Entitled to privacy?

Cafe Go has its charm

We rented a cute house in a beautiful neighborhood a year ago. The only reason it’s in our price range is that it’s never been updated, really. Everything works but isn’t what you would call modern or attractive. I love it, though.

There is a bungalow behind the garage that’s rented to my landlady’s nephew. He’s the best neighbor ever – absolutely silent and you hardly ever see him. He never uses the yard, but we’re the ones taking care of it, anyway. In fact, I’m itching to get out there and apply my spring organic fertilizer and start working on this sad lawn. I just spent an hour weeding the front beds, getting sunburned. I love it.

That little bungalow, way back there

Up until a couple of months ago, it was like renting a single family home. But our neighbor has someone “staying with him” now. She is young (early 20s?) and smokes cigarettes. She doesn’t have a car and doesn’t appear to work. Her boyfriend and other friends are here during the day and at odd hours at night, shining their headlights through our windows. They throw cigarette butts all over the driveway. They stare at me through my windows and park in my spot.

Aside from feeling disproportionate rage when cigarette smoke wafted in through my open windows, I can’t say they have done anything that would harm my family. But I suddenly feel like I live in an apartment complex again. I’ve spoken with my landlady about it but I’m not sure she’s going to do anything about it even though she sympathized.

They are making my neighbors uneasy, too. My next door neighbor said the local children feel uncomfortable with them hanging around outside and one even said that the young woman and her boyfriend tried to enter her house while she was home alone. It’s hard to say whether that’s true, since it was witnessed only by a 12 year old girl and I heard it third hand.

I feel like I lost the privacy I am entitled to. Aside from putting up a “No Trespassing” sign and making a point to be outside more often now that I’m home during the day, I’m not sure there’s anything I can do but wait for the real tenant to kick her out eventually.

Am I wrong to feel cheated?