Neighbours from Hell

synonymous ^ Please don't let the negativity of those who have not understood what is going on add to your stress levels^
I think we all understand that the OP has a large hedge which juts out by a metre into the road, and because of this hedge, she parks her car somewhere that her neighbour takes exception to.
I’m afraid the solution seems obvious to me as it apparently does to several other posters.

So someone cannot park outside HIS house because you prefer to grow a hedge that prevents parking outside YOUR house? And you left two vulnerable people - vulnerable enough to be tripped into a 'seizure' by a confrontation - alone? There seems scope to be 'reasonable' on your part.

There are a couple of things that confuse me, sorry I am having a senior moment:
1. How has this man been intimidating you for 10 years if you have just moved in?
2. Did the aggressive neighbour hit the 81 year old man and give him a black eye or is the 81 year old man the aggressive neighbour?
3. Has the hedge historically been a metre longer than the neighbours? Is it because the boundary ends in a different place to the other properties?
Sorry, Swolleneyes, I'm obviously having a bad day!

Either it’s Jackanory, or just plain ludicrous,as others have said cut the hedge, park outside your own home, why wouldn’t you ?

icanhandthemback It was the elderly neighbour who had been intimidated for 10 years not the OP. The 81 year old was sporting a black eye inflicted on him by the aggressive neighbour

The OP has also said that she cuts and trims the hedge, so it is not a hedge she is letting run wild.

These issues have been clearly elucidated further up this thread.

I think some people are being very hard on OP. She has just, moved into an HA house with two disabled adult children. The neighbour intimidated the children when she was out of the house causing them to have seizures and now sits in his car staring at their house. What else must he do, kill one of them before some posters can see what side the problem lies?

The OP has also said she is parking outside no-ones house but by a green.

Having read the post again, M0nica, I can see that the lack of speech marks confused me which is why I asked the questions. Obviously it wasn't as clearly elucidated as you seemed to think or I wouldn't have been confused. I did ask in a nice way. I just find the way things are written slightly difficult to understand instantly or even a second time I read them because I did go back to check before I posted. Obviously my brain was more woolly than usual.
I didn't say the hedge was running wild, I did manage to ascertain that the hedge was regularly trimmed. However, lots of people on here are asking why she doesn't just cut it back. If it marks her boundary she may not want to because it can cause confusion especially if the neighbours have a non linear boundary.
If her other neighbours are happy with where she parks and the hedge whilst the aggressive neighbour is unaffected, I see no reason at all why she should accept his behaviour. He is obviously a bully and I suspect that if she give way on this, he will find something else to make her suffer for as the 81 year old gentleman can probably attest to.
I make no criticism of her either for leaving disabled adult children alone either. It may well be that she had no choice or they would have been perfectly safe if the gentleman (I use the term loosely) had just left them alone.

Well that sounds like a police matter,Monica , perhaps I have missed some posts

I think she has already reported it to the police who are treating it as a hate crime.

It is easy to say cut the hedge further, but once a hedge has had its spring haircut, to cut it further doesn't mean another run round with the shears. It means a major attack on it with loppers secateurs and a pruning saw and physically hard work that not everyone has the strength and energy to undertake and it is a job that can take days to do depending on your energy reserves. I speak with feeling, I have done it.

I understood her to say the complainant cannot even see her car when it is parked beside the hedge.

We live in a ruaral area..I am not parking outside anyone's house just a green.. A neighbour from around the corner began this fiasco and he can't even see my small car from where he lives..

I thought this meant that the car couldn't be seen by the neighbour when OP parks by the green. He sounds like a nutcase.

Its horrible when neighbour trouble flares up!! I've had a little of this over the years, so you have my sympathy.

I was hoping you might be back with news of how this is progressing?

Thinking about the man with the black eye, if he really did get it from the disgruntled neighbour, have the police followed it up? Because if he can do that, maybe its a sign of things to come!! Fore warned is fore armed!!

Anyway, I hope your daughter is doing ok after her hospital stay.

Thankyou Synonymous..HA will be visiting neighbour this week to speak to him. He is going to pre warn us about visit just incase of any repercussions. I know that most think cut the bloomin hedge back but this does mark our boundary which to be honest by law includes up to the edge of the green. The maintenance of our part of the unadopted road is our responsibility which interm means we own,even though rented,this part of house frontage. To merely chop away hedges to facilitate a monster is demeaning and will only allow further intimidation. He does not live on our road ..he lives around the corner on another road.

Don’t forget you can also take out an injunction against your neighbour using the civil courts. It does cost a court fee to do this, and you will have to show the court the evidence you have collected to demonstrate why the injunction is needed. But the injunction could stop him coming within a certain distance of your property, as well as prohibit him from speaking to you or your children.
This is a last resort I realise; and I would suggest you see if the HA and police do anything useful first.

I feel so sorry for you; you must have no peace of mind owing to this vile person. I'm praying your situation will improve.

The man is probably mentally ill
Is he known to the police ? If intimidation has been going on for ten years and as bad as intimated surely he will have been reported a number of times Can he really have given an elderly man a black eye with no one doing anything
Didn’t the people who lived in the house or sold you the house mention it aren’t you suppose to warn people of troublesome neighbours or didn’t they have trouble with him
I d go for a peaceful life I m afraid and park somewhere else for a while anyway

i agree cut back the hedge and park on your side. all you are doing is aggravating the neighbours, you not giving into them ,its called being neighbourly.

I think this problem is way past the being neighbourly point. I worked with someone who had a similar problem. The family had been neighbourly neighbours for decades, when one side suddenly turned nasty.

It cost my colleague 7 years of her life, £000s in legal fees, before the case was settled in her favour.

The man who caused the problem continued to harass her and her family.

A friend of mine went to view a house last year, all the time she was there the elderly man next door stood glaring at the window.
When she had viewed he was waiting outside and asked if it was her car, when she said it was he said, well shift it then.
When I'm ready she replied,
She walked down the road to get the location and other features into perspective and he yelled all the time to " shift this B car*.
It wasn't even parked outside his house.
A man working in his garden told my friend he was a nightmare and that was usual behaviour for him, so yes these people do exist.
I wonder if the house is still for sale.

janeainsworth thank you for the kind thought but I wasn't thinking of my stress levels but those of swollen being castigated for something she hasn't done by people who have got the wrong end of the stick - if you know what I mean! Come to think of it my stress levels were climbing really steadily! I was thinking of all the sound bites you get in newspapers which give the completely opposite impression to the actual facts - and we have suffered from that too!
If you have never suffered from bullying neighbours you would have no idea what it is like. If the bully hadn't latched on to the hedge it would just be something else. The inventiveness of bullies should never be underestimated and neither should the stress of being targeted by evil doers.

I am so relieved to read MOnica's post and that of annsixty as I was beginning to despair!

My sympathy? I had hideous neighbours a few years ago and their complaints were many and various; from not liking that we had net curtains with tiny gold stars rather than plain white! to a complaint that our wood stained side gate was dark blue not brown which was the preferred colour!
The complaints got so vitriolic that we ended up selling up and moving away to get free of the stress. I am now living in a different town with a lovely set of neighbours and no problems
Unfortunately there are jerks wherever you live ??‍♀️

I agree that the man is probably a bully and may have mental health problems. If the hedge is cut back and the car moved, he’ll then likely move on to something else. The fact he sat outside and freaked out the AC rather suggests what the something else is likely to be. It’s time the neighbours all stood up to him.

Having your hedge cut back won't affect your boundary as it will still be there.

Get a local landscaping contractor to do it as they will shape it so it will only need trimming once or twice a year and check for any nesting birds before going ahead although you'll probably be alright by now.

Ignore the stroppy neighbour. It's your home and your hedge. You are not giving in if you get it cut back, you are just maintaining your property.

There are lots of assumptions here about the darned hedge. This man is a bully capable of causing an 81 year old a black eye. He is likely to pick on something else the minute the OP cuts the hedge and moves the car.

This man sounds as though he has mental health problems. He could be dangerous. He obviously likes causing aggravation. Swollen, have you got a husband that could ask him what his problem is? Seems a bit petty, he obviously looks for trouble. Probably bored and this gives him something to do.
I have neighbors that refuse to speak and blank me for no apparent reason and I get hurt about it but try not to let them bother me. I hope you get this resolved as soon as possible.

If the neighbour from hell is going round punching elderly neighbours in the face and harassing people generally, the police should be dealing with it.

"He is likely to pick on something else . . . ." Yes, but two wrongs don't make a right. The hedge is a hazard in itself, separately from the parking row. The OP says that there is no pavement, so the hedge must stick out a metre into the road. That will narrow the road by a metre and be dangerous to motor traffic and to passers-by.

If the OP can get it seriously narrowed down it will improve her own parking choices, improve the road for everyone, and put her firmly into the "good guy" list with her other neighbours - that is worth doing.