Petty, Stubborn Old Neighbor
EDIT: Thank you all for your kind comments and suggestions.
I add this: to help you visualize what this old petty neighbor looks like, he (and his dog) is the identical twin of the creepy character Herbert from Family Guy. To give you a visual idea of who I’m dealing with.
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I have an old nosy neighbor who seems very petty and stubborn.
Ever since I moved to my current neighborhood, my security cameras/myself have caught him:
- walking onto my driveway and sidewalk to peek into our garage (when nobody was home) a few time
- ***taking a detour from his street (next to my no-exit street) to walk slowly with his dog in front of my house and security cameras, multiple times each and every day
- ignoring me when I first moved here and when I tried being nice by saying hi to him
- wandering in the neighbourhood waiting to run into me when I walk my dog, as if his "running into" me marks some sort of psychological victory for him. He does this everyday. (Update: there was some tech issue with my previous editing. Here I will just give the numbers: Over the past 365 days, I estimate that he had "coincidentally" run into me outside 300+ times in total, whereas I had run into my immediate neighbours on my own street maybe 5 times max in total.)
- acting extremely shocked when he saw me receiving groceries delivery at my home
- dropping a bag of dog poop on my driveway (Update: I add this. Someone in the neighborhood recently dropped two bags of dog poo, with the same specific dog poo bag colour/pattern as he did to my driveway, by a new Indian neighbour family's house, even though they already put out a friendly 'no dog poo' sign there. The act must be done on purpose. Do they/I have footage showing who did it this time? No. Do I have a candidate for suspect? Yes.)
- acting like he’s best buddy with my neighbors on my street when he saw me walking my dog
- writing me unsolicited note asking me to do certain things with my backyard plants which had nothing to do with him/his property (Update: I hired professional gardeners to trim the apple trees by my side of fence not long ago, and my trees/plants are not hurting him or his property physically. Is he mentally bothered by the existence of my trees or my very existence in my backyard? Possibly, but it's not something I can help him with.)
- Watching my backyard from his bedroom window often (we share a fence despite we technically live on two different streets)
- Oh, and he often lets out his loud dog to bark from his backyard when he sees me reading/relaxing/gardening in my backyard
As an easy-going person myself who never wants to pick/initiate a fight with strangers, I found this old neighbor to be particularly petty and stubborn. It feels like he believes that by showing up in front of my home & running into me in the neighborhood brings him some mental victory.
I’ve learned to match his energy by completely ignoring him when encountering him. No words, no facial expressions, just blank staring at him if he “happens” to be walking in front of my house each day. And sometimes I walk my dog in front of his house too to return the favor — he seems to be agitated when I do this, because he would usually show up “coincidentally” with his dog on my street 30 mins later.
Anyone has any suggestions or comments?