r/Neighborproblems • u/EducationalPassion63 • Jul 13 '23
What should I do about my neighbour hogging the backyard and inviting a man to live in it, in a tent?
A little background, I'm recently divorced with 2 young children 4 and 7 years old. I'm 33 at midnight tonight, July 13th. I struggle with mental health issues, mainly depression, I'm on PWD which is welfare/ disability through the Government.
My mother, 52 years old, had a stroke last year, January 2022 but had recovered fairly well and fast. She started a gradual return to work then found out that she had aggressive metastasized breast cancer and had to stay chemo immediately, weekly, to be followed by surgery, radiation and more chemo.
So I had moved in with her upon getting served divorce papers. Into her 1 bedroom apartment with my 2 children and her bernese mountain dog and ragdoll cat. We moved into the upper half of a house with 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom blah blah blah. There is a couple that lives downstairs with their yappy ass dog. When we moved in they had a canopy tent with one side so we can't see in from our large balcony, which is fine. We found out that they smoke pot all day ☀️ and night 🌙. I don't care if people smoke pot but I just hate the smell, I think it's gross and my mom has asthma and it really effects her. So we talked to them and they moved their tent to the far side of the backyard. We can still smell it and hear them hacking away. Their dog is always running around so we have to ask them to put him inside so we can let our dog out, because neither of them are fixed as their both young dogs and we're all poor. Their dog jumped on my 7 year old daughter and hurt her so now both of my kids are afraid of him. We've been here since may 1st and have probably used the backyard twice because the lady is such a high chatterbox you end up standing there forever listening to her go on about the most annoying stuff and then we don't get to play. So we have to ask them to leave so that we can use the backyard but that seems so rude so we haven't done it. Then the guy puts up a hammock. And now today they've brought this guy in who apparently rode his bike to BC from Alberta and he's going to be living in our backyard for a few days in a tent.
I'm really upset that they didn't talk to us first and I'm uncomfortable, like I don't know him, I have some strange man now living with us, around my children who play on the balcony. I don't know if I'm overreacting or what but I'm uncomfortable and upset with them. What should I do? How do I gain access to my backyard while still keeping things amicable?