Thursday, February 29, 2024

VENT: Altercation w/ Unhinged Neighbor

Backstory:

Wife and I live in an apartment complex, open/un-assigned parking spots. My wife was parked one evening while on the phone with her family when a truck pulled up behind her, the man in the truck just staring at her. She ignored him as she continued her conversation, the man knocks on the door (it's very dark in the lot in the evening) and asks her to move her car so he could park in the open spot next to her. Confused, she said she has nowhere to go and he instantly freaked out, became belligerent, calling her names and swearing at her extremely aggressive. He was backing his truck into the spot and she said "just don't hit my car."

She was so unnerved that she waited in her car for 15 minutes after he left to go into our unit. She tells me about the incident and thate she thinks it's a neighbor two units above us who we've always been pleasant to. I was perplexed because we were always friendly and even doubted that it was the same person because she had never seen him in that truck.

I said to her I'm surprised and I will talk to him the next time I see him. My plan was to approach him calmly and ask what happened and to let him know that he really made her afraid. I don't see him or his wife for a couple of weeks until about a week ago.

I'm getting out of my car while I was on the phone with my wife- two women were by a car in the handicap spot just chatting it up when he pulls up in his car. He gets out of starts to walk towards the path to our unit's entrance as was I- I'm on the phone trying to carry the convo w/ my wife without getting agitated and but I'm looking at him, maybe thinking he'd greet me but he doesn't look in my direction.- We both kind of pause to yield to each other. He stands there smoking a cigarette and grinning at the women which turned out to be his wife and someone else.. It wasn't obvious to me until this moment because I barely see her and it wasn't her car.

I proceed to go into our unit and tell my wife that they're outside and I hang up with her. I wanted to talk to the husband by myself because I didn't want to have the conversation in front of his wife and this other person. I go out there- the wife is still there and I ask where he was, and he had gone inside (but his car was still running). I stayed a bit and told her about the incident and told her how shitty it was for him to treat her that way when we've been nothing but nice if not, helpful to them. She seemed pretty neutral about the situation and said that my wife was "snippy" with him. I told her the whole thing was confusing and just uncalled for.

Last night I'm driving home and I'm on the phone with her (I get home later than her) and she mentioned that when she was going into our unit that she saw him on the second story landing smoking a cigarette, staring her down and laughing/taunting her but not saying anything. As she is telling me this I see him on his balcony and I'm pissed off- I said to him "Hey, what the hell is your problem?"

He says I'm the one with the problem and am constantly staring him down (which I'm puzzled by because the only time I ever "stared" him down was the last time I had seen him like I described. I said I'm on the phone with my wife and she's telling me you're intimidating her and staring her down. He then starts spewing off a bunch of nonsense about the parking incident. And said she insinuated that he was trying to hit her car and that she "knew what she was doing" and I still have no idea what he meant by that. He then tells me that he'll "come down there and drop my ass" or something like that. I said "Ok tough guy." After his threat, he continues to hurl weird insults that made no sense (something about us not having kids and that "something is going on there." I really didn't feel threatened and if he really wanted to get physical he could have just come downstairs. Realizing he's unhinged I just say "okay, dude" and walk into our unit.

My wife heard all of it and I was calm until I got into our apartment- that is when I started to ruminate and get mad and my wife thankfully talked me out of going back outside. No, I'm no tough guy- I haven't been in a physical altercation in 20 years but he got me heated. Thankfully I had work stuff to do and sat on my computer and logged on line. My wife decides to go out there and try and talk to him and extend an olive branch I tell her not to but she goes. A couple of minutes go by and I hear them shouting at each other so I go out there and tell her to come inside. I was calmed by this point.

Apparently he called her a pussy and said he'd fight her and me a pussy and that he'd fight me too. He was with another male because they're moving out (we later learn that he's had so many conflicts with people that they got evicted from the leasing office). We learned that just the previous week, he threatened a woman in another building that he'd break her windows and slash her tires. My wife later tells me he actually flicked cigarette ash towards her as she walked into our unit which I'm glad she left out at the time because I don't know how I'd have reacted.

Now I'm just really pissed off that he did that to her and for weeks, made her afraid to go in and out of our home. I'm also pissed that he physically threatened her, challenging her to a fight. I'm just trying to deal with these feelings and let it go and just came here for advice. Today is the last day they're allowed to be here so we won't be seeing him any more, but I am still angry about making my wife feel afraid all this time, him ruining my evening and my day (I was distracted at work because of how pissed I still am). Him physically threatening me and calling me a "pussy" honestly doesn't bother me. Once I sat at my desk and got online last night, I felt very calm.

TLDR:

Crazy neighbor threatened me and my wife, trying to let go of it and not be angry (they're moving out). Looking for advice on how to let it go and not be angry.



Submitted February 29, 2024 at 08:12PM by bholepimp https://ift.tt/4uWvgyS

No comments:

Post a Comment