Hi all, I am having trouble with a neighbor, and it has escalated dramatically in the last 24 hours.

Heres the timeline:

Late-2025 (back story leading to incident)
Neighbor initiates contact to discuss border fence replacement (fence is in state of disrepair). She insists on a solid wood 2m high fence, but we want something cheaper and simpler (eg. post and wire). She has a dog and needs a solid fence (approx $4000). We don't have a dog and are happy with a post and wire (approx $1000). Thus, our contribution towards the solid wood fence should be less than 50%, according to the fencing law.

When we politely hesitate to commit to her proposal, she launches a series of abusive, ranting emails full of vicious personal attacks and lies about our personal life, twisting previous events and discussions. At this stage she has only given us her personal estimate for the cost of her proposal, but her figure has gone from $3000 to $4000 during discussions and we are not comfortable making a commitment yet. We put our foot down and demanded a quote before the fence discussion goes any further, and she went quiet for 6 months, which is odd after she pressured us so much that the fence replacement was "urgent".

June 15, 2026 - the Escalation
After 6 months of silence, she sends an aggressive email accusing me of damaging the current fence (the one in disrepair) and stealing a piece of reo mesh. I ignore the theft accusations, and just simply ask her for the quote again in a civilized and non-personal manner. That evening is when things escalate VERY quickly.

7:18pm - I sent the email asking for the quote

8:01pm- Missed call from neighbor

8:02pm - Neighbor sends 2 abusive text messages: "Put my property back you fucking lazy cheap skate!" "I’ll be retrieving my REO asap" (showing intent to take our property)

8:08pm - Neighbor sends 3 abusive emails, including actual threats such as "you'll feel the full force of my vengeance”, "there will be consequences”, “shit will hit the fan”, "Where is my reo mesh you cheap cunt" and more.

8:30pm approx - Neighbor turns on extremely loud music outside directed at our house, which we can hear in the bedroom

8:30-9pm approx - With music blasting, neighbor patrols up and down the border fence shining a bright spotlight into our house and property. The spotlighting went on for about 30 minutes and was often pointed directly into our windows and even the second story balcony. My wife and I both felt extreme anger and anxiety, and were literally both shaking. My wife was on the verge of tears.

10:00pm - Music turned off

11:23pm - Neighbor sends another abusive email

2:12am - Neighbor sends another abusive SMS

1:00pm next day - Neighbor enters our nature strip and removes 2 pieces of reo mesh from our fence in broad daylight (on the street side, not the shared dividing fence). I quietly filmed her removing the mesh and dragging it back to her place.

1:30pm approx - My wife calls police

3:00pm approx - Police arrive, talk to neighbor first, then us (wife and myself). We each tell our stories, and let them know we have proof of everything we say (video, email, SMS). Police seem a bit unsure of who is right/wrong but say they'll look into it and take my phone number. They also advise us not to touch the dividing fence and to avoid interacting with the neighbor.

4:30pm approx - Not long after the police leave, my wife is outside and the neighbor starts shouting taunts at her eg. "what did that achieve?" "fucking gutless wonder" (slang for coward), "your husband is fucking useless" and more.

TLDR, neighbor accused me of stealing material from our dividing fence, but has no proof (claims it happened 6 months ago). She threatened to take parts of my other fence, and then just went ahead and took them! I filmed her doing it in glorious 4k - undeniable proof. Neighbor seems to believe that because I allegedly stole from her, she is legally allowed to steal from me ("full impunity" in her words)

Where do I go from here? She still has the stolen pieces of fence and I'm afraid the police won't follow up. They didn't really seem interested in seeing our evidence, but did say it might be needed in future. I have spare pieces of fence laying around, easy to fix the damage, but find it hard to accept that she could just get away with this:

• Repeated abusive communications via email and SMS (Personal attacks, threats, insults, name-calling, false accusations)

• Physical intimidation behavior (loud music and spotlight deliberately directed towards our house at night time)

• Threats of retaliation (some quotes: "you'll feel the full force of my vengeance”, "there will be consequences”, “shit will hit the fan”)

• Stated her intention, in writing, to physically remove property from my nature strip

• Theft of our property in broad daylight, all on film

Ethical tip: keep recording and sending everything she does to the police. This kind of thing takes time. Get some security cameras, you need to be recording this shit.

Unethical:

• plant your own items on her property, call the cops.
• plant drug paraphernalia, give cops probable cause for a search.
• extra unethical: lather your leg in bacon grease, flaunt it near her dog, get bitten, get dog put down.

That last one may just get their house burnt down.

I don't know where you are located, but in the States this may be grounds for a civil suit.

You may want to talk to a lawyer. Some may offer free consultation. Having someone advocate on your behalf might get you some traction.

Also, while good neighbors may mend fences together, I suggest having your neighbor build whatever fence they want on their side of the property line.

Well, yeah, its unethical. Good chance their neighbour will burn down their house anyway though.

It sounds like OP doesn't really care about what the fence is, just that they dont want to pay the full price for it. The neighbour could build whatever fence they like, they just want OP to pay for it.

The quote jumping from 3k to 4k does suggest they got a quote for 2k, and then doubled it to get OP to pay the entire amount. Which is unethical, so maybe they got advice from here :D

I don't see why OP has to pay for half the fence. When we moved in, our neighbors had a crappy fence that was falling apart. We eventually put a fence in on our side of the property line and didn't ask for anything. The neighbor eventually tore down their fence and connected with ours. While we may have lost a couple inches of land, nobody has complained once.

Depends on jurisdiction, but splitting the fence costs isnt unusual. Normally you split the lowest quote, and the neighbour who wants more pays the difference.

If you were willing to pay for it entirely you probably could have just torn down the original fence with your neighbours approval, they shouldn't object if they are getting a free fence.

Dude don’t bring the dog into this, all it did was have a shit owner.

We are in unethical life pro tips, its about as unethical as it gets.

Tbh, I'm surprised there hasn't been more down votes for that alone...

Is it wrong that part of me is thinking you should probably own a shotgun or something just in case this person literally snaps and tries to murder you? Because they seem pretty off the deep end about this.