There is now a long list of official whines about life in Stonington Borough by its crankier residents, some who have turned to the courts for redress, from seaweed that smells to the sounds of fish delivery trucks or the church bells ringing.

But the news this week delivered an astounding new one: a lack of privacy.

I know. Complaining about the lack of privacy in a tight little seaside village is like complaining about horn honking in Manhattan.

This privacy complaint comes from Dave and Reba Williams, who bought their waterfront summer house at 24 Water St. for $2.75 million in 2007, back when the market was roaring, then extensively rebuilt it.

The Williamses are suing their next-door neighbors, Randall Bean and Elizabeth Black of Boston, who have a newly rebuilt second home directly to the north, at 28 Water St. They bought it for $1.3 million in 2014.

The Williamses, who are in their 80s, claim the family next door rebuilt their house with windows and balconies intentionally situated to spy on them, and spy they do, "menacingly," with "substantial and continuous surveillance."

The lawsuit claims the neighbors' "strategy and express purpose" in rebuilding their house was to "provide ... unhindered, close-proximity" views of the Williams property.

Gee, I would have thought the windows were to capture south light and views of the water, not glimpses of a rich, elderly couple next door.

The Williamses are represented by attorney Paul Geraghty of the New London law firm Geraghty & Bonnano, the same firm that represents the Nashville couple who are suing the town over the dog park next to their waterfront summer home.

Geraghty, who didn't return a phone message Friday, is joined in the federal lawsuit by a New York attorney, David C. Berg, with an office on Madison Avenue.

Responding late Friday to the message left for Geraghty, Berg issued a statement in which he said his clients tried to resolve the issue without a lawsuit. He said there were incidents involving personal recording devices, which he called the "main issue of infringement."

He declined to talk about the case on the record.

I could not reach the defendants in the lawsuit.

The Williamses, who are retired executives of a New York financial company, are listed in the lawsuit as residents of Greenwich.

A blog by Reba Williams and her husband, that widely circulated around town back in 2011, said the couple also lives part of the year in Manhattan, London and Palm Springs.

Even back in 2011, long before their current neighbors at 28 Water St. moved in, the couple were complaining about life in Stonington Borough, especially the lack of privacy.

"The peace and privacy in Palm Springs is in startling contrast to life in Stonington, where there can be intense interest in other people's activities, sometimes to the point of privacy invasion," they wrote back then.

They also wrote then that they were planning to buy pepper spray and were considering a stunning device because they were fearful for their safety in the borough.

"We intend to buy it and let police know we have it," they wrote on rebadave.com, a site that is no longer active. "We will not hesitate to use it on anyone who intrudes in our space or otherwise threatens us, either in or outside our house or property."

Yikes.

A link to that blog went around town with a keyword warning: "They're armed."

There were lots of other entries back in 2011 about how they were unhappy with Stonington, how they had a fight with a neighbor about a property line, how charities in town are not well run or worth giving to and how the borough isn't pretty enough.

"We'd like to see more refurbishing and beautification of the borough, especially in the neighborhood where we live," they wrote.

"We also think that many organizations in Stonington should be supported by year-round people, not summer people, since their programming and activities don't seem to benefit the summer people."

This stuff makes complaining about the smell of seaweed seem like constructive criticism.

Both Dave and Reba Williams are art collectors and writers.

Reba Williams was a candidate for New York City Council in 1999. Williams, the Republican candidate in the race in what the New York Times called the "Silk Stocking District," the Upper East Side, lost big.

Williams waged a costly campaign, according to The Times, with contributions of more than $200,000 from her husband, spending about $900,000 in all.

The Times wrote about Williams' "lopsided loss" in what the newspaper then called "one of the costliest and hardest-fought campaigns the city has ever seen" for a council seat.

My guess is that she would have to spend a lot more than that if she wanted to get elected to any office in Stonington.

The Williamses have planted a big evergreen hedge that looks destined to block a lot of water views for their neighbors, maybe not so neighborly a gesture.

I would offer to contribute to a defense fund for the neighbors. But I suspect they need sympathy more than our money.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com