OCPD Neighbour crossing all boundaries

[Wilderhearts]

I moved out of a home with an uOCPD roommate into a home with an uOCPD neighbour.  Recognized the behaviour patterns pretty quickly - this woman is always monitoring and trying to control what happens in our yard, on our street, and around our house.  Pesters my landlord/roommate about trivial things over email and tries to control all the neighbours' views on what should be allowed to happen in the neighbourhood.  Non-residents of the street that park in front of her house or longer than bylaws permit get ticketed - unless she knows they belong to a resident.  Our poor downstairs neighbour paid hundreds in fines before our landlord informed uOCPD that the car belonged to the girl downstairs - the city said they couldn't retract the fines.   

I was very ill for months while my roommate was away and let the yard get overrun with weeds.  My neighbour eventually approached me and told me they were getting into her yard - fair enough, I said I'd deal with it.  Gave her no other information.  Roommate comes home the next day and immediately deals with it - but also cuts back uOCPD's plants that are overgrown and blocking half our walkway (double-standards, right?).   uOCPD goes ballistic - screams in my rooommate's face that she's killed her plants (obviously untrue) and screams that she's told my roomie before to just flip the vines over the fence.  That was also untrue - so she was just gas lighting my roommate, but thankfully roommate didn't argue with her. 

Today my roommate told me that uOCPD neighbour "ambushed" her and wouldn't stop badgering her about the "invasive" weeds that they "eradicated" from their yard before we moved in and now they're back (the weeds have been gone now for weeks, mind you).  She's insisting she do the weeding in our back yard.  My roommate caved and said she could do it.  (Note - roomie is also my landlord (a great one) and has become a friend.)  I CANNOT have this woman in my space.  Not after the trauma of living with an uOCPD roommate - I am so triggered.  I'm going to talk to my roommate as soon as possible and figure out how to handle this and hopefully prevent this woman from coming over to our yard, cause I know it will just get worse and worse. 

Any advice on how to set boundaries or have the conversation with uOCPD (if necessary) that she is not welcome in our yard would be great - as an ACON setting boundaries doesn't come naturally to me.

I think it will mean setting boundaries with uOCPD neighbour

[bloomie]

Wilderhearts - What a tough thing to have moved into a new home with a good landlord/roommate and have this neighbor's behaviors triggering and troubling you.

I am not sure where things stand with the backyard, but I would feel the same about giving any signals to this neighbor that she has permission to enter your private space.

Maybe the conversation with your roommate could center around giving consistent messages to this neighbor and that allowing her to come into your yard and weed it is giving her a mixed message when you do not want her there and do not intend to allow her access going forward?

Part of kindness and good neighborliness is to communicate clearly and with consistent messages and levels of engagement and not to allow ourselves to be badgered into giving over our personal space to an intrusive and demanding, seemingly high conflict person. It would seem boundaries and borders of steel are required with someone like this.

With the neighbor... is it possible to weed the backyard yourselves and let her know it is done and you will not be needing her to come and do that for you? A thanks but no thanks kind of conversation?

A great tool from the toolbox is Medium Chill to avoid a circular argument with a person who is looking for any kind of engagement from us. Maintaining a neutral posture and tone of voice and not giving her any kind of supply, being as boring as possible, may be the best way to go with someone like this.

Often, for me I feel most triggered when I feel disempowered or stuck with something. Finding a way to speak up and set some boundaries around how intrusive you allow this person to be may go a long way to helping ease the angst you are feeling.

Good luck with this. Let us know how things are going.

[clara]

If it helps, I've seen this type of acting out from the PD's point of view.  I have a NPD friend (minimal contact these days) who is this type of neighbor.  His approach is to be super friendly and "helpful" until the other person lets down their guard, at which point he starts invading their space and setting up his rules and regulations.  He feels he has every right to do this because, as a NPD, he thinks he knows exactly how everyone should live and what they should do.  He looks for things to complain about knowing that because he was at first friendly with the person, they'll be more inclined to go along with him.  He gaslights them into thinking they're doing something wrong, because before he was so nice and clearly the only reason he's now being a pain is because they must be doing something wrong!  In reality, it's arbitrary and he enjoys it.  He enjoys going to managers to complain about his neighbors, enjoys looking for infractions and what he regards as rule breaking.  It gives him a sense of power and control over others he doesn't much have in his personal life.  He focuses his energies on neighbors (and often co-workers as well) because he has to focus on someone.  I've seen him try to make other people's lives miserable but, in his mind, they're now miserable because of their own behavior, not his--he's always in the right and no one has the right to complain about him or what he does.  And, once he's done as much damage as he can (or starts being ignored by people he's harassing) he moves on, whether at work or where he lives.  I've seen the pattern repeated over and over with him.

So, in this case, the one thing I've noticed that stops or at least curbs some of his behavior (because he'll never just quit, since he can't) is when people outright ignore him or shrug him off.  Not responding gives him nothing to work with, and he's all about getting a response.  It fuels his behavior and just encourages him to keep things going.  When his source of supply dries up, he's forced to move on. 

Anyway, that's been my observation, wilderhearts.  Boundary setting and minimal contact plus don't let her get to you and when she does, don't let her see it.  I know it sends your blood pressure soaring and you want to do something, but it likely accomplishes a lot more than you can immediately see. 

[Wilderhearts]

Bloomie,

The "thanks but no thanks, we've dealt with it, we'll take care of it" conversation is exactly what's been had on three occasions now, between me and roomie.  Turns out I misheard/misinterpreted what my roommate said - she never gave permission to the neighbour to go into our backyard.  Phew! 

My roommate and I are on the same page and seems we're dealing with it in the same way - we'll do it ourselves.  Thanks but no thanks.  Thanks Bloomie for the reminder that communicating clearly and consistently about firm boundaries is also the kind thing to do for our neighbour, in addition to being what's right for us.

I think I did medium chill  during that conversation - I  expressed no emotion, positive or negative.  Completely blank stare like I was just totally disengaged.  Said nothing but variations of "we got it.  we'll deal with it.  Thanks but no thanks" when she tried to have the same conversation repeatedly and then extracted myself from the conversation as soon as I saw she just wanted to be a broken record.

Wow Clara, that sounds exactly like the self-righteousness of a pwOCPD.  All the pwOCPD that I know think their way is "Right" and it's "better for everyone" if they impose their "Right" way on them.  Complaining and nitpicking is exactly how pwOCPD maintain control - by creating anxiety in others.  The woman I lived with who was OCPD was also exceptionally, and I mean exceptionally "nice."  Charming even, if odd.  The one thing I would see here as differentiating your NPD friend from OCPD is if he is knowingly nitpicking/controlling others with the intention of causing them distress and harm.  That to me reads at a "Greater (malignant) Narcissist."  Which is absolutely terrifying - I'm glad you have very LC.

Thanks for that observation - I generally have nothing to say to this woman and do shrug her off.  My mind goes blank around her because I become so disengaged, which I think is a really effective defence mechanism and I'm happy about that.

Good point - we don't get immediate gratification from medium chill and grey rock like we *think* we would if we were to tear a strip off of them for their behaviour, but it does have a greater effect.  Thanks you two.  I'm gonna go weed the garden now