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"Coping with a neighbor with ment illness"


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I live in a 5 story apartment building and last May, 2012 my best friend who was living with her ex husband, she suffered a massive stroke that left her parallized on her left side. At the same time, the ex husband had been admitted into the hospital for toe and partial foot amputation. Actually both suferred from mental illness that they must take daily medication for. Anyway, 4 weeks later she died. I understand the loss of a spouse. My 1st husband died September of 1996. anyway, I tried my best to be supportive of my neighbor. I would bring him to his doctor appointments and when his mental health doctor recommended for him to go to a bereavement counsieling group I offered to go with him Well, he refuses to get the help that his doctor prescribed. And now 8 months later this neighbor is completely off his rails. He is constantly annoying myself and other tenants in our building. He pounds on my front door sometimes 8 to 10 times a day. He wants to use the phone even thoughhe has his own phone. He talks about how he is impotent and how, well, I can't mention. And just before Christmas of 2012 the police came to my door and told me that this neighbor says I have a key to his apartment and that I stole these poems he wrote. First of all he lied through his teeth. This is a situation that is totally out of control. I tried talking to his sister about what's going on and apparently he was going inpatient for treatment. Well, the very next day he was at my door again. This man needs serious inpatient treatment. When he takes his meds he is a very nice person but off his meds he is absolutely obnoxious! The police won't do anything. What is it going to take for this man to get the proper mental health treatment so that he can get better?

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Welcome, Josephine.

You're definitely in one of the more difficult positions one can be in, relative to mental illness, caring about someone who isn't taking care of their own health. One suggestion that would allow you to put his issue on the record might be to try to get a protective order, but you would probably have to allege that he represented a threat of harm to your person (though I'm not a lawyer [thank god]). The problem is that even if he got inpatient care and was forced to take his medications regularly, he would probably stop again when he got out. Probably the largest problem with medical treatment of mental illness, at the moment, is non-compliance with their meds on the part of the patients.

I assume that he's an older man, and doesn't have family who will care for him? No, I'm sorry, you mentioned a sister. Perhaps talking to her, to give her a more complete picture of his situation, might help? I assume you've talked to him, possibly even threatening not to answer your door to him. After that, I can only suggest the landlord might be concerned about his tenants being harassed, but of course that only moves the problem somewhere else. I wish I had any better suggestions, but maybe someone else will.

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Josephine, this situation sounds so very stressful. I'm sorry you're going through this. :(

Was your neighbors' sister responsive to your concerns? I agree with malign, that it might be helpful to try speaking with her again. It's possible, and especially if he is elderly, that he is not even safe being alone there. Did you tell the police you were being harassed? Possibly they might talk with him and/or the sister?

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