“We need help": Mansfield residents 'want to live a normal life, not a scared one'

Five residents met with the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) an an address in the town and one of them, Malgorzata Pead, becgan crying as soon as she started telling her story.

She sobbed: “I’m afraid to go outside, to walk with the dogs, my grandson is nine-months-old and I’m afraid to take him out as well.”

Malgorzata says that for the last few years, she claims she has suffered threats, harassment and abuse from a neighbour.

Those others in the room alleged the same.

They said they’d come to the LDRS because ‘no one else wants to help’.

But the neighbour in question says the people accusing her do the same thing back.

All parties involved want action to resolve the dispute, but so far, nothing has changed.

The street where they live is a cul-de-sac of council homes, where rows of bungalows face each other.

Andrzej Zyla and his partner Aneta, who are Polish like Ms Pead, moved here in November 2024.

They say that the abuse started on the day they moved in, and within a week, they’d contacted the council about it.

Within a month, they’d contacted the police.

Andrzej said: “She (the accused neighbout) spits at people, she calls us names, she’s very aggressive, she parks her car in front of our car to block us in.”

But when the LDRS spoke to the neighbour, she said that she had lived in the area for more than a year by the time Mr Zyla moved in – and that nobody had had a problem with her before.

She said: “I’ve tried to move out, I’m being antagonised, and I don’t know how to handle it.

"I’ve asked them to leave me alone, some weeks I can’t do it.

I’ve had enough, it’s not fair.”

Mr Zyla and the other residents say they ‘completely deny’ the woman’s allegations and say ‘we have never threatened, intimidated or harassed her’.

The LDRS has seen video footage and photographs which appear to show the neighbour spitting towards Mr Zyla’s home, swearing at them and calling them ‘stupid’ in Polish and making insulting comments about Mr Zyla’s weight.

But the neighbour says that she has only reacted to situations instigated by others.

In one piece of video footage, the neighbour is heard telling a postman not to leave a parcel for Mr Zyla on her property because she fears being accused of stealing it.

Aneta says she has been to the GP because of the stress from the row.

She said: “It’s given me mental health issues, I’m on tablets.

"I have to go out at 5am for work and I’m afraid of what’s going to happen.”

Andrzej says he has to pick his partner up from work every day because they ‘don’t know what she (the neighbour) is going to do next’.

The pair have sent their video and photographic evidence to the council and the police on a USB stick.

Most of the video was captured by CCTV cameras that Mr Zyla and Aneta had installed on their house.

But after doing this, the couple received a letter themselves accusing them of anti-social behaviour, including ‘CCTV cameras that are invading privacy of the neighbours and community’ and ‘intimidation and harassment of your neighbour’.

Other accusations included ‘goading of your neighbour into a reaction which you are then filming’, ‘placing your dustbins in the way of vehicles preventing access/exit’ and ‘unnecessary calls to the local police’.

The council threatened to repossess the property or, as new residents, extend their six-month probation period if the behaviour did not stop.

In March 2026, a Community Protection Warning (CPW) was issued under the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 – but not to Mr Zyla and Agneta.

It states that their neighbour ‘shall not directly or indirectly cause harassment, alarm or distress’ to nearby residents or visitors, ‘by way of intimidations, violence or threats of violence, including hate crime incidents’.

It also bans her from contacting directly or indirectly Mr Zyla, Aneta or Ms Pead.

The group say the situation is not being taken seriously enough by the authorities.

More recently, the group has been involved in meetings with the council and the police, which Mr Zyla said he initially felt were productive and promising.

He hoped that the neighbour would be issued with an escalated anti-social behaviour warning, but was told that ‘no breaches have been recorded’ of the CPW.

He was also told, as the main complainant, that other affected residents’ witness statements would not be taken into account in the authorities’ decision on how to proceed.

The police told the couple to be ‘mindful of their own responses’ to the neighbour and advised ‘that the nature of a response to perceived issues can unintentionally escalate matters or create further conflict’.

Notes from their last meeting say that the reported incidents “do not meet the threshold for a crime”.

Mr Zyla and Aneta have applied to move home and have now been allocated a caseworker to support them through the process.

Mr Zyla said: “We need help, we want to live a normal life, not a scared one.”

Coun Anne Callaghan (Lab), portfolio holder for housing on Mansfield Council, said: “We cannot comment on individual cases, but we take all reports of anti-social behaviour very seriously.

"As a responsible landlord, we have thoroughly looked into the issues raised and followed our legal duties.

“We know anti-social behaviour can make people feel unsafe and upset, and we understand the impact it has on residents and the wider community.

“We work closely with the police and base our actions on evidence to make sure they are fair and appropriate towards everyone and meet legal thresholds.

"We ask anyone affected to keep reporting incidents, as this helps us build the evidence needed to take further action.”

Insp Katie Eustace of Nottinghamshire Police, said: “We have received a number of reports relating to an ongoing neighbour dispute and we are working with council partners to address issues raised by both sides.

“Both parties have raised issues, including reported incidents of antisocial behaviour, harassment and criminal damage.

"Lines of inquiry have been carried out in relation to incidents reported to us, including checking CCTV footage, but no evidence was found of any offences being committed.”