‘My neighbour threatened to send my son a huge bill – he hasn’t done anything wrong’

A woman online has voiced her disbelief after her elderly neighbour has accused her son of breaking a photo frame with excessive ‘banging’ – despite no one being home at the time

A woman’s accusation that the next door neighbour’s excessive “banging” has knocked down a photo frame has taken neighbourly quarrels to a new extreme. A mum was left mortified after receiving an aggressive note from her neighbour that accused her son of breaking her beloved photo frame by knocking it to the floor from his own home.

Whilst the parent would be prepared to happily admit to the mistake, she detailed that none of the family were home at the time of the incident – and so it couldn’t possibly be them. She took to Mumsnet to rant about the ordeal, explaining that the woman is insisting that her son, 20, “foots the bill” and is demanding payment for the damages.

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She titled the post: “My neighbour is asking me to ‘cough up’!

“Earlier this month I took the children to the beach for the day,” she explained.

“When I arrived home there was a letter from the next-door neighbour (elderly lady, lives alone) saying that all the banging from my house had caused a picture to fall off the wall, and she expected a contribution to the cost of having it reframed.”

The mum – who was clearly confused by the ordeal – popped over to next door to seek clarification and achieve further detail.

She continued: “She said that it had happened at around 9:30pm the evening before and claims that there was horrendous banging coming from my house, I explained that my 20-year-old son sleeps in the room adjoining her house and that he wasn’t home until gone 11:30pm and went straight to bed, therefore, he couldn’t have been banging anything.

“The wall between the two houses is also solid brick so I can’t see how she would hear any noise that couldn’t be heard from inside my own house, let alone cause such a vibration that it caused a picture to fly off the wall.”

Once the mum had a chat with her neighbour, she thought that the “matter was dealt with”, so she was understandably shocked when the lady returned and told her son that he “has a big bill coming his way”.

“I asked what for? And she said about the picture (no longer asking for a contribution, wants my son to foot the whole bill),” she continued.

“I explained again that no one was in the room, so we cannot be responsible for her picture falling – and her response was ‘so, you’re not going to cough up?’.

“I stayed polite and sympathised that her picture was broken, but firmly let her know we would not be paying anything.

“She’s now saying she’ll get her family involved, which is fine, I will explain the same to them (if no one was there, how could they be banging!)

“We are new to a small village and I fear this could escalate quickly into us being the scum of the village. Am I being unreasonable to think it’s unfair for us to take the blame?” She questioned.

Taking their thoughts to the comment section, several users on Mumsnet expressed the possibility that the old woman could be suffering health problems that cause her to become confused.

However, one user quickly came to the woman’s defence, insisting that her age shouldn’t change the matter.

One user wrote: “Just because she’s old, it doesn’t mean she’s doolally! I mean, it seems unlikely she’d make the whole thing up.”

A second suggested: “Maybe worth writing a polite letter back, confirming your original discussion (including the timings she mentioned! Together with your explanation that your son was at work etc).

“Never hurts to have a paper trail! Keep a copy for yourself.

The mum wrote: “I’m not suggesting for a second that the picture didn’t fall down, I know it broke as another neighbour cleared it all up for her.

“I’m simply not prepared to let my son take responsibility when he wasn’t even home. There’s 100 reasons why it could have fallen.”

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