Say you had a neighbour you hated and they had bullied you in the past and recent past, you had a long history of run-ins and you decided to booby trap their house because you couldn’t trust them. The neighbour you hate goes to the police because they see you booby-trapping their house and tell them they feel threatened by your actions. The police don’t like the neighbour either and ignore them. This goes on for years and finally, the neighbour you hate sees you and punches you in the face. Everyone on the street hates the neighbour as well and says how could he punch you in the face, what a brute etc.

Even if you hate someone and they did things to you in the past and even in the recent past you can’t just think you can make them feel threatened even if they are the worst person in the world. If they punch you in the face and you know they are that way inclined why booby trap their house? A lot of people feel justified by history old and new to make assumptions and at the end of the day, those assumptions can be justified but don’t think that if you poke this potential hornet’s nest you won’t get stung. If you are a long term victim of a nasty neighbour, don’t provoke them.

Let the demons sleep, as they say, don’t wake them up with a lot of hustle and bustle, this isn’t victim blaming either, it is just common sense. Nobody wants the good neighbour to get punched in the face or set upon and the neighbour nobody likes did try and go to the police and settle the issue but nobody likes them. They still have a voice and have to be listened to regardless of their history. Anyone who reads my blog knows that I know some people who have ended up on the wrong side of the tracks, the police will never listen to them, people feel justified to shun them. 

They are still people with genuine concerns no matter what their history or what they have done in the past. Yet people want any justification to ignore them and dislike them. Doing something aggressive in turn is not justified but some poeple feel like they have no other voice that will be heard. So the cycle continues big and small.