Ignore him? Blast the music? Tell him, "Hey, can't talk"?
Dear Prudence,
We have an elderly neighbor next door, “John,” who we know is bored and lonely. He moved in about five years ago, and the first thing he did was build a waist-high deck from his back door that looks directly over our privacy fence. We call it “the observation platform.” We planted trees and shrubs to regain a sense of privacy, but every time we’re in our backyard he looks over the fence and starts hollering things like, “Working har, or hardly working?” Ugh. He’s trying to be friendly, but we want privacy! Often we just don’t respond, but on the occasions that we do, it’s just to say “Hi” and go back to whatever we were doing. He used to ask us for a lot of favors, like to borrow our lawn mower (which he’d return empty on gas), until we finally just told him it was broken. We’re happy to be friendly, but he wants to talk all the time. Every time we’re outside gardening or sitting on the deck, he starts shouting over the fence (“Hot enough for ya?”), or comes over through our yard to find out what we’re doing.
He wanders around the neighborhood and peers into everyone’s yards if they’re doing construction or paving their drive. I know that I need to set a firm boundary with him, and I know that I’ve bent over backward and spent a ton of money on plants and a yard guy to try to maintain our own privacy. So how do I do this? Is there a polite way to establish boundaries with a nosy neighbor like this? He’s even come into our yard before without an invitation, and I had to ask him to leave. My husband is annoyed by the guy, but doesn’t want to start a feud. I don’t want that either, but I do want to enjoy being outside our own home.
—Never “Just Saying Hi”
Re: Ignore him? Blast the music? Tell him, "Hey, can't talk"?
It also sounds like he's the neighborhood busybody. He needs a friend, a club, group living...? All of it shouldn't be LW's problem or concern.
I'd definitely cold shoulder him and also, I'd be downright rude if he actually crossed into my yard without permission.
i’m not a person to go outside, so my answer is stay inside more.. but that fits my personality and not LW’s.
HOWEVER, people like this act this way because people give them the permission. It's not my responsibility as a neighbor to entertain this behavior and allow him to cross my level of comfort and physical property boundary because he's there and I know a little bit about him. Being uncomfortable on your property is a terrible feeling.
They are spending $$$ creating physical barriers to keep him out of their business. They tried 'good fences make good neighbors'. It failed.
Later you might need to do a, "Now's not a good time. We can catch up tomorrow."
I would think of a few go-to phrases to cut the conversation short, without having to retreat in the house if I feel like being outside.
But if my phrases don't work, I'd eventually get to a place where I would just ignore him after stating one of my phrases for that occurrence.
The other sad thing is, if he wasn't so relentless about it, the LW and maybe other neighbors would probably be more amenable to hanging out with him once in awhile. But I wouldn't dare want to invite him over once in awhile because whatever boundaries have been set up would be set back to worse then they were before.
My neighbours recently built a playhouse for their kids that has windows that looks into my backyard. They asked if I was okay with it, which I was. But they just sold their house .... I hope I don't get one of these nosy neighbours. Unless they are only nosy in that they want to watch my rabbits run around in my backyard, which is what I do all day too.
"Having some me-time!"