I agree that the most “simple” solution would be for the neighbor to install blackout curtains. You can buy them fairly inexpensively.
BTW you may or may not know that motion detectors often have a dial for how long them will stay on after being triggered.
Our motion detector lights go on ALL the time due to animals. Even a squirrel can set them off.
One possible option: Is there any way to get the city or county department of senior services slightly involved?
My thought is that if they have outreach social workers, maybe they can pay a visit to you guys, and then to the neighbors, and see what the hubbub is about. In some small towns, the cops might be polite enough and unbusy enough to do this. The notes seem quite intrusive. Heck, if you were in Florida, you could mow down the daughter if she was on your property without permission!
If you have not met the mother, you don’t know what her story is. If the daughter is being pushed to actually go talk to you, she must be desperate.
I would say another way to deal with this might be to ask the daughter to go out to lunch with you (can she leave the mother alone at all? she must be able to in order to buy food etc.). Maybe you can figure out if the daughter needs help getting her mom off her back, or if something else is going on.
Sometimes just apologizing over and over will be enough.
I for one am a late riser and go to bed late. I also have children who get up in the middle of the night on occasion and put the kitchen light on to get water. I totally sympathize with not changing your lifestyle, but if we assume that the pair of them aren’t just normal but sadistic people, and that they really both need help, a friendly lunch and non-confrontational (that is, not when the “problem” is happening) talk could help.
And all the best with this, it is very sad to have to deal with such a situation.
Post a sign on your door,
"Smile for the cameras"
You really don’t need to have a security camera, but just the thought of a hidden one might spook Miss Control Freak.
I believe you have been more than accommodating. Keep your paper trail. Live freely in your own house.
BTW: first dibs on an apple fritter!
Apologize? For what? Turning lights on at night in your own house should not require you to apologize to the neighbor.
And the neighbor should be buying shades
You can set it for the shortest possible time and get a strobe light effect when the cat strolls through the yard;-)
Taking off a little on what Midwest Dad said, I do wonder about the daughter - I forget - how old is she???
I want to see this woman invited to the block party to see if she can let her hair hand down and get out some of her possible frustrations about her mom with the group. Sounds like her life might be a daily hell with her mother…
You have to wonder. A scenario like this happens a lot:
- back in the old days, mom and dad bought a house
- the value increased quite a bit, and the house was paid off at the original cost
- but taxes increased a lot, and social security ain’t cutting it
My MIL owns her own condo. But she can barely afford the taxes. We help her as much as we can. At least she is healthy, but if she had to go into a home or needed a home health aid, she’d have no means at all to do so.
It may be that mom really needs to be somewhere with more care, or mom won’t go to the doctor, or mom doesn’t have much money and daughter doesn’t either (does OP know if the daughter works or not?). If money is an issue, mom and daughter may be stuck together, whether either of them like it. And yelling at the neighbor may be one of the few outlets they have.
That’s why I mentioned senior services. Something may really be going on that the daughter needs help with, and the OP as a neighbor can only refer but cannot be expected to “help” in any other way.
Every time I’m swayed by a post like MiwestDad’s, I remember that this daughter apparently was known to hide in the bushed outside someone else’s house and spy on them.
^^Oh yeah, now I remember that. So maybe don’t invite her to the party!!!
fireandrain: I have been the complaining neighbor,and made offers to rehang the angled position of fixed outside lights, written HUGE poster-sized notes which I hung on the adjoining fence, placed decorative film on one of our windows, lowered my son’s bunkbed to bottom-only so he could sleep, all to no almost no avail. Sometimes our house was so warm that opening the window on that side of the house was simply unavoidable, and then the film and curtains and angled blinds were not in place to block the light.
After the neighbor cursed.me.out for how she handles anything on her property (which I told her was actually something which emanated from her property, but impacted wholly what happened on mine), and I looked up statute and zoning ordinance regarding lights on private property (my town had none) we just went to war.
Things escalated to dogs and water ( I am not kidding) and gardeners crossing onto my property to destroy things beyond that which hung over the fence. Police visits accomplished nothing as she would not open her door, and they pushed no further than that.
About three years after it all began she knocked on my door and asked my husband for help with things at her home because her husband had become desperately ill and was going to undergo a long recuperation. My husband said his inclination was to request a trade-off: lights for the help. However, he did not. Our son went over and helped until he went off to college a year later.
Did you suggest heavy duty blackout shades before?
“Sometimes our house was so warm that opening the window on that side of the house was simply unavoidable, and then the film and curtains and angled blinds were not in place to block the light.”
Sorry. That’s still not your neighbor’s problem. You could have used a/c.
Unless they are shining strobe lights in your window, people are entitled to use the lights inside their own house as they see fit. They are also entitled to use outside lights/ motion detectors as they see fit.
Well, I’ve lived here many many years…and never really had any problems with neighbors. I think reading this thread jinxed me…I just had an encounter with a “crazy” neighbor of my own (usually I just put her in the “nosy” category, but today she was a bit “crazy”). Yesterday we found a suitcase sitting in front of our yard. Very strange. It was empty so we decided we’d leave it overnight and if it wasn’t claimed by the end of today, we’d just throw it in the trash (it looked old). This morning at 7:15 am, the neighbor across the street rang my bell several times, then pounded on the door. You would think it was an emergency. I threw on some clothes and finally answered the door—the suitcase had been moved to her yard. It was obvious that she thought we had done it. I explained to her that we left in front of OUR yard to be claimed and intended to throw it out later—I had no idea who moved it. She then proceed to rant about the new trash collectors and how she finds trash in her trash can and how the are strict and …I don’t even know what she was talking about…
Anyway, finally got rid of her, but not until I reminded her (every so politely and calmly) that is is a very early hour to pound on a door and that I could have still been asleep (though if it was a work day for me she would not have found anyone home!). I asked her not to do that again. She reluctantly left dragging the suitcase behind her.
@claremontmom, the suitcase is strange, the neighbor even stranger. What has your relationship been with the “crazy” neighbor up to this point?
Hysterical @ClaremontMom, what an odd encounter.
@FlyMeToTheMoon - We’ve talked a very few handful of times (usually when she thinks there is something in the neighborhood that she feels EVERYONE should know and goes door to door). Otherwise, not much at all. Like I said, I’ve lived here very many years and had very little issues with neighbors. But I immediately thought of this thread after that encounter.
(And I guess she must have thrown out the suitcase…I don’t see it in anyone’s yard.)
My otherwise normal neighbors were out trying to shoot a javelina in their yard once. So when things are bad at least you can tell yourself, “thank God my neigbor isn’t running around shooting a gun in the middle of the night like Anomander’s”.
We gave had neighbors in our home and H’s parents’ home who have very LOUD and aggressive barking dogs, who would bark without any provocation. It made it tough to get good tenants for the parents’ home. It made it tough for us to do anything in our own backyard! Fortunately, after literally decades the parents’ neighbor and her dogs have died and the area is now quieter and much more peaceful. Our neighborhood has gotten quieter as the tenants who neglected their barking dogs had a lease that ended and the new tenants seem to have a better behaved dog.
That actually depends. Some towns have regulations in their zoning codes covering this. Ours is kind of vague, but this is what it says:
“All exterior lighting accessory on private property, including the lighting of signs, shall be of such type and location and have such shading as will minimize the source of light from being seen from any adjoining streets and residential properties and which shall prevent objectionable glare observable from such streets or properties.” also (more intended for public lots, but presumably over 5 foot-candles would get you in trouble on a private lot too.) “Illumination of all off-street parking and loading facilities, other than those accessory to one- and two-family dwellings, shall be provided such that the lighting level shall not exceed an intensity of five footcandles, nor shall it be less than 1.5 footcandles at pavement level.”