[-] Stacyasks@lemmy.cafe 1 points 1 week ago

Hi thanks for the reply. I'll answer each of the questions:

Did you call the police when he sounded the siren at night? Like 999? From what I read here there is enough there to get him cited if not arrested.

I did. Once two years ago, and the most recent time was very late May this year when he started the siren and yelling thing again. Police did arrive at his home on both occasions but he refused to answer the door. The police didn't do anything more besides knocking his door, shouting they're police, and ringing his doorbell. He has a doorbell camera that's hooked up to his smartphone. We get the impression the police just go "oh he's got mental health problems" so refuse to do anything even though he told me what his intentions were two years ago when he was doing the exact same thing.

Don’t retaliate with loud music or deliberate harassment yourself. It might be hard not to. But you need to be spotless victims. You don’t want a ‘let’s look at both sides’ to give the impression you provoked anything at any time.

No worries. We haven't done this.

How is the third semi detached party feeling about this old guy? They must feel some of the nuisance? Surely they could corroborate that your brother isn’t doing werewolf things at night? See if you could get them to write letters or call the police as well. The more neighbours join in, the better (but don’t start a poster campaign, it should look “natural”).

That's something I've been considering. Considering the house is semi detached I'm not sure if the people in the third house can hear the radio blasting all morning. It sounds like the radio is in his hallway right next to the wall between our homes so perhaps they don't hear it. Either way if it continues I'll inquire about it to them. Their house is just a few meters down the road.

Is there something that can be done to stop foxes from coming into the gardens? If they are the “werewolves” here then this could be a way to root out that delusion.

My mum puts out food for them. One of them has bad mange and is very skinny. I haven't heard the foxes lately though, not since the young cubs have grew up. I'll mention this to her though. Foxes aren't the only possible trigger, it's also if he sees one of us going to the car or coming up the street. We notice this seems to trigger him and right after he's blasting the radio all morning or his TV will be on full blast all evening.

Does the old guy have family? Is there a way to reach out to them? Not in “reign in your fucking dickhead father!” but “we are really worried about your father’s mental state because he keeps making outlandish and unsubstantiated statements.”

He does, a niece who lives a way away. She comes up very occasionally to help tend to his garden. Maybe every 6 months or once a year. My mum has complained about him to her and the niece ended up blocking my mum. He lives alone.

Can you google if there is a solicitor in your area that will maybe hear your case for no or a low fee to see if you can take this to court? Either the old dickhead or the council for not doing anything about him? That’s where the paper log might be useful.

Good idea. I'll look into that.

I know it can be stressful, I just really can't be dealing with harassment on top of everything else going on so I'm trying to find a good way of navigating this. I appreciate your help a ton.

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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Stacyasks@lemmy.cafe to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

He's elderly (84 or 85). My house is joined with his. There's a third house that is partially joined to his and they recently had a new kitchen fitted, so there was a lot of drilling in the morning. Since then, he's been blasting the radio on what sounds like a subwoofer aimed against the wall every morning at 7 AM. I live with my brother and my mum, and it wakes us all up. It's a very deep bassy noise so it's hard to block out or drown out. It goes on until 1 PM.

He is doing this on purpose. He did the same thing in 2023 and I went over to his house assuming he didn't know he was being loud and politely told him to turn his TV down in the morning because it's waking us up. Then he told me he's doing it to wake my brother up because "every night at 1:30 AM he wakes me up making wolf noises in the garden so I'll wake him up too since he's obviously not sleeping during the night since he's making noises all night" (foxes frequently visit our garden at night). He's also accused my brother of "cloning my phone", "stealing my water", "stealing my food deliveries", and other crackpot things.

All Summer this year he was blasting one of those 120 dB sirens at 1:30, 2:30, and 3:30 AM each night. He'd then scream at the wall for a minute or two after sounding the siren, seemingly to do with my brother. Sometimes he'd then wake up at 7 AM and immediately go and blast the radio all day. He would also come outside into his garden with a frying pan calling my brother's name. The sirens stopped in July.

The kitchen work on the third house is done and was completed on the 24th of November, but they've left a fridge next to my neighbour's drive. A few days ago he came outside and my mum heard him yell "move your fridge, [brother's name]!".

In August and September and much of October he was quiet but now he's blasting the radio multiple days in a row for weeks on end. I have health problems and don't need this. I have other things going on in my life and recently this was the straw that broke the camel's back and I had a mental breakdown on the 1st of December which caused me to knock stuff off a shelf which caused a very old and very sentimental item of mine to break (I did not mean to break it, just to knock stuff off the shelf). I feel on edge because I can't really sleep early because he also blasts his TV until 12 PM. It's not just the loud noise, it's also the reason he's doing it.

We have complained numerous times to the council (environmental health), as well as the police. They have sent him letters but he has ignored all of them and continues the harassment. He is obviously refusing to take his medication.

He has also called the police on us and we had two police officers arrive at our door because of his slander. All 3 of us are not well, we don't make any noise, and need our sleep. I don't want to move as this was my grandparent's house that was given to us by them after they died.

We are at wit's end here. We just want the harassment to stop. Is there a way we could get him sectioned under the mental health act? From what we know, he stopped taking his medication in 2020. This is when most of the bizarre texts my mum received from him began (she still has them all saved).

edit: For non UK readers, being "sectioned" means being involuntarily hospitalised and forced to take medication

[-] Stacyasks@lemmy.cafe 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Update: The bowl is fixed! It's not perfect, some pieces were very slightly out of alignment but it's intact again and I filled in a little gap too. Feel so relieved! Was surprised with how hot the adhesive got in the little tub as it set and now leaving the bowl 2 days for it to fully cure before using it

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[-] Stacyasks@lemmy.cafe 1 points 1 week ago

Says out of stock but I clicked "find this for me" so fingers crossed I'll get an email from them if they find it

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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Stacyasks@lemmy.cafe to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

Someone in my street keeps harassing me and my family, and I lost my temper 2 days ago and whacked a bunch of things off a shelf. One of the heavier things ended up falling on my soup bowl and smashed a third of it. That specific soup bowl has been discontinued for many years. The manufacturer did make very similar soup bowls just with a different pattern on them, but they're old and only being sold on places like Ebay. I'm going to take the bowl out of the trash tomorrow and measure it in detail and maybe post it on Facebook to see if anyone has this bowl. I feel like a whole bunch of nice memories have been literally smashed, like that bowl was with me for all that time and I smashed it by accident. That bowl was like a friend and reminded me of a time in my life where I was happy so just ordering some generic soup bowl that isn't extremely similar or the same is going to remind me of what I've lost.

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submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by Stacyasks@lemmy.cafe to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world

I'm female and 30. Long story short I've been feeling very lonely and depressed lately, I've also lost a lot of time due to health problems so my life kind of paused soon after I finished highschool. I keep thinking of warmer memories and I keep getting sentimental over old friends especially because right now I don't have any real life friends to turn to because everyone parted ways and I was bedbound for many years.

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submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by Stacyasks@lemmy.cafe to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
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submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by Stacyasks@lemmy.cafe to c/goodoffmychest@lemmy.world

Lately I've been trying to put into words a strange pattern that's followed me since I was about eleven. Every five years or so, whenever I'm overwhelmed or deeply stressed, I end up hallucinating a being I've made up in my head. It's based on a mythical creature that's usually portrayed as dangerous or cruel, definitely not something meant to offer comfort especially to someone vulnerable. It appears almost like a normal human, close enough that at a glance, you could mistake it for a person. There are tiny details that give it away every time though.

The most recent time, a pair of them came up to me during a depressive episode. They spoke to me calmly, gently, and somehow pulled me back from that dark place. They told me they spent time in the exact spot where I saw them, and said reassuringly they were there every day if I wanted to talk to them again. But even though I went back daily for weeks afterward, I never actually saw them again. I can still picture their faces and voices as clearly as if I saw them yesterday. It wasn't like a dream where some details are fuzzy. It was like they were really there.

I even asked one for his social media handle after I asked him if he has one, to which he said yeah. When I got home that day and searched it, I could've sworn a real profile showed up. But now, when I look, it doesn't exist, there's not even a "this user deleted their account" message. It's just…... nothing like it was never there at all?

It's happened four times so far. The first time was right after I'd seen something about that creature in the news and a magazine, and I remember feeling incredibly lonely. Each episode happened in a public place, once it was at school and one time, a few years back, the one I mention with the social media question, I lost about thirty minutes of actual time which is the amount of time I was talking to them. Every one looked slightly different, like another individual of the same species rather than the same guy, and once there were two of them talking to me and also chatting with each other as if they were completely separate.

I haven't had hallucinations of anything else in my life, just those four, and part of me feels conflicted and guilty that I miss them. This creature is supposed to be evil, something that harms or even kills innocent people, yet the versions I see are the opposite, they're quiet, kind, and grounding. It's comforting and unsettling at the same time. I catch myself searching for the creature in movies, shows, books anything. It comforts me yet it also leaves me feeling strangely sad and just empty. I spend about an hour a day looking up information or stories about it. It's like some part of my brain is always itching for more, even though most portrayals paint it as monstrous instead of compassionate.

That's also the reason why these people looked so familiar. The school one looked very much like me in the face, except he was a boy, and when I "encountered" the pair a few years ago, one of them eerily resembled my cousin, even down to his build. I have a hostile family, but I remember reading somewhere that your brain cannot create new faces from scratch. It has to base them off of people it knows.

I don't think I'll get over the fact the people who were there for me to comfort me when no one else would never really existed.

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Since I was eleven, every five or so years, something happens where I get really upset or stressed, and during those four times so far, I end up seeing this made-up thing. The thing I see is a mythical creature, and it is not supposed to be kind, in fact it is meant to be evil, but when I hallucinated it, it was incredibly gentle, and I honestly felt so comforted. It always felt completely real, like an actual person was standing there. The first time it happened was right after I saw something about the creature in the news and a magazine, and I was feeling very lonely.

Each time, the hallucination happened in public (first time was at school) and I lost real time, once for half an hour a few years ago. They always looked a bit different, like a new individual of the species each time, and sometimes there were two of them which talked to me and also talked amongst themselves during the conversation. I have not had any other hallucinations and for months now I feel sad that this being is fictional because of what I experienced. I feel conflicted about that, since this creature is meant to be an evil one that hurts or even kills innocent people, not something that comforts people.

I keep finding myself looking at media (movies, shows, books, etc) that has this creature in it. In one way, I feel comforted, and in another, it makes me feel saddened. I actually feel like I've become addicted to looking things about this creature up. I'd say I spend about an hour each day looking into it. It scratches an itch on the brain. There are very few pieces of media where the creature is portrayed as good rather than evil.

Stacyasks

joined 4 weeks ago