...malicious gossip about me.? Almost 2 years ago I had a horrendous next door neighbour (let's call her Sally). Sally lived next door & I always avoided her as she was not a nice person & appeared to be a vindictive person. She did however find out which company I was working at & was so jealous of the success I'd had with my career (& finances as a result of doing well at work) that she actually contacted my employer & spread false rumours about me to the management. They were a series of bizarre things such as I have an alcohol problem & drink heavily at home (completely false, I only drink socially outside the house & never more than 2 glasses of anything & my employer could see this at company functions), that I pretended to go on holiday overseas but was actually at home (no idea why she invented this bizarre one, I showed my passport & airline ticket to my employer as proof that she was lying) & the only other one I'm aware of is that I pretended to have a boyfriend & I didn't (I did have one for a year & proof was emails in my email inbox at work which were sent from his work address). Even though I proved all these rumours to be false the neighbour told another neighbour (let's call her Betty) that I had been "caught out" with these things by my employer & that they were true & that I was fired for being viewed as mentally ill & dishonest. I was not fired, I resigned & started working elsewhere as the rumours had gone all round the company. I got great references from my bosses, but it's true the HR manager was still doubtful as I think she thought something must have been going on for my neighbour to be contacting them.
Sally has moved on but Betty still lives at another house next door & she went round the neighbourhood telling people these false rumours & telling people I'm mentally ill (or at least was & might turn that way again) & that I was fired from my job.
At the moment I'm at home studying & I know that Betty thinks I've been fired from the new job I've had for the last 2 years. She has always watched me like a hawk for signs of mental illness. As a result I keep my curtains closed on that side of the house as she's always staring over here. She watches all my movements very closely & behaves strangely & is always staring in the trunk of my car when I open it, trying to see what's in there (there's only sports equipment, what is she looking for, a dead body?!). I just ignore her as she is the sort of person that flies off the handles & yells if confronted. I got advice from my lawyer & he said as no one will admit they've heard rumours from her there is nothing I can do & there's also nothing you can do about a neighbour watching your movements all the time (the police said this too, I called them for advice). If people admitted she'd spread false rumours about me I could threaten to sue her for defamation of character, but as no one will talk to me about it I can't prove anything.
When I see Betty, lately she has been trying to be nice to me (but this is false, it's only to find out why I'm not working, etc so she can make something up & spread more gossip). How should I handle it? I can see she keeps trying to come up to me & talk to me but I just drive off in my car in a hurry to avoid her. I have to do some work outside over the next few weeks & I know she is going to come up & be all friendly. I don't want to talk to her at all & there's no point confronting her about the gossip as she will fly into a rage. How can I assertively handle the problem of not wanting to reply to her when she talks to me? What could I say? "I'm busy right now, I'd rather not talk to you"? And if she says "Why"? just say, "I have my reasons"?
What would you do?
Sally has moved on but Betty still lives at another house next door & she went round the neighbourhood telling people these false rumours & telling people I'm mentally ill (or at least was & might turn that way again) & that I was fired from my job.
At the moment I'm at home studying & I know that Betty thinks I've been fired from the new job I've had for the last 2 years. She has always watched me like a hawk for signs of mental illness. As a result I keep my curtains closed on that side of the house as she's always staring over here. She watches all my movements very closely & behaves strangely & is always staring in the trunk of my car when I open it, trying to see what's in there (there's only sports equipment, what is she looking for, a dead body?!). I just ignore her as she is the sort of person that flies off the handles & yells if confronted. I got advice from my lawyer & he said as no one will admit they've heard rumours from her there is nothing I can do & there's also nothing you can do about a neighbour watching your movements all the time (the police said this too, I called them for advice). If people admitted she'd spread false rumours about me I could threaten to sue her for defamation of character, but as no one will talk to me about it I can't prove anything.
When I see Betty, lately she has been trying to be nice to me (but this is false, it's only to find out why I'm not working, etc so she can make something up & spread more gossip). How should I handle it? I can see she keeps trying to come up to me & talk to me but I just drive off in my car in a hurry to avoid her. I have to do some work outside over the next few weeks & I know she is going to come up & be all friendly. I don't want to talk to her at all & there's no point confronting her about the gossip as she will fly into a rage. How can I assertively handle the problem of not wanting to reply to her when she talks to me? What could I say? "I'm busy right now, I'd rather not talk to you"? And if she says "Why"? just say, "I have my reasons"?
What would you do?
