THE STUPID NEIGHBOUR BLOG

Christine Writes:

How I needed your site. It made me actually feel better about having an insane sociopath for a neighbor. May I vent? Pretty please?

I've got someone special living across the street from me. I wouldn't have believed this woman existed a year ago, but here I am. I moved into a new house in a new state eight months ago, and was more than willing to look past any oddness in the interest of making new friends. That was my first mistake.

Candy, let's call her, made my acquaintance when I was in my front yard. I caught her rummaging through decorative stones at the house next door that was up for rent at that time. She explained herself by saying she liked to collect heart-shaped rocks. Within just a few minutes she had let me how she'd left her first husband and two boys behind to pursue her "real" life, whereupon she was forced to became a stripper working the bachelor party circuit (she got a boob job to facilitate this pursuit). She now had a legitimate job selling makeup. I am open minded and didn't have a problem with the stripper bit, but I wondered why she "felt I ought to know." Wtf?

The third time we met she proceeded to tell me how she was supposed to get married to the man she was currently living with across the street (in his house along with her daughter, who is a product of a one-night stand). She was getting cold feet because he hardly touched her anymore and almost seemed repelled by her sexually. She also had had a tempting offer from an old friend to "hook up," because he had recently divorced his wife and wanted Candy to know he'd always had a thing for her.

Heavy details for an acquaintance, and yet I did not run screaming the other way. Brainless on my behalf, I'll grant you. Right around this third meeting I began to notice her penchant for looking around my house and asking "was I using that?" because she could really use one and noticed I wasn't really using mine. I gave her many items which were nice pieces but were mostly occupying space in my basement, and gave them gladly. But soon she began taking things she told me she liked that I WAS using. She'd borrow them, make a photocopy or take it to buy one that looked just like it and then bring it back. A few things just disappeared, and I think I know where they are. She also asked me to help her rearrange her house because I was "so great at it."

I began backing off from the friendship, the word she used to describe our relationship, not I. It was then that I began witnessing her moseying away from my other neighbors' houses carrying armloads of household items, clothing, what have you. And "Isn't it great; I really needed this and they weren't even using it!"

And I finally noticed that whenever she came over, she came loaded with agendas, and didn't leave until she had gotten the item or promise or whatever. Suddenly too came a wave of new stories, one special one about how she'd gotten her driver's license suspended for not having her proof of insurance in her car, even though she'd gone to court to show said proof. Now she wanted rides everywhere, as long as I was already going. She hit my neighbors up, wouldn't take no for an answer, and once she got in your car, she would begin a litany of reasonable requests for stops that turned into hours of waiting for her to get her business done. She made neighbors late to pick their children up at daycare, miss appointments and was always extremely late in picking up her own child. Her story didn't add up. I only took her out twice, as did my neighbors. .

At last we neighbors started comparing notes. Every story she told one of us was told differently to another of us. Recently, as one of them drove her around, she bragged about how great it was that she got whatever she wanted, and extolled the virtues of being a doer who never took no for an answer. This, to me, explained her in a nutshell.

Soon after, Candy began sending her four-year-old daughter over to my house or one of the other neighbors' houses and then would drive away in her car (which by her own admission she wasn't allowed to drive) without saying a word. She might be back in an hour. She might be back in six hours. I was outraged.

Here is where we are today. Yesterday I let her have it, let her know in clear language how thoroughly she has violated every one of my boundaries with her behavior. She began to kiss my butt wholeheartedly, as usual. She is the queen of kiss ass. She said she had come to apologize to me for anything she'd done. She appreciated my feedback and that she could take criticism better than most, and that she dearly cherished our friendship and wouldn't purposely do anything to jeopardize it. Then she walked away and strode purposefully over to my next-door neighbor's house (who has three children, aged three and under), left her child there playing with the neighbor's kids and snuck off while the neighbor was distracted, driving away without saying a word. She hadn't wanted to apologize at all. She'd planned on dumping her daughter at my house again until I let her know where I stood.

I can only hope that she wasn't lying when she told me she was planning on moving to be closer to her sons next year.

Yours most confoundedly,

C. Munro

(P.S. I left out a lot in the interest of brevity. There is so much more, but I hope the highlights have entertained. It would be the only good thing to come out of having this nightmare of a neighbor.)