Thankfully we live in a really nice house with really nice neighbours now....
Prior to this we lived in a typical Suburban street - the neighbours were generally lovely - kept an eye on the house if you were on holiday and took parcels in etc, but kept themselves to themselves.
There was a nosy family a couple of doors down but we kept them at arms length.
My attached neighbours were an older couple with a twenty-something son who was profoundly deaf and had learning disabilities. Unfortunately the couple died within a relatively short time frame of one another and the son inherited the house.
A couple of years later, people (who were clearly druggies and their dealers) start turning up at all hours. I’d just had a baby so was up at all hours doing night feeds and saw it all. One day, around 20 police offices turned up, raided the house and arrested the son. The police came to interview us and I told them that he was (and always had been) a good kid and he was clearly been taken advantage of by the local drug ring. I told them what l knew and then everything died down.
But following the police raid, the rest of the street went on a vendetta against him, doing everything they could to get him arrested. I think they thought I might be an ally and sent their nosiest member for an update. He said that he’d spoken to the police on numerous occasions, telling them that Asians had suddenly started appearing on the street and that we don’t have ‘that sort’ around here!! I was furious and told him that I don’t have racists in my house so he should leave.... which then turned the venom on me.
We decided to sell our house as we wanted some more space for our son to play. A few days after it went on the market a young couple came to view it and offered the asking price - we were delighted. The next day, they came for a drive by (as you do) and we’re stopped by the nosy neighbour who told them that we were moving as we were attached to a drug den (when we’d actually had no problems for almost a year). They obviously rescinded their offer.
We eventually got out thankfully. And so did the kid next door who went on to live a normal life supported by family.