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Our neighbour's poo!

And, no, we don't just mean he's rubbish...!


Published by: Laura Hinton & Jennifer Tippet
Published on: 19th May 2011

How well do we really know our neighbours? Me and my hubby Rodney, 68, had lived in the same street for 44 years and knew everyone to say hello to. Of course, there were some I knew less than others.
Take Leslie Collins, who lived a couple of doors down.We’d never said more than two words, despite being my neighbour since we’d moved in. But now, I was thinking of going over, introducing myself properly, and seeing how he was doing.
He and his wife had split 25 years ago, and he must’ve been having a hard time since then. What he needed were friends, family, and
good neighbours.
Ooh, there he was, in his garden, hacking away at a pile of wood. I gave him a cheery wave.
Walking back inside, I started flicking through a magazine but, after 10 minutes, I felt uneasy and looked up – someone was spying on me! I saw a pair of binoculars pressed up against the window.
The second they saw they’d been spotted, they darted off. Heart thumping, I peered out from behind a curtain. ‘L-Leslie?!’ I stammered.
My neighbour was now standing at the end of his drive, swinging some binoculars around. He had a black stocking pulled down over his head, and was grinning at me!
Sticking out his tongue, he suddenly ran back inside his house.
What on earth?
I told Rodney that night. ‘He’s probably going through a bad patch,’ he soothed.
‘That’s not an excuse,’ I huffed. ‘I was considering popping round, but not now. I don’t think I want to get to know him any better!’
For the rest of the week I avoided Leslie, until me and Rodney were woken in the middle of the night.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
‘It’s Leslie,’ Rodney grumbled, peering out of the window. ‘He keeps smashing his dustbin lid on the ground.’
Scuttling over, I had a look. ‘He’s wearing that stocking mask again!’ I gasped. ‘Why’s he trying to scare us? Because I waved to him?!’
Leslie was quiet for the rest of the night, but soon we were being woken a couple of times a week by him hacking at wood, throwing nails, or screaming out.
For months we put up with it, as we didn’t want to make it even worse. After another sleepless night, though, Rodney decided to have a gentle word.
‘If I talk to him, he might see reason,’ he sighed. But Leslie just hurled abuse at him. So we decided to ignore him, in the hope his weird behaviour would blow over.
To take my mind off things, I pottered around the front garden one day. Bending down to prune the roses, something squished under my foot. A disgusting stink wafted up.
Eurgh, no! I’d trodden in some poo! Where had it come from, we’d no pets…? Then it dawned on me. It looked like human poo. Wrinkling my nose, I looked and saw nails and wood splinters in it. In fact, there was a trail of them, leading to the fence.
And who was leaning on it, cackling away? Leslie!
Choking back tears, I ran inside.
On top of everything else, he was now throwing his poo over the fence. I couldn’t take any more, and I called the police.
‘There’s nothing we can do at the moment,’ an officer told me. ‘Keep a note of everything he does, and you might have a case.’
So that’s what we did, and we roped in the neighbours because he’d started dumping excrement in their gardens, too.
‘If we stick together, note everything down, we’ll get rid of him,’ I told them.
And there was plenty to write about. I constantly heard Leslie’s binoculars tapping on the windows, or found nails, poo and rubbish in my garden.
Then, when I went to clear it up, I’d see Leslie in the stocking mask, popping his head over the fence.
Life couldn’t get worse, I thought – until my nutty neighbour started following me about.
The first time, I was in Aldi. He suddenly came up from behind and stuck his tongue out. ‘You’re a fat cow!’ he barked.
I ran, abandoning my shopping.
Five months passed, a year, six years – but his harassment never stopped, and I was put on anti-depressants by my doctor.
One sunny afternoon, I couldn’t take any more. ‘We can’t even have our grandkids round,’ I cried to Rodney. ‘Not when Leslie’s flinging poo around all the time.’
‘I know, love, I know,’ he sighed, putting his arm around me.
‘We can’t sit out in the garden, wash our car, or spend a second outside without him tormenting us!’ I added. ‘This is our home, but I feel like a prisoner.’
‘We could move,’ Rodney suggested. I shook my head.
‘I couldn’t live with the guilt of knowing someone else would have to put up with him.’
We lodged another complaint, and the police agreed there was now enough evidence to act.
This February, Hinckley Magistrates’ Court handed Leslie Collins, 65, an ASBO after he admitted a charge of harassment.
The ASBO forbids him from throwing things like faeces into other gardens and driveways, and bans him from covering his face up outdoors. If he breaks the ASBO, he could be jailed.
So how well do I know my neighbours now? Well enough to realise there’s some I’d rather not know!
Margaret Walne, 65, Whitwick, Leicestershire