Advice Sought: In trouble with a neighbor/coworker

Inspired by the guys and creepiness thread, and the fact that I think I’m being accused of being creepy by a coworker right now for no particular reason.

Backstory: So, at the Christmas Party last year, I’m introduced to this woman, who then asks me why I’ve been ignoring her at the bus stop. Huh? :confused: Turns out we live near each other and she’s seen me at the bus stop but I’ve never acknowledged her. Sure, I’ve probably seen her around, but she’s in a different department that until recently was based on another floor and I never have much to do with that department. I’ve probably seen her at the bus stop too but never made the connection because, well, I really don’t know her very well at all, nor see her very often. In fact, I see her so little that she wasn’t even a familiar stranger to me (you know how over time you see the same people on the bus or whatever and will recognize them, even though you don’t know them and haven’t necessarily even spoken to them before). So we clear this up and get to a friendly conversation. Turns out she lives in the next street.

A few weeks later, she comes up to me at my desk, describes what my house looks like and asks me if I happen to live there. Uh, yeah…why? Apparently she recognized my silhouette when I was out on my porch smoking at night. Across the street there’s a house, the living room of which is directly opposite my front door. It’s actually in the next street, but it’s between two apartment buildings so it has a direct view of my house and vice versa. Turns out she lives there! What are the odds? So we laugh about it, well, that’s awkward. I say, well, I guess it’s good that we know now not to do anything embarrassing that the other one can see. She goes, oh well, at least you’ll know if someone’s breaking in. The agreement was that we’d just go about our business and try to forget that we could see each other.

So over time I haven’t particularly changed my behavior because, well, why should I? I do sometimes happen to look in the direction of her house because a) it’s unavoidably the first thing I see when I walk out the door and b) my city view just happens to be behind the roof of her house. Or otherwise I’m looking at bats in the tree across the street, stray cats walking along, etc. So not directly at her. And I figured, well, I’ve stood here smoking at night for a year and a half before we ever realized we were neighbors and surely she must know that not only me, but anybody walking along my street at night who happens to glance over, can see right into her living room, and most probably most or all of the people in the apartment buildings in between us can too. So, surely, if she was worried about someone seeing in, she would close her blinds. (Hell, if I lived there, I would!)

Can you see where this is going?

At this point, I should state that if she had not recognized me and told me we are neighbors, I would have had no idea. Although I can see right into her living room, I really can’t see anything much at that distance, not even enough to actually identify her (hence I didn’t recognize her before - she’s just a little figure walking around inside and when she sits down, she goes out of view anyway). NOT that I’ve actively been watching her. No more than everybody notices their neighbors on occasion.

So a few times there’s been jokes about us stalking each other (at least I interpreted them as jokes anyway, nothing in her voice suggested to me otherwise). And I’ve told her, keeping it light, don’t worry, I’m not stalking her, the other neighbors are far more interesting to stalk anyway. :stuck_out_tongue:

Then, recently she came up to me at the bus door and told me, quite worried, that I really should stop watching her. HUH?? :eek: I could tell she was really actually quite upset this time and I’ve apologized and tried to reassure her that I really couldn’t care less what she does and in any case I’m really not paying any attention at all, that I actually can’t see anything much as it’s too far away, etc. But in any case that I’m truly sorry that she thought otherwise.

Since then, I’ve just had a quick glance as I walk out the door. If her blinds are open, then I still have my cigarette on the porch, but I will deliberately face away elsewhere so that if she happens to look over, she can see that I’m not looking anywhere in her direction. If her blinds are closed or lights are out, I can’t see a thing anyway, and presumably she knows this and wouldn’t be able to see me either, so I just go about my business and stand wherever the hell I want to.

Once again, I’m just out there for a few minutes having a cigarette on my own porch. It’s not like I’m standing here for hours on end staring at her house for no apparent reason. Or filming her, or going right up to her window and looking in, or something weird like that. I’m just going about my own business the same way I did before I knew that was her over there.

So, the other night, I had a cockroach in my living room, one of those massive flying ones that are impossible to catch. So I open my front door and I’m chasing it around, trying to shoo it out. After a little while, a police car stops outside my house. Rather disturbingly, this isn’t a particularly unusual occurence in my street, there’s a few neighbors who are fond of having domestics regularly. But I do find it kind of odd that they stopped directly outside my house. I notice but continue to go about my business of trying the cockroach out. The cops don’t get out or go anywhere, don’t come over and talk to me. They just sit there for 5 or 10 minutes, then drive off.

Now I’m starting to wonder, maybe my paranoid coworker thought I was trying to distract her or something and called them. I haven’t seen her around since, so I haven’t spoken to her about it. I guess if she did, the good news is, they probably saw what I was doing and reported back, “He’s just trying to kill an insect or something, tell her to close her blinds if she’s that worried about it.” Which of course is my other frustration, if she’s really feeling that uncomfortable about the situation, why doesn’t she just close her blinds?? (Or for that matter, why didn’t she always close them at night as a matter of course in the first place since so many people can potentially see into her living room.) Then we definitely can’t notice each other and all is well.

What do you think I should do? Should I say anything in a non-accusatory way, or just bring it up generally (“weird experience with a cop car outside the other night, did you happen to see anything going on?”) - both at the risk of sounding more stalkerish. Or just ignore it and continue to be a politely civil stranger. I’m planning to move in a few months anyway when the lease is up (not because of her) but in the meantime the situation is getting just a little out of hand.

How do you know the other woman called them? Were the police looking over at you, or just sitting in their car? Maybe they just stopped for a bit to read the SCMODS or something.

This.

Anything more will just heighten her paranoia.

I don’t. The cop car in itself is not unusual. The fact that they apparently randomly stopped right outside my house and just sat there for several minutes is. I’m not sure if they were looking at me or not (I wasn’t about to just stare at the cop car! lol), but they definitely would have seen me. Plus, because of the nature of my street, it’s not a place a cop car would just randomly drive down unless they were going somewhere for a reason - one end of the street is one way (out) only and the only way into the street is via two other streets. Also, because of the direction they were facing (away from the one way end of the street), they either came down the street the wrong way (thus breaking the law) or turned the car around in order to stop it outside my house (I didn’t really notice which was the case). And I’ve never seen cops just sit somewhere before, they only ever seem to come out on callouts, and then they get out and shine their flashlights around and go talk to somebody, usually the couple who screams at each other a lot.

Hopefully I’m just overthinking it. But it is decidedly odd.

I could never figure out why anybody ever left their blinds/drapes open at night unless they actually want people to gawk inside their homes. If she ever said anything to me again about it I would say “close your fucking blinds.”

I wouldn’t worry. If it comes down to it, you could always remind her it was she who pointed out you two were neighbors.

Though I would lay off the stalked jokes just to be safe. :stuck_out_tongue:

Quit smoking?

This.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Weirdos shy away from direct confrontation, and she’s a weirdo. First, she kind of comes onto you. Then eventually she expresses concern “because you may be watching her?” My thoughts: you didn’t take the bait and further her perceived “relationship” so now she’s got to pretend to herself it’s because you’re weird.

If she said one more thing I’d go to Human Resource because you all basically work together. Tell them what’s gone on. If possible, see if they can get her in so you all can state your sides. This may sound excessive but you don’t want to find an unskinned rabbit boiling in your pot, do you? Because you never know who’s harmless or who’s going to turn out to be the crazy who changes your life for the bad.

This.

People should be able to sit on their porch and smoke or read or have a drink or whatever without having to worry about if people think they’re looking into their homes. I mean, this wasn’t even a problem until she found out the person sitting on the porch was someone from the office.

Agreed with /ignore it. If she’s the type to run around nekkid <figuratively> and then tell people to stop looking at her nekkidness, then there’s nothing you can say to convince her you aren’t looking. She’s got problems; let them remain hers.

Do not bring up the cop car. They could have been leaving from a call and just stopped where they did to finish reports or something. Unless they spoke to you, assume they were doing nothing related to you at all, because that’s most likely. If there was a complaint, they would have been obligated to approach you.

Do not ever mention the word or any derivative of “stalk” again. Not even jokingly, and if she does, get serious - fast - and tell her it’s not funny and off the table. Other than that, keep interactions with her very light and as innocuous as possible, keeping to subjects of work and the weather and that’s it.

Don’t you have a back porch where you can smoke? It bugs the crap out of me when people smoke by front doors. (unless you’re closer to a neighbor out the back, I can see how that can happen) Or turn the porch light off when you’re out there - why put a spotlight on yourself if you don’t need to? If you’re in the dark she can’t see you.

Yeah, I thought of moving elsewhere to smoke, however I am being considerate of my closer neighbors by not doing so. My back porch area is very, very small and right next to my next door neighbor’s. Likewise, I don’t want to move further over towards my neighbor’s part of the front yard (and thus out of sight to my coworker) as I don’t want the smoke to waft up and bother my neighbor. Plus, she’d be like, “Um, why are you smoking on my lawn?” :dubious: Then I’d have two neighbors who think I’m stalking them. To go further into the back yard and down the side of the house invites attention from my other neighbor’s chemically imbalanced dog on the other side of the fence (sometimes when I smoke on my own front porch, it comes bounding out of nowhere and stands there and barks at me anyway).

I always assumed that if I deliberately turned the light off (this is the inside light, I have no outside light on the porch itself, hence why I create a silhouette), it would look even creepier, like I’m trying to hide so she doesn’t know I’m stalking her. Just this single red glow in the darkness… Plus she told me (before things started getting weird between us) that she always thought my house looks creepy because it has a gable and that she actually turned her couch around so that she doesn’t have to look at it all the time (um…then why are you obviously looking my way regularly?? :smack:).

I figured you’re still probably using the porch because it’s the only decent option. I guess if you’re close enough that she can see the cigarette embers glowing anyway, maybe it doesn’t matter, but I’m thinking she might not see them if her lights are on - not unless she was standing right up at her window and you would likely notice that!

She’s totally a weirdo - creepy house because it has a gable? Nah, not unless there are seven of them!

I would avoid any actual conversation with her beyond hi, how are you. IOW no emotional, informational, or inquisitive exchanges BUT falling short of blatantly snubbing or ignoring her. Be Mr. Bland. She sounds capable of generating drama over nothing. Ugh. She’s the creepy one.

This

The cop car could have been anything, disregard it. Even if it was her you have no way of knowing. Your kidding around (even if mutual) about stalking was a big mistake. If she is the paranoid, attention seeking type it invites interaction on a topic you need to avoid.

Re smoking you might want to try some of the electronic “vapes”. They can be used anywhere and friends who have tried them tell me they work well in replacing or tailing off tobacco cigarettes.

Thanks for your advice, everyone. It’s really becoming quite the awkward situation.

The irony is, she smokes too (I know this because I met her in the smoking area of the place where the Christmas party was held and she was smoking). I know she rents (she asked me first, in casual conversation at work, if I rented or owned, so I asked her back, perfectly reasonable) so presumably she does not smoke inside since landlords don’t take kindly to inside smokers, and therefore at home she must smoke in whatever area is outside her front door…you know, just like I am. :rolleyes:

She’s nuts.

BTW if she has kids, avoid eye contact with them, keep your hands up above your shoulders around them while shooing them away like goats if they come within ten feet of you.

She’s stalking you. It’s a little more than “awkward.” Try reversing the genders: she is creepy as hell and pretty clearly not balanced, at least if what you say here is accurate. I don’t have any recommendations that aren’t melodramatic escalations.

When you move, don’t mention it to her. If she asks if you’ve moved, say, “Yes.” If she asks why, give any other reason besides her. If she asks where, say something indefinite. You don’t want her renting opposite of your new place. Then change the subject, preferably to “I have to get back to work.”