Latest / It’s All Your Fault: High Conflict People / Hostile Neighbor Conflict: How to Handle Community Harassment and Stay Safe
Transcript
- Speaker 1 (00:05): Welcome to, it's All Your Fault On True Story fm, the one and only podcast dedicated to helping you with the most challenging human interactions, those involving high conflict people. I'm Megan Hunter and I'm here with my co-host Bill Eddie. Speaker 2 (00:20): Hi everybody. Speaker 1 (00:22): We are the co-founders of the High Conflict Institute and conflict influencer.com, and we focus on everything to do with high conflict and how to do things better in high conflict situations. So welcome back to the podcast, all of you faithful listeners, we're so happy to have you with us once again. Today we're going to talk about civility and bullying in the neighborhood with a listener question. And I think many people deal with this, and it doesn't have to be just in a neighborhood, it could be in an airport, it could be anywhere. So what do we do about it is the key. So here's the question from the listener. Hi, bill and Megan. Five years ago I left my spouse and bought a house on a quiet cul-de-sac, a moving day I thought my new neighbors were coming over to welcome me. Instead, when I walked up to introduce myself, they ignored me. Speaker 1 (01:21): One woman even put her hand up and said, we're busy. From there, things only got worse. Whenever I tried to make small talk, they brushed me off. I caught one couple throwing rocks at my dogs, and more than once the families and their kids would hang out in my driveway and yard like I wasn't even there. Eventually they pulled in my other neighbors too, and soon those people stopped speaking to me as well. A few months ago, all three families had a party. The kids were running around throwing rocks at my dogs again. I checked my cameras and discovered it had been happening for years plus regular trespassing. I took it to the police who told the neighbors to stop. They did, but the tension shot up. One guy even went door to door talking to people and suddenly the whole block was glaring at me. Speaker 1 (02:13): Now I'm a single mom with a 17. Now the listener wrote 17 month old, but I'm thinking 17 year olds since you've lived there several years. But regardless, surrounded by neighbors who won't speak to me, their kids all under six glare. When I come home and I worry they'll bully my son as he grows up. Maybe he is a 17 month old. To make matters worse, I've since learned two of the husbands have been to jail, one for drugs and the other for assault. I feel isolated and scared. I'm preparing to move though that will hurt my career and income is moving my only option, and if I stay, what can I do to protect myself and my son or at least keep things civil. I guess that's a good place to start. Bill, you've written the book, our New World of Adult Bullies. I think this probably fits pretty closely to what you've written about. So I have this type of questions for you. The first being, how do we balance standing up for yourself and keeping things calm when the neighbors are hostile? Because look, we're all human and we want to stand up for ourselves, and maybe some people want to take revenge and do something to retaliate, which usually lends everyone in jail or in the hospital or something. So how do you find that balance? Speaker 2 (03:35): Well, I think it's a question of looking at what are your choices that you always have choices. I encourage people to be assertive rather than aggressive and rather than passive. But when you're dealing with bullies and maybe several bullies, you really have to consider how much is trying to establish a relationship with them worth it versus how do you want to spend your next few years? And it's true, it's rare. I think of two cases where I've recommended that people move because the situation they're in was so toxic for them. And what's not surprising to me if two of the husbands have gone to jail, that you may have families that have a lot of antisocial behavior, let's put it that way. And antisocial behavior includes lying, includes pushing people away or trying to dominate them. But if she's thinking of choices, then one of the choices is trying to just disengage and live a life that doesn't include her neighbors. Speaker 2 (04:55): But it's hard because she said the neighbor kids are coming over into her property and if she can't form a connection with them, then that's still a problem. The question is, is it at a level that she can ignore or does it require more action? When you think of choices, and this is so important, it's easy to feel trapped by high conflict people. Like there's no choice here, but always look for what are your choices and especially talk to a friend about what are my choices? So you can think out loud and not feel isolated. So one of the choices is going to the police. It sounds like that didn't make a difference and often it doesn't. Police don't want to get involved in these kinds of things, but some are really good at talking to the neighbors and letting them know you can't go too far. Speaker 2 (05:55): So one of the choices is talking to police. One of the choices is ignoring it and leading a more isolated life in your neighborhood. One of the choices is moving. One of the other choices, I would say is trying to pick one of the neighbors that you think might be more accessible than the others and try to strike up a one-to-one relationship. So many times when you're dealing with a group that's hostile, dealing with one person, you can make a connection and sometimes that can get the group to kind of calm down. So that would be a fourth choice I would suggest. But if that's not possible, it's living an isolated life or living where you feel welcome and at home, just know this is not normal. This is not normal, especially it's not normal to have two husbands in jail. These families just sound like they have a lot of antisocial behavior and the kids do too. Speaker 1 (07:01): And that's kind of one of the other choices I'm thinking about is throwing rocks at dogs. And we know how people feel about dogs. People love their dogs, and most of the time children love dogs. So it's obvious that the children are learning the behaviors from the adults in their lives to throw rocks at dogs because that's just, I mean, it is bullying behavior and I suppose some kids do engage in that, but they've obviously seen it in this case. So what if one of the choices and options is to engage with the children of the neighborhood that are throwing the rocks and invite them to get to know the dog and to come feed the dog and to come to play with the dog and show them a different way and see if that has any impact. Speaker 2 (07:47): It's a great idea. Yeah, don't just reach out to one of the adults, try reaching out to the kids or one of the kids, Speaker 1 (07:56): Maybe just one even to get, I just feel like the connection that you can make with maybe one, either a child or adult, if you can find that relationship, kind of build on something that's human inside every person, can we find that spark and that connection? And maybe that could turn some things around, maybe not. As we know, these are long-term patterns that in the adults at least have been there for a long time and left unchecked people are going to behave very badly, but you never know, maybe kids can get to their parents. So we'll see. Speaker 2 (08:38): Let me add a couple thoughts here. One thing that more people are doing nowadays is finding out about their neighbors before they move, before they buy a place. There's knocking on the door. I remember I had neighbors move in several years, a nice young couple, and they wanted to meet the neighbors on each side of the house. They were thinking of buying and they bought it and they're great. But I think that's something today people need to think through a little more. People are more open about their high conflict behavior now than before COVID. And so getting into a situation like this may be somewhat avoidable, but probably not completely, because people don't necessarily show their full range of behavior until you get to know them. But it's something worth a try. The other thing is kids of parents with antisocial behavior have a higher risk of adopting that. Speaker 2 (09:45): And this is of all the personalities, antisocial personality disorder is more genetic, so that let's say there's three kids, there's a higher risk, one of them will also have this pattern of behavior. So that's why be careful when you pick which child you want to connect with. And you might get one that's going to really be like their parents, but not always. It's a tendency, it's not a given. People are wondering about can you change somebody? You can change kids with these problems, but it's really hard to change adults with these kinds of behaviors with kids. It's like if you have a child who's starting to show, some people sometimes have a spouse who they find out is antisocial and they have a child that's starting to show antisocial behavior when they're a child is when you want to get treatment for them. You can redirect kids. It's a lot harder to redirect adults. Speaker 1 (10:44): Right. Let's talk about the police getting law enforcement involved. It sounds like they were helpful in the beginning, but then how often can you go back to them before the police get frustrated and discouraged? I mean, is it always up to law enforcement to decide what to do? Are they going to not know who to believe? And then what's the next step? Do you have to wait on law enforcement in order to get into the courts to maybe file something or can you do that on your own? Not that we're giving legal advice. Speaker 2 (11:22): Right. Well, actually I think the thing is law enforcement's one place to go. There's a wide range of officer response to neighbor disputes because some of them are dealing with murder cases, drug dealing, stuff like that. And neighbor, neighbor squabble is super low priority. For others, they feel like, let's catch it now before it becomes a big issue. So it really depends on who the specific officer is, but there's also another place to go and just talk to a lawyer, find out from a lawyer what your options are. There may be some legal involvement. And I know of one neighbors dealing with a difficult high conflict neighbor. There was a neighbor that was remodeling his house and had fences up, but had materials laying around and stopped working on it. He was doing all the work, and he basically stopped working on it for six months and the kids would play, they could get into the yard and this and that, and there's wood and nails and glass and things just all spread around. Speaker 2 (12:40): And so a couple neighbors talked to him and he said, oh, yeah, yeah, I'll get to it. They never did. He just said he'd get to it. So what they ended up doing is there was several neighbors. It really was a blight on the neighborhood. And so several of the neighbors, I think it might've been, oh, how many was it? I think it was there was like 10 neighbors got together and sued the guy in small claims court, each of them for $5,000. So I think it was like a $50,000 thing because small claims has a limit. And what they did is they sued him in small claims court and then they went into mediation and he was, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, tell you what, I'll sell the property. And so I go, oh, what a relief. He's going to sell the property next six months, no for sale, sign this, that, and the other thing. And they find out that he sold it to his girlfriend. Speaker 1 (13:48): Of course he did, Speaker 2 (13:50): And she didn't deal with it. They were living together, so nothing changed. And so they eventually negotiated a deal where if he didn't move, basically in a period of time that there'd be a forced sale of the house. And in other words, he had to sell it or the court was going to require the sale of the house. And he ended up eventually moving. But the point here is the neighbors got together and that's what it took. But it also was one person that 10 people, 10 neighbors dealing with one high conflict person. It's harder if one person's dealing with several high conflict neighbors. Speaker 1 (14:39): Yeah, that's really tricky. And my heart goes out to this person because it must feel very isolating and letting your son even go out must feel a little dangerous and scary. So maybe moving will be one of those options that's considered, because what I'm thinking is if you stay in the neighborhood and you decide to nut it out, and I'm just going to stay strong and just do my thing, go to work every day, take care of my child, but what happens then if you do stay there and you try to reach out to the neighbor's child, say about connecting with the dog, connecting with the child over the dog, come over and feed the dog. Well that makes then his or her parents angry. And if what we know about high conflict personalities is it comes along with vindictiveness and domineering this and it's the vindictiveness that I think is so concerning. So let's say you even go to court and when have some small victory, what's the repercussion going to be? It's not like 90% of other people who would say, okay, I'm not going to do that bad thing again. This may really ramp it up. What do you think about that? I mean, there's only so many consequences you can impose when you're the neighbor. Speaker 2 (16:07): And the trouble is with high conflict people, when you set limits and enforce them in one area, they just run over to another area. And I can see them making it real uncomfortable, playing loud speakers real loud. I've seen cases like this shining bright lights from their homes, but aimed at the other person's home ways that people really intimidate. Speaker 1 (16:35): I heard of one recently that there's a fence that is between the neighbors, but it's completely on one neighbor's property. And so they had complete control over it, so they wrote terrible, nasty messages on the side of the fence that the neighbor could see Speaker 2 (16:51): On the fence. Speaker 1 (16:52): Yeah, it was really of offensive things. Speaker 2 (16:55): Offensive, did you say? Speaker 1 (16:58): Yes, Speaker 2 (16:58): Yes. Shocking. Ironically offensive. But yeah, that's the kind of thing some people do. I've had people with video cameras videotaping what goes on in their neighbor's house and yard, really intimidating behavior. And then some of these examples people have moved. There's some pretty bad behavior poisoning the neighbor's dog. There's a lot of examples, but they're very rare. You pointed out, Megan, that 90% of people don't act this way. 90% of people want good neighbor relations If they bring brownies or cookies over, welcome to the neighborhood. That's the kind of thing that 90% of people want is to get along. Speaker 1 (17:48): And it's fascinating, this 90 10 split, which of course is kind of an estimate, but it seems to hold pretty true. Yesterday I was at the Charlie Kirk Memorial, and this isn't about politics or religion or anything like that, but I was just there and it was a long, long, long line waiting to get in. You didn't purchase tickets in advance. It was just first come, first serve 90,000 people Speaker 2 (18:16): And you're in Arizona where it was. Yeah, Speaker 1 (18:18): It was hot. Yeah, I live here and it was nearby. So yeah, even though it was early in the morning, it's still hot. And I walked two miles along with 90,000 other people and we're all in this line together. And surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, 90% of people were fine without a lot of instruction or guidance. Everyone was just following the rules. And it's like there are people who are going to cut and there are people get out of order in line and in terms of getting in front of someone else and that kind of thing, and events like this, it's a great opportunity to see how other people behave and see where high conflict is going to, where's that high conflict going to pop up? And finally, it did very near to me, and it was a woman and her husband and the woman thought she was the school room lunchroom monitor, and she didn't want anyone getting out of order in line. Speaker 1 (19:17): So if someone seemed to be coming around the side or was getting in front or that she would talk to them, she would confront them about it. And at first it was assertive, and then it got a little bit more aggressive as time went on. And then she started bringing those around her, which I was part of that area into it to be her negative advocate. And a lot of people had shirts with the word freedom on it. And I made a joke that, well, maybe some people see that word freedom and think they can do whatever they want Speaker 1 (19:49): And just making light of things. So now here we are maybe an hour later and we're a little bit closer to the stadium, and I noticed she's no longer behind me. She's in front of me. No big deal. That's just how these lines work with 90,000 people. Oh, well, but she got after someone else and the man didn't like it, and he's like, knock it off. No, I'm not. Back off, lady. I didn't hear the words, but it was something to that effect. So the woman's husband hops out of lying and yells as loudly as he can, police, police, police. So in their minds, they didn't create this problem in their minds, this was a crisis that required police intervention. And there happened to be a policeman standing right there. And I tell you what, he settled in it so quickly Speaker 1 (20:39): And pulled them out of line, and now they wanted in to get a seat so badly and now they might risk not getting a seat. And that's kind of the whole thing with the high conflict brain. It's like fight, fight, fight. And like you always say, bill not connecting the dots. The dots back to the consequences and that it's them. And she'd said to me earlier in line that See that person, he didn't listen to me. And there is such a thing as karma when it came to who risked losing their seat, it was her. She really didn't see it. She just wanted to fight. So it could be Speaker 2 (21:22): Interesting, Speaker 1 (21:23): It could be anywhere and high conflict, it shows itself so readily and especially in airports and events. Speaker 2 (21:30): Yeah, well, I really believe that the 10%, sometimes I say five to 10% of people seem to be high conflict, but what's fascinating from a distance is that people really aren't aware of their own behavior. Like you said, aware of how people are reacting to their behavior. They don't connect the dots back so they feel like a victim in life. Hey, people keep picking on me. I don't know what it's about, but people pick on me a lot and they really honestly can't connect the dots to people. Relationships and interactions tend to be fairly reciprocal. In fact, there's the principle of reciprocity, which is part of what you get is based on what you put out. And I'd say 80 to 90% of people say, what did I do to have this problem? But 10% go, I didn't do anything. So who was it that caused this problem? It's got to be somebody out there. And it's really, I think it's almost like a brain wiring. Someday this is going to get figured out. They cannot look at themselves. And so they often create the problem they're trying to solve. Speaker 1 (22:50): Right. So wrapping this up, let's talk about one of the most important things, which is this person's son, if he is 17 months old, he has a long time to live in that neighborhood if she chooses to stay the parent. So what can she do to prepare her son as he grows to handle potential bullying in the neighborhood? I mean, that's isolating as an adult, but when you're a kid, and let's say the other kids either won't play with this young man ever, or maybe they pick on him and bully him. Speaker 2 (23:27): I like teaching the four big skills that we teach in all the new ways, methods, and really teaching kids, starting probably around age three is remember we're learning to manage our emotions. We're learning to do words instead of hitting our sister with a, you learn to say, what is it you want? Or you can say, I'm angry. Or you can say, I'm hungry. Try to use words. And we use flexible thinking. You can choose to act this way or choose to act that way. Yelling in the house is a choice. You can choose to yell in the house or choose to not yell in the house, but there's a consequence for yelling in the house. And so I think those discussions early starting three and four years old can be really helpful to kids. So then they manage, they realize other people are using extreme behavior and we like to use moderate behavior. Speaker 2 (24:28): I would think she'd probably need to talk maybe that her son wants to go out and play with a child who's a little bigger than him and who seems to be part of this negative culture is to say you have a choice to play with him or not. You could see how it goes, but it may be you choose to play with somebody else. Also at school, people make friends and realize, Hey, my neighbors aren't so cool, but my friend down the street, I'm going to go hang out with him or her and have a good time. I think just a parent that's open and talks about stuff like this, just it's okay. And that you have choices, I think comes back teaching the child you have choices, who your friends are and who to steer clear of. Speaker 1 (25:20): And then modeling those four big skills in front of our children always because they're going to do what we do or else they're going to hate what we do. So vehemently, so embarrassed that they never do that thing, but a lot of times I think they think it's okay if mom is yelling at the neighbor or screaming obscenities or doing something to get even. Right. Those things just don't work. It's not good to model those for our kids. Speaker 2 (25:51): Yeah, I'm thinking we should say actually all four, I talked about flexible thinking, managed emotions, moderate behavior, and checking yourself, what's my part in this? And am I managing my emotions, behavior and thinking? So those are the four big skills I want to make sure people know. And if you want to get more about that, we've got lots of programs for you, Speaker 1 (26:16): Got a lot of stuff, got a lot of stuff in things, and you'll be proud, bill. I did think of those things yesterday standing in that line because listen, when it's Arizona hot and there's 90,000 people and you're tired. And what I noticed is there was we all wanted to get inside and get a seat and we didn't know if we would. So I think that kind of builds this sort of, not hysteria, that's a really big word, but it was a motivating force not having an assigned seat and am I going to have to go to the overflow? Am I not going to get in at all? That kind of thing. So I think that was on everyone's mind, and I just kept reminding myself it's like, it's no big deal. I get in, it's fine. If I don't, it's fine. And that's called checking yourself. That's all you Speaker 2 (27:06): Have to do. Exactly. Speaker 1 (27:07): And I saw that for really the majority of people, it was really impressive. 90,000, however many people there were that without usually an event that big, like a pro football game or something, you're going to have a lot of security, a lot of event management staff. And there was of course security and secret service and everything, but as far as management staff to shepherd people around, they didn't have a lot. So it was pretty impressive. But yes, that high conflict will show itself, and I'm learning that more and more Speaker 2 (27:44): Anywhere. One thing I was thinking when you were talking was traffic that people have that there's some people in traffic are going to be really difficult and rude and try to get ahead and hand gestures and all that stuff. And 90% of people are like, Hey, we're just on the road, let's get along. There's no point to be made. But high conflict, people often feel like they have to make a point, and when they make their point, it makes them look kind of ridiculous. Speaker 1 (28:16): Okay. Now you've raised a memory from long ago. When I was in high school, bill, I was with a guy that I was dating and I was probably 16 or 17 years old, probably 17. And we were in Wyoming. So middle of nowhere, long stretches of highway almost. You see one car per hour or two cars or something. We're just driving along. It's a Sunday afternoon, beautiful day, and a pickup truck full of guys went around us, past us. It was a two-lane highway and they were hauling a horse trailer or something. But one of the, as they went past us going around us, the guy on the passenger side put his butt up to the window, pulled his pants down and mooned us. If you're from other countries and you don't know that terminology, it just means he was showing his backside to us. So for me, it was a laugh for the guy I was dating, like you said, bill, it was just, ooh, fight and the fight's on took Speaker 2 (29:15): It personally. Speaker 1 (29:17): Took it personally. So he then hit the gas and he decided he wasn't going to let them pass us. So now we're going along the road and he's kind of trying to shove them off the road a little bit. Well, guess what? The guy pulled out a pistol. Oh yeah. I come from small town Nebraska. Speaker 2 (29:34): That's quick explanation, Speaker 1 (29:35): Very quick. I mean, it's middle of nowhere, so it doesn't take a crowd of 90,000. You be in the middle of nowhere with one other person, but now there's a pistol involved. So I'll tell you the rest of the story, how it ended. This is kind of fascinating. So my guy I'm dating, he decides, alright, we're going to go really fast and get out of here. And he had a really hot car, so he just hit the gas and there's no way they could keep up with us. So he's like, let's just go as fast as we can. And that way if a highway patrolman is along the way, he'll pull us over and we can tell him what's going on and he'll catch him. Well, we come up behind a car finally, and it turns out it's one of his friends and he also has a hot car. We go around him really fast. So he thinks we want to race now. We've got to race. We're both going really fast. And there's a highway patrolman. He pulls over the friend, we're still going along. Speaker 2 (30:34): Oh my goodness. Speaker 1 (30:35): And this was before cell phones, right? So we pulled over with them and we explained to the highway patrolman what was going on. So they called ahead set up a roadblock with sheriff's department and all kinds of law enforcement, and we pulled in and they found the pickup truck full of guys pulled up. The police were talking to them, and this was in the eighties, so it was not quite as intense, I guess, as it would be now. It would've probably been an automatic arrest at this point, but the guy had to come over and apologize to me was the outcome. And that was the only consequence that he got. My boyfriend got zero consequences and his friend got a really big speeding ticket. Speaker 2 (31:17): Oh wow. It's a good example of high conflict behavior, getting more high conflict behavior, especially you get two high conflict people together. They can't restrain themselves and escalate. What's interesting to me is that the other friend got caught up in it and had the biggest penalty. Speaker 1 (31:37): I know it Speaker 2 (31:38): Was really Speaker 1 (31:39): Tragic. Speaker 2 (31:39): It's kind of a lesson when high conflict people are escalating against each other, don't take sides, try to not get too involved, Speaker 1 (31:49): Even though he didn't know anything about it, but he was breaking the law. I mean, we were going over a hundred miles an hour. Speaker 2 (31:55): Speeding. Speaker 1 (31:56): Speeding. So he got caught, and I guess that's his consequence because he did break the law, but we were also breaking the law. But anyway, that was interesting. That came to mind, but Speaker 2 (32:08): There's a lot of lessons in there I think. But the main thing is high conflict behavior can escalate and that trying to dominate someone that's trying to dominate you usually doesn't make it better. It's better to try to either disengage or to connect at a calm level and say, I mean, that wasn't a conversation, but Speaker 1 (32:33): We could have let it go. I mean, there's a let it go piece about high conflict and I think people forget that. It's like we don't to set limits on everything. Sometimes we just got to let it go because they're going to present you with the worst behavior and it's fight behavior and it makes you want to fight, but just let it go because it's not about you let it go. Speaker 2 (32:54): That's the key, what you just said. And I would encourage everybody listening if they don't already have a phrase to help them let things go. That's my favorite phrase is it's not about me. Speaker 1 (33:06): It's not about me. Speaker 2 (33:07): Even if they're pointing their finger at me, it's their problem, their behavior that stands out, and I don't have to it personally. I don't even have to respond to it. Speaker 1 (33:16): That is truly the most freeing thing you can do. Yes. There's so much freedom in that. It's a beautiful place to get to. You just live a whole different life. The anger goes away, the need to want to fight or to retreat in fear, and it's just gone. Speaker 2 (33:35): It's Speaker 1 (33:36): Not about me. I can let it go. I can let it go, and that's what should have happened. The other piece of wisdom in this is don't date that guy again. Speaker 2 (33:45): Yeah. Speaker 1 (33:47): So anyway. Well thank you Bill and thank you listeners. It's always great having you along and thank you for sending in the questions. We love them. It gives us so much good stuff to talk about. We'll put a few links for our books in the show notes and the Conflict Influencer class. We got our new Ways trainings. We have a lot coming up here in the next few months. These are trainings that Bill teaches and we have a couple other one, other teacher, new Ways for Work, new Ways for Mediation, new Ways for Families in Divorce and Separation. So we'll put all that in there. Speaker 1 (34:25): If you're looking for training or consultation about a high conflict situation or you have one of these situations in your personal life, come see us@highconflictinstitute.com or conflict influencer.com. Keep learning and practicing the skills. Be kind to yourself and others while we try to keep the conflict small and find the missing piece. It's All Your Fault is a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson. Music by Wolf Samuels, John Coggins and Ziv Moran. Find the show notes and transcripts at True Story fm for high conflict institute.com/podcast. If your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.