I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW…( the rain has gone!)

Day 3… still feeling unsettled after the move, I decided to go up to Bude to see one of ‘the girls’ for a chat & a coffee.
I talked about seeing Melissa in her car driving past me out of my road the day before the move & how uncomfortable it had made me feel. I also told her about how Trisha & Pete both said neither of them had really wanted to move on the morning of the exchange & that they’d both said they were pushed into it. My friend said it was a bit wierd too & asked why they would say it…
I couldn’t think of any reason, as they were the ones who were ringing Me every day saying “Just calling to make sure you haven’t changed your mind about the move?”… so much so that it started to irritate me! Even right up to the day before the move, which is why I drove over to reassure them & had been put on edge by Melissa driving past me at the end of the road.
We finished our tea & said we’d catch up during the holidays & hugged. It was nice to be out of Port Is It, but seeing Melissa in B———— the day before the move was making me feel more & more uneasy. She had Never, Ever smiled at me. Not even before we fell out over her son David & his constant screaming rages back in October 2016.
I tried to put it out of my mind & drove back to the house to do some more unpacking.

That evening, as I sat down to put the tv on to watch the news with my dinner, I heard movement in the empty house next door & turned down the volume to listen….nothing….so I turned the sound back up. I took a mouthful of food & then there it was….Lyle’s laugh. It sent cold shivers up my spine as dread filled me inside. My plate went down on the table & the volume went back down to zero as I tried to tell myself it couldn’t possibly be him…
There it was again, followed by Melissas’ voice. “Oh my god” I thought as my heart sank to my feet. It couldn’t possibly be them. I jumped up & looked out of the back door towards the empty house’s garden….nothing. I looked out of the front room window & again, nothing. I couldn’t see Melissa’s car anywhere & so sat down again & just as I was about to turn the tv volume back up there it was again, only this time Lyle’s laughter was followed with a characteristic “Fuck her” from Melissa & it became all too clear why she had laughed so heartily as she drove past me the day before the move…
That night was awful…I didn’t hear them again, but I had a hard time relaxing & didn’t sleep well at all.

The next day I drove down into the main village to the local Spar shop to grab some essentials & introduced myself to the lady behind the counter & told her I had just exchanged with Trisha & Pete from number 26 blah blah blah(street name omitted for legal purposes) & asked if she knew Melissa my ex neighbour from Port Is It… to my horror she told me “Yes, I know her. I know her children too & her ex husband Wesley, have done for years, her family own a house in your street, the whole village knows her”. The lady kept talking, but I didn’t hear a word, I just nodded & smiled.

You cannot possibly imagine the absolute desolation that filled every fibre of my being. It took all my might not to burst into uncontrollable floods of tears as I smiled, speechless & picked up my shopping to leave.
As I drove back up the hill my entire world crashed before me. I couldn’t believe it. I had spent over 2 years praying for the day to come when I would be free of Melissa & her obsessional hatred of me & instead of escaping her I now found I had moved into the house next door to her aunt & uncles house! The empty house, as Trisha & Pete kept calling it before I moved there.

Why would they have lied about it. Why did they say they didn’t know Melissa. Everyone in the village knew her, according to the lady in the shop. AND her aunt & uncle next door to me… they had lived there for years she’d said. I simply couldn’t believe it.
Out of all the people on the homeswapper site to exchange with, I had been contacted by a couple who lived next door to Melissa’s bloody family. The nightmare neighbours were even better placed to harass me now as I no longer lived next door to them…

The more I thought about it, the more it became clear that Trisha & Pete Must have known all along who I was talking about each time I visited to reassure them I wasn’t changing my mind about the move. Trisha rang every day to make sure of it!
I just thought it was part of the mental health issues she had spent so much time telling me about. Pete had said how he was her carer & how he was on his third strike & if he ever got arrested for anything it would mean him doing a long stretch in prison.
I never gave it much thought at the time, but now their wierd conversational topics began to make sense…

I decided to give my friend Paul a ring, one of my old neighbours before I moved to Port Is It, to see if I could pop down for a chat about it all. He was always a sensible listening ear & knew all about the hellish time I’d had since falling out with Melissa in October 2016.
He’d kept telling me to move back down there, where I had been happy for 13 years… God how I wished I had.

It was a solemn drive down to see him & would be an even darker drive back to B———— (name omitted for legal purposes).
After spending a couple of hours talking it all through & trying to make sense of it, we both came to the same conclusion… It wasn’t an accident that I had been contacted by Trisha & Pete on the home exchange site & that they pestered me daily to make sure I wasn’t going to change my mind… why else were they both so wierd on removal day? Why else would Pete have started going on about being on his third strike & being worried about going to prison?… Why else would Melissa have given me that broad grin then rolled her head back to laugh as we drove past each other that day before the move? Why was this shit still happening!
We already knew Melissa & Lyle had been entering my home in Port Is It with a back door key they had stolen from my kitchen shelf by the back door. Lyle had bragged about it to visitors & about what I had in my home. They constantly bitched about me having nice things!
Little did they know I’ve had most of it for over 20 years & it’s mostly second hand from charity shops & eBay! I just look after my things so they last. All my rugs are second hand & the dogs sheepskins are seconds & cost a few quid each! Besides, how dare they enter my home whenever they feel like it….who the bloody hell did Melissa think she was. It was almost like she felt she had the right to trample all over my human rights any time she wanted to.
After the visit from the gestapo in November 2016, where I was told in no uncertain terms if I didn’t obey their command never to make any complaints against Melissa I would be “out within a fortnight”, she had taken it as a permission to do whatever she wanted as far as I went & my human rights!
I was stripped of them from that day forth & the police then finished the job the housing officers started by never doing anything about my hate crime reports, even though the very first one had come from a man from the department for work & pensions after I called them in desperation for help in June 2017!

Paul told me not to worry too much & to concentrate on finding somewhere else to live. He tried to persuade me to move back to where I had been happy, but it would have been a nightmare Drive for my volunteer training with the women’s centre in Bude & then to the centre to help out with sessions, so I told him I would concentrate my efforts on Bude again. We hugged & said we’d catch up over the holidays.

The next morning I called my new housing association manager to tell him I had inadvertently moved into a house that was next door to Melissa’s aunt & uncles house & that I couldn’t possibly stay there. He knew about the situation with her & Lyle & said it was fine for me to find another exchange & that he would make sure it went through as quickly as possible for me.
He also said he was surprised, as I had mentioned to him before, that number 25 was meant to have been empty as the old lady that owned it never visited…..I told him that that was the information Trisha & Pete had given me when I first went to see the house in November & that they had obviously not told me the truth for reasons best known to themselves!

I then logged online & began yet another search for a suitable exchange, as I knew Melissa would never leave me alone all the time I was living next door to her relatives & boy was I right!

As it happened, Paul & I didn’t catch up over the holidays… I didn’t catch up with Anyone over the holidays. I was so miserable I couldn’t even bring myself to go to see my daughter & granddaughter on Christmas Day. I dropped off their presents on Christmas Eve, said I’d be over again the next day, but just couldn’t bare to go out & spent the entire day crying my eyes out. I was so miserable. My escape from Melissa & Lyle had turned into a nightmare situation & I hated the house I had moved to…it had all been for nothing. I couldn’t unpack as I needed to move quickly again & I was missing my family terribly.

By Boxing Day Melissa’s daily visits to see her aunt & uncle with Lyle were purely just another way to carry on her hate campaign & she made no secret of her visits, neither did Lyle.
Looking back on it now, I should have taken out a restraining order but I was so depressed & freaked out it never occurred to me. I just wanted to escape again & felt trapped & cornered.

My sister called a few days later & begged me to come to Sussex to spend a few days with her & I rang her back afterwards to say I was coming that evening. I packed up a couple of bags, one for me, one for the dogs & some presents that I hadn’t posted for my sister & nephews… I couldn’t face going out knowing that everyone in the village had more than likely been poisoned against me by her majesty & her grunt… explaining why only the lady accross the road had bothered to speak to me! She said she was glad to see the back of Trisha & Pete & hoped they wouldn’t come back when I moved again! I had told her of my plight with Melissa…. she told me that I should just try to ignore it. Fat chance!

I left just before tea time for the 6/7 hour trip to Sussex after insuring the house contents & packing up my Samsung smart tv in it’s box & shoving it over the back seat of the car! My sister has crap taste in tv & I was worried about my home being broken into again by the neighbours!!!!!!

That very long drive would open up a whole new world of horrors for me before I even reached my destination…