fiveleafclover21
New User
Hi all, I don't usually post here but I am feeling really worried about this and hoping someone can offer some advice.
I run a small yard where our main focus is rehabilitation and schooling livery. I bought the yard last year, it was part of a bigger property at the time so we share a couple of boundaries with a neighbour. She was very friendly when we moved in, and often came to the yard for a cup of tea and look round, and everything seemed fine. She would sometimes turn up unannounced but as she lives so close we couldn't really stop her.
However, a few months ago she suffered a marriage breakdown, and since then her mental health seems to have really deteriorated, and her behaviour has become quite worrying. She started coming onto the yard at all hours and we'd often find things in the morning that had been moved from where we left them at evening stables. She started shouting at the staff who come in to do the morning shift (around 7am) that they were making too much noise, so I did ask them to make extra sure they were quiet and had no music on etc. Her house is about 500m from the stables so not too close for normal yard noise. She even sent some complaints to the council about noise, who did come to visit us but advised that we were doing nothing wrong.
In the end we found her on the yard very late at night with some scary-looking camera equipment, and so we confronted her. She was very aggressive and we just asked her to leave as we we so scared for ourselves and the horses. Although she's quite elderly she is quite a large woman and so can be physically very intimidating at times. Since then things have gone from bad to worse and she's making our lives unbearable. Recently, we were trying to install a fence in one of our paddocks and she actually came and sat under the machinery to try to stop us! She became so aggressive this time that we had to call the police as she was threatening us. They were very sympathetic and did remove her back to her own property on this occasion but they can't be there all the time and we really don't want to waste their time at the moment. She's repeatedly tried to block the machinery (we're having some yard work done) and has even tried to climb into the cab with some of the work men to stop them! We thought perhaps she was just lonely but they are now feeling really threatened and don't want to come onto the yard anymore. I've invested my life savings into this yard so really can't afford any delays.
We have set up some CCTV on our shared gateway, and there are a lot of comings and goings to her house late at night, so on top of everything else we are worried about the risk of Covid as she keeps coming onto our property uninvited.
We've put up with all of this, but today she parked her car next to our arena (it's close to the land boundary) and started beeping her horn and shouting at the girls while they were riding. As you can imagine this caused absolute chaos in the arena and now the girls don't feel safe riding when she is about (which is most of the time as she is unemployed).
Sorry it's so long! Does anyone have any advice about what we could do? We'd like to make the yard more secure but it's a big area to cover and most of the boundary is just normal post and rail, so it's going to be impossible to block her access completely. I don't want to get her into trouble as she genuinely just seems really unbalanced at the moment. She doesn't have any family so we haven't been able to check with anyone if she needs help. I'm hoping someone may have experienced something like this before and know who we can turn to?
I run a small yard where our main focus is rehabilitation and schooling livery. I bought the yard last year, it was part of a bigger property at the time so we share a couple of boundaries with a neighbour. She was very friendly when we moved in, and often came to the yard for a cup of tea and look round, and everything seemed fine. She would sometimes turn up unannounced but as she lives so close we couldn't really stop her.
However, a few months ago she suffered a marriage breakdown, and since then her mental health seems to have really deteriorated, and her behaviour has become quite worrying. She started coming onto the yard at all hours and we'd often find things in the morning that had been moved from where we left them at evening stables. She started shouting at the staff who come in to do the morning shift (around 7am) that they were making too much noise, so I did ask them to make extra sure they were quiet and had no music on etc. Her house is about 500m from the stables so not too close for normal yard noise. She even sent some complaints to the council about noise, who did come to visit us but advised that we were doing nothing wrong.
In the end we found her on the yard very late at night with some scary-looking camera equipment, and so we confronted her. She was very aggressive and we just asked her to leave as we we so scared for ourselves and the horses. Although she's quite elderly she is quite a large woman and so can be physically very intimidating at times. Since then things have gone from bad to worse and she's making our lives unbearable. Recently, we were trying to install a fence in one of our paddocks and she actually came and sat under the machinery to try to stop us! She became so aggressive this time that we had to call the police as she was threatening us. They were very sympathetic and did remove her back to her own property on this occasion but they can't be there all the time and we really don't want to waste their time at the moment. She's repeatedly tried to block the machinery (we're having some yard work done) and has even tried to climb into the cab with some of the work men to stop them! We thought perhaps she was just lonely but they are now feeling really threatened and don't want to come onto the yard anymore. I've invested my life savings into this yard so really can't afford any delays.
We have set up some CCTV on our shared gateway, and there are a lot of comings and goings to her house late at night, so on top of everything else we are worried about the risk of Covid as she keeps coming onto our property uninvited.
We've put up with all of this, but today she parked her car next to our arena (it's close to the land boundary) and started beeping her horn and shouting at the girls while they were riding. As you can imagine this caused absolute chaos in the arena and now the girls don't feel safe riding when she is about (which is most of the time as she is unemployed).
Sorry it's so long! Does anyone have any advice about what we could do? We'd like to make the yard more secure but it's a big area to cover and most of the boundary is just normal post and rail, so it's going to be impossible to block her access completely. I don't want to get her into trouble as she genuinely just seems really unbalanced at the moment. She doesn't have any family so we haven't been able to check with anyone if she needs help. I'm hoping someone may have experienced something like this before and know who we can turn to?
