My horrible neighbors have struck again and this time it is pretty upsetting, I am not sure what to do and if anyone has advice that would be great.
So we live in a rowhouse/townhouse and share a very thin strip of backyard with our neighbors that is separated by an armpit height chain link fence. This fence offered very little privacy so we attached a lightweight bamboo fence to our side of it with zip ties. It's been almost two years and the fence has been amazing, but now we have had to take it down. Our neighbor called our landlord (he never communicates with us ever despite us asking, only calls the landlord to complain about petty issues most of the time) and is claiming that our bamboo fence caused damage to his iron fence during the massive storms we had recently. He has the say over the fence on that side, which I didn't know until now, but that's ok. I honestly don't know if the damage happened because of our fence or not, but since it could have been we were more than understanding in taking it down. He hasn't asked for money yet for the repair, but we would be willing to pay since it is just the wire on the very top of one or two posts that is broken.
So here's the thing, I can't do a single thing in my backyard without them watching me and it's making me not want to go outside. Their living room looks straight out into the main part of our backyard and I can see them watching me often through the windows when I am outside. I can't really do anything outside without them seeing it and they are always home because they are retired. The woman will sit on her porch outside faced towards our house and watch me do yardwork, etc. in the summer. When we have bonfires in the backyard, I have even seen her lurk behind our big pine tree just eavesdropping on what we were doing. They will also sometimes open their curtains back up if they think we are doing something interesting after they have already closed them. She might be bored or something which is fine, and I wouldn't mind including her usually, but they have been so nasty and made our lives hell since we moved here so I think any real relationship is done. The old man never apologized for his insane, inappropriate behavior during our one and only physical interaction either so I am really done with them.
I just don't know how to get them to stop staring. I feel like I can't even use my backyard ever without an audience and it's like they don't stop staring either, they just watch and say nothing. What do I do here? I know most people would tell me to just ignore it, but it is difficult to ignore. I feel like I am entertainment for them and I don't want to be, I just want to be able to enjoy my backyard