Neighbor with mental health problems. Need Help knowing who to contact

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
1

I have a new neighbor, 7 months now, and she has mental health problems. At first I thought she was just another weirdo but her cycle has been going down rapidly for the last few months, getting worse and more frequent.

The first few weeks she was just odd, hiding and peeking at me from behind doors and plants, then she started to stand silently outside my door late at night in the dark listening for extended periods of time or go into my rooftop garden and stand above my bedroom windows. I have dogs so they alert me when someone is at the door or in our garden. I installed a hidden webcam and watched her listening at my door for 10 - 40 mins and moving my tools plants things around on the roof. Annoying, perverted yes, but not crazy… yet.

Three months ago she started to cycle down hard… she started to have this repeated cycle of speech. She’d stand in her apartment at 5 or 6am and yell for anywhere from 3 mins to an hour and a half, the speech has a cycle that is numeric and repeated. "hun hun hun first floor number one, hun hun hun first floor number 2 and cycle up to the tenth floor #10 and then back down… other mornings , its “hun hun hun 2nd floor number 3 I know what you are doing, I know what you do” over and over for 30 - 40 mins, the 2nd floor neighbor lady hates her and just screams shut up crazy bitch shut up! Other mornings she bangs pots and pans with a hammer yelling i am you you are me hun hun hun … etc>

As she cycled down she got more and more obsessed with me . Waiting in the morning outside my door so when I open it she is there to spring out and tell me the laws off foreign sodomites and rapists… how I am destroying all that I touch with my filth… Following me on the street when I leave the apartment, hiding behind plants lamp posts and trees…

2 weeks ago on a Sunday night at 10:30 she was knocking on my door, I thought it was my friend, when I opened it she stuck a flashlight in my face and tried to force her way into my apartment saying I had to let her in to inspect… she is a Taiwanese I have no right to refuse !!!. I closed the door in her face… 20 mins later she shows up with 3 cops yelling the foreigner did it… she had run down to the street and flagged them down. She never said what “I did” when they asked her, and when they asked for her name she refused to give it saying “I’ll only give you my pen name”… they knew in 2 mins she was a nutter and gave me the sideways look of it’s ok… When they refused to arrest me she started yelling at them…That went on as a screaming match for 20 mins.

It’s bothersome and annoying obviously, aside from my dislike for her, the human-being in me knows she is deeply disturbed and needs help… SHE should not be living alone. The other neighbors just scream at her to shut the fuck up. which only makes her more excited and cycle quicker and louder.

Does anybody know the relevant ministry or agency to call for help? The cops won’t help and the neighbors just wind her up…

2

What you should do is document her behavior with photos and video recordings. That should be your very first priority. You don’t want her to imagine you have raped her and tell that to the police…

3

Your local police precinct office is probably the primary option. I have extensive experience on this, with a paranoid schizophrenic neighbor for the last 17 years. (On such terminology, unlike many people, I do not use psychological terms loosely, having taught Psychology 101 at university for a number of years.)

They will be IMO (in my opinion) 95% likely to already know that your neighbor is unstable yet (fingers crossed, and that’s the money term) probably harmless, and your phone call will result in “aw, geez, not again! What newbie can we foist THIS call on?”. They will insist on knowing the exact address because if you don’t have one, they don’t have to act. “The building next door to mine”, with your address supplied, does NOT suffice.

Two officers will reluctantly and slowly respond, perhaps 20-25 minutes later. They will 90% of the time go to the neighbor’s address rather than yours. You will probably not (I’ll guess 99.9%) be identified to the neighbor. The neighbor will probably not know who called it in, but will engage in furious speculation. I still remember that long night with the endless cries of !Dao4di3 shi4 shei2?!(Who the f**k reported me?!)

They will probably interview relatives to see whether the individual is under professional care, what meds they’re taking and so on. Hard to say, as I’ve not had access to those parts of the calls.

What I do know is that half a dozen calls over the period of a year or so resulted in FAR less frequent screaming in the alley, as if the threat of police response put pressure on the family to ensure that someone took their pills regularly. Things did get better, with occasional relapses.

So, the short answer is: walk to your nearest police precinct office and ask them in Mandarin what number you should call in such a situation, and tape that to your phone in each room, and save it on your smart or not smart phone. Best of luck, and my sincere sympathies. And keep your guard up. If you have a legal object you can inconspicuously carry for self-defense, insist on routinely carrying it without exception. 'Nuf said.

4

[quote=“shifty”]I have a new neighbor, 7 months now, and she has mental health problems. At first I thought she was just another weirdo but her cycle has been going down rapidly for the last few months, getting worse and more frequent.

The first few weeks she was just odd, hiding and peeking at me from behind doors and plants, then she started to stand silently outside my door late at night in the dark listening for extended periods of time or go into my rooftop garden and stand above my bedroom windows. I have dogs so they alert me when someone is at the door or in our garden. I installed a hidden webcam and watched her listening at my door for 10 - 40 mins and moving my tools plants things around on the roof. Annoying, perverted yes, but not crazy… yet.

Three months ago she started to cycle down hard… she started to have this repeated cycle of speech. She’d stand in her apartment at 5 or 6am and yell for anywhere from 3 mins to an hour and a half, the speech has a cycle that is numeric and repeated. "hun hun hun first floor number one, hun hun hun first floor number 2 and cycle up to the tenth floor #10 and then back down… other mornings , its “hun hun hun 2nd floor number 3 I know what you are doing, I know what you do” over and over for 30 - 40 mins, the 2nd floor neighbor lady hates her and just screams shut up crazy bitch shut up! Other mornings she bangs pots and pans with a hammer yelling I am you you are me hun hun hun … etc>

As she cycled down she got more and more obsessed with me . Waiting in the morning outside my door so when I open it she is there to spring out and tell me the laws off foreign sodomites and rapists… how I am destroying all that I touch with my filth… Following me on the street when I leave the apartment, hiding behind plants lamp posts and trees…

2 weeks ago on a Sunday night at 10:30 she was knocking on my door, I thought it was my friend, when I opened it she stuck a flashlight in my face and tried to force her way into my apartment saying I had to let her in to inspect… she is a Taiwanese I have no right to refuse !!!. I closed the door in her face… 20 mins later she shows up with 3 cops yelling the foreigner did it… she had run down to the street and flagged them down. She never said what “I did” when they asked her, and when they asked for her name she refused to give it saying “I’ll only give you my pen name”… they knew in 2 mins she was a nutter and gave me the sideways look of it’s ok… When they refused to arrest me she started yelling at them…That went on as a screaming match for 20 mins.

It’s bothersome and annoying obviously, aside from my dislike for her, the human-being in me knows she is deeply disturbed and needs help… SHE should not be living alone. The other neighbors just scream at her to shut the fuck up. which only makes her more excited and cycle quicker and louder.

Does anybody know the relevant ministry or agency to call for help? The cops won’t help and the neighbors just wind her up…[/quote]

Holy crap, this story is scarier than any horror movie ever. And you’ve been in that situation for 7 months?

5

:popcorn:

6

Maybe you should consider a security camera set to record her actions, like the sets they sell at Costco with multiple cameras. I could never figure out why those would be used in Taiwan except for businesses. Maybe the Costco staff know something about the amount of crazies in Taiwan.

7

Get a vicious dog and put it in your rooftop

8

Thanks for the info and the suggestions. I am sad to hear that the police are my option and not some ministry or association that helps these people. The cops well we all know about the cops here… I do have a fair amount of video material recorded on my security cam so that is covered. We have dogs and honestly I am more concerned that a human being who is obviously crashing and failing at reality get some help. Yes she pisses me off but she needs help…

thanks for the tips it’s off to see the cops

9

The police will know what associatoons and people can help.

10

You could try the Li Zhang (neighborhood chief)

11

Id be more concerned about myself in this situation. Shes already accused you of crimes you didn’t commit.

12

You can try to ignore her as much as possible, just dont open the door for her, dont talk to her and protect your property. Let other taiwanese neighbors deal with that. Police will probably dismiss your complaints (after all you are a foreigner) and accuse you of low tolerance towards weird people here, you might end up in the news media as another waiguoren bullying the locals. But if other taiwanese neighbors complain about it, the police will take this issue seriously. Those missing relatives will appear somehow if this woman appear in the TV news.

13

Someone from Appledaily is probably following this thread right now, waiting for his/her moment of glory.

“Heartless foreigner humiliates a poor old Taiwanese lady because she was walking in her building at night and her steps were bothering him.”

14

If you are a foreigner complaining nobody will take it seriously anyway…

15

She is probably somewhere between 25-35 years of age BTW

16

hi shifty,

There’s a very brief discussion of a somewhat similar problem here (two responses to a post by Dragonbones–I’m aware he’s posted in the thread we’re in now):

This Chinese-language page looks as if it might discuss legal matters having to do with noise (but I doubt that it covers mental illness issues):

tcgwww.taipei.gov.tw/ct.asp?xIte … mp=108051M

I arrived at the above page by Googling after seeing a question on Reddit about noisy neighbors in Taiwan and then finding a Chinese-language page that was linked (that link is now dead, but there’s a new link below in this post) on the Reddit page. The Reddit question is here (again, it doesn’t deal with mental illness):

reddit.com/r/taiwan/comment … in_taiwan/

The second response contains advice and a link. Of course I can’t vouch for the advice that the Reddit poster gave. I had trouble with the link; I think it’s because there was a slight change in the url. I think the page that the link refers to is now here:

www1.chpb.gov.tw/Other_problem_i … 6&item=262

The above page is designed so that it can’t be right-clicked, but this page, which says the same thing, can be right-clicked:

www1.chpb.gov.tw/Other_problem_p … p?item=262

shifty, I realize that the above stuff may not help, but I’m putting it here just in case it can.

I think it’s good that you want to help this person. I’m not sure how to go about doing such a thing, and I don’t think I’d be willing to take on something like that, but I think it’s really good that you want to. However, if you do try to help this person, I hope you don’t wear yourself out or get your heart broken or wind up with additional troubles. Still, it’s good.

Take care,
Charlie

17

[quote=“Charlie Jack”]hi shifty,
Take care,
Charlie[/quote]

thanks man, very informative and kind reply

18

[quote=“shifty”][quote=“Charlie Jack”]hi shifty,
Take care,
Charlie[/quote]

thanks man, very informative and kind reply[/quote]

You’re welcome.

19

Well, just wanting to add that being harassed by neighbors with a defective upper hat-holder seems to be rather normal here. I mean in mother-in-law block of flats, there is this old lady from the seventh floor who sometimes bangs on other apartment doors and accuses the tenants of all kinds of things like following her and threatening her etc.

The other family from seventh floor has a hused-up looking dad who seems to have some issues and drove his daughter crazy as well who now sometimes sits on the roof above the 1F entrance and pretends “suicide”. Not really high enough, but always quite a show. She once lost an eye from fire crackers at a holy celebration thingy.

Nobody ever stops the two or cares much. Being a foreigner makes this scarier, I understand. I had this old guy from my building stopping me in the door at 1F and not letting me enter or shouting at me for not closing the front door - which he had opened and not closed and stood next to it. He now cannot walk around much anymore being Methuselah Jr. so I have my peace.

I always think this is Taiwan, people are supposed to be crazy, no?

20

Just a quick update, nut-bag was gone for almost 2 weeks, then yesterday afternoon she showed up at my door wearing hot pink short shorts, a bikini top, blue knee high socks, white satin gloves that went from fingertip to elbow, a burka and a huge floppy sun hat, and giant old lady sunglasses. She was yelling something about birds and hot water. I just closed the door in her face and ignored her. She screamed for 5-10 mins and then stormed off to yell on the street for a few then she abruptly stopped and ran around the corner …