Location: California
Hi. I (f50) find myself in a pretty messed up situation. I rent an apartment from a friend who owns a triplex. I was originally the onsite manager but I stepped back from that role. My neighbor would text me for hours practically every day and it was interfering with my job and my general life. So I told him he could contact me for emergencies only but nothing else.
Currently only two of the apartments are rented mine and my neighbors, the third one is empty. My neighbor in the second apartment started out being very friendly and charming. But over time I could start to see he was trying to manipulate me and really pressure people into doing the things that he wanted to do.
When he and his family moved in, the owners spent quite a bit of money doing various things to make him happy. They got us a new mailbox because he complained that it wasn't locked, he said he'd lost mail, but we had never lost any mail until he moved in.
He has slowly worked to take over the property, he was told in the beginning that the backyard was never going to be a lawn type space but he has insisted on changing it to a lawn. We had been converting it from grass to clover and now he has completely ripped up all of our clover and replaced it with grass that is now using a lot of water.
He pulled up the headstone for our pet and when we put it back he pulled it up again. He used his weed wacker to cut all the way around the bottom of our fruit tree that we had planted years ago when we moved in, removing all the bark, and now it's dead.
At this time I cannot leave my house without getting yelled at by this guy, I had asked him to only contact me via phone for emergencies but he could not do that and so I had to block him and tell him that he could only contact me through the managing company that we had to employ because his constant demands drove off the person who was originally our manager, it is also the reason I stepped back from being the on-site manager.
Our adult daughter comes and I pay her to do some yard work and now our neighbor comes out to harass her every time she's here. She's a trans woman so she gets extra harassment everywhere she goes and I do not want her to feel that way when she comes here. The other day he came out and harassed her until she left and then I saw that he had invited a friend over and they were hanging out in the backyard. So clearly he just didn't want her around while he had his friends over. She wasn't hurting anyone, she was watering plants.
The management company and the owners do know what's going on, but now I found out that he is suing me, the management company, and the owners for a number of things that he demanded the owners do but they had just spent an ungodly amount of money doing other stuff for him, and the third apartment tenant died and left a mess so, they weren't able to just dump more cash into the building. He keeps saying that this is a slum, it's not. He said that an earthquake caused some problem with the gate, there is no problem with the gate. They said that they were out of power for 3 days but I had pictures of their windows on those dates showing that the power was on.
And basically more like this. He's lying about repairs that need to be made because the owners are not in town, and neither is management company so I'm the only one on site who can tell the management company what's actually going on here.
This guy displays all of the characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder and I am not able to enjoy my yard or really my home because he will yell at my door if it is open and harasses anyone we have here.
What are my options here? Can I get a restraining order? I've asked him to stop contacting me multiple times, I've asked him to stop talking to me and I've asked him to stop harassing my daughter when she's here. But he just continues. And it's escalating. I have considered calling the police but I don't really want to do that, I just need to know what I can do to protect myself because I'm just not sure that I'm safe.
What are my legal options? And should I get a restraining order? How hard are those to get? Thank you for any advice.