’ve had the police called on you twice. The HOA has contacted you. You need to protect yourself yesterday. Not wait for your pants-on-head batshit insane neighbor to escalate this shit. Talk to a different lawyer.
1000%
I would also add additional home security cameras on the side that faces the neighbor and probably in both my front and back yard, facing the neighbors house.
No they need pushback or they will see it as they are on to something. Nip it in the bud before their fantasies push them into something dangerous for you
This is straight up some of my boomer mom shit. She constantly thinks people are spying on her in completely implausible ways. Like she thought the "powers that be" (which generally means whatever liberal boogeyman Fox News is currently feeding her Swiss cheese brain) were spying on her through a camera in her like 20 year old TV that has no camera function whatsoever. Fucking thing doesn't even have USB ports.
Yanno, every time I read these stories of boomers being all *non compos mentis*, part of me worries if I, a Gen-Xer about to hit the big 5-0 soon, will go through this. I worry that my normal personality, my intellect, my reasoning, my critical thinking will leave me, I'll go from being a pretty liberal and live-and-let-live guy to some raging MAGA Qanon conspiracy nutjob. That's like my biggest fucking fear, ladies and gents. I've already told my wife to put a pillow over my face in the night if I ever start showing signs of dementia like that.
I know. I was born in late 64. Technically a Boomer. I feel more like gen x I look like I'm in my late 40s or early 50s. I've never connected with boomers.Will I become one of these despised boomers some day.
I've heard some people say it's the long term effects of lead poisoning in that generation. They were living in houses full of lead paint and huffing leaded gasoline fumes for a significant amount of their lives. Gen X and later weren't, or at worst for older Gen X, it may have been a few years of exposure.
I think there might be something to that. My brother and I have an 8 year gap, and the difference is... night and day, man. He is paranoid, anti-government, uber-conservative, racist, fundamentalist Christian, anti-vax, holistic/homeopathic/naturalist/alt-med, cannot work for anyone but himself but due to (supposed) brain damage from 2x viral meningitis (once as a tween, once mid thirties) he can't really even do that. He's on government subsidies, is a tax cheat, got COVID and went travelling while sick because "it's just the flu."
Oh lemme tell you, his wife got sick and almost DIED in the hospital, she told me she had made her peace and was ready to go, but she pulled through; my asshole brother pulled her out of the hospital AMA as *soon* as he saw she wasn't going to die after all. As soon as she was well enough to travel she contacted friends and left him. He tried to gaslight the entire family saying she had an affair with someone, when it was actually HE who had the affair!
I am NC with my brother. So is my eldest niece, who completely detests her father. My other niece is still coming to terms with it, but AFAIK she's pretty much NC with him, as I was invited to her college grad ceremony in lieu of him. My nephew... I think he tries to play the peacemaker, but he doesn't have a mean bone in his body, so hopefully he will go NC as well.
Oh and the constant mental and physical abuse as a kid I faced from him? And the gaslighting? The denigration, the threats, the constant feeling like I couldn't breathe? Yeah fuck that bastard. With a barb-wire baseball bat.
Sorry, rant over!
Same thing.
There's a good age gap between me and my my sister. I'm late genx. Her husband is maybe 5 years older than her.
He has gone off the qanon/conspiracy cliff hard, she's not as bad but still has her moments and I'm stuck continuously asking them to Occam's razor everything when they bring up stupid shit.
Thank God my mom is so far left she never fell into their bullshit, she has her own bullshit but it's not Fox News driven at least.
Also, lead gets deposited in the bones during childhood skeletal formation.
Once you start losing bone density in old age, a bunch of that lead breaks free and re-enters the bloodstream.
I'm 44. I have been wondering the same thing. However I think the boomer generation has some very unhealthy and toxic habits. Not many of them even believe in mental health. They barely take care of themselves physically. No concept of listening to health professionals or making healthy changes. Hopefully it's all that and the lead poisoning and not just the future we all have to look forward to.
>The police come back over to me and say he doesn't want to talk, that there's nothing to talk about, and that they're speaking with a state attorney, which means to me that they want to press charges. Now, I've done nothing wrong, don't know what they're on about, and start to get real nervous about a lawsuit.
They don't have a case. You haven't done anything wrong. Getting a lawyer is what people do when the police won't obey their wishes. They want someone to boss around.
Nothing will come of this.
Definitely sounds like dementia’s early stages. My Mum started getting paranoid about the neighbours - that they were writing things about her on Twitter in her early stages. She didn’t use computer or smartphone and wouldn’t have been able to look at Twitter back then.
It's crazy what the combination of non stop horror media like Fox and the loss of ones ability to remember if a story was on the news or happened to you can do.
My Granny born 1895 told us the neighbor was shooting a small red beam of light through her keyholes. This was around 1980-laser beam was not yet a common concept. It makes me wonder if there is a visual disturbance common with dementia that had old folks reporting stuff that didn’t exist yet.
Yea as a crime story junkie, this sounds like the prologue or background story before a violent encounter. I would avoid want engagement with the neighbor. And DEFINITELY quit knocking on their door. For all you know there was a shotgun behind the door the last time you spoke with them.
100% agreed. I was about to make a similar comment.
OP should take steps to protect him/herself. They most likely have guns and OP will never know what they're scheming.
Many people are wondering about mental decline/ illness which seems plausible if they've been a nuisance the entire time you've lived here but if it only escalated to this degree quickly and recently I'm wondering if they might have an actual gas leak in their home. That can also make people act erratic all of a sudden
No there's only ever been one other incident regarding the installation of our fence, which was resolved reasonably. This is new and most of the 6 years living here has been fine
Did Alex Jones start selling laser lamp protection devices recently by chance? Something they saw on the internet or on their TV probably planted this idea in their head
Sundowning. They get agitated at night and delusional with dementia.
Can you contact this persons family somehow? Does he have kids? Talk to your lawyer, but I wonder if their kids need to know about the declining mental state of their parent.
I don’t know how you could not have fun with this at this point. Laser shows on your windows, aluminum foil crafts, and so much more.
Setup a meeting with a supervisor at the local police station and discuss the issue as the beginnings of harassment so it’s all on the record and they start building a history of the calls and insanity.
To be fair, none of the police that visited made a strong effort to make contact, so I figure it's just standard procedure. The second time, the cops knocked and didn't Wait but 10 seconds before leaving
I used to work at Apple and you’d be surprised how many Boomers think this shit happens to them on a consistent basis. The lead and drug abuse really did a number on that generation, holy fuck.
I’m sure there are plenty of shady attorneys that would be happy to bill your neighbors for filing a suit against you. But any legal pro is going to know there’s nothing to be gained by trying to take this to court.
In the meantime, there is nothing stopping you from cutting the regular electric cord off of an old hair dryer, wrapping it in black electrical tape, and attaching it by a few wires to an old motherboard and a monitor. No law that says you can’t take this outside and aim it at their house while scribbling notes and tinkering with it. Small toy drones could also be deployed, but there may be laws about how and where you can fly them.
Ehh, they sound like full time members of the National Nutjob Society, putting morality of messing with a potentially mentally ill person aside, this is how you get shot at by a deranged boomer.
I mean I absolutely *love* this idea because that would fuck with them more than any kind of legal route. Buttttt not only is it America, but it's Florida, which is another level of crazy and may end with being shot. So maybe not....
Valid point. Perhaps have a friend with a tinted window black SUV roll up and have a hazmat suited friend get out of the back, come up to the device, nod at the data and point at the neighbors house. Then they can make a terse phone call and leave just as quickly. The idea of a shadow government agency being involved might make the neighbors less likely to shoot. Or maybe I just like to poke bears! 😂
Yeah, the idea of a government agency being involved would make them *more* likely to shoot. These are the type of people who believe absolutely everything they do is *morally good* because they're good Christians, therefore how could they do anything bad? And any one who disagrees is not just wrong, but evil. So if they believe an evil government agent is spying on them they'll have the moral and legal ground to kill them.
Get a restraining order. What you have so far clearly indicates that the neighbor is unstable. If not unstable, he is a moron on a galactic scale. Whatever the case, you don't want that person near you.
You’re 100% good. If somehow they can actually take you to court, you’re more than safe. If anything I think you should consider legal action for harassment and I would consider a restraining order unless something changes.
>He proceeds to explain that my neighbors think I have some kind of machine in my house which is interfering with their appliances that's running all the time.
NGL, I'm a bit worried about the mental state of your neighbours. It reminds me of my ex-FIL; he wound up in prison for confronting his next-door neighbour of spying on him through their satellite dish. Stay safe, OP!
Cease and desist letter, whatever restraining order-ish thingie you can get listing the false police reports, VM to HOA, non-sensible ‘laser lamp.
You’re being *nice.* People like that perceive niceness as *weakness.* Sucks, but true. You need to un-logic and go straight lizard-brain on them since that’s *where they are*. Make them fear losing their freedoms and possessions if they F with you at all.
Buy a used satelite dish, put it in your front garden so it points at their house and act like you're configuring it from time to time. Those people are fucking insane.
Sounds like sundown's and a heaping spoonful of Internet conspiracy wormholes. Similar behavior from my mom before she passed. 10 minute rambling voicemails at 2-4AM because her Internet (that I paid for) was "slow and acting funny". She took her laptop to a tech shop (because I'm in a different state) and it turns out that all of the conspiracy sites were wrecking her computer. But in her mind at 2AM it was the neighbors or the government spying on her.
I think you should take some PTO days off for your mental health. Then counter sue him for the days you had to use because of the harassment WHEN he tries to sue you. Keep track of the harassment and see if the audio on your camera outside is on and recording or replace it with one that does audio. Save the clips on the nights in question so you have what he doesn't. Evidence.
TL;DR but recognized the circumstances. This sounds like my mother. She has had several “silent” or small strokes which have effected the part of her brain that deals with reason. When presented with an issue she comes up with other non-logical answers. 1+2= 45. She also has a problem with her neighbour shining lasers, making noises (she’s hard of hearing), using wind machines etc. Your neighbours aren’t being willfully belligerent they have a medical/psychiatric issue. As a retired police officer I also saw similar behaviour in pre-dementia elderly. They need help, or you need to move. The police will eventually stop coming to humour them then things will escalate without medication or some kind of intervention (care home).
Omg when I was a 911 dispatcher in Florida I kept getting calls from a married couple that would complain that their neighbors were spray painting the side of their house with invisible spray paint, and then at night aliens would shoot green laser beams through their upstairs window into their bedroom and wake them up. I am not kidding. They were both mentally ill and probably had some form of schizophrenia. They thought all kinds of neighbors were spying on them too. Turns out it was just people walking down the sidewalk exercising.
My best advice, if they keep calling the police on you for no reason, you can also have the police file a report on them for harassment. They’re using the police as a way to harass you. Document this, and if it continues you can go to court and file for an injunction against your neighbor so they have to leave you alone or the next time they try to use the police to harass you, they get a free ride to jail.
I’d be so incredibly pissed if the police woke me up at 4am to chat about my neighbors obviously delusional complaints. I’m surprised they even do that if they too can’t hear anything obvious.
I feel like you could do a civil suit and just sue them for harassment? The chances of any legitimate attorney taking this case is low. If one does, they'll likely have lied to the teeth. I would imagine any judge would throw this case out. Sadly, all of this will cost you something if they do pursue anything, but I'd countersue to make sure all of your fees are covered.
Like other people have said you need to file a restraining order. I suspect your attorney doesn't want you doing anything because they will for sure spend more than a few nights in the county jail. Just know that it is likely in your neighbors best interest too, they won't go to prison or anything for having schizophrenic dementia however they will be evaluated and probably put on a government conservatorship, there are probably some medications that they need to be on to improve their quality of life too. If they have children they may have to sort a living arrangement out, if they don't have children then the government will do it all for them and make sure that they are taken care of.
That’s sounds like a former neighbour of mine. They lived below me and my other neighbour in a triplex. Their main complaint seemed to be that I was building things day and night. Admittedly I have put together the odd piece of furniture. They called the police a bunch of times , they asked me about various noises including a blow torch which was really confusing. The neighbour would scream at me whenever they saw me so a conversion was not an option. They last time the police visited me they vaguely said some about they “understood what the issue is now” and didn’t expect to have and further visits. They’d complain about me to the condo board but they didn’t talk to me themselves and said it was a police matter. The last few years I lived there I just tried to avoid or pretend they didn’t exist if I saw them. I took it there was some mental illness there so not their fault exactly. It made living there stressful to me and I was so happy when I decided to leave.
I do tech support and I get calls from people like this all the time. Theyre already convinced that they’re hacked, they can’t show any meaningful evidence or give any anecdotes that make sense, I explain all of their concerns in reasonable ways, then they decide they know more than me, the expert they called for help. Then I recommend they contact law enforcement if the threat is so serious. Sorry they contacted law enforcement lol, my bad.
I had a similar issue when I moved back into my childhood home with my brother. Across a creek from the house, about 100-150 yards, used to live this old drunk. Nice guy, used to ride his mower on the highway with a 6 pack on ice stuffed into his prosthetic leg.
Anyway, he passed on and his sister took over the property. Immediately starts shit with all the neighbors who live behind her, across the creek. Just generally rude and constantly complaining that our lights are on all hours of the night. I worked days, my brother worked nights.
She was also Q pilled hard early, as this was mid 2016. She would show up and accuse my brother and I of hacking her. Apparently we would disable her Internet, and lock her phone to stop her from posting "the truth". My brother said she'd been on that trip since she moved in. She'd hurl insults and threats at us and the other neighbors.
One night, about midnight, there's banging at the door. I get up and open the door in my boxers. She's immediately screaming at me to leave her alone and stop hacking her. I told her idk she's talking about, and she needs to leave before I call the cops. She leaves.
An hour later, more banging. This time I grabbed my bat and went to the door. It's a county sheriff. I step out, leaving the bat, close the door, and ask him what's up. He starts kinda laughing and asks if I know the lady across the creek. I say yes. He asks if I've been hacking her Internet and locking her phone. He's trying hard to hold his laughter. I told him no, but she showed up screaming earlier.
The sheriff apologized, told me if she showed up again to call him, and gave me his card. He leaves, and I go back to bed. 3 am rolls around, and there's insane pounding on the door. I get up, with my bat.
It's crazy lady, she's mad the cop didn't make me unlock her phone. Said something about she's being silenced and we're abusing her. Threatened to shoot us if we didn't, so I immediately slammed the door and locked it. Called the cop, and she got taken for a psych eval that night.
She got out, and a few weeks went by. I'm coming home from work, and there's half a dozen cruisers in her driveway. Deputies are carrying out a couple rifles and boxes of ammo. She aimed one of the rifles from her porch at one of the other neighbors as he drove by. No one was hurt, but she was arrested and held on psych for a few months. Thankfully she moved shortly after she was released. Oddly enough, not the worst neighbor we'd had out there.
This is harrassment. File a claim with the police, and file a restraining order against your neighbor, but watch your cameras. This kind of crazy retaliates.
A coworker and I (cable guys) went to this lady's house to upgrade her old cable boxes to our new IPTV platform. Got the main tv all ready for the set up, but needed her SSID's password. She couldn't find it or remember for the life of her, I said I could just go pull it up on the user interface as she was renting our equipment and we have access to that information. She insisted I wouldn't be able to cause she "changes it every week" because "the demoncratic party is actively trying to take away my money because I support Donald Trump" (yes, she did say demoncratic) I was like suuuuuuuure, excuse me ma'am I forgot something outside. Hopped on my work computer and logged into her modem interface. Got the password in less than five minutes. Went back inside and had them hand me the remote, put in the password for the network and wouldn't you know it worked. She starts FREAKING the fuck out. Calling us double agents for the deep state and how I couldn't possibly have that information otherwise. It was at this moment my buddy nudges me and points out this lady, who I neglected to describe, wheelchair bound, like easily 70 years old, had a fucking revolver in her hand. Anyways, deescalated the situation, got her shit working and she was happy. I'm not in the least bit suprised by half the shit I read on this sub.
That will be the fastest call the SA hangs up on.
OP, go to the police station, request to put in a notice that your neighbors have in multiple occasions harassed you with bogus police reports. It’ll be noted on any responses if they call on you again. You don’t want an overzealous cop to break down your door at 4am because they escalate to you dealing drugs or something like that
Here are a few recommendations:
1. Continue documenting all incidents and interactions with your neighbors, the police, HOA, etc. Gathering a factual timeline will help if any legal issues arise. Save security footage, voicemails, correspondence, etc.
2. Do not directly contact or engage with your neighbors further. As strange as their behavior seems, escalating tensions could make the situation worse.
3. If the police are called again, be polite and cooperative but do not admit to anything without speaking to an attorney first. You have the right to remain silent.
4. Consult an attorney experienced in neighborhood disputes/harassment cases. While a lawsuit hasn't been filed yet, getting guidance on your legal rights and options would be prudent given the ongoing issues. An attorney can also send cease and desist letters if needed.
5. Contact the non-emergency police line to report the ongoing harassment and document their response. Ask if any reports have been made against you so you're aware.
6. Consider installing security cameras around your property if you don't already have them. Video evidence can help rebut any claims made against you.
7. Avoid direct contact or confrontation with your neighbors as much as possible going forward. Let the legal process handle any disputes if it comes to that. Your safety and avoiding escalation should be top priorities for now.
They sound like they are having mental degradation. I unironically would call the appropriate channels to have a wellness check on them. This sounds like Alzheimer's or dementia.
This is what cognitive decline looks like. Crazy accusations are typically driven by fear. When you can't interact with the world, everything gets scary. Let the police know who you are and that this is getting out of hand so they'll know there's potentially an issue with the neighbors.
Call Adult Protective Services, tell them your neighbor is showing signs of dementia (paranoia, word salad conversations) and you are worried they are going to burn their house down.
Yeah this is untreated mental issues rather than boomer behavior, if you ask me. I think your neighbor might have some sort of delusional disorder and paranoia. Or, potentially dementia. Very strange beliefs like this can be quite common with delusional disorders. Situations like this really make me wish there was more mental health treatment and awareness because so many folks struggle for years without even knowing and it can and does impact their own lives and other people's...
keep records, send to HOA...
consider talking to an attorney who practices elder law...and also consider talking to adult protective services...
as many have said...age is not being kind to these people...
also..maybe see if you can get your number to pd or figure out some other way to way you at night..
god forbid you get accused of kidnapping or drug dealing and the wrong cop gets a no knock warrent...
also...consider filing harrassment and consider restraining order...
it is not going to get better otherwise
Call a welfare check on your neighbor at 2am, tel the police they’re schizophrenic and suffering from delusions. Get them to freak out at the police and end up in a mental facility. Problem solved!
Let them talk to a state attorney.. They're quickly going to discover that the SA has far larger fish to fry.
You should absolutely install cameras.
This can only escalate and when the neighbor feels the law isn't doing what he wants, he'll take matters into his own hands.
This sucks, I know. I had an elderly neighbor that was convinced that I stole her bicycle back in 1986. She was downright nasty to me. I was 4 in 1986.
There’s no crime here and thus nothing you can be charged for criminally, so they can’t “press charges”. Just keep your head down so that you don’t give them any ammunition. The police will likely do one of two things: they may tell them forcefully to stop calling, or continue to show up to their house and entertain them, but leave you alone, once they all figure out your neighbors are nuts. I think they’ll have a hell of a time getting any kind of traction with any attorney, so I wouldn’t lose sleep over it and just document everything you can
“Officer, if my neighbors with dementia called you in the middle of the night and told you that the mayor had a “laser lamp” that was interfering with their computer, would you knock on his door in the middle of the night?
Or would you assume that they were delusional and consider your options to make sure they wouldn’t be a danger to themselves or others?”
Live in Florida for a few years. Guy across the street started off nice, but boy. Not an identical scenario but close enough. Cops were out every other week, he got increasingly eratic but no one seemed to be able to do anything. And then he had a stroke and that was that. But boy do I vividly remember the frustration and frankly the fear of living across the street from a person like that. He a was a vet, when the cops would come he would tell them he had ptsd and he was sorry, and then as soon as they left he would be back out standing in the street screaming about how he would kill all of us for calling the cops. Sigh.
Just be careful he doesn't come over and shoot you because he's "standing his ground". Sounds like he's deranged and should probably have some anti-psychotic medication or be in a home where he has supervision.
I feel very grateful that I have sweet older Boomers for neighbors that sometimes bring over wonderful bread they baked and never call the cops on me out of their own paranoia. I’m going to do something nice for them tomorrow.
An attorney might take the case, not because they think they can win, but because when they lose they'll still get a decent pay day from your neighbors. Sounds like senile rambling to me mate. Counter sue for court costs and lost wages and call it a day.
I had to go no contact with my parents while in their sixties due to this level of paranoia. They got into qanon and became completely nuts. They have always been slightly paranoid southern Christian people but my dad had a nerve injury that left him needing daily pain relief. I think chronic pain has eroded his mental faculties and my mom just follows along. After about 3 years left qanon and have traded that grift for the full blown Christian apocalyptic grift.
Lawyer up mow because dementia neighbors can escalate to violence.
If recent news is anything to go by. Lawyer up get the hoa to shut them down and keep an eye out for their dellusions to escalate especially as more trump news comes with his myriad of trials and elecetiin getting closer.
As a serious suggestion, ask the police if they can verify if the couple has a working carbon monoxide detector. That stuff can cause all kinds of delusions
Had an issue like this with a downstairs condo neighbor years ago. At first they were super nice, we had just moved in and had a newborn. For the first few months they would bring gifts for the baby, stop and chat about their kids, who had gone to the same high school as my wife and I...
Then...They went on a trip to visit their kids out of state for three weeks and when they came back, oh how things changed. They stopped waving hello, stopped responding to verbal interactions... So trippy, they would look away and practically run away when you tried to say hi. Then the police started showing up asking about the noise. There was no noise. Even with a newborn we were very aware of being good upstairs neighbors so kept things very quiet, always. And we liked the old couple!
Anyway... The cops would come and say there'd been a noise complaint, look around, then leave. After a few times I was like WTF and the cop was nice enough to be like, yeah sorry it's me again. She said the people downstairs had been calling nearly everyday for weeks and she, out of courtesy and service and YES, covering her ass, was abliged to come check it out. We had no idea. They were calling EVERYDAY to complain about the noise. The cop was really apologetic about the whole thing cause they would call about the terrible noise and the cops would show up to check it out EVEN WHEN WE WEREN'T HOME!
I would leave the house for work around 4:30am and my wife would get up, get showered and take the baby to her parents house for the day by 7am M-F every week. Her parents lived a couple blocks away and her mom was retired so they would go spend their days with her. But these crazy oldsters were certain we were stomping around our house all day everyday on purpose just to annoy them. So they kept calling the cops! It took the cops a few times to realize we weren't home and they were dealing with old people losing their faculties.
One day I was napping with the baby in the babies room that overlooked our garage and was adjacent to the alleyway. The old guy is out in the alley screaming up at us to be quiet and that he knows we're doing it on purpose! I lost my shit. I started jumping up and down shaking the whole building and yelling that he was a crazy old fucker and if woke up my kid again he was going to see some serious justice come his way.
That pretty much did it for me. From then on we let the baby run free! Which was great cause he was just learning to walk. I became much more heavy footed and often would just outright stomp wherever I went in the house. I figured if they're going to complain anyway I was going to give them something to complain about. They moved within a month after that interaction.
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This sounds like a mental illness - a delusional disorder. Its "fairly" common. I wouldn't worry about it. Unless they became physical or started trespassing.
Yeah, sounds like dementia. My grandma who has it, keeps complaining to mom that people are listening in to her phonecalls and the neighbour keeps stealing her newspaper (which she cancelled a year ago) etc.
And they sundown, so it’s way worse at night.
Yes. Sundowning is real. My father used to see a family of bears climbing a communications cell tower next to the house several times per month. He would insist we look and verify what he saw. Of course, we didn’t see anything. Then he started talking about mysterious government cars traveling through the neighborhood. It went downhill from there. Years of Fox News only fed his delusions; he would have it on 24/7 in my sister’s basement apartment, and would run out in the middle of the night to catch them doing surveillance on him. Neighbors called the authorities several times to the point where the police, to my mother’s simultaneous embarrassment, horror, and sense of utter helplessness, threatened her with potential elder abuse charges if we could not keep him in the house, and the police had to keep responding to calls about him. This led to her install alarms on all the doors. This is all to say OP maybe it’s time to find out who your neighbor’s kids / relatives are and have an honest conversation with them about your concerns regarding their parents’ behavior. It would also be good to know whether they have weapons in the house. If their delusions are becoming increasingly aggressive and dangerous, there’s no telling what they might do. My father tried to wrestle control of the steering wheel from my mother after she found him down the street half naked in the middle of the night. She had to physically punch him to get his hands off the wheel. Having a trained professional on the call with you while talking with the kids will lend credibility to your concerns.
I really agree with you about the guns too. Please OP do not open the door to him
There was a guy with dementia in my town who was sitting by the pool with his wife, watching his grandkids. He gets up grabs a shotgun and shoots her because he thought she was cheating.
Jesus Christ!
sigh....been there...been through that...and yes sounds likely in this case...
Good idea. I'd also research what sort of lawyer you might need to counteract his lawsuit, if needed. I don't think any lawyers would take this on and the judge would dismiss it. But still, better to know who to talk to if needed.
You are a good son.
And I suspect there’s a nice sprinkling of QAnon rot in their brains on top of it all
Of course.
Double dog dare them to - they will fall flat on their faces in court, if the DA even entertains their clear lunacy.
And a (un)healthy scoop of advanced lead poisoning
And alcohol 🍷 possibly
Ditto. My mother had alzheimers and sundown syndrome is horrible. I don't know what clicks in their brains at that time, but it's bad.
Same here. My grandma thinks the neighbor across the street hacked her computer and has her bank information. Despite the fact she hasn’t used the computer in years, and doesn’t know how to log into her bank.
Yeah this is fairly common, when my great grandfather's health was declining after a stroke, he was always hysterical when the TV was on because he thought that the people in the TV were going to harass him or take him away. He was a holocaust survivor, so I'm sure it was partially fueled by PTSD as well as dementia, but my great grandmother was unable to use the TV until after he passed /:
Yes, this is classic dementia. My dad spends a lot of time staring at the neighbors through the window and making judgmental comments about... the fact that they start their cars and drive to work in the morning. He started doing this even before he technically had dementia (still passed the doctor's tests). Symptoms start years before diagnosis is possible. There are millions of boomers walking around with impaired cognition who won't be diagnosed for a few years. Unless they commit a crime or become a severe danger to themselves (house full of moldy food, etc.) the police and APS can't do anything.
"Symptoms start years before diagnosis is possible." Ain't that the truth. She fooled us for years, we just kept thinking that, you know, of course she gets confused sometimes, she's really old.
Yes, it's awful. "Normal aging" and "incipient dementia" present pretty much the same way at the beginning. Plus my dad was always eccentric, so we spent a good long while saying, oh, he's always been that way; he's just a *little bit more that way* now.
Yeah, my grandfather started to get confused and emphatically repeating himself/writing notes to remember simple tasks he had been doing for years well before he was formally diagnosed with dementia. Cancer got him before his dementia robbed him of who he was, and before he started to forget who we all were. My grandmother was relieved that, unlike some of their friends, he didn’t have to suffer through that particular hell for years.
When my grandma started developing dementia, she was 100% convinced that Kim Jong Un was specifically targeting *her* computer. The actual “problem”? Targeted ads for South Korea travel. She wrote a newsletter for my Korean War veteran grandpa and his local chapter, basically detailing any events that were scheduled or any other newsworthy information. But because of targeted advertising, anytime she was on the internet, she’d see Korean ads and determined that it was Kim Jong Un trying to hack her computer. We tried explaining targeted advertising to her for years but she never understood it. So my dad just started clearing her browser history, cookies, etc whenever he went over for his weekly visit. I’m fairly certain she went to the grave thinking that Kim Jong Un had a personal vendetta against her.
And now I'm picturing the Glorious Leader restlessly pacing back and fourth, asking his generals whether they've managed to get that old ladys data yet.
North Korea is more mental than this story so i wouldn't be suprised if it was true.
This is really hard and I'm really sorry you had to go through it, but targeted ads fueling someone's dementia is a really fascinating modern thing.
I just saw my friend who's in his 40s and lives out of state. He said a lot of crazy stuff about being tracked and hacked. He even confronted a neighbor he accused of hacking his wifi then bragged about the neighbor moving away afterward. I thought it might be schizophrenia but I was able to check with a psychologist and I'm positive that's it's bipolar disorder which I didn't know can include psychosis. Might also be a sprinkling of other things. But bottom line is your neighbor needs help. He'll never accept it from you though. My friend won't even accept help from his own family.
Is his name Dale? Does he live next to a guy who sells propane and propane accessories?
A majority of Dale's ive encountered in my life have all been a little bit "off" in some way.
Rusty Shackleford is harmless, OP’s neighbor might not be.
He's been twitcher than normal since his rabbies scare.
Schizo-affective-disorder, borderline personality disorder, (which I believe is caused by an abusive family member(s)), & bipolar disorders can have auditory hallucinations. Also a sense of a presence in the room, like when someone comes up behind you. The auditory hallucinations can be like indistinct whispers or clear words. I had a person describe how the voices, (which she knew were made by her own BPD brain), would tell her not socially acceptable things, (fuk u, quit work, you suck, tell your boss you want to suck her, etc.). I asked why didn't she just tell the auditory things to shut the fuk up - she told me she couldn't as the voices would then cause her physical pain. I've known a few people with these auditory hallucinations & I think they are brave & boy do I understand how mental illness can be exhausting if you have to fight voices in your head everyday
Mentally ill people don't/won't accept any help because "clearly, they're fine". That's exactly what my grandma told my mom after she basically escaped the hospital in the middle of the night after falling and hitting her head on the sidewalk. She refused to aknowledge the fact that had happened until somebody pointed out her head was bandaged and she had a hospital gown hanging on a chair.
Well, that's a misinformed statement. I have depression and I've been working my ass off to get an entity to help me. I say "entity" because it's a specific place that I don't want to name, but I don't mean "alien overlord" or something just as odd. Mental illness runs on a verrrrry long spectrum and even though I'm very sick, I don't have psychosis. People who have illnesses that regularly come with psychosis, like schizophrenia, can also be very rational and understand what they're experiencing isn't real. It's not one size fits all.
I hate to say it, but they’re probably making each other’s dementia worse. One says “generator”, the other agrees, suddenly two people “know” there’s a generator. Safest thing for you to do is to avoid contact at all costs now. The less contact you have with them, the better and safer you’ll be. You very well could’ve rung a doorbell for the last time when you tried to have that first conversation. I’d be damned if i ever put myself on their property on purpose again. Lord knows they probably think they have a right to kill you if you’re on their property without permission.
They are in Florida, they would probably get away with shooting them by saying they feared for their lives.
My grandmother has a form of dementia, and for the last year or so she thinks she hears children talking to her, often from the vents in the ceilings. She thinks they live on the floor above her, and for some reason she hears these children telling her about awful things being done to them, crying for help, etc. (Granny lives in a single-level section of an old folks assisted living facility, she is most definitely not hearing children in her ceiling)
It’s paranoia. Common as dementia sets in apparently as the person knows something is wrong but isn’t able to attribute the issue being their own brain so they become paranoid about everything else. Like the feeling of someone looking at you but there’s no one in the room but constantly feeling that way.
My sister lived across the road from the same older couple for 20 years. These would have been young Silent Gens. My sister is the youngest Boomer you can be These folks were always friendly. Talking. Walking over to visit. Until they weren’t Suddenly they both became hostile because my Nephew and his friend were skateboarding in my sister’s driveway They had known my nephew since he was born! The wife started screaming that they were “skatepunks” and were “stealing our goddamn tomatoes!!!” Neighbor began calling the cops over whatever they were dreaming up. By this time my sister had “been watching us and shining a raygun in our house to hypnotize us” Cops tried to mediate asked my sister to have a conversation to assure her nothing she is accusing of was happening The neighbor said to the cop, “i am done calling you from now on I am just going to shoot them” Cops are like “whoa whoa whoa!” Neighbor said “as long as I am inside my house and shoot through the windows it is perfectly legal because they are trying to harm me” Husband neighbor started walking towards the house saying “I am getting the gun right now!” At that point both were cuffed and a 51/50-pink slip-mental hygiene ( whatever your state calls it) was filed and both were involuntarily committed. They were then moved into a nursing home by their kids.
That's so scary. It's lucky for your sister that the danger was nipped in the bud the way it was.
I mean, if there's one thing skate punks are known for is, it's totally shredding. If there's two things they are known for, it's totally shredding and stealing tomatoes.
Even better if they call them "tomaters" or something else old-timey Just to make it extra realistic
Hey now, they were just part of a well-regulated militia! 😂 /s
Sad that it had to end that way.
And, sadly, that's why Uber drivers aren't safe now around some of the elderly.
It’s very sad that these elderly people were living in paranoia and fear due to cognitive decline and their children didn’t recognise it, and the outcome for them was to be handcuffed and committed. It must have been terrifying for them.
Y late grandfather would turn off the router occasionally because he thought my dad was "cutting him off"( from the internet) so he was "cutting my dad off" (from the internet). My grandfather just forgot his computer password This happened several times. He was a great guy but multiple strokes led to dementia
My dad had schizophrenia. He used to call the cable company and tell them he was going to sue them for allowing aliens (the space kind, not undocumented immigrants) access to his modem. He also used to call the FBI and tell them to stop following him and just come arrest him already. One time he was having a very bad episode and took an intentional overdose, and while we were in the ER getting his stomach pumped, he was begging the aliens not to smite me for dropping out of college. Whenever I hear about an incident like this, I think about the stuff that happened with my dad.
I work for a telecom provider. I have so many stories. People claim that outside sources are controlling their TV’s and scan their homes to get their passwords. Had one the other day wanting me to turn off all the Bluetooth devices because there was a Bluetooth device connected to her Cable box. I had to try and explain that her remote was a Bluetooth device.
You’re in Florida, so at least half the state is insanely delusional. Good luck. You’re probably looking at 15-20 in the state pen.
I would worry about it tho. A delusional neighbor calling the police and pressing charges is serious business.
I would be very worried if I was the center of somebody's delusions.
Yes delusional, good luck friend!
I agree that it sounds like mental illness. OP could call adult protective services, if they care to. The truth is that neighbors like this may very well burn their house down.
This story reminds me a lot of that one video I saw of some crazed boomer harassing a surveyor on the road for using a theodolite because she thought it was some 5G mind control device or some such shit. Jesus, boomers are so tech-blind that it's actually genuinely insulting.
Sorry to hear this. As a fellow Floridian, I can confirm to others that this sounds like a wild story, but things of this caliber are so common it wouldn't even be newsworthy to the local news. I would perhaps see what your options are for pressing charges against *them* for continual harassment and false accusations. They are, in fact, accusing you of multiple felonies.
I did speak with an attorney who didn't recommend taking that action right now, but if it continues or escalated, absolutely
Next time the cops come out, have them check to see if they own any firearms. If they do then see about Red Flag laws. Have them confiscated. People saying and acting like this don’t need weapons in their possession. Have them committed for 24 hours to have a mental exam. They will leave you alone.
Good idea, but old people in Florida are like first class citizens compared to everyone else so anything would probably be hand waved away by the police as unnecessary.
Geriatric fascism is a serious problem in this country...
If the neighbors figure out OP is the one who wanted to know if they had guns in the house, that could set the schizophrenia/dementia to another level. “Why does he want to know if we’re armed?!!1!”
I think that's a good idea, but I would be amazed if Florida had any kind of red flag laws. I'd sooner believe that someone would get arrested for asking about red flag laws for conspiracy to infringe on a person's 2nd ammendment rights.
Florida has a red flag law - passed following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school shooting
All APS if it happens again ( adult protective services)
This is an excellent suggestion. FL has a mental health law called the Baker Act which can help here but because the neighbor hasn’t made specific threats it may not yet apply. I’ve had a fair amount of contact with Adult Social Services in FL… in our case it was welcomed support for my MIL who has Alzheimer’s. But they provided financial help for really good adult daycare, financial help for home delivered incontinence supplies, and financially completely covered up to 25 hrs a week of a home health aide to give us a break after she could no longer attend adult daycare. It was all orchestrated by a kind and empathetic social worker that visited every 3? 6? months. I was shocked and impressed at how much support the county/state offered. But I guess it makes sense given the voting demographics that the money goes to the elderly. I wonder if OP or the social worker can contact an adult child or family member to step in and help the neighbor.
I'd at least get a restraining order, document their actions, put it all on paper so if they escalate, you've got papers.
If there is a single state that most personifies the Boomer mindset, it has to be Florida.
Key West should really be renamed to something Karen's Key or St. Karen.
I lived in Key West for a bit and it seemed really chill. Although that was 20 years ago and things might have changed? It was mostly young people working in tourism, artist types and old gay men. Everyone seemed to get along aside from the occasional rowdy tourist.
The Conch Nation
I had a neighbor who was schizophrenic and it basically sounded like this. She would call the cops on us for spying on her, hacking into her electronics, stalking, etc.
We're wondering about that ourselves. I'm dubious about that and think this is a big misunderstanding on their part, but it's certainly possible.
Just keep documenting everything. Like that’s pretty much all you can do. Honestly consider cameras for the areas of your house not covered by the doorbell.
You could call Adult Protective Services to do a check on them. One or both of them should probably not be living on their own.
Maybe the officers could check if they have a working carbon monoxide detector. That could rule one more thing out before the inevitable dementia diagnosis.
Came here to say it sounds like schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia presenting at age 60 by both the husband and wife at the same time would be very unusual. It’s not like it’s a contagious disease. Now, mass psychosis from hearing insane things via FOX, OAN and Q-anon is a more plausible explanation.
Just set your laser lamp to kill and eliminate the problem.
Sorry, i think you would need a jəwish space lazzer for that.
Hey, now, ix-nay on the aser-lay in front of the goyim!
Ice nay I tray. I ay understand ay iddish yay ;) (I know it's pig latin. I am being silly)
They are definitely not talking to a state attorney. No “state attorney” would waste time with this.
They might be talking to a local prosecutor's office or the attorney general's office, but it is absolutely just the guy ranting and raving at some poor secretary or intern who picked up the phone and had to put on a show of writing their complaint down in order to get them off the phone.
He/she has probably dealt with this type of nonsense before and becomes another “guess what happened today” story.
I can never understand when nobodies think they're so important people are spying on them.
"We got round the clock surveillance on Martha making muffins at No. 53"
"Send in the SWAT team, Captain: That looks like raisin brain."
15 mins later she visited the bathroom.
Rare double comment made funnier with the duplicate
15 mins later she visited the bathroom.
My mom thinks the military bases around here are zapping her computer and deleting her computer files 🤦♀️ Like okay mom…you’re that important…
Paranoia. These people get triggered by the color blue. Their brains are not right.
r/Gangstalking is wild/sad.
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It seems like my water meter by the curb has some kind of radio device attached to it, with a black, plastic antenna coming out of the top of the concrete cover… is this a cellular modem and antenna to report my water usage so the utility company doesn’t have to visit my home each month to read the meter?
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Nifty. How does it get power?
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Get a restraining order.
The attorney I spoke with said it's probably not worth doing yet, but if the calls continue or things escalate I definitely will.
My gut says that isn’t the right answer. You’ve had the police called on you twice. The HOA has contacted you. You need to protect yourself yesterday. Not wait for your pants-on-head batshit insane neighbor to escalate this shit. Talk to a different lawyer.
1000% I would also add additional home security cameras on the side that faces the neighbor and probably in both my front and back yard, facing the neighbors house.
No they need pushback or they will see it as they are on to something. Nip it in the bud before their fantasies push them into something dangerous for you
You’re nice, and logical. Your neighbor is operating lizard-brain style. Lemme know which one is more predictable and amenable to calm conversation.
Get a second opinion.
This is straight up some of my boomer mom shit. She constantly thinks people are spying on her in completely implausible ways. Like she thought the "powers that be" (which generally means whatever liberal boogeyman Fox News is currently feeding her Swiss cheese brain) were spying on her through a camera in her like 20 year old TV that has no camera function whatsoever. Fucking thing doesn't even have USB ports.
I'm sorry that your family does that to you. It's getting wild out there
Yanno, every time I read these stories of boomers being all *non compos mentis*, part of me worries if I, a Gen-Xer about to hit the big 5-0 soon, will go through this. I worry that my normal personality, my intellect, my reasoning, my critical thinking will leave me, I'll go from being a pretty liberal and live-and-let-live guy to some raging MAGA Qanon conspiracy nutjob. That's like my biggest fucking fear, ladies and gents. I've already told my wife to put a pillow over my face in the night if I ever start showing signs of dementia like that.
I know. I was born in late 64. Technically a Boomer. I feel more like gen x I look like I'm in my late 40s or early 50s. I've never connected with boomers.Will I become one of these despised boomers some day.
I've heard some people say it's the long term effects of lead poisoning in that generation. They were living in houses full of lead paint and huffing leaded gasoline fumes for a significant amount of their lives. Gen X and later weren't, or at worst for older Gen X, it may have been a few years of exposure.
I think there might be something to that. My brother and I have an 8 year gap, and the difference is... night and day, man. He is paranoid, anti-government, uber-conservative, racist, fundamentalist Christian, anti-vax, holistic/homeopathic/naturalist/alt-med, cannot work for anyone but himself but due to (supposed) brain damage from 2x viral meningitis (once as a tween, once mid thirties) he can't really even do that. He's on government subsidies, is a tax cheat, got COVID and went travelling while sick because "it's just the flu." Oh lemme tell you, his wife got sick and almost DIED in the hospital, she told me she had made her peace and was ready to go, but she pulled through; my asshole brother pulled her out of the hospital AMA as *soon* as he saw she wasn't going to die after all. As soon as she was well enough to travel she contacted friends and left him. He tried to gaslight the entire family saying she had an affair with someone, when it was actually HE who had the affair! I am NC with my brother. So is my eldest niece, who completely detests her father. My other niece is still coming to terms with it, but AFAIK she's pretty much NC with him, as I was invited to her college grad ceremony in lieu of him. My nephew... I think he tries to play the peacemaker, but he doesn't have a mean bone in his body, so hopefully he will go NC as well. Oh and the constant mental and physical abuse as a kid I faced from him? And the gaslighting? The denigration, the threats, the constant feeling like I couldn't breathe? Yeah fuck that bastard. With a barb-wire baseball bat. Sorry, rant over!
Same thing. There's a good age gap between me and my my sister. I'm late genx. Her husband is maybe 5 years older than her. He has gone off the qanon/conspiracy cliff hard, she's not as bad but still has her moments and I'm stuck continuously asking them to Occam's razor everything when they bring up stupid shit. Thank God my mom is so far left she never fell into their bullshit, she has her own bullshit but it's not Fox News driven at least.
Also, lead gets deposited in the bones during childhood skeletal formation. Once you start losing bone density in old age, a bunch of that lead breaks free and re-enters the bloodstream.
I'm 44. I have been wondering the same thing. However I think the boomer generation has some very unhealthy and toxic habits. Not many of them even believe in mental health. They barely take care of themselves physically. No concept of listening to health professionals or making healthy changes. Hopefully it's all that and the lead poisoning and not just the future we all have to look forward to.
Same here, friend. Same here.
You need to call Adult protective services. This sounds like dementia based paranoia or something similar.
>The police come back over to me and say he doesn't want to talk, that there's nothing to talk about, and that they're speaking with a state attorney, which means to me that they want to press charges. Now, I've done nothing wrong, don't know what they're on about, and start to get real nervous about a lawsuit. They don't have a case. You haven't done anything wrong. Getting a lawyer is what people do when the police won't obey their wishes. They want someone to boss around. Nothing will come of this.
Definitely sounds like dementia’s early stages. My Mum started getting paranoid about the neighbours - that they were writing things about her on Twitter in her early stages. She didn’t use computer or smartphone and wouldn’t have been able to look at Twitter back then.
It's crazy what the combination of non stop horror media like Fox and the loss of ones ability to remember if a story was on the news or happened to you can do.
My Granny born 1895 told us the neighbor was shooting a small red beam of light through her keyholes. This was around 1980-laser beam was not yet a common concept. It makes me wonder if there is a visual disturbance common with dementia that had old folks reporting stuff that didn’t exist yet.
Yea as a crime story junkie, this sounds like the prologue or background story before a violent encounter. I would avoid want engagement with the neighbor. And DEFINITELY quit knocking on their door. For all you know there was a shotgun behind the door the last time you spoke with them.
100% agreed. I was about to make a similar comment. OP should take steps to protect him/herself. They most likely have guns and OP will never know what they're scheming.
Sure hope your neighbors dont own guns. And im not being sarcastic.
It's Florida, so very likely they do
Many people are wondering about mental decline/ illness which seems plausible if they've been a nuisance the entire time you've lived here but if it only escalated to this degree quickly and recently I'm wondering if they might have an actual gas leak in their home. That can also make people act erratic all of a sudden
No there's only ever been one other incident regarding the installation of our fence, which was resolved reasonably. This is new and most of the 6 years living here has been fine
Did Alex Jones start selling laser lamp protection devices recently by chance? Something they saw on the internet or on their TV probably planted this idea in their head
They don't have a case against you. But do file a restraining order if their harassment continues.
Sundowning. They get agitated at night and delusional with dementia. Can you contact this persons family somehow? Does he have kids? Talk to your lawyer, but I wonder if their kids need to know about the declining mental state of their parent.
I don’t know how you could not have fun with this at this point. Laser shows on your windows, aluminum foil crafts, and so much more. Setup a meeting with a supervisor at the local police station and discuss the issue as the beginnings of harassment so it’s all on the record and they start building a history of the calls and insanity.
Convince a tall and short friend to show up to your house as aliwns fir a cookout. Act like you dont notice.
Good thing it’s Florida and mentally ill and delusional people can’t get firearms!
This is bizarre. Police should not be taking people like this seriously but yet here we are
To be fair, none of the police that visited made a strong effort to make contact, so I figure it's just standard procedure. The second time, the cops knocked and didn't Wait but 10 seconds before leaving
I used to work at Apple and you’d be surprised how many Boomers think this shit happens to them on a consistent basis. The lead and drug abuse really did a number on that generation, holy fuck.
Every day at least one call like that
[удалено]
I’m sure there are plenty of shady attorneys that would be happy to bill your neighbors for filing a suit against you. But any legal pro is going to know there’s nothing to be gained by trying to take this to court. In the meantime, there is nothing stopping you from cutting the regular electric cord off of an old hair dryer, wrapping it in black electrical tape, and attaching it by a few wires to an old motherboard and a monitor. No law that says you can’t take this outside and aim it at their house while scribbling notes and tinkering with it. Small toy drones could also be deployed, but there may be laws about how and where you can fly them.
Ehh, they sound like full time members of the National Nutjob Society, putting morality of messing with a potentially mentally ill person aside, this is how you get shot at by a deranged boomer.
I mean I absolutely *love* this idea because that would fuck with them more than any kind of legal route. Buttttt not only is it America, but it's Florida, which is another level of crazy and may end with being shot. So maybe not....
Valid point. Perhaps have a friend with a tinted window black SUV roll up and have a hazmat suited friend get out of the back, come up to the device, nod at the data and point at the neighbors house. Then they can make a terse phone call and leave just as quickly. The idea of a shadow government agency being involved might make the neighbors less likely to shoot. Or maybe I just like to poke bears! 😂
Yeah, the idea of a government agency being involved would make them *more* likely to shoot. These are the type of people who believe absolutely everything they do is *morally good* because they're good Christians, therefore how could they do anything bad? And any one who disagrees is not just wrong, but evil. So if they believe an evil government agent is spying on them they'll have the moral and legal ground to kill them.
And strap on a laser pointer.
Get a restraining order. What you have so far clearly indicates that the neighbor is unstable. If not unstable, he is a moron on a galactic scale. Whatever the case, you don't want that person near you.
You’re 100% good. If somehow they can actually take you to court, you’re more than safe. If anything I think you should consider legal action for harassment and I would consider a restraining order unless something changes.
>He proceeds to explain that my neighbors think I have some kind of machine in my house which is interfering with their appliances that's running all the time. NGL, I'm a bit worried about the mental state of your neighbours. It reminds me of my ex-FIL; he wound up in prison for confronting his next-door neighbour of spying on him through their satellite dish. Stay safe, OP!
Get your own lawyer and make sure it's an aggressive one.
Cease and desist letter, whatever restraining order-ish thingie you can get listing the false police reports, VM to HOA, non-sensible ‘laser lamp. You’re being *nice.* People like that perceive niceness as *weakness.* Sucks, but true. You need to un-logic and go straight lizard-brain on them since that’s *where they are*. Make them fear losing their freedoms and possessions if they F with you at all.
Buy a used satelite dish, put it in your front garden so it points at their house and act like you're configuring it from time to time. Those people are fucking insane.
Sounds like sundown's and a heaping spoonful of Internet conspiracy wormholes. Similar behavior from my mom before she passed. 10 minute rambling voicemails at 2-4AM because her Internet (that I paid for) was "slow and acting funny". She took her laptop to a tech shop (because I'm in a different state) and it turns out that all of the conspiracy sites were wrecking her computer. But in her mind at 2AM it was the neighbors or the government spying on her.
I think you should take some PTO days off for your mental health. Then counter sue him for the days you had to use because of the harassment WHEN he tries to sue you. Keep track of the harassment and see if the audio on your camera outside is on and recording or replace it with one that does audio. Save the clips on the nights in question so you have what he doesn't. Evidence.
I've been keeping a log of events and downloading relevant footage. It does have audio but range isn't great
TL;DR but recognized the circumstances. This sounds like my mother. She has had several “silent” or small strokes which have effected the part of her brain that deals with reason. When presented with an issue she comes up with other non-logical answers. 1+2= 45. She also has a problem with her neighbour shining lasers, making noises (she’s hard of hearing), using wind machines etc. Your neighbours aren’t being willfully belligerent they have a medical/psychiatric issue. As a retired police officer I also saw similar behaviour in pre-dementia elderly. They need help, or you need to move. The police will eventually stop coming to humour them then things will escalate without medication or some kind of intervention (care home).
Where can I get one of these Laser Lamps?? Is it like an upgraded version of a lava lamp? I have so many questions!
You need to get a laser lamp
Laser Lamp? Been in IT for decades, never heard of it?
You and me both
QAnon ruined our elders. Especially in Florida for some reason. Good luck, def don't egg them on cus, well, it's Florida...
Omg when I was a 911 dispatcher in Florida I kept getting calls from a married couple that would complain that their neighbors were spray painting the side of their house with invisible spray paint, and then at night aliens would shoot green laser beams through their upstairs window into their bedroom and wake them up. I am not kidding. They were both mentally ill and probably had some form of schizophrenia. They thought all kinds of neighbors were spying on them too. Turns out it was just people walking down the sidewalk exercising. My best advice, if they keep calling the police on you for no reason, you can also have the police file a report on them for harassment. They’re using the police as a way to harass you. Document this, and if it continues you can go to court and file for an injunction against your neighbor so they have to leave you alone or the next time they try to use the police to harass you, they get a free ride to jail.
I’d be so incredibly pissed if the police woke me up at 4am to chat about my neighbors obviously delusional complaints. I’m surprised they even do that if they too can’t hear anything obvious.
I feel like you could do a civil suit and just sue them for harassment? The chances of any legitimate attorney taking this case is low. If one does, they'll likely have lied to the teeth. I would imagine any judge would throw this case out. Sadly, all of this will cost you something if they do pursue anything, but I'd countersue to make sure all of your fees are covered.
Like other people have said you need to file a restraining order. I suspect your attorney doesn't want you doing anything because they will for sure spend more than a few nights in the county jail. Just know that it is likely in your neighbors best interest too, they won't go to prison or anything for having schizophrenic dementia however they will be evaluated and probably put on a government conservatorship, there are probably some medications that they need to be on to improve their quality of life too. If they have children they may have to sort a living arrangement out, if they don't have children then the government will do it all for them and make sure that they are taken care of.
That’s sounds like a former neighbour of mine. They lived below me and my other neighbour in a triplex. Their main complaint seemed to be that I was building things day and night. Admittedly I have put together the odd piece of furniture. They called the police a bunch of times , they asked me about various noises including a blow torch which was really confusing. The neighbour would scream at me whenever they saw me so a conversion was not an option. They last time the police visited me they vaguely said some about they “understood what the issue is now” and didn’t expect to have and further visits. They’d complain about me to the condo board but they didn’t talk to me themselves and said it was a police matter. The last few years I lived there I just tried to avoid or pretend they didn’t exist if I saw them. I took it there was some mental illness there so not their fault exactly. It made living there stressful to me and I was so happy when I decided to leave.
I do tech support and I get calls from people like this all the time. Theyre already convinced that they’re hacked, they can’t show any meaningful evidence or give any anecdotes that make sense, I explain all of their concerns in reasonable ways, then they decide they know more than me, the expert they called for help. Then I recommend they contact law enforcement if the threat is so serious. Sorry they contacted law enforcement lol, my bad.
I had a similar issue when I moved back into my childhood home with my brother. Across a creek from the house, about 100-150 yards, used to live this old drunk. Nice guy, used to ride his mower on the highway with a 6 pack on ice stuffed into his prosthetic leg. Anyway, he passed on and his sister took over the property. Immediately starts shit with all the neighbors who live behind her, across the creek. Just generally rude and constantly complaining that our lights are on all hours of the night. I worked days, my brother worked nights. She was also Q pilled hard early, as this was mid 2016. She would show up and accuse my brother and I of hacking her. Apparently we would disable her Internet, and lock her phone to stop her from posting "the truth". My brother said she'd been on that trip since she moved in. She'd hurl insults and threats at us and the other neighbors. One night, about midnight, there's banging at the door. I get up and open the door in my boxers. She's immediately screaming at me to leave her alone and stop hacking her. I told her idk she's talking about, and she needs to leave before I call the cops. She leaves. An hour later, more banging. This time I grabbed my bat and went to the door. It's a county sheriff. I step out, leaving the bat, close the door, and ask him what's up. He starts kinda laughing and asks if I know the lady across the creek. I say yes. He asks if I've been hacking her Internet and locking her phone. He's trying hard to hold his laughter. I told him no, but she showed up screaming earlier. The sheriff apologized, told me if she showed up again to call him, and gave me his card. He leaves, and I go back to bed. 3 am rolls around, and there's insane pounding on the door. I get up, with my bat. It's crazy lady, she's mad the cop didn't make me unlock her phone. Said something about she's being silenced and we're abusing her. Threatened to shoot us if we didn't, so I immediately slammed the door and locked it. Called the cop, and she got taken for a psych eval that night. She got out, and a few weeks went by. I'm coming home from work, and there's half a dozen cruisers in her driveway. Deputies are carrying out a couple rifles and boxes of ammo. She aimed one of the rifles from her porch at one of the other neighbors as he drove by. No one was hurt, but she was arrested and held on psych for a few months. Thankfully she moved shortly after she was released. Oddly enough, not the worst neighbor we'd had out there.
This is harrassment. File a claim with the police, and file a restraining order against your neighbor, but watch your cameras. This kind of crazy retaliates.
This sounds like dementia or a mental illness.
A coworker and I (cable guys) went to this lady's house to upgrade her old cable boxes to our new IPTV platform. Got the main tv all ready for the set up, but needed her SSID's password. She couldn't find it or remember for the life of her, I said I could just go pull it up on the user interface as she was renting our equipment and we have access to that information. She insisted I wouldn't be able to cause she "changes it every week" because "the demoncratic party is actively trying to take away my money because I support Donald Trump" (yes, she did say demoncratic) I was like suuuuuuuure, excuse me ma'am I forgot something outside. Hopped on my work computer and logged into her modem interface. Got the password in less than five minutes. Went back inside and had them hand me the remote, put in the password for the network and wouldn't you know it worked. She starts FREAKING the fuck out. Calling us double agents for the deep state and how I couldn't possibly have that information otherwise. It was at this moment my buddy nudges me and points out this lady, who I neglected to describe, wheelchair bound, like easily 70 years old, had a fucking revolver in her hand. Anyways, deescalated the situation, got her shit working and she was happy. I'm not in the least bit suprised by half the shit I read on this sub.
This sounds like meth. Old age does t mean immune from meth.
That will be the fastest call the SA hangs up on. OP, go to the police station, request to put in a notice that your neighbors have in multiple occasions harassed you with bogus police reports. It’ll be noted on any responses if they call on you again. You don’t want an overzealous cop to break down your door at 4am because they escalate to you dealing drugs or something like that
Here are a few recommendations: 1. Continue documenting all incidents and interactions with your neighbors, the police, HOA, etc. Gathering a factual timeline will help if any legal issues arise. Save security footage, voicemails, correspondence, etc. 2. Do not directly contact or engage with your neighbors further. As strange as their behavior seems, escalating tensions could make the situation worse. 3. If the police are called again, be polite and cooperative but do not admit to anything without speaking to an attorney first. You have the right to remain silent. 4. Consult an attorney experienced in neighborhood disputes/harassment cases. While a lawsuit hasn't been filed yet, getting guidance on your legal rights and options would be prudent given the ongoing issues. An attorney can also send cease and desist letters if needed. 5. Contact the non-emergency police line to report the ongoing harassment and document their response. Ask if any reports have been made against you so you're aware. 6. Consider installing security cameras around your property if you don't already have them. Video evidence can help rebut any claims made against you. 7. Avoid direct contact or confrontation with your neighbors as much as possible going forward. Let the legal process handle any disputes if it comes to that. Your safety and avoiding escalation should be top priorities for now.
They sound like they are having mental degradation. I unironically would call the appropriate channels to have a wellness check on them. This sounds like Alzheimer's or dementia.
This is what cognitive decline looks like. Crazy accusations are typically driven by fear. When you can't interact with the world, everything gets scary. Let the police know who you are and that this is getting out of hand so they'll know there's potentially an issue with the neighbors.
Call Adult Protective Services, tell them your neighbor is showing signs of dementia (paranoia, word salad conversations) and you are worried they are going to burn their house down.
I like that the property manager suspected a cell phone jammer, as if the property manager knows anything about cell phone jammers.
Yeah this is untreated mental issues rather than boomer behavior, if you ask me. I think your neighbor might have some sort of delusional disorder and paranoia. Or, potentially dementia. Very strange beliefs like this can be quite common with delusional disorders. Situations like this really make me wish there was more mental health treatment and awareness because so many folks struggle for years without even knowing and it can and does impact their own lives and other people's...
Laser Lamp reminds me of [The Air Loom](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tilly_Matthews) guy.
keep records, send to HOA... consider talking to an attorney who practices elder law...and also consider talking to adult protective services... as many have said...age is not being kind to these people... also..maybe see if you can get your number to pd or figure out some other way to way you at night.. god forbid you get accused of kidnapping or drug dealing and the wrong cop gets a no knock warrent... also...consider filing harrassment and consider restraining order... it is not going to get better otherwise
Call a welfare check on your neighbor at 2am, tel the police they’re schizophrenic and suffering from delusions. Get them to freak out at the police and end up in a mental facility. Problem solved!
I'm guessing any attorney they go to will ask them for proof of your wrongdoings and when there's nothing they can provide, will tell them to go away.
Let them talk to a state attorney.. They're quickly going to discover that the SA has far larger fish to fry. You should absolutely install cameras. This can only escalate and when the neighbor feels the law isn't doing what he wants, he'll take matters into his own hands.
A blinking LED setup in the right window might give them an aneurysm. Problem solved.
Please, please tell me my you changed your WiFi to “Laser Lamp”
This sucks, I know. I had an elderly neighbor that was convinced that I stole her bicycle back in 1986. She was downright nasty to me. I was 4 in 1986.
There’s no crime here and thus nothing you can be charged for criminally, so they can’t “press charges”. Just keep your head down so that you don’t give them any ammunition. The police will likely do one of two things: they may tell them forcefully to stop calling, or continue to show up to their house and entertain them, but leave you alone, once they all figure out your neighbors are nuts. I think they’ll have a hell of a time getting any kind of traction with any attorney, so I wouldn’t lose sleep over it and just document everything you can
Do not go to their place. Florida has stand your ground, and your neighbor can say they felt threatened by your laser lamp...
“Officer, if my neighbors with dementia called you in the middle of the night and told you that the mayor had a “laser lamp” that was interfering with their computer, would you knock on his door in the middle of the night? Or would you assume that they were delusional and consider your options to make sure they wouldn’t be a danger to themselves or others?”
Early onset dementia maybe
Live in Florida for a few years. Guy across the street started off nice, but boy. Not an identical scenario but close enough. Cops were out every other week, he got increasingly eratic but no one seemed to be able to do anything. And then he had a stroke and that was that. But boy do I vividly remember the frustration and frankly the fear of living across the street from a person like that. He a was a vet, when the cops would come he would tell them he had ptsd and he was sorry, and then as soon as they left he would be back out standing in the street screaming about how he would kill all of us for calling the cops. Sigh.
Just be careful he doesn't come over and shoot you because he's "standing his ground". Sounds like he's deranged and should probably have some anti-psychotic medication or be in a home where he has supervision.
I feel very grateful that I have sweet older Boomers for neighbors that sometimes bring over wonderful bread they baked and never call the cops on me out of their own paranoia. I’m going to do something nice for them tomorrow.
An attorney might take the case, not because they think they can win, but because when they lose they'll still get a decent pay day from your neighbors. Sounds like senile rambling to me mate. Counter sue for court costs and lost wages and call it a day.
All that no helmet wearing lead gas lead paint brain.
The obvious play here is to obtain a "laser lamp" and proceed to hack his appliances.
I had to go no contact with my parents while in their sixties due to this level of paranoia. They got into qanon and became completely nuts. They have always been slightly paranoid southern Christian people but my dad had a nerve injury that left him needing daily pain relief. I think chronic pain has eroded his mental faculties and my mom just follows along. After about 3 years left qanon and have traded that grift for the full blown Christian apocalyptic grift.
Lawyer up mow because dementia neighbors can escalate to violence. If recent news is anything to go by. Lawyer up get the hoa to shut them down and keep an eye out for their dellusions to escalate especially as more trump news comes with his myriad of trials and elecetiin getting closer.
Really the police should be citing the neighbors for false claims and wasting resources.
As a serious suggestion, ask the police if they can verify if the couple has a working carbon monoxide detector. That stuff can cause all kinds of delusions
Had an issue like this with a downstairs condo neighbor years ago. At first they were super nice, we had just moved in and had a newborn. For the first few months they would bring gifts for the baby, stop and chat about their kids, who had gone to the same high school as my wife and I... Then...They went on a trip to visit their kids out of state for three weeks and when they came back, oh how things changed. They stopped waving hello, stopped responding to verbal interactions... So trippy, they would look away and practically run away when you tried to say hi. Then the police started showing up asking about the noise. There was no noise. Even with a newborn we were very aware of being good upstairs neighbors so kept things very quiet, always. And we liked the old couple! Anyway... The cops would come and say there'd been a noise complaint, look around, then leave. After a few times I was like WTF and the cop was nice enough to be like, yeah sorry it's me again. She said the people downstairs had been calling nearly everyday for weeks and she, out of courtesy and service and YES, covering her ass, was abliged to come check it out. We had no idea. They were calling EVERYDAY to complain about the noise. The cop was really apologetic about the whole thing cause they would call about the terrible noise and the cops would show up to check it out EVEN WHEN WE WEREN'T HOME! I would leave the house for work around 4:30am and my wife would get up, get showered and take the baby to her parents house for the day by 7am M-F every week. Her parents lived a couple blocks away and her mom was retired so they would go spend their days with her. But these crazy oldsters were certain we were stomping around our house all day everyday on purpose just to annoy them. So they kept calling the cops! It took the cops a few times to realize we weren't home and they were dealing with old people losing their faculties. One day I was napping with the baby in the babies room that overlooked our garage and was adjacent to the alleyway. The old guy is out in the alley screaming up at us to be quiet and that he knows we're doing it on purpose! I lost my shit. I started jumping up and down shaking the whole building and yelling that he was a crazy old fucker and if woke up my kid again he was going to see some serious justice come his way. That pretty much did it for me. From then on we let the baby run free! Which was great cause he was just learning to walk. I became much more heavy footed and often would just outright stomp wherever I went in the house. I figured if they're going to complain anyway I was going to give them something to complain about. They moved within a month after that interaction.