Hey guys,
I live in a nice gated community and I am able to hear things like yelling or loud music from my neighbor on the other side of the building (we have our back wall in common). Lately I've heard some loud arguments that involve yelling and just recently I heard a man yelling and possibly throwing things around accompanied by one, possibly two female voices that sounded positively terrified screaming back and maybe running around/away. I grew up in a household where my parents would yell pretty loudly when they were mad and it *did* scare the crap out of my siblings and I -- and once or twice my mother -- so I don't want to make the mistake of thinking that some guy with a bad temper is actually physically/verbally abusing someone when it might just be that walking around yelling and making noise is his way of letting off steam. My parents were loud, but I don't think they were abusive at all, if you can see where I'm going with this.
Furthermore, I'm a female (duh) living completely by myself since my husband's deployed. I don't really know any of my other neighbors and there isn't anyone I regularly see that would notice if anything happened to me. (I just moved out here from across the country to get married). Having spent a couple years living in a much worse neighborhood, I do worry about what might happen if this guy actually is abusive and I tip off the police or a hotline or something and he found out I was the one getting him in trouble. Obviously if I can hear stuff going on over there, he can hear me just as well and will consider this when trying to figure out who "told on him".
So what should I do? It puts a terrible pit in my stomach to try and ignore it, but there is no way I'm putting my life in danger given my situation. If I had friends or family around to keep an eye on me or if my husband were home, I'd feel a lot more secure about helping a possible domestic abuse victim. Is there anything I can do that would in no way leave even the vaguest impression that I called on him? I don't even see any of them since they live on the other side of the building, so there's no way to subtly look for bruises or overly-concealing clothing to give my suspicions more or less substance.
I live in a nice gated community and I am able to hear things like yelling or loud music from my neighbor on the other side of the building (we have our back wall in common). Lately I've heard some loud arguments that involve yelling and just recently I heard a man yelling and possibly throwing things around accompanied by one, possibly two female voices that sounded positively terrified screaming back and maybe running around/away. I grew up in a household where my parents would yell pretty loudly when they were mad and it *did* scare the crap out of my siblings and I -- and once or twice my mother -- so I don't want to make the mistake of thinking that some guy with a bad temper is actually physically/verbally abusing someone when it might just be that walking around yelling and making noise is his way of letting off steam. My parents were loud, but I don't think they were abusive at all, if you can see where I'm going with this.
Furthermore, I'm a female (duh) living completely by myself since my husband's deployed. I don't really know any of my other neighbors and there isn't anyone I regularly see that would notice if anything happened to me. (I just moved out here from across the country to get married). Having spent a couple years living in a much worse neighborhood, I do worry about what might happen if this guy actually is abusive and I tip off the police or a hotline or something and he found out I was the one getting him in trouble. Obviously if I can hear stuff going on over there, he can hear me just as well and will consider this when trying to figure out who "told on him".
So what should I do? It puts a terrible pit in my stomach to try and ignore it, but there is no way I'm putting my life in danger given my situation. If I had friends or family around to keep an eye on me or if my husband were home, I'd feel a lot more secure about helping a possible domestic abuse victim. Is there anything I can do that would in no way leave even the vaguest impression that I called on him? I don't even see any of them since they live on the other side of the building, so there's no way to subtly look for bruises or overly-concealing clothing to give my suspicions more or less substance.