Sometimes, we meet neighbors that are so lovely, kind, and helpful, we can’t believe we went through life before without them—these are NOT these neighbors. In fact, these neighbors are the absolute worst the world has to offer. From backyard antics to driveway shenanigans, these horrible next-door neighbors had us wanting to move far, far away.
1. Caught Red-Handed
A few months ago, I started noticing how my internet speed was really low. Well, today I downloaded a Wi-Fi scan tool for my cellphone and guess what? I saw three devices (all cellphones) that I didn't recognize. I got so angry because I hadn’t been able to download/watch movies, games, etc because of lag. That’s when I decided to change the password.
15 minutes after doing it, I heard some neighbors (kids) start to yell something like "What the heck happened to the internet?" "I can't connect again..." and more things. Like, really? You thought I'd never realize that you took my Wi-Fi?
2. A Family Affair
I am a combat veteran and a school teacher at the time of this story, and my wife was a school teacher as well. So, I bought my first house 12 years ago. It was in a low-middle-class neighborhood with a lot of working-class families. My house had a pool in the backyard and my parents bought me and my wife a hot tub as a wedding/housewarming gift.
Two weeks after moving in, we came home to an unsettling sight. We found a stranger and six teenage kids swimming in our pool when we got home. We will call them Entitled Mom, the Entitled Daughter, the Entitled Son, and the others I assume to be their friends and/or boyfriend. The daughter was about 18 or 19 years old and her brother was about 17.
When we told them to get out and get off our property, the mother told me that the previous owner gave them permission to come over whenever they wanted to swim. I explained to her that I was the new owner and that I was not ok with it. I told her that not only do I not know them, but there is a liability for me if they got hurt. I couldn’t believe her response.
She yelled and faked cried, saying I was being a bad neighbor, selfish, and forcing her kids to sweat in the summer heat. She told me that if they got heatstroke, it was my fault for not letting them swim in my pool. I told her to get the heck off my property and never return. Fast forward two weeks. I had put up a "No Trespassing" sign on my property in multiple spots and had gotten to know many of the not-entitled neighbors.
They were great and told me to ignore the mom and her kids. They told us she was already badmouthing us, but no one ever believed her. This is when it took a strange turn. Now I start to notice when I wake up in the morning that there is evidence of people using my pool and hot tub at night when we are asleep or away. Like, I find cans and other stuff.
I figure it has to be the mother and/or her brats. So I install cameras on the grounds and start video-taping. Sure enough, I catch the daughter and a few others hanging out in my pool on Friday nights when my wife and I are out. I figure they must have been waiting for us to leave and then threw a mini-party or were quietly swimming while we slept.
So I discussed it with my wife. We decided to teach the mother and her brats a lesson. So the next Friday night, I park my car a street over and my wife does the same. We wait in the dark house to see if any of them come over. The daughter and I assume her boyfriend, the son and I assume his girlfriend, and four other teen couples come right over and start getting in my pool and hot tub.
I wait 45 minutes for them to get really into their fun. And let me tell you, it was getting hot and heavy out there; they were all undressed. I then spring my trap. I go out with my piece, pointed at the ground but at the ready. When I reach the pool, my wife flips on the backlights and I yell for them to freeze or I'll shoot. Meanwhile, my wife calls the authorities.
They all have the deer in the headlights look on their faces and not one of them tries to speak for a good minute. The daughter then starts to tell us that she has permission to be there and that we need to let them get dressed. I tell them that if they move towards me or their property, that I would consider them to be charging me or reaching for a weapon and I'd shoot.
They must have believed me because they froze. One girl begged me to give her her clothing. Not being a total jerk, I say that I will throw them all their clothing. But there was a twist. I then walk over to their piles of clothing, phones, and purses and throw EVERYTHING into the pool. They freak out trying to save their phones and other goods.
After ten minutes officers show up and they have the kids climb out of the pool wearing their soaked clothes and trying to shake their phones dry. I show the officers the videos from our cameras, the No Trespassing signs, and explain to them that I had told them and their mother they were persona non grata. The kids were detained for trespassing and a bunch of other charges.
The officers recommended that next time, I leave my piece in the safe and let them just come and get them. I told them that I thought they may attack my wife and had to "stand my ground." I proved that I never pointed it at them with the videos, so I couldn't be charged with anything. Then came the very best part. As the kids are being loaded into the cruisers, the mother shows up yelling at the officer, my wife, and me.
She demands they let them go and even tries to open the door on one of the cruisers. The officers threaten her with being detained if she doesn't back off and leave my wife and me alone. I later found out that the charges against the teens were reduced and they all got plea deals. They all got community service, fines, and were put on probation. We got a restraining order against the mother and her brats so they couldn't bother us again.
I then sent a bill to the mother for the cost of draining, disinfecting, and refilling my pool and having a professional cleaning service clean up the kids’ mess. The bill was for about $400. I had my parents’ attorney send it to her with a letter stating that if it was not paid in 30 days, then we would sue her for a larger amount. She sent a check to my attorney and thankfully it did not bounce.
About a year later, the entire entitled family moved away and we never heard from them again.
3. What She Does In The Shadows
I put up a doorbell cam yesterday. My neighbor has not slept and I woke up to 45 new motion alerts. One of which was her throwing herself down the stairs. I now figured out what that thumping in the hallway I’ve been hearing is. It has not stopped going off. She also stands in front of our door and stares at our apartment for random intervals of time. Wonder how long she's been doing that!
4. Doggone It
My neighbors let their children scream like they are in unbearable agony. My service dog doesn't like it and will bark three short alert barks at them. And honestly, I didn’t stop him. It scares the kids a little to hear the dog, but they finally stop screaming once they hear it. These kids will literally scream high pitch like they are having their limbs sawed off.
So yeah, when I hear this and my dog hears this he starts to get visibly concerned. He thinks tiny humans are hurt and I think genuinely wants to make sure they are okay. So usually while this is happening, I let him out, he runs to the shared fence, does a few barks until the kids stop screaming, then he stops and lays down next to the fence.
In my opinion, my dog does a better job at moderating the kids than their own mother does. Anyways, this happened again this morning, my dog does his thing, the kids stop. But then I hear one start to cry. This was the beginning of my nightmare. Their mom comes over to my house furious. I answer the door politely and ask what’s the problem.
She says my dog scared her kids and I responded with "Oh, well he was concerned. Your children were screaming extremely loud and it sounded like they were hurt. They scream quite often in fact". She gets angrier and basically says they are kids being kids. I say "No mam, I am a kindergarten teacher and a mother myself—your kids are being excessively loud to the point where it's concerning the neighbors with their screaming”.
She got super angry and said they weren't screaming that loud, to which I responded I can show you my porch ring if you'd like. You can't see your yard but you can definitely hear the noises your children make". It took a bad turn. She then threatened to have my dog taken away. He is a seizure alert dog trained by the academy near here and I have his actions directly on tape.
He simply did three short barks, kind of like "stop it," then laid down. Not a threat at all. I told her she could try, but also maybe work on her kids not sounding like they are in a Saw film. She left more angry than when she arrived. I went ahead and made a call to the local dog trainer to let them know in case this lady makes a false claim against my dog.
Thank God for ring cameras set up everywhere so my husband can monitor my seizures, because I can validate my dog’s whereabouts at any time.
5. Don’t Try Me
I live in a town center above a shop with two lovely neighbors. I'm lucky enough to have off-street parking. Over the past few months, someone who lives in a neighboring block of flats has taken it upon himself to park in our spaces. Basically, he moved into a rental property knowing it had no parking and recently dropped $12k on a flashy car.
Yes, we've told him he can't park there but as three single women (46, 60, and 83 respectively) he has used being a large male to try to intimidate my two older neighbors. He won't directly speak to me but does leave aggressive notes on my car. But I still had no idea what he was really planning. A couple of weeks ago, I had a call from the authorities.
They were requesting me to go to my local station for an interview pertaining to damage to his car. Off I trundle to the station, only to be confronted with CCTV and photographic evidence. Turns out, he installed a camera pointing at our property without our knowledge. Sucks to be him, though, because his camera gives a full view into my bedroom and my neighbor’s bathroom—strike one for him.
It did show that I walked past his car with a wheelie bin, apparently scratching his car. They showed me photos of damage to his car. There was just one thing. I pointed out that these were on the opposite side to where I passed. No evidence of damage I supposedly did. I had photos of his undamaged car—strike two for him. In his statement, he said he had it in writing from the owner that he could park there, but couldn't produce the letter.
I had an email from the owner saying he had no permission—strike three for him. I went to the station with the expectation that I would end up with a conviction. I left the station with him having a formal warning for misuse of CCTV and giving a false statement. Couldn't have gone better for me and now he has to find somewhere else to park.
6. Good Riddance
I live in a 20-unit complex, but only half of us have assigned parking spaces, me being one of the lucky ones. My car space is right next to my front door and there is a sign that clearly states that the car space is allocated to my unit number. But this doesn't stop some of my neighbors or their guests from parking there. That was ok enough to live with, but then it got bad fast.
A new person had only recently moved in when he started parking in my spot, usually for most of the day and occasionally overnight. I confronted him and asked him to not park there, as he didn't have assigned parking and was required to park on the street. When this request was ignored, I went to the landlord who then sent him a letter.
When this too was ignored, I thought of a petty revenge plan. He would park there around the same time in the afternoon and when he would leave his car there overnight he would leave around noon the next day. He was entitled but predictable. When I was a kid, I read books about practical jokes like putting double-sided tape on the toilet seat or baby powder inside a powdered donut.
This book brought me hours of joy by pranking my friends and my well-deserved entitled mother. While thinking of my plan, one of those jokes came to mind. So I went shopping to find what I needed. A roll of industrial-strength double-sided tape and a huge roll of bubble wrap with the really big bubbles. Now all I had to do was wait until he left his car parked in my spot overnight.
It didn't take long. I asked another neighbor if he'd like to be my partner, and as soon as I told her what I was planning, she was all in. There are lights outside the unit complex at night, so we could see what we were doing. Even so, they aren't bright enough to expose us. Perfect. In the cover of moonlight, we put double-sided tape all over the back tires of his car. But we weren’t done.
We proceeded to stick the bubble wrap in multiple layers on the back of each wheel. We wedged even more bubble wrap between the back of the front wheels and the car so that when he reversed his car, there would be even more bubble wrap he'd be driving over. The back bumper of his car was hiding most of the bubble wrap so it was very unlikely that he would notice anything out of the ordinary.
I have surveillance cameras outside of my unit with a large monitor inside and one of the cameras points directly at the car park, so I had a direct view of his car. The next day I kept an eye out for him. Sure enough, around noon I saw him walking to his car. Brilliant! He started his car and as he reversed out of my car space, there was the loudest and most deafening banging sound I've ever heard.
The noise was so loud that I could hear it clear as day from inside my unit. His reaction was priceless. I heard him scream and saw him duck down, as if the sound was real. It took him a few minutes to get out of his car to investigate what made the noise. When he did, all I could hear was him shouting inaudible sentences with multiple swears thrown in for good measure.
The other neighbors came outside to see what was going on, as did I. ME: (faking concern) "OMG what happened?" NEIGHBOR: "Who the heck did this????!" ME: "I have no idea”. See, I'm in a wheelchair and couldn't possibly be capable of doing such a horrible thing. He spent the next few hours trying to get the bubble wrap off his tires.
Remember when I said the tape was industrial strength? I'd gone out of my way to find tape that would NOT come off easily. Eventually he got it off but for the next few days his car made that sound like when you get chewing gum stuck under your shoe. He never parked in my car space again.
7. Nice To Naughty
This is how I handled my problem neighbor: Throughout my entire adulthood I've owned my own home, except for a two-year period when my son was born and shortly after until we bought another house. During my time as a renter in a bigger town I had very rude neighbors, middle 50's couple, fairly well-to-do, who would spy and sneer and stare constantly.
Their adult children and grandkids did it too. They would stare and once they saw you looking back, they would slowly shake their heads before turning away. They lived to my immediate right. If you so much as coughed outside, they’d literally seek you out to stare at you for a minute, mutter something under their breath, then shake their head and turn away.
Three months of this and I had enough of it. Mind you, I'm quite big (6'4 1/2", 295 lbs) and very imposing and had a long biker beard at the time. My size didn't seem to intimidate them, at first. So I decided on a much different plan. It would have to be all mental. Since they were always so pissy, I decided the best attack was kindness, mind you OVER THE TOP kindness.
Whenever I saw either of them looking at me, or both at the same time for that matter, I would walk/run right towards them with a loud jovial HI!!!! Get very close to them and forcefully initiate small talk. The moment they would try to respond, I would cut them right off and talk over them. Everything they said, I would laugh extremely loud at before they were even finished talking.
It was to the point where they would start backing up and I would wave my arms around and act like an idiot. This was an almost daily occurrence for a couple weeks. They seemed to give me more space and weren't outside staring at me nearly as often after that. Until one day it changed again. That day, a close friend drove by while I was in my front yard.
It took me a second to realize it was him because he wasn't in his own car; it was a rental because his was in the shop. The neighbors were on their front porch at the time. He beeped the horn and I looked and saw it was him and he promptly gave me the middle finger and yelled “Screw You!” out the window, which is something we often did to each other.
Then it hit me! The neighbors saw the whole thing! I sprang into action. I yelled back "You're done!” to my friend in the car as he kept going down the street, ran inside, grabbed my gun, threw it on the front seat of my truck, then ran next door and up on the neighbors’ porch where they were quite startled. I yelled at them "Who was that!? Did you send him!?"
They were too frightened to respond. I then ran over, jumped in my truck, and lit up the rubber, pulling out of the driveway and flying down the street. I caught up to my friend a little ways down the street and got him to pull over. I shared the story with him about what I'd just done (he had been well informed as to what the neighbors were doing) and he almost peed his pants laughing. Then we planned the next step.
It went like this. I returned 20 minutes later to the neighbors still on their porch, staring at me but trying to make out that they weren't. I pretended I didn't notice them. I went inside, got a large beach towel, and went outside with it. Knowing they were watching me, I pulled my piece out of the truck and started wiping it down with the towel. After clumsily and purposely looking over both shoulders in a fake attempt to check if anyone was watching, I wrapped it in the towel and ran around to the back of the house.
I brought the weapon inside and put it away quickly. I grabbed one of my baseball bats and wrapped it in the towel and went into the backyard. I then very loudly opened the shed and got a shovel. Making quite a racket the whole time. I could see when I came out that they were looking at me from an upstairs window in their house to see what I was doing.
I dug a small hole and threw the towel-wrapped bat in the hole and promptly buried it. The neighbors never spoke to me or stared at me again.
8. The Garden Of Eden
So. My cat didn't come home for dinner. Very strange. He's usually the one (we have two) demanding I get to opening the tins. So I look in the usual spots, is he stuck in a closet or the garage? Nothing. I eat dinner, thinking he'll be around meowing any minute. Well, no sign of Frank (the cat). He's mostly an indoor lazy guy who wanders a bit around outside.
Anyway, my neighbor previously (a month ago or so) had yelled at my wife about the cat "pooping" in his garden. Okay that's not cool, he has a litter box, we have a garden. I get that's a bit annoying. So anyway I go over to his place and knock on his door. Said I understand my cat has been bothering you. I gave him my business card, said if he ever bugs you again please call or text me.
I said I'll deal with whatever mess or whatever. Meanwhile, I'll try to improve the situation. I bought some dirt, catnip, made an outdoorsy litter area for my guy, showed it to him a few times. We made an effort to keep him inside more. But I'll be honest, eight years as an indoor/outdoor cat and he gets antsy and crafty about getting outside sometimes.
Anyhow, I'm wandering around the roads near my place hoping not to find a tire print over my cat. No sign. He doesn't come home so now it's worry time. I kind of know in the back of my mind what happened. I sense that the neighbor did something. So I'm wandering around outside and I approach his driveway, calling for Frank—and I hear him.
He's meowing for me. Okay I follow the sounds and yep, he's trapped in buddy's garage. So I tried the door, figured he could have wandered in and got stuck. Darn, he's gotten stuck in mine before. Door is locked. Knocked on buddy's door. Said I hear my cat stuck in your garage. I couldn’t believe his response. He says, verbatim, "Yep! Bye" and goes to close the door.
I knock again, bit louder. Now this guy is a boomer, probably 65 years old. And he says, "What?" and I said, “Man, you got my cat in there. Just let him out thanks”.
And he says "No". At this point I'm at the front door and as he's closing it I put my foot in there. I'm like bud, let him out. He says no again. I said should I break this window to get him out? He pulls out his phone and starts recording and says "You're threatening me!" and I'm like "Bro you took my cat let him out" and he says no again. Goes to close the door and I knocked hard as it closed and it popped open. Guess it didn't latch. It hit a breaking point.
He tells his wife to call 9-1-1. And she does. He slams the door with his shoulder and locks it. I hear them literally on emergency calling the authorities. I'm like, ok, he took my cat. He can't keep him, that's not a thing. So I dialed the non-emergency line and told my end—the neighbor threatened my cat before, now he has him captive. And she tells me a squad car will be there soon talk to him.
Like five seconds later, the first car pulls up. I give him my ID, tell him my cat is in there. He says how do I know. I said I can hear him. Well, does he have a cat? No I’m pretty sure he hates cats. I show him a picture and say he's in the garage here. Two more cars pull up, four more officers. I'm like wow, this is really something. First officer talking to buddy, watching the video.
But then two more! Five total, one guy is like in SWAT gear ready to take somebody down. They talk to him. Cat is meowing like crazy beside us in the garage. The SWAT guy is like "did you take his cat?" the other guy says "he says he did, says that’s this guy’s (me) cat in there...” “He poops on my property! Right there”! He points to a little dirt patch behind a bush.
I'm like, I'm sorry man I didn't tell my cat to come over here and find a good litter box. I'm working on it. It really devolved at this point. SWAT guy is like, we drove 90 mph up here because... Cat poop? Neighbor says "He was threatening me!" At that point I said I just asked how I should go about getting my cat out of the garage.
SWAT guy tells buddy he's called a break-and-enter to 9-1-1 because I was "sneaking around his garage" and the first cop is like "this guy took his cat". SWAT guy is like "why did you call a break-and-enter?" Neighbor says "I didn't" and the officer is like "should we go down to the shop and pull the tape”? Neighbor starts pulling a "do you know who I am? Don't talk down to me”.
The guy is like it's a crime to call emergency for a non-emergency. Like down to the station kind of deal. First officer is like "let the cat out now" and he finally does. Frank runs out and home. The officer is like this is stupidly unreasonable that you called 9-1-1 over cat poop. Guy finally apologizes. Shakes my hand and says sorry to me. I knew just what to do.
I say “do you still have my number? I'll literally come fix whatever he messes up while I try to get him trained up to stop using your garden there”. The officer says to me to do what I can to keep the cat indoors. I'm like “I do try, but my niece and five-year-old live with us and sometimes he's crafty". Anyway—now I'm not sure what is going to happen to my cat if he gets out again.
9. Wrong Place, Wrong Time
I bought a townhouse last year and within six months had to sell due to a neighbor from Hades. He was extremely mentally ill. Between the threats to myself and family, damage to our shared wall from him pounding on it, bottles being thrown at us, etc we couldn’t take anymore. The authorities couldn’t do anything, HOA doing nothing—we had to sell.
Without getting into too much of the story, this neighbor was not disclosed to us at closing between the seller and HOA. This neighbor was a serious issue for YEARS before us buying the townhouse. This whole process was very obviously very awful I still suffer PTSD from this person. A beautiful house I renovated and was so excited to start a family in our new 3-bedroom home.
It all came crashing down due to one man. My lawyer (who helped me close on the house to buy and then again six months later closed on the house to sell) put a provision in all his contracts and named it after me, saying all social issues with neighbors must be disclosed when buying a home. Maybe it’s because I’m now pregnant, but I’m crying my eyes out.
I’m so happy that my lawyer put this in all his closing contracts going forward. I tried everything to keep my home.
10. The Making Of A Legend
This goes back to nearly 45 years ago when I built my first house. The neighbor at the back was immediately angry that I bought two lots directly behind him and would not sell them to him or swap. His antics were beyond deranged. The dude would call the county inspectors and report my "violations" constantly. After we moved in the next spring, I began to regrade my property.
I also did things like plant grass and plant 20 trees, including six 5-feet blue spruce trees towards my property line, which I shared on the west with this neighbor. They were a good 10 feet in from the "agreed"-upon property line that HE was using. I spent two months doing all this, and one Saturday morning my neighbor and his wife were out and measuring their property and such.
I paid no notice until he knocked on my door and handed me what appeared to be a "bank survey" of his property that he had for 15 years. It indicated the location of property lines, his house and garage location, etc. He explained that my trees were on top of the "property line" and I need to move them. I kind of agreed with what he said based on his site survey and I proceeded to move them.
Then I looked closely at the survey. What I saw made me gasp. It also indicated the location of an abandoned alley we both had 1/2 possession of with dimensions off his garage. This clearly indicated not only was he claiming ALL of the alley, but a 20-foot strip along the entire back of my yard. Matter of fact, ALL the neighbors were claiming this and did so for years.
My house was the first one built on my side of the block. What makes this interesting? My neighbor had a huge strawberry bed (over 10 years old) along almost the entire backyard ON MY property. 500+ plants, all prime producers and HIS PRIDE AND JOY. I immediately got my own REAL survey done with steel pins driven and stamped hard copies of the site survey.
His bank survey was basically correct. But this was truly bad news for him. It meant that he and his neighbors really were freely stealing this strip of land across the entire block. 12 households in all. This is a small rural farming town (fewer than 800 people) and in all this dust up, I found out this neighbor is THE TOWN's big enormous jerk.
So I took my survey over to this guy and said, listen, no rush to move your plants (this was July) but you need to get them off my property in the next few months. He tore up the survey and threw it at me. Now it was game on. I worked second shift and commuted 25 miles to work. My wife would go out into our garden, which was a huge one, when she got home at night and do some work in it.
About three or four days later, she is out there and the rear neighbors are disrespecting her for all the trouble "us new people" were causing. She told me the next morning and I went to those neighbors (who all refused to talk) and left them copies of the REAL survey in their doors. A couple of days later I am at work and my wife calls me pretty upset.
The bad neighbor along with two of his neighbors screamed at my wife when she was in the garden in such a bad way that she was driven to tears. I told her I will be home in 45 minutes. I called my brother-in-law (a farmer, less than mile out of town) and explained the situation. He told me he can have his John Deere tractor with his tiller at my house at 6 pm.
I next called the country sheriff’s office to request a deputy to be at my house at 5:30, and then I called our police chief and requested the same. I get home and minutes later, both officers show up. I handed them my survey and walked them to show them the steel pins. I asked them what property are the strawberry plants on? They say clearly on my property.
Then I asked them, it’s my property and I can do whatever, right? They said sure. Now, we have about 20 people mulling around, though not my bad neighbor who ran inside the house. He was not going to face me after how he spoke to my wife. Instead, he sent his wife to the door to order me off his property or he will call the authorities. I said, too late, I already did and you have 15 minutes to relocate as many of your plants as you can.
It was almost exactly 15 minutes later when my brother-in-law showed up, and now it’s getting fun. I showed my brother-in-law where to start tilling. Took him 30 minutes to completely grind up all the strawberry plants. The silence was awesome. The rear neighbors were shocked and I became a legend.
11. Don’t Make A Sound
I moved to my new apartment around seven months ago. Having had problems with parties in my old apartment because the walls were extremely thin, I decided that I would not have them in this one. But I didn’t count on one thing. My neighbors are complete jerks. When I moved in I had a dinner with three members of my family and they complained.
I thought they were being ridiculous but as a gesture of goodwill, I gave my neighbors my phone number so that if there were any problems they could text me instead of coming down. They had then been incessantly texting me, telling me to stop using my phone after 8 pm, and to stop laughing. Might I add, I do not speak very loudly nor laugh very loudly.
Their excuse was that the only room in my house (studio apartment) is under their bedroom. I tried to be reasonable and speak lower, but that didn’t satisfy them and I wasn’t about to whisper in my own apartment. I got to my breaking point after four months of this and I told them to not text me anymore, as they were being ridiculous with their demands and I would from then on consider it harassment.
I had five friends over for the first time this August. All heck broke loose. The husband tried kicking down my door after coming down to complain; I had told him that he could call the authorities because I didn’t care and then closed the door. He got mad because since we didn’t have any music and we were a small number of people, he knew it would be useless.
For what it’s worth, we were playing cards. Now they told me they’ve called the HOA about my being on the phone past 8. I’m so over it.
12. Doing Their Best
I deal with PTSD, social anxiety, and a neurological disorder, so I live alone in a fairly quiet apartment complex. I had some younger girl move in above me, and she sometimes will have her young 6-7-year-old child spend the night. She also loves to run back and forth early in the morning. While annoying, I get it, she's a child and doesn't do it for more than 5-10 minutes at a time.
Well, my neighbor also has this issue of talking outside on the patio just about every night past quiet hours. Her patio unfortunately is right above my bedroom, so I hear everything. The authorities were searching her place last week for some reason and even took her away. I've even had to call the landlord due to a fight that I thought was going to get someone beat up.
Tonight, she upped her game and brought speakers outside to watch a movie on her laptop with someone else. All I could hear was the sound, her barrel laugh, and the never-ending conversation... While I was nervous, I went outside and politely asked them to put on headphones or something as I have to get up early to work and that quiet hours are at 10.
I'm super hesitant to renew my lease despite me living here for nine years. While I'm still shaking a little bit, I'm proud of myself. I work hard to live where I do, and I work hard to lessen my symptoms from what life threw me.
13. Don’t Mess With Me
This happened about five years ago when I moved into a wheelchair-friendly unit. I have parking, but one of the other tenants who doesn’t, James, would constantly park in my car space. Every time I confronted him about it, he claimed not to know anything, but he'd park there anyway. I informed the landlords about this and they sent out constant letters until he finally got the message.
But did he park on the street? Nope. He did something much worse. He started to park his car along the driveway, sometimes blocking my exit. To get out of my door I go down a ramp and then turn onto the driveway, but he would park his car and block my exit. There was no back exit so this was my only way to exit my place. I told the landlords about this and the council parking officer in hopes they could make him stop doing this.
I confronted him a few times and told him not to do this and warned him that his car might get damaged if I try to get my wheelchair around it. But did he listen? Nope. One glorious day when I needed to leave, I saw his car parked halfway across my exit. There was JUST enough room for me to get around, but I knew I would scrape the side of his car with the side of my power wheelchair if I tried to get around it.
I had two options: stay home and miss my appointments or try and get around his car. I went with option B. Before you have a go at me for damaging his car, it was an old beat-up tin can that already had some scratches on it. What's one more? When I got home, I couldn’t believe my eyes. His car was still parked there! So I called a tow truck company and told them there was a car parked and blocking access to my home.
I don't like using my disability to my advantage but I'd had enough! The call went something like this: ME: "Ah, hello? Um, yes. I'm so sorry to b-b-bother you, but I'm in a w-w-wheelchair and I c-c-can't get into my house because there's a c-c-car parked there. It's my n-n-neighbor and he won't stop p-p-parking there. I n-n-need to get inside." "Oh my god, what?? What's the address? We'll be right there!"
10 minutes later, the tow truck arrived. He saw the car and me, stuck out in the driveway with tears (dramatized for effect) in my eyes. Not long before the driver was about to tow the car away, James came out screaming "WAIT!! WHAT AH YA DOIN??? THAT'S MY CARRR!!" The rest was him yelling inaudible sentences asking why his car was being towed and threatening to sue the tow truck company.
He moved away about two years ago, but in the remaining time he lived there, he parked his car on the street.
14. The Spite Light
My husband and I recently moved into a house that was previously owned by his parents. The neighbors on one side were friends with his folks. Small description of the layout: Our garage door points to the side, so it points towards this couple’s house. It happens that their bedroom window is facing the garage door. Above our garage door is a small light that illuminates our driveway.
Both my property and my neighbors’ are on a full acre in the county, outside city limits. They have complained about that light since his parents owned the place. They have complained about quite a few things since we’ve moved in, and for the first bit, we tried to be considerate. The motion light was a big one that they would constantly bring up, saying it was shining in their bedroom window.
We had a large pine tree that blocked it for a while on our side of the property line. They then came to us, asking to cut down the tree because the overhanging branches were making it difficult to pull vehicles through on their property. In an attempt to be good neighbors, we agreed. So they cut the tree down. But in doing so, they left the trunk, saying it was on us to deal with it.
But, because the tree was cut down, now they’re complaining more about the light. We have not allowed that to make us change it. So they’ve decided to put up a privacy fence. Ok, sure. It means we have less to deal with from them. This winter there have been a number of reports of people taking things from cars. And on top of that, we got chickens.
So we set up a ring camera/motion light that faces the back of the property. The light ONLY comes on when someone is in the driveway or near the chicken coop. But by pointing it at the back of our house, their window is also in the path of the light. It’s just in the fringe view of the camera, so I can’t imagine THAT much light is getting in.
And with the angle, it’s also on our bedroom window, almost directly. It hasn’t troubled us at all since we installed it. It had been in for three days when we got a text from the couple. When I read it, my blood boiled. It was basically saying “challenge accepted” and threatening to get the brightest light they can find and point it at our window.
Now it’s been a little over a month. The neighbor was true to his word and put a light on a 12-foot pole with a light on top. He did his best to angle it in our window but missed, not that we told him that. It didn’t really trouble us. He took it down about four days later, never saying a word. Then they called the sheriffs on us! After sending progressively more aggressive and insulting text messages (always from the husband) they resort to calling law enforcement.
The officers showed up, very polite and we talked with them. Showing them the light in question, they agreed that its placement was fine. We mentioned the text messages and the officers asked to see them. My husband showed them his phone. The officers’ entire demeanor changed. They apologized for interrupting dinner and said they would go next door and talk to the neighbors.
We got a text the next day from the wife. It was finally what we wanted. According to her, SHE KNEW NOTHING ABOUT HER HUSBANDS BEHAVIOR. She had been out of town when he put up the “spite light” and made him take it down when she got home. She also didn’t know about the text messages he’d been sending. The sheriffs told them both that my husband and I have enough to make a real harassment case against them.
She would like a chance to talk face-to-face. She spoke with my husband today and it genuinely seems sorted. Who would have thought them calling the authorities would actually help us?!
15. A Lot Of Balls In The Air
My crib-midget has evolved into a mini-human, and my mini-human is now in an adult male body which is, unfortunately, still outfitted with a teenage brain. Don't worry though, he knows everything! I myself have a late-30s model body, but my teenage brain is coming along well. That said, my loving wife is still able to maintain her sanity with 2.5 boys and .5 male adults in the house.
However, the house was too small and we needed more legroom. We decided to move on up! The new house is everything we wanted. There is ample room for the growing family. The boys would conquer the upstairs, and even have their own bathroom to grow "science experiments". They occasionally fail to brush their teeth but you can most certainly count on them to pee in/on everything except the toilet.
James, my 11-year-old mini-human, shares my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and keeps his room in working order. Kelly, my 15-year-old Man-Child genius? Well, just don't touch that sock under his bed. Typical boy stuff I suppose. My wife and I now had a backyard. We had a two-car garage to store her Christmas and Halloween decorations.
The neighborhood is gorgeous, and I can literally walk to the clubhouse and play a round of golf. The cul-de-sac we live on is dominated by currently serving or retired service families. Everyone was extremely welcoming at the Home Owners Association (HOA), and the neighbors were all friendly. Well, at least for the moment! I had no idea what I was getting into.
See, I have read about neighbor horror stories. I have seen them on television. I never in a million years thought I would live next to "them". I am a gunfighter by trade. Believe it or not, I don't like conflict. I like my job, but I don't enjoy the carnage of it all. I am a realist, though. I would totally cast my ballot for World Peace, but I know it only takes one jerk to ruin it for everyone.
My immediate neighbors became those jerks. Enter the Entitled Parents: Kevin and Karen. They seemed nice at first. They were both really helpful, especially Kevin. Kevin had served in the Air Force, and Karen was a stay-at-home mother. They enlightened me regarding the neighborhood, the quality of the area schools, and told me the tips and tricks to avoid any hassle with the HOA.
Great, right? Well, the onset of the pandemic forced the school district to cancel the remainder of the school year. The mass hysteria allowed my humanoids to become semi-professional Fortnite gamers, who smelled like ball-funk and survived on soda and Zebra Cakes. They were quickly becoming chubby-bunnies. I, being neighborly, informed Kevin and Karen that I would be in the market for a portable basketball hoop to combat childhood obesity and Type II Diabetes.
Karen: That's great. It's so good to have young children in the neighborhood again. Kevin: You know you can't put it in the street right? It is against HOA rules. (Kevin is a rules guy!) Me: Well-aware. I will be putting it on the back pad. Karen: That's great. If the ball ever goes over the fence just tell them to come get it. Awesome! It was a positive interaction, and they had no issue.
Onward to Walmart! My children are well-behaved. They may act like little jerks to each other and inside the house, but they are both kind and courteous to others. Despite Karen's instructions, I told them to knock on the door if the ball ever goes over the fence. So they did. This was our first mistake. After the first bounce-over, Kevin knocked on my door.
Me: Hey Kevin. How can I help you? Kevin: (Annoyed) The ball went over the fence. Me: Did the boys knock and ask to get it? Kevin: Yes. I just wanted to let you know. I spoke to my wife afterward. "That was odd", was all I could think. Is the guy going to let me know each time the ball goes over the fence? Maybe I should knock on his door?
"Hey Kevin. Just wanted to let you know that your car is parked in the driveway." This process quickly became a routine for Kevin; Kevin became a self-licking ice cream cone. Kevin came over six times over the course of about three months. My wife began keeping tallies because it was odd and, but somewhat comical. Then it all started to get real.
James came running in the house, scared. He had tears in his eyes, and he was continually reiterating, "I didn't do anything wrong." Nobody has accused me of being "World’s Best Dad" so I was wondering if he did in fact do something wrong. I ask what he is talking about. He stated, "Karen is recording me". What? I look outside and sure-as-heck, I see Karen, at the fence, pointing her cellphone at me.
I think, "Well, darn”, because I know my wife is going to lose her mind. She did! My wife is dainty, but she quickly turned into a 4'11 Muhammad Ali. Man, it took every ounce of verbal reasoning for me to stop her from physically rearranging Karen's face-meat. In addition to remembering things for work, I have to be well-read regarding the laws that govern me as an American, and the local laws.
I knew Karen's tactic to scare and record my son was immoral and unethical, but she was technically allowed to do it. This didn't sit well with my wife though. I reminded the wife that I have a doctorate in revenge. This would not go unanswered. I can be a jerk too, but I am a methodical jerk. I did my best to erect makeshift barriers as a temporary solution.
It was not perfect, but at least it showed that we were doing everything in our power to prevent balls from going over the fence. I also submitted plans for a permanent structure to the HOA. I was going to build a hanging herb garden wall, but it required approval before construction could start. The typical approval timeline was two weeks, but everything was delayed.
I was in limbo. Then tragedy struck. Tragically, another basketball bounced over. It was the ninth basketball in approximately eight months. The kids were terrified to ask for their basketball back, and it wasn't even worth the hassle anymore. That didn't stop Kevin though. Knock. Knock. Knock. Kevin: ARE YOU HOME? Wife: Yes, but he injured his back. How can I help you?
Kevin: Get him please. (I should mention that Kevin is outwardly chauvinistic and is not a fan of "coloreds".) Wife: Kevin, he can't even walk right now. How can I help you? Kevin: The basketball went over the fence again. It needs to stop. They need to stop playing basketball. (He was now telling my wife how to parent. Good luck buddy!)
Wife: I am sorry the ball went over the fence. We continue to tell the children to be careful, but I am not going to tell them they can't play basketball in their own yard. Kevin: You'll tell your boys to stop playing. If the ball comes over the fence again. We are calling the authorities. Tell your boys to stay out of our yard. They're trespassing!
Wife: If you want to call them then you go ahead and do it. However, the boys DO NOT go in your yard at all anymore. Meanwhile, I was losing my mind in the bedroom. I could hear the conversation, but I physically could not make it to the front door. I managed to slide off the bed and began my Army-crawl to the door, but I was late. My wife was fuming and I was pathetically crawling on the floor.
Yay back injuries! We had no intention of starting anything, but the boys were doing nothing wrong. We had informed Kevin we were getting a hoop, and they had zero issues with it. What the heck was going on? Then it got so, so much worse. The ball bounced over again. Officers are called! They sent two cruisers. The children may be 11 and 15, but all be darned if they don't go down without a fight.
One cruiser was not going to suffice, you'd better send two for my miscreants. I just sat in my garage man-cave and watched it all play out. The officers go to the neighbors’ house first. They are there for more than an hour and I can only assume we are being painted as horrible neighbors. Oh well! It is now pitch dark outside and I was startled by the time an officer approaches.
Officer John Kimble: Hello? Sir! Me: Oh my god! You scared the bejeezus out of me! Officer Kimble: Sorry, Hi, I am Officer Kimble. How are you doing this evening? Me: Typically I would say fine, but I don't typically have an officer in my garage. Officer Kimble: I understand. The reason we are here is because the neighbors called about trespassing. Now, they said nobody went in their yard today, but they want you to understand they will press charges next time.
I was baffled. I did my best to maintain my composure, but I am certain my face was screaming, "Are you serious?" Officer Kimble then pointed at his body camera and mouthed, "Recording", and then gave me a "thumbs up" gesture. I immediately seized the opportunity to mess with him. Sorry, it's in my nature. Me: Do you want another drink? You can't just drink one!
Officer Kimble: (Laughing) WHAT? I didn't have a drink with you. Me: (Laughing as well.) I'm kidding, and we are fully aware of their intent to press charges. I will be sure to do my best to prepare my boys for the rigors of life behind bars too. I think it will be good for them too; may even toughen them up a bit! Officer Kimble: (Laughing) Okay Sir. I just want to ensure that you are aware. Ideally, we would like to see neighbors talk things like this out. Unfortunately, this is what it's come to. I just want to ensure you are aware.
Me: Tracking! Officer Kimble: You have a good evening Sir. Me: Thanks. Officer Kimble then walked back to his patrol car. He didn't leave though. I assume he was just finishing mundane paperwork, but he was there for at least 20 minutes. Then he surprised me. He returned and was a completely different Officer. Officer Kimble: Hey man!
Me: Back for that drink? Officer Kimble: (Laughing) NO! Sorry man! I just wanted to talk to you without the body camera. Those neighbors of yours really seem eager to press charges if your children are caught in their yard. Me: (Laughing.) My wife and I have concluded that. Officer Kimble: That lady is BATTY. My God! She demanded we detain your children tonight!
Me: Tonight? Officer Kimble: Yes! She said they trespassed before, and she wanted to press charges now. Me: (More laughing.) I am sorry you have to deal with this brother. I really am. I can assure you that they have never gone in their yard without permission. Not once. They are terrified of her.
Officer Kimble: I believe you. There is something not right with that lady. She said the basketball wakes her son up, and she will not hesitate to press charges. I told her we would do our duty, but I don't think the magistrate will view the situation kindly if we detain two children for playing basketball. She clearly does not care though. I just wanted to chat with you, and without the body cam. I can't exactly call her crazy while it is running.
Officer John Kimble stayed for another hour. He was impressed with the collection of memorabilia and the setup of my garage man-cave. He was specifically intrigued with my Nintendo and working copy of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, among other classics. Yes it's certainly cool, but it has little to do with the story. Then everything hit the fan.
One evening shortly after, my wife was mowing the grass, and I was currently planting a new flowerbed. Kevin and Karen had just returned from another Chick-fil-A run. Then the unthinkable happened. Kevin exited the car and immediately approached me, and he was angry. Kevin: Your boys went into my yard and got a ball today. They may think we didn't notice, but we did. You need to tell those boys to stay out of my yard or...
Me: Wait a minute! I don't tolerate people who lie, cheat, or steal, and you are lying right now. Kevin: Your boys were... Me: We were at an all-day soccer tournament in DIFFERENT STATE. We have only been home for a couple hours. They have not played any basketball since we have been home. You're lying! Kevin: Well, we are sick of them getting balls from our yard without permission.
Me: Look Kevin, I get it! However, you fail to recall when your wife said the boys were more than welcome to go in the yard and...I didn't even get to finish when I heard the screech of Karen. I know my writing style is "different" to say the least. I wish I was better. I do not have the words to accurately articulate the sound Karen made, but I will do my best.
It was like the Tyrannosaurus from Jurassic Park making love to a nuclear explosion during a tornado, but way louder. Karen: I NEVER SAID THAT. I WOULD NEVER SAY THAT. She screamed at the top of her lungs mere inches from my face. I could smell the Meow Mix bellow from her scream-factory. Meanwhile, Kevin pulled a Houdini and vanished.
Kevin is a passive-aggressive jerk and direct confrontation scares him off. Me: Yes. You did. Karen: I NEVER SAID THAT. YOU'RE WRONG. Me: Whatever. It's not even worth it. But this was her breaking point. Karen: I AM SO SICK OF YOUR HEATHENS GOING IN MY YARD. YOUR HEATHENS BETTER NOT GO IN MY YARD AGAIN. I KNOW THE LAW.
The "I know the law statement," really rubbed me wrong. I was about to open my mouth and respond, but my wife was on her already, which led me to believe Karen is louder than a lawnmower. My wife was still seething about Karen recording the humans. Wife: They don't go in your yard, and they are good children. They are not heathens! You better STOP RECORDING MY CHILDREN.
Karen: Oh shut up. You guys are white trash. Your children play in the street and run around the neighborhood. Everybody knows you're trash. Just. Stupid. White. Trash. I am now thinking, "Oh my god” and semi-worried about Karen's future health as an active participant of living humans. I think my wife wanted to expire Karen's shelf-life.
Wife: Excuse me? My children never play in the street, you're recording them, and... Karen: Just shut up! YOU'RE STUPID. YOU'RE JUST PLAIN STUPID. I CAN RECORD THEM IF I WANT. NO WONDER YOU DON'T HAVE JOBS. Wife: I HAVE THREE ADVANCED DEGREES. WE ARE WORKING FROM HOME. WE ARE NOT...
Karen: You are! YOU'RE TRASHY AND STUPID, AND BOTH YOUR CHILDREN ARE STUPID. I had enough. There was no point in arguing, either. Mark Twain stated to "Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience". Mark is correct, and Karen was trying to drag us down. But then I got the best idea.
I don't know why, but I remembered something that Kevin discussed with me when we first moved in; the trees! They have a large maple tree, and they have a juniper tree. Kevin always told me they were "in the process" of contracting a company to crown and lift the maple tree. Furthermore, they were going to get the juniper tree off my fence.
Dear Reader, I know the law too. I can legally trim anything that goes over my property line. Now all those pointless conversations were making sense. It was my time to join this exciting game called pettiness. Me: Karen. You have until Sunday to get your juniper off my fence. Karen: Shut up. I told you we were going to get it handled this fall.
Me: It's June. You have until Sunday. Karen: Or What? I allow my wife to rejoin the conversation, and I retreat to the garage. Then I grab my clippers and prune a good couple inches of the juniper tree, then lay them at her feet. Cue T-Rex volcano voice! Karen: WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING? I TOLD YOU IT WILL BE DONE THIS FALL.
Me: You have until Saturday now. Karen: You are dumb too. Just like your wife aren't you? My intelligence may have been debatable, but I suppose it was time to repeat the process?!? I now return with about two feet of tree, and place it at her feet. Me: You have until Friday! Karen: You better not touch my tree again. I will call the authorities and have you thrown behind bars tonight. You're so dumb aren't you? Now I see where you children get it from.
Me: I know the law too, Karen. I will be back in a minute with some more of your juniper tree! Karen: KEVIN. KEVIN. KEVIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNN! I again return to the tree. I now have another two feet of juniper tree to place at her feet. The more she screams, the smaller her tree becomes. It was an enjoyable game of cause and effect.
Meanwhile, I see Kevin and his son running like two Usain Bolts to secure their tree with tow straps. Karen: I hope you’re happy. You are terrible people! You are both terrible parents, and your children are heathens. I am sick of the ball bouncing and waking my son up, too. You people need to move. You're just horrible parents. HORRIBLE. (Screaming louder) HORRIBLE PARENTS.
Dear Reader, I had enough. I was at critical mass; I was going to explode. Karen continued to yell at my wife and I was zoning out. It was comical to watch Kevin and Kevin Jr secure the tree to their porch in order to get it off the fence. Once complete, they quickly made their way back to the one-sided screaming party. Karen: Horrible parents. Look with they did to my poor tree.
Kevin: I think we should call the authorities. Karen: HORRIBLE PARENTS! I feel sorry for your kids and...Here’s where I broke. Me: Just shut up! I raked up 21 bags of leaves this past fall. Funny, because we don't have a tree in our backyard. I pulled an additional bags worth of leaves and branches from my gutter. Not from "my tree" either. It was from your tree. You know what Kevin? I didn't knock on your door and complain.
Kevin: Yeah, and? Me: We live in a suburbia. This stuff happens. They are kids; kids play outside! I don't want the ball in your yard either. You accuse them of being in your yard. Karen: Yes really. Maybe you should learn how to parent your horrible children. Me: Know what? That's the last time you question me about my parenting. My children are going to grow up and be productive members of our society.
Then I paused. I waited. Because I knew just what to say that would break her: the truth. Me: I find it comical that you have the audacity to question my parenting, seeing how you have a 49-year-old son living at your house for the past nine years. I assume it was because of the divorce and the bankruptcy he filed nine years ago?
I kept going. Me: My children are waking your child up? Your child is a jobless 49-year-old man living at home with mom and dad. Karen: (BAFFLED) How do you know any of that? DO YOU GO SNOOPING THROUGH OUR MAIL TOO? Me: I am good at what I do, and I found everything on online. I know you are 69, and lost your license due to a reckless endangerment charge in 2017.
I just kept going. Me: I know Kevin Jr has five different moving violations. I also know he was fired from his grounds-crew job with the HOA. I know your husband is 72 and wears the same shirt every day, so I can only assume that laundry is not a priority. I know your phone numbers, and email accounts. I know a lot about you. We can have a civil relationship or we can have a problem. Just remember this though, I AM GOING TO OUTLIVE YOU!
They stormed into their house. They were not happy or impressed with my ability to figure this all out. It was not over for me, though. They messed with the wrong guy. See, they were unaware of what actions I took to keep the peace before this. For example, I never let the boys play basketball while they were outside eating dinner.
This is when they would blare country music and enjoy the gorgeous weather and eat a meal. I never complained about Garth Brooks on volume 100 while I watched the national news. I have wrestled since I was four years old. I was never much of a basketball guy. I am now though! So one day, Karen and Kevin had just sat down to enjoy their meal.
I don't have to spy either. I can easily see them out my French doors as I watch the national news. I patiently waited for them to get their outside dinner setting perfectly situated. I could hear Tim McGraw playing when I opened my French doors. I like music too, so I figured I would get my groove on and play basketball. Me: Alex, play Dr. Dre. Alexa: Bleep and Bleep by Dr. Dre.
Me: Alexa. Volume 10. I have a new fondness for rap music and the game of basketball. This didn't stop Karen from recording my "heathens" on a daily basis. I know what I was about to do was petty, but I had zero cares to give at that point. I had one last screw you. It was my final card to play, an Uno Reverse Card of sorts! My neighbors across the street and my family have bonded.
He had a tree removed last week, and I had an epiphany. How much would it cost to trim a large maple tree that overhangs my property? I am not talking a couple branches either, but more like half of a 100-foot tree. I approached the tree removal company and offered them a sizeable chunk of change and informed them of my delicate problem.
They said, "any friend of MY NEIGHBOR is a friend of theirs". Pro bono! They move their large equipment over to my backyard and take their time getting ready. Guess who came running out of the house? Kevin: Hey buddy! (Buddy. Not horrible parent. Buddy!) Me: What can I do for you? Kevin: What are they doing here? Me: Oh. Them (Points)?
Kevin: Yeah. What are they doing? Me: Oh. Well, they are going to trim the tree? Kevin: Just trim? Me: Yup. Just a little trim! Karen: You know that tree was a gift from our daughter right? We don't want anything drastic. It has been with us for over forty years now. Kevin: Yeah. It was a gift from our daughter. How much are you thinking about trimming?
Me: Well. Just so you're aware, you understand that I can legally trim anything that overhangs my property? I have approval from my lawyer and the HOA to trim it. Frankly, I care as much about your tree as you do my children's privacy; I couldn’t care less! Kevin: How much are you talking about trimming then? They didn’t like the answer I gave.
My property line is here (I point) and it extends up (I point up) to space. I am going to trim every single branch that encroaches my property. So, probably about 1/3 of your tree. It's gonna look really funny when I am done. Oh well. Karen started to cry. It was a really, really ugly cry. There was no more rage left in her. She was defeated. Kevin was defeated as well.
This was not my desire. Don't get me wrong, I don't care if she cried, but it was not my intent. Me: Or YOU CAN STOP RECORDING MY CHILDREN. Karen: (Looking like snot-nosed Carole Baskin) If I stop recording? Me: Look. We don't have to like each other, because I certainly don't like you guys. My boys never go in your yard. Ever. I don't care if you keep the other basketballs, but I will be darned if you record them ever again. If you do, I will cut your tree down without warning.
Kevin: (ANGRY) Thanks bud. Me: No worries friend. I am just trying to be neighborly. Just remember. I am serious about the tree, and I am pretty certain I will outlive you. Dear Reader, I know I am a jerk. I know we were both in the wrong at times. I draw the line when a 69-year-old woman sees fit to torment my kids. We have only had one problem since these events occurred.
Kevin Jr's car sat in the same spot for nine months. I have submitted over 20 home improvement requests to the HOA, and I am now friends with the wonderful ladies that work there. They periodically inspect neighborhoods and noticed the registration on Jr's vehicle was two years outdated and had it towed. Karen accused me of having towed.
We had another colorful conversation, but it ended there. Kevin Jr is still jobless to this day. I assume he has managed to erect a bunkbed in his childhood bedroom. He has "so much more room for activities". Just make sure you don't touch his drum set.
16. Wake-Up Call
Last night my boyfriend and I were woken up by someone trying to enter a code on our front door keypad, before repeatedly and shaking/banging on our door. Honestly, a terrifying thing to wake up to. My boyfriend yelled through the door for the guy to leave but he kept trying for some reason? So instead he opened the door to yell at the guy.
He told us he rented a room here. My boyfriend just told him again to leave and slammed the door. This morning we checked our ring cam and saw the guy was on his phone at first trying to get the Air BnB address because he didn't have his itinerary. After he was told off twice, his reaction was to scoff about it and say "okay…" in a sarcastic tone, like he didn't just try to break into a stranger's house??
We didn't even know about the rental until we found the listing this morning. Turns out it was the same neighbor who, upon first moving in, lurked outside our guest bedroom window (at night) when we had a friend staying here, got our friend's attention, and asked him through the window what our Wi-Fi password was. Thankfully our friend was freaked out by this and didn't give it to him.
We've still never talked to this guy before and honestly I don't really want to. We're friendly with every other neighbor we've met so far, but is it okay to just write this guy off now?
17. Home Alone
My partner, our children, and I have rented our house for about a year now and it's in a fairly nice neighborhood with mainly older (boomer generation) people who live around us. We hardly ever see our neighbors—we have one across, and one on either side—except the one across from us, but she has always been friendly to us. I am a truck driver so I'm not home a lot.
My partner stays at home with the kids and homeschools our children. We decided yesterday to go on a day trip to a nearby larger city to relax and spend time together. My neighbor across the street saw us loading into the car quite early in the morning since we had a full day planned. About two hours later, our Ring doorbell detected motion.
My partner checked it out to find our neighbor knocking on the door. We asked what she needed. Her answer only made it weirder. She said that she was checking on our children. My partner and I found this odd since we aren't close with the neighbors. We don't even know each other's name. Still, we explained to her that our kids were fine and that they were with us.
About 10 minutes later, officers come to our Ring doorbell saying they had a report of kids left alone at home. We were able to clear it up by letting the kids talk to them via the Ring app so they knew they were with us. We explained that no one was home alone since we all went on a day trip. We continued on about our day and planned to talk to her today about it to ask why.
Fast forward to today and my partner and I walked across to ask what gives. It went from 0 to 60 in no time at all. The neighbor gets in my face and accuses us of leaving the kids home alone frequently (we don't ever). Her evidence was that when we get groceries delivered, we have the kids bring them in from the front porch while we put them away in the kitchen.
It should be noted that there is another kid around my kids' age in the neighborhood who roams around from house to house unattended and unsupervised, but no one seems to mind him. How all of that translates to us leaving our kids home alone I do not know but I just needed to vent. We told her not to speak to us anymore so hopefully that will be that.
18. Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
So my husband and I purchased our first home in a suburban southern area a few months ago. It’s not going great. I adore my home, of course, but my neighbors are my opposite. This is fine but they've made an effort to show their disgust in us. To start, I have epilepsy and I smoke medical marijuana for it. This has been an issue for my back neighbors, who are an elderly conservative couple.
My neighbors to the left, at this very moment, are talking very loudly in their backyard. I was sitting here reading when they came out. So far they have complained about my dogs because their dogs attack the fence now—my dogs do not and the fence is their fence. Their dogs already broke one board from slamming into it simply because my dogs are here.
They also made some judgements on us about how my husband and I look. Then they went into me personally, questioning if I have a job because I’m home all the time. So I just loudly said, "I work from home, and you know I can hear you right?"And they went inside. I’m so bummed about this. Where I lived last, I was friends with all my neighbors. I literally already spent 50k on this house and my neighbors suck.
19. The Woman In The Window
I’m a woman in my early 30s, living alone. My next-door neighbor is also a woman in her early 30s, living alone. We live in a typical suburban neighborhood. Long story short, I noticed pretty early on that she’s OBSESSED with her property lines, as I witnessed her yell at another neighbor about it roughly a month or so after she moved in.
At that time, I thought to myself, “Okay, this woman is nuts, but she’s not gonna become my problem, because I never go anywhere near the property line”. I don't even spend time outside in my own backyard, because I still have to build myself a patio. So I figured I’ll just be friendly with her, and she’ll see how chill and easy-going I am, and we’ll be cool with each other. Well, I was wrong.
Come December (after our first big snowstorm), my plow truck driver plowed my driveway. She flipped out, telling me that some of the snow that was moved during the plow job had rolled over onto her property. Then she actually said, “I’m going to draw a line in the snow, and if anything goes over that line, we’re gonna have a problem”. Oh boy, here we go.
After that, I tried to explain to her (in a stern but polite manner) that the snow was not on her land, and that I was on a work call (we both work from home). Then came the terror. She reacted to that by marching over onto my property and screaming at me on my own front porch. She screamed in my face, in a manner I had never seen before.
She demanded that I "take a walk" with her to examine the snow so that she could prove some of it was on her land. I was feeling pretty threatened at this point, so I said, "I'm not walking anywhere with you". Then she screamed, “then we’re going to have a problem! Do you understand me”? I said nothing, because I was in a state of complete shock.
I just stared at her, in amazement. And then she leaned in and screamed this blood-curdling scream: "DOOO YOOUUU UNDERSTAND MEEEE”??!! So I slammed the door in her face and decided to avoid her at all costs from then on. She was just getting started. In the days that followed, she proceeded to shovel her driveway, and the sidewalk in front of her house screaming at me and my house the entire time she's shoveling.
She can see me through my window, as the desk I work from faces the window. Come spring, I go for walks with my friends in the neighborhood when the weather is nice. She ran at us with a weed whacker as we passed in front of her house, screaming, “you start your walks when you think I’m inside?! You can’t avoid me”! I filed a report after this incident.
On her more calm days, when she’s not doing one of those screaming episodes, she'll go outside whenever I go outside and pretend to work on a bush that’s on our property line. I hired a landscaper to cut my grass, just because I don’t feel comfortable in my own yard. She went outside on my landscaper’s first day on the job and talked to him about me.
Basically, I can’t do anything at my house without her reacting to it or somehow finding a way to insert herself into the situation. She makes everything her business. On her best days, she’s just behaving in a nosey, annoying manner, but on her worst days, she's screaming at me and making me feel threatened. And there’s a kicker. She also never leaves her house to go anywhere, EVER.
She has her groceries (and anything else she needs) delivered to her house. She literally never gets into her car to drive anywhere. She is ALWAYS home. Waiting, watching. And before you say it, no, I’m not selling my house. I was here first, and I put so much money into renovating it to make it into my dream house. I refuse to be run out of my own neighborhood.
Oh, and, I’m getting a privacy fence put up next month. I don't really like the look of fences, but I don't think I'll be comfortable going into my own yard until I get one.
20. Drive-By Headache
This lady is targeting us in our neighborhood. Just at all hours of the day, she drives by or pulls into our driveway and lays on her horn. She tells our next-door neighbor that we party all night long and harass her and that her uncle owns our house and we never pay our bills. None of which is true, and we’ve been in this house for three full years.
Well, let me tell you, eventually I documented every time she’s driven by, blaring her horn. It was a grand total of eight times—twice a week every Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday. She pulled into our driveway about an hour ago. I immediately flew into protection mode grabbed my phone and poked my head out the door. I asked in my most acidic voice "Can I help you”?!
She says “Yeah, where are your kids that always run around here”? I say “I don’t have kids. This neighbor and that neighbor have kids, we do not have kids that run around”. Then my husband pokes his head out and was about to tell her to get off our property. She starts backing out and says “I'll be back with officers”. I said “go for it” and whip out my phone to get her license plate.
Go figure it was on selfie mode, but I read her numbers over and over, committing them to memory. I rush inside and write them down. My husband then calls the non-emergency line and we get an officer out here in 10 minutes. We tell him about her, and I show him my calendar of all the times she’s driven by/pulled in. We also got backup.
Our next-door neighbor lady comes out and confirms our side of the story and tells him whereabouts she lives. He leaves to go talk to her and comes back with an exasperated smirk on his face. What he told us infuriated me. Apparently, she wasn’t targeting us but our next-door neighbor. She claims that their 17-year-old son, which they don’t have, snuck into her house and put cameras up to watch her.
She is actually delusional. Anyway, the officer said she would stop so fingers crossed. If not they have it on record.
21. Any House Will Do
Yesterday my boyfriend came to my house to watch movies. He dropped by the pizza place on his way here, ordered a pizza and paid for it in advance. We hear the motorcycle passing by so I go out to get the pizza—but I see the pizza delivery guy a couple of houses away…and my neighbor receiving the pizza as if it was his!
For a couple of seconds I didn't say anything because it was probably just a coincidence. But no, it wasn't, it was my pizza and that man tried to take it. And screw the delivery guy too. When he gave me the pizza, I don't remember what he told me, but I replied with "Yeah, they were trying to take it". He replied with "Oh no, he told me he would pay for it".
I was livid so I didn't reply, but like, screw you!!!! We had already paid for the pizza, I don't care if the neighbor was going to pay YOU for the pizza we had already paid for! So yeah, I have awful neighbors and now we won't order from the same pizza place.
22. The Neighbor Agenda
So this has been going on for a year now. I've lived in my home for about seven years, but have owned it since the late 90s. I used to rent it out before I moved in. Back when it was a rental, my neighbor put up a waist-high picket fence in the front of our adjoining properties. It came over on my side of the property a little under a foot. When I moved in, I honestly didn't care that much,
We got along relatively well and I try to be peaceful with my neighbors. Last year, she's having all her fencing replaced as the old one's falling apart. I see her outside and ask if we can put the fence that's on my side down the actual property line. I can’t believe her response. She completely lost her mind on me. The way she reacted you'd think I reached across and slapped her!
I didn't engage, and immediately called a survey company and had them out the next day. She did as well. Both came back a week or so later confirming the fence was on my side. About a week after that, code enforcement showed up regarding a house under construction across the street from me, completely unrelated to the fence or anything.
He parked in front of my house and was standing in my yard to take pictures of the house across the street. I came outside not knowing who he was and spoke with him. Once I knew what he was doing, I came back inside. This turned out to be a horrible mistake. As soon as he left, she came outside screaming at the top of her lungs calling me horrible names for calling code on her.
I'll admit I lost my temper and we had a screaming match. 20 minutes later the authorities show up, and she claimed I just started screaming at her for no reason and she was in fear for her life. But there was something important she didn’t know. I have two cameras in my front yard, and the entire exchange was caught as she was in front of my house when she lost her head.
I showed it to the officers and they left quite irritated with her. The biggest mistake I made, though, was posting about it on my Facebook group, which is quite large and contains members of our community. She called the authorities on me again for inciting threats or something like that. So to make everyone happy I deleted the post. Was this the end? Nope.
She called the authorities on me a third time a few months later for the same thing again, though I'm not sure what for as I hadn't posted anything else. The officers were confused as well and they left. A few months later, I'm on my porch having and she's in her van. She stops in front of my house, rolls down her window and calls me a ton of names again, then takes off.
Again, caught on camera. So I figured, screw it, and posted the video to my group. Sure enough, she calls the authorities. This time, they turn on her. They tell her she needs to leave me alone. She got angry and started screaming at them! They said if she doesn't calm down she was going to be detained. A month or so later, I'm having a tree trimmed on my other neighbor’s side who we get along with.
She called code enforcement trying to say I did it without a permit. It got thrown out as it was a Camphor tree. She called in officers again, and when they showed up she wouldn't answer the door. We all still have no idea what that call was about. A few weeks later, a detective comes by my house saying she's been investigating this case. I start to get worried, but there was a twist.
The detective actually says I've done nothing wrong, and she's going to speak with my neighbor to inform her of just that, and tell her to leave me alone. My neighbor loses her mind on the detective. Keep in mind I've never once called anyone on her, Code enforcement, etc. A week after that, she installs Nest Google cameras pointed right at my front door.
Nothing I can do about it as in Florida, there is no expectation of privacy at the front of your house, and neighbors can mount cameras at you. About two months ago, someone broke into my storage and took a bunch of stuff. I check my cameras, but unfortunately it's too dark outside, so all you can see is someone with a flashlight over my neighbor’s fence while someone else is rummaging around in my storage.
I've since upgraded to night vision cameras. At this point I'm getting tired of it all. Buuuuut, I go over and speak with her in person after one whole year of this. I recorded the conversation on my phone and made her aware I was recording as I don't trust her. We speak for about 10 minutes, but in a nutshell I tell her that we may not like each other, but we are neighbors and we have to live next to each other.
I say that I'd like to just go about our business and lives. She agrees surprisingly, and a couple months pass with no issues. I should have known it was too good to be true. Then we come to yesterday....which is the crown jewel of insanity! My boyfriend went outside to talk to his mom, and I get a text from my neighbor saying we are not to come outside when she's outside as were spying on her.
She says if it continues, she'll take this farther! Also in the text, she threatened to call code enforcement because I detailed my van with a buffer and it was loud. I promptly told her to screw off and she will not dictate when we can or cannot come outside, and if she keeps messing with me I'll file for a restraining order.
23. The Grass Really Is Greener On The Other Side
Australia had some hectic wildfires going on and was in extreme drought. My hometown has high water restrictions in place, so things like washing your car and watering your garden are a MASSIVE NO-NO. The water supply is scary low and there has been talk about the council potentially needing to pay for water trucks to fill it.
Even though I live in another city and my parents have moved to the coast, they still own the house we grew up in my hometown and have been trying to sell it, so it has been sitting uninhabited for about six months. We have friends who occasionally check on it to make sure nothing has been taken and to mow the lawns. You can imagine their shock when they received a water bill for $500.
My dad went back there on Wednesday to check it out. The answer was jaw-dropping. He found out that our neighbour has removed one of the pickets from the border fence and has been feeding a hose through to her yard from our backyard tap. Her backyard is like a tropical oasis! Vibrant green lawn, flowers, etc while everyone else’s lawn around it is brown.
The bill says the amount of water used is about 200,000 litres. He’s taken photos of her lawn in contrast to ours and of the removed picket from the fence and reported her to council. My dad is essentially the lawyer/investigator of our family, he’s very good at stuff like this so she’s absolutely screwed. We just cannot believe that in such a time of crisis, as the land burns around us and farmers struggle to feed/water their livestock, all she cares about is her garden.
24. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
I was messing around with my bad laptop's Wi-Fi card and saw I had an access point I could connect to that wasn't there before. The signal was so/so and I had my own internet so I didn't bother trying to use that one. At that point, I just sort of forgot about it. About a week later, I was unplugging some stuff and accidentally unplugged my wireless router.
While it was unplugged my phone found the next accessible Wi-Fi access point. This was the one I'd found previously and not really bothered with—not my circus, not my monkeys, you know? Then something weird happened. My phone pops up saying I need to install all of these smart home apps to make the appliances work. This didn't make sense.
I'm enough of an IT guy to know that unless there's a burning need for it, home automation isn't really the best idea. Absolutely no telling who can access that information. These people nearby me had their garage doors, heating and air conditioning, lights (interior AND exterior), televisions AND refrigerator hooked up. To a Wi-Fi. With no password.
In the industry we call that dumb as a bag of hammers. Once I plugged the router back in to appease my suddenly irate family members wondering where the internet went, I hooked up my dog and took him for a walk. Before I left the house, though, I had a plan. I installed the smart home app and turned on one exterior spotlight, then looked for the house it was attached to.
Presumably if I was able to use their Wi-Fi they were in the line of sight. Once I saw the light that was on, I turned it off to make sure. House was on the next street over directly behind my house. There's a huge hill in the way that the builders left because mother nature didn't flatten my part of the country as a courtesy, so lots can be next to each other without being accessible.
That meant going the long way around. My dog is an adorable cockapoo who has much better people skills than I do. So when I have to go talk to people I don't know, he comes along because he's about as threatening as a wet noodle (don't tell him I said that) and I can't be that bad a man if my dog is as awesome as he is. So we make our way over to the neighbors’ house and I knock on their door.
A nice older lady answers it, old enough to have moved out kids but not old enough to be considered a Q-tip in my humble opinion. She forgets to ask what I want and IMMEDIATELY goes gooey all over my dog, and her husband hears the adorable appreciation sounds coming from his front door and investigates. He too is floored by my dog's awesomeness.
There's about a minute of him getting all the attention (and I thought building a rapport) before I remember why I'm here. I ask how they like their new smart home stuff. This backfired on me. They immediately start getting weirded out. Husband says: "We like it just fine...how do you know we got that stuff?" I take my cue and launch into trying to help them.
"Please don't take this the wrong way, but you don't have a password on your wireless. My phone connected to it by accident and told me about all the stuff you had installed." The wife cocks her head to one side and the husband's brow starts developing a thunderous quality. I start talking faster, "I'm just here to let you know that you really should put a password on your Wi-Fi, or ANYONE can use it to do stuff like open your garage doors."
The husband's brow is now in full fury mode and he opens his mouth to (presumably) shout at me. But before he can, the wife says "Oooooh, THAT’S what the installer guy was talking about. He kept saying I needed to encrypt the thingie or something like that. We've never bothered with a password because it's a pain in the butt to set up and remember."
Husband has gone from thunderous fury to bewilderment, and he looks at his wife and says "Encrypt the what now?" I don't feel like getting voluntold to set up these people's network and appliances for them, so I say "OK gotta go bye!" I power walk away from their house and once clear we head back towards my house. I thought it was over, but it very much wasn’t.
About two hours later someone starts knocking at my front door. I live in an in-law apartment in the basement of my parents’ house, so that's not my door. My mother answers the door and then stomps down to the door to my part of the house, throws it open, and tells me the authorities here. Again, in a frosty voice. I hustle up the stairs.
There's Officer Dave, the only officer my town had who knew enough about computers to actually have a conversation with me without getting a must-smash-nerd face. I say, "Hi Dave, what's—" He cuts me off before I can even finish, he says, “WHAT did you do?” "What? I haven't done anything!" "Then why the heck am I getting calls about you opening and closing people's garage doors and turning their lights on and off?!"
To be fair that DID sound like the sort of thing I'd do. Not to break into someone's house, just to mess with them. I'm mischievous, not evil. And then the light dawns. I point and ask, "Did you get called by the people living in that house? Because I went over there a little while ago to tell them they needed to put a password on their Wi-Fi, and the only thing I did was turn on a spotlight to see which house it was. Nothing more than that, swear to god."
"They don't have a password—" There's a thud as Dave facepalms. I let out a yuuup in sympathy. He sighs and says stay out of trouble, and I wave bye. Turns out, the husband called the authorities and gave a vague description of me and the dog and said I lived nearby. The couple got a call back to tell them the issue is resolved and please secure your Wi-Fi.
Two days later, there's a password on their Wi-Fi and we all lived happily ever after. Except for getting the stank eye from that couple whenever I walk by.
25. To Norma With Hate
This story is honestly so ridiculous that I can't even believe this happened to me, and I think I'm going to need therapy once I'm out of here. We're moving out this weekend because if we didn't leave, I don't think she'd ever stop. My husband, boyfriend at the time, and I moved into our apartment December 2018, and we were so excited to finally be living together.
We were both coming out of not-so stellar roommate situations, so we were ready for a break from the drama. So innocent, so naive. I still remember the first moment I stepped into this apartment. The floor creaked so loudly and felt so thin that I actually was like "Whoa. That's pretty obnoxious". When we had toured this apartment complex, they showed us a "model" unit that had all of the upgraded finishes that we were not getting in our actual unit.
In other words, we had no way of knowing what we were in for. It had hardwood floors and upgraded counters and appliances, and we were told our unit would be the exact same layout, just with 70s style finishes and carpet. It was unavailable for showings. The floor did not creak at ALL in the one we were shown. We were excited nonetheless because we didn't care about upgrades, preferred carpet for an apartment setting, and this unit was on the top floor.
We had both had noisy upstairs neighbors before, so we were excited to not have to listen to consistent, unavoidable noise. I had also been an upstairs neighbor myself and had never had any complaints before. I think you can all see where this is going. We started moving in our stuff, and that's when the music started. We could hear loud guitar all throughout our apartment so clearly that I made the comment, "I wonder if the person below us is a musician"!
Again, so naive. We turned our music on low and continued moving in our stuff and going about our day, and that's when the banging started. I was a little confused since we weren't doing anything ridiculous, so I assumed maybe this person didn't like my music. I turned it off. We got a fair bit of our stuff moved in, but then I had to go to work.
I was working retail at the time, and it was holiday season. I didn't get home until 12:30 AM. I came into the bedroom and my husband had the air mattress set up and was on his phone waiting up for me. We chatted for a little bit and started getting ready for bed. He got up to go brush his teeth, and our neighbor started aggressively banging on the ceiling.
We looked at each other like "Are you serious?" We were talking quietly and definitely not stomping. We can't NOT get ready for bed. She banged another few times at least. We got all settled and that's when he looked at me and said, "Do you hear that"? ...Yup. It was Jingle Bell Rock BLARING through the floor. We turned on the wall fan unit in the middle of December to try to drown it out a bit, but it didn't really help.
We were both just lying there, freezing, in silence, already regretting renting this unit. The music continued all night. We woke up moderately early the next morning after a horrible night's sleep to finish moving our stuff. On our door was a lovely note from the terrorist downstairs. My heart sunk as I read the writing. It read: "PLEASE be CONSIDERATE of your neighbor below you. I go to bed EARLY not 2 AM!!! It sounds like EXPLOSIONS down here and you are SCARING me and my dog. THANKS”.
This made me angry for a number of reasons. First of all, light talking and getting ready for bed is an unavoidable and non-rowdy activity. Second of all, it was actually 12:30 AM and it's hardly my fault I had to work night shift. Finally, at 2 AM, the only noise to be heard was the obnoxious Christmas music blaring downstairs that continued until 6 AM!
I wrote back a snarky note on the back of the original, posted it on her door, and we decided to just shake it off. Again, so naive. Over the rest of December, we tried to live our normal life—getting ready for work, cooking, cleaning, watching TV shows/movies on low in our living room, sitting at our desks in the den playing video games with headphones on, going to bed between 10 PM to 12 AM.
We never had guests, never played music, never ran/stomped/jumped, etc. During this time, whenever we would exist in our home, this lady would BLARE her TVs in both the bedroom and living room in response to us coming home. If you stood in the doorway and waited, you wouldn't really hear anything. The minute the floor creaked, BOOM! DUB-STEP! But she had more in store for us.
We also got multiple calls from the office letting us know she was upset. It was always about us walking too loudly. We explained to the office that we were already walking on the balls of our feet and unless we grew wings, there was no way we could be any quieter. We were already making sure that closing any doors, drawers, or cabinets didn't make any sound also.
They eventually said that they were going to stop bothering us with her complaints because it sounds like we were already going above and beyond for her, and there was nothing anyone could really do. We would complain about her TV, and they always said they'd talk to her, but nothing changed. Then it got ten times worse practically overnight.
The next month, January, officers started showing up. She would call in noise complaints and pepper in little details like "I got a flat tire last week, and I think they had something to do with it" or "Every time I'm outside, they're watching me from their windows”! This was our second month there and we still had no idea who she was, what car she drove, what she looked like, nothing.
All we knew was that an angry woman lived below us with her dog. It was honestly appalling to us that these accusations were made, and we and the officers agreed something was not right with her, so they stopped coming out and we continued to ignore the TV. We invested in a fair amount of fans and sound machines for our apartment which made it slightly more tolerable.
When the authorities and the office stopped humoring her, she started taking matters into her own hands. A true vigilante, if you will. Starting in February, Monday-Friday, 7:40 AM on the dot, she started turning on music louder than her TV had ever been and leaving for the day.
It took us a while to figure out she wasn't actually home during this time since we didn't know what she looked like or what car she drove. It was so loud I could use an app to identify what songs were playing. She also started regularly banging on the ceiling, throwing things at the ceiling, slamming her front door and other doors/drawers/cabinets in her apartment, and having loud, stomping temper tantrums in response to us just living our lives.
After a week of this, we called the office about the music, and they came out and listened. They agreed it was super loud, but since it was during the day, they couldn't really do much unless we got an officer to cite her, and they doubted that would happen. I mentioned the other behavior, and they told me that we couldn't really prove it was happening, so they couldn't do anything.
They tried knocking on her door, but since she wasn't home, obviously no one answered. The music, banging, slamming, and temper tantrums continued daily. Then came a fateful day. We were walking up the stairs to our unit when we saw someone going into her unit, and it was an older woman, probably in her 60s. Now that I had a face and a figure, the next day I waited until the music came on.
Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, I actually watched her, for the first time, from my window as she left the building and walked to her gray SUV, smirking because she had just turned on floor-shaking music in retaliation to us...just existing? I was LIVID. But what could I do? The office was no help. We decided just to continue ignoring her and continue attempting to drown out the noise with fans, white noise, and headphones.
We knew being petty wouldn't help us, and honestly, we were still being pushovers at this time. We were too nervous to go down there and talk to her, and considering everything she had said to the office and the authorities, both actually advised that we just ignore her for our own safety and continue calling them if the situation escalated. Her violent-sounding behavior also scared us. Then it happened.
The confrontation. One April morning, I had a random early shift at work to cover for someone who was on vacation. I was leaving the building around 6:40 AM. This was apparently around the time she takes her dog out every morning. I opened the door and saw her in the grass by the parking lot and immediately thought “Darn. Well, I'm just going to avoid eye contact and hopefully she'll leave me alone."
SO NAIVE. This woman screamed at me the whole walk to my car and got progressively angrier the longer I didn't acknowledge her. I was in full-blown flight mode because I am 100% a coward, and so I just speed-walked to my car and drove off. I called my husband and told him what happened, and he immediately called the office and lost his mind at them.
At this point in time, the building manager got involved and told our neighbor that the music needed to stop, the stomping, banging, and slamming in response to us living needed to stop, and she was not allowed to confront either of us again. If she had problems, she needed to call the office or the authorities like a normal person. Her response haunts me to this day.
She claimed the music was apparently for her dog while she was at work. Yeah, right. Funny how it didn't start until everyone stopped listening to her, but sure! The stomping, slamming, and banging was just her trying to tell us that we were too loud and that we needed to get used to it. Once she couldn't hear us anymore, it would stop. Oh man, but there was more.
She said when she confronted me, she was just trying to have a conversation with me but I just made her SO MAD because me not looking at her was so disrespectful. Plus, she was CERTAIN that we were obsessed with her and every noise we made was on purpose and only to upset her. The office manager agreed that she was nuts and offered a transfer to both of us.
She outright refused, insisting we needed to be evicted. We were still recovering from the last move, and honestly, we were angry. Everyone agreed we were not the problem here, so why should we have to move? Fueled by rage and indignation, we refused as well. The rest of April and May were fairly quiet. Whatever else the building manager said to our neighbor seemed to resonate.
We were finally starting to relax. There were a few fits on her end here and there, but if that was the worst of it, we finally felt like this situation could work. This peace did not last. Starting in June, her old behavior began to make an appearance. The stomping, slamming, and banging were back in full force. Then, the music started again. I decided I was no longer playing this game.
I had the day off from work, so I opened a bottle of red and spent the afternoon using my app to find out what songs were playing from her unit, and I compiled a playlist of her own antics. I waited until I heard her door slam and shake my whole apartment, and I stomped all over my apartment for a solid five minutes. This definitely got her attention, and I could hear her losing her mind downstairs. But I wasn't done.
I took my Bluetooth speaker, put it on the floor under my dining table, and blared her music right back at her the entire evening until quiet hours started. I just sat at my table and laughed maniacally every time I felt her bang right where the speaker was, slowly get tired, stop, and then start again. How does it feel, witch? After this, she never did the music again.
However, the temper tantrums continued. We ignored these. Then a few weeks later, our doormat went missing. We found it shoved behind the washer in the laundry room. We contacted the office one final time, and they forwarded the body of one of her emails to them. It was filled with the craziest stuff. She accused us of rocking back and forth on the floorboards for hours just to bother her.
She said we played with the garbage disposal all day just to make her mad. She accused my husband of following her every time she went outside even though he only saw her a few random times when he took out our trash. She said she was terrified of us and that we were monsters who were tormenting a senior citizen. Obviously, none of this was true.
Ultimately, the office told us they couldn't help us unless we transferred units or got citations. We told the office that we would be talking to them today, and they must've tipped her off, because we ended up talking to the EXACT same officer that she talked to maybe an hour or so earlier. I wish I was making this up. He said we didn't seem like the crazy stalkers that she described, and she seemed off.
He advised us to move. Unfortunately, we couldn't afford it, so he advised us to keep calling, and maybe she'll knock it off. He came out a few other times, and eventually she seemed to stop again for the most part. We went through October, November, and December without any major issues. We ended up making the difficult decision to renew our lease in December 2019 for a few reasons.
We were definitely not in a great financial position to move out of this complex. We didn't want to transfer because after living in this complex for the year, we learned that many other units had mold, leaks, no easy access to the two dumpsters in a 26 building complex, barely any parking, and were at least $300 more expensive a month because they were "upgraded".
Everyone also complained about noise, so who's to say it would be any better? If we were leaving this unit, we needed to just leave the complex altogether. We weighed the pros and the cons and with our neighbor seeming to calm down, we decided to stay one more year. Big mistake. Starting in January 2020, the old temper tantrums started up AGAIN.
Every single day. She also started just following us around all day, slamming and banging below us any time we moved. She started coming out of her apartment to glare at me as I walked down the stairs to work. It was exhausting. It was depressing. We couldn't afford to move, we were locked into another lease, the authorities told us they couldn't help, and the office kept insisting on a transfer.
We got into a few noise conflicts with her during this time, but it just made things worse. This lady just wouldn't stop. I can't even imagine having the energy to harass someone for that long. Then in February, I came home from work to no power in my unit. The hallway had power, and I could hear her TV on, blaring from below, so clearly it was just me.
I checked my bill, and it was paid. I checked my fuse box, and nothing had blown. I called emergency maintenance, and the guy came out and checked my breaker and said it was fine. Then he told me he had to check the main breaker in the basement. And that's when it dawned on me. I asked him if the main breaker panel was in the storage room that we all had access to.
He said yes. I asked if the panel was locked up. He said no. At this point, I started shaking. I told him what had been happening since we moved in and my suspicions. He said he was new and didn't know much, but I told him her name and that if he mentioned it to anyone in the office or maintenance, they would know who it was. He took note of that, checked the main breaker, and sure enough, mine was the only one turned off.
He said that they didn't have any contractors out that day, so there was no other logical explanation why only mine would be off since no fuses blew in my apartment. I was beside myself. She was never going to stop. This was the final straw for me. The next week, we had a meeting with the office to go over options, and they told us that they couldn't lock up the breaker due to the fire code, and that they were not going to put up a security camera.
They agreed with us that it was probably her, but since there was no proof, again, they couldn't do anything. We also were told that she was coming into the office WEEKLY to sob and scream about how we were ruining her life and we were awful people. Just for existing. They also told us they suspected that she or someone she knew called them and pretended to be from a "third-party agency" that was "in contact with the attorney general" and that they "needed to evict us or there would be consequences”.
When pressed for information, they wouldn't give any, so clearly it was a fake call, and the office just told them that this is not how these things are handled and to call back when they could provide valid information. At this point, I feel like I must be having an extended nightmare, because there is NO WAY this can be happening. It's so absurd.
Long story long, we scraped enough money together, found a new place, ripped the office a new one, and got them to let us out of our lease penalty-free. I honestly feel like I have a mild form of PTSD after living here. The slightest bang, slam, or thump sends my heart rate soaring and I start having panic attacks. I have been scared every time I have to leave my home and always have my phone ready to record when I have to walk to my car.
We've stopped going for walks, cooking new foods, using our living room, eating dinner at our dining table, cleaning our home as often as we liked, and many other things because we were harassed daily for it. I hate this psychotic woman with every fiber of my being, and I have never actually confronted her about it because it's not safe or smart.
I feel like a shell of a person, and I am so ready to have my life back and heal. If you're going through something similar, I am so sorry and you are not alone. It may be hard, but the world is cruel and no one wants to help, so moving is usually the best option. Justice rarely exists. To all of the downstairs neighbors out there, I know it may be noisy, but please consider the fact that you may live in a poorly constructed building and the people above you are probably trying their best.
Talk to them nicely. Try to come to a mutual understanding. Once management gets involved, it usually gets worse and it's hard to come back from that. To Norma, (name changed) if you somehow end up reading this, I hate you.
26. Privacy, Please
So I had a neighbor flag me down as I’m backing out of the driveway to “chat”. He proceeds to make small talk, then ask me about why my ex and I divorced, or basically outright asked. He then said, “She must have found someone else, huh?” What the heck is wrong with people? You really think I want to talk about this with you? Then he asks me why I didn’t move back home to my hometown.
I don’t know, not everyone wants to live on top of their family. And he wonders why I avoid him like the plague. Mind you, we have covered both of these topics already previously. It’s like we practically have the same conversation every time I see him. I don’t want to talk about my divorce and family issues with you.
27. Be Careful What You Wish For
My neighbor took issue with a small mistake we made in parking, and she has now been blocking our driveway at every opportunity. My partner won’t park on our drive anymore as he needs his car to get to work. I didn’t want to tow the car, because if there was the tiniest scratch she could claim compensation off us. I also didn’t want to ring the authorities.
Even if it was the non-emergency number, I know how busy they are right now. I spoke to a friend who knows about parking laws. I found out you can contact the council and my friend also told me to mention that I was unsure if she got permission to create a dropped curb in front of her garden. I’ve been taking pictures of her doing it each time she blocks us.
I’ve also filmed her ignoring us as we knock on the door (you can see her peeking through the curtains to see who it is) to ask her to move the car. I sent in all the evidence and today they visited. The neighbor had parked in front of the drive when they visited. The karma was instant. They decided to give my neighbor an immediate fine as they can see she’s prolific at it from my evidence.
Also they checked out the dropped curb onto her driveway. I’m not going to lie, I did tell my daughter to ride her bike so I could watch her and listen in to what was being said. Apparently, the neighbor applied for a dropped curb. However, it was refused as she has had a porch built and it means the garden is too small. You can only be approved if your garden is over a certain size to make sure that you can park your car in the garden without overhang onto the footpath.
My neighbor just built the dropped curb herself. The person told my neighbor that the council will decide what will happen. Most likely she will have to pay for the curb to be reinstated and may be fined on top of that.
28. Ruining The Holiday Cheer
I live next to a park trail that heads to a dog park. Yesterday, my security camera caught a neighbor stopping to let their dog pee on my Christmas decorations. The decoration in question is a stack of three Christmas presents made out of a wireframe wrapped in fabric with lights inside. The item is placed about 6' away from the sidewalk on my lawn.
The neighbor just stood there for several seconds with their hands in their pockets watching the dog pee on my stuff. I took stills of the images. They are grainy so you can’t make out the person's face, but you can clearly make out what they were wearing, and that the dog is a shih tzu. I printed them out, put them in plastic protectors, and hung them on the boxes with a sign that has The Grinch on it that says "He sees you when you're peeing".
My camera is pointed, and I wait.
29. People Are Trash
I bought a beautiful house with a long driveway several months ago. Our next-door neighbors’ house is right up on the street and they have a trailer behind the house. Since moving in, we noticed the girl living in the trailer will use our driveway to pull in and out because they have piles of trash and scrap metal all-around their own property which makes it difficult for them to drive on their own property.
The repeated use is causing a large pothole to form in my driveway. We never really cared that she used the driveway, but seeing the pothole get worse we made note of it and planned to speak to them about it. On an initially unrelated note, we recently had a survey done so we could fence in our yard for our dog (this part of the yard is not near these neighbors).
The neighbors seem to take issue with this and have been screaming at and harassing the survey crew, and told us that our driveway is a “public road” and we have no right to have boundary stakes along it because according to them, our driveway doesn’t belong to us. Except it does because it’s in our deed and plot plan. My husband attempted to speak with them twice regarding the pothole and ask them if they would repair it.
He also wanted to see if they would split snow plow costs since they want to regularly use the driveway. They shocked him in response. The owner of the house, along with the girl living in the trailer and her boyfriend, began screaming and swearing at my husband. He said they aren’t paying for anything, made violent threats against him, and then began insulting my three-year-old.
The boyfriend is now stalking us and any time we have a guest over outside, he comes out and starts screaming about the boundary stakes, saying we need to lawyer up (even though the stakes match their own plan). We’ve consulted with the survey company and an attorney, who all are in agreement that these people have no right to use our driveway without our permission and they all advise us to not speak to or respond to them in any way going forward and to put up a privacy fence so we don’t need to see them.
I am just so frustrated to feel uncomfortable in our own yard and on our own property when it should be my sanctuary. I just don’t understand what kind of grown adult would insult a small child over a boundary dispute. My child has never even met these people or been on their property so it’s not like they can claim she plays in their yard or anything.
I’m just dumbfounded. Why are people such trash?
30. Don’t Be That Neighbor
Around 2009, I was living in the inner city of Sydney, Australia, on the bottom floor of a three-story apartment building in Randwick. Randwick was a pretty busy place with some great local restaurants and an active nightlife, with Coogee beach just down the hill. It was perfect for my wife and I as she worked in the city, and I worked about an hour out of town so had a good commute against the influx of traffic into the city.
At the time I was in the Army, so I had to be up quite early to make it to work on time, around 5 am. My wife and I were newly married and living our best lives. We loved our little apartment and got along great with our neighbors, even sharing dinner at each other’s apartments a few times. Eventually someone new moved into the top floor apartment on our side of the building.
We never really met them and I never really bumped into them in the stairwell to say hi. A few minor things happened with them parking in my spot, blocking the garage, and making me late for dinner reservations a couple of times. My wife and I had to swap cars a few times because one of our cars was blocked in by them, yet again. The fact we had a spare car meant that I didn't entirely lose my head with them.
After a few months of this, I noticed strange happenings. I saw that they had a few different cars, the faces in the apartment were rarely the same, and they always spoke with an Irish accent. We deduced that they were backpackers and someone was renting this apartment out as some sort of a holiday house/youth hostel. This wasn't unusual in the area as Coogee was full of Irish backpackers.
My wife and I didn't mind so much until...A new group moved in and they were loud as heck. They stomped up the stairs while screaming at each other like they were in the front row of a Cranberries concert every night at midnight. I'm talking weekends, weeknights, they didn't care about anyone else. Sometimes it was later, like 2 am.
Then when they reached their apartment they made sure to slam the door as hard as they could, wind the stereo up to eleven, shout from the balcony, and get down another nine drinks each. This went on for a couple of nights, and I decided to go up there and ask them politely to keep it down. The first two times this worked a treat, they were respectful, apologetic, and obliged.
After another week though, they got pretty brazen and immediately cranked the music the second I got back to my apartment. Our neighbors had problems with it too and we discussed it over dinner. We figured they'd move on eventually like the other backpackers. Someone from one of the other buildings called the authorities a couple of times but it had no real effect.
A couple of days would go by and they'd be back at it. This went on for over a month. Now before we got married, I was known for being pretty rowdy after a few drinks, but I was trying to settle into married life and looked forward to starting a family. So it was a rare occasion that my wife and I returned home at around 2 am after a big night out.
I was rocking with a good buzz, and my wife was ready to pass out with her shoes on. As soon as we got out of the taxi we could hear them, singing from the balcony, music blaring. When I got to the door of my apartment I unlocked it and held the door for my wife, and she kicked her shoes off as she went through the door. I was stewing, thinking to myself "Should I go up there? Should I let it go"?
That’s when it hit me. I had a brilliant idea. I said to my wife "put your shoes back on, we’re going out for one last drink". She grumbled but obliged. We immediately went upstairs, which confused her but she held my hand and followed me dutifully. When I reached the top-floor apartment, I knocked on the door. The music stopped, and a pale little Irish fellow answered the door sullenly.
"Sorry mate, we'll keep it down". I immediately pushed past him and into the apartment, saying "Turn it down? Where was my invite to turn it up"? We entered their apartment and I went straight to the fridge and grabbed myself a drink. They were all looking at me like deer in headlights as I take my first sip. There were six or seven of them there, all speechless.
I looked around and knew I had the element of shock. I decided to take things as far as I could. I barked at them "Well?! One of you rude jerks going to offer my wife a glass of red, or what"? One of them reaches for a glass and hands her it, which she refuses naturally, because she just wants to pass out downstairs in her warm comfy bed and not be here.
I say something along the lines of not wanting to interrupt their party and to get the music and good times going again. I start asking where they're from, how their travels have been, just forcing myself into their party. I barely get three sips into my drink when I reach for the fridge and crack another one. I get two or three sips into that and I grab another one.
I do this until there is not a single drink in their fridge, and I can see this has had the intended effect of incensing a few of them. But I am being so polite and friendly, and the situation is just so weird none of them say anything to me about it. One of them said he had seen me in uniform and asked what I did. I didn't lie to them, but I let them believe whatever they wanted.
I was extremely fit back then and let them make their own mind up as to whether or not it was worth messing with me. I think the confidence with which I just strolled into their apartment and started drinking rattled them enough to believe just about anything. I must have looked a little psychotic because not one of them said a bad word to me.
After about 20 minutes or so of this, I look around the room and notice a couple have gone missing. I ask where they had gone and one of the guys says they have an early flight tomorrow. I saw my opportunity to make my point loud and clear. I go searching through their kitchen for a pot and pan, and a couple of them are asking me what I am doing. I grab the kitchenware and go into the bedroom where six bunk beds are crammed into a sweaty stinky backpacker hovel.
I switch the light on and start banging them together as loudly as possible. I start yelling "Get up you're missing out on the party"! Just making an absolute nuisance of myself. I can see by now, they've had enough of me. Three blokes are bleary-eyed in their boxers, the others are clutching their drinks, staring at me. The music has stopped and I look at the 10-15 cans I had one sip from and left scattered on their bench.
I throw pans at their feet and say "If you guys never want me to come back and mess up your apartment again, you'll shut up after midnight from here on out". One of them eked out a meek "Yes Sir". I smiled at them, wished them a good night, and left. After helping my wife downstairs to that warm and comfy bed she was pining for, we both had a great night’s sleep.
In the months after that, we never had a single problem again. That particular group was there for at least another week or two, but were complete angels. I don't know if it was the best way to handle the situation but it definitely worked. Take it easy and remember, don't be that neighbor.
31. To The Letter
I've been going crazy wondering why I didn't get this multi-thousand-dollar check I've been expecting for months. Yesterday I reached out to the company, and they told me it was mailed two weeks ago, there's nothing more they can do, and told me to keep waiting. Mail here usually takes like two days. My rent check I mailed three days ago was already cashed.
So where was my check…? This morning at 9 am there was a pounding on my door. Whoever it was didn't say anything, no text or call, nothing. So I didn't answer. I have two neighbors, one downstairs, one across. The one across always texts or calls instead of knocking. The downstairs neighbor told me before she would never come upstairs under any circumstance because she hates the woman across from me, and she's also disabled and has trouble with stairs.
The banging happened again at around 12, and this time I heard my downstairs neighbor's voice. I opened the door for her and she was holding my letter. It was ripped open. She told me she went out at 5 am this morning, and when she came back at 6 am, the letter was on the ground in the common area of the building, ripped open like this.
The check was still inside. She told me she suspected the neighbor across from me saw that the letter was from an investment/banking company, opened it, realized they couldn't really do much with it, and threw it on the ground. I immediately called the authorities. People always say opening another's mail is a serious federal offense. Plus this was a multi-thousand dollar check that someone interfered with.
PLUS, it was mailed two weeks ago. Whoever took it had held onto it for days. Officers came and talked to both neighbors. The downstairs neighbor told her story, told the officer about how much she loved me, how she wants to protect me, how she'll do anything for me. None of that is true, this lady despises me. The neighbor across, who also doesn't like me, told the officer she definitely did not and would not, take or open my mail.
In the past, this woman has found my mail in her box, texted me immediately, and left the envelopes outside my door, and I have done the same for her. So I suspected the downstairs neighbor who supposedly “discovered” it. Either way, the officer said without proof there's nothing that can be done. He said to ask the landlord to put a camera in the common area.
Though all of us have had items taken from the common area, my landlord is vehemently opposed to doing this. The only other thing the officer suggested was either getting a PO Box which is $70-something dollars here, or downloading the "post office app", which apparently shows you what mail you're getting that day. I'm definitely looking into the app.
Otherwise, it looks like nothing can be done. Neighbors can just take, open, and keep my mail now. I guess the only way to end it is to spend the money for a PO Box.
32. Too Close For Comfort
My driveway way is also the school bus stop, so parents would park in a manner that cut off the street because the street parking was taken. Well, that’s stopped because we put my fiancé’s work truck with cones around it in front of our house. Now the issue is that parents know who I am and where I live—I’m a teacher. Now they always want me to answer their questions or solve their problems in school.
Like, I had a parent Friday at the morning bus stop come ask me (while I’m trying to potty train my puppy) about her kid. Another mom then asked why an elementary school teacher who I don’t know nor have ever met gives so much homework. This morning, a dad asked me what my contract says in terms of teachers’ days off because his child’s teacher has been out for a week sick.
And they found out because I wore a t-shirt to work Friday with our district and union’s name on it. There is a certain expectation of how I behave and act towards people outside of work, so I can’t speak to people the way I want to or it could impact my job.
33. Let Sleeping Babies Lie
My wife and I just had a baby about two weeks ago. She is a very fussy newborn and cries several times throughout the night. The colic is no joke and we are both sleep-deprived. I go to work during the day and my wife stays at home with the baby. We live in a rather nice neighborhood with great neighbors who have all lived here for a long time.
We recently had a family of about five move across the street from us. They are loud, leave piles of trash out, blast music late at night, and constantly annoy the neighbors. Lately, one of the kids, who I’ll guess is about nine, has been ding-dong ditching my house several times a day while I’m at work. This causes our dog to bark and in turn wakes up our sleeping baby.
This has also caused my wife to pretty much have a nervous breakdown. We know it’s him because my wife has caught him doing it. Anyway, the other day I stayed home from work. I was making coffee in the kitchen and I saw him creeping up from my window view. I immediately swung the door open and told him that next time he comes on my property, he would be shot.
34. Not Coming Up Roses
This all started last fall when I planted 30 tulips in the large flower bed in front of my house. Since then, I’ve caught my neighbor’s dog running amok, digging up my bulbs. At that time, I let my neighbor know and it seemed to be handled and over with. Or so I thought. Once my tulips started breaking soil, it only got worse. The little girl next door actually started taking the dog with her to play in my garden.
Play, meaning letting her dog eat my tulips while she rips apart the leaves. Once I saw this, I quickly ran outside and politely explained to her why I’m not okay with this. Again, she apologized and I thought it was handled and done. Boy was I wrong again. For the last month, the little girl and the dog have been having a free-for-all in my flower bed.
Every time I catch her and run outside, she darts off like it’s some kind of game. I’ve tried getting in touch with the parents again but I feel as if I’m being purposely ignored. I eventually reached out to the landlord to just send a little friendly reminder out. Which they did. But now I’m at my wit's end. Yesterday afternoon I watched the little girl next door take a stick to my last standing tulips like a baseball bat.
Petals flying everywhere and they all snapped at the stems. I was beside myself. I also knew I was too upset to confront anyone at that moment. I gave myself some time to cool down and then went over to knock on the door and talk to the parents. The outcome disappointed me so much. No answer at all, even though I know they were home for sure.
At this point, I don’t know what to do or if there is anything I can do. Our landlord is aware of everything. My landlord even gifted me new flowers to plant, but they also got destroyed in yesterday’s reckoning. I know at the end of the day it’s just flowers, but I honestly had a mental breakdown this morning when I went out to try and salvage them and realized they are all done for.
All 30 of my tulips that took 6-7 months to bloom. Destroyed.
35. Keep It Hush Hush, Or Else
I have a diagnosed immunological condition that affects my large intestine, and it isn’t super fun. I usually have to wake up at least one time during the night to go to the bathroom and/or eat something to help my malfunctioning guts. I’m also an athlete and so an earlier riser (~5 am). I walk into my kitchen every morning after I wake up to take my allergy pill and make a cup of caffeine.
Apparently, this is a problem for my new (as of a couple of months ago) downstairs neighbor, who knocked on my door yesterday morning. This was ironically after I’d had a bad flare-up and so spent about 50 of the prior 72 hours sound asleep in bed. Neighbor says she “has been coping with” my situation for some time now. The situation? Her answer was outrageous.
She hears me walk to my kitchen or bathroom in the middle of the night or in the morning (either barefoot or in socks) and doesn’t like how “loud” I’m being. For reference, I’m a 5’ woman who weighs less than 115 lbs (smaller than the neighbor in question). I talked to the landlord’s office yesterday and they were understanding. Apparently, they have been getting a bunch of similar “noise” complaints in the middle of the night, and they are very over it at this point.
They’re willing to keep a letter from my doctor on file, and will potentially reach out to the annoyed neighbor. Someone suggested I keep a log of when I’m awake at night, just so that there’s something to refer to when the neighbor inevitably complains again. But for the moment, I’m just scared to be awake in my own apartment at night and am literally overanalyzing every single thing I do to determine if it’s potentially “loud”.
This is not a fun way to live.
36. You’re On Candid Camera
I do not get along with my neighbor, and put up cameras to record the goings-on. Well, today he went out on his porch with a clear jug, saw the camera, and immediately called someone to complain about me, bragging about how paranoid he has me, saying that I only put the camera up because I think he will get revenge on me for this time he thinks I hurt his plants. He didn’t stop there.
He called me a fat witch, said he hates me so much, I'm a joke, my camera is a joke, he's getting cameras to capture me going on his property at night and ruining plants, it's my fault that water backs up in his house every winter because I don't shovel the alley, he's gonna sue me, he's gonna call the authorities, it'll be me he goes after and not my husband, I'm a whackjob, and all this other crazy stuff.
He made one phone call after another and spewed all of it for each person and kept pointing his finger at the camera. But that wasn’t the most disturbing part. I'm pretty sure he was about to actually do something to our flowers because he never drank out of that clear container he had in his hands and he immediately jumped to "SHE KNOWS I WAS GONNA KILL HER PLANTS."
That was a small concern but we mostly got the cameras to capture the harassment. I didn't hurt any plants of his and I sure don't enter his property. I'm always asleep when he goes to work so his cameras won't capture anything. And nobody shovels the alley because it doesn't belong to anyone. I don't think I can be sued for something I wasn't notified about or given an opportunity to correct either.
We have had the cameras for less than 24 hours and we already have things we can use for a possible civil suit. It's funny that he thinks I'm the whackjob. He is the only one with a documented history of coming out of his house to scream at multiple people, including me and my guests. He’s also done things like leaving threatening letters and going up to a new neighbor at his house and screaming in his face about his car not being pulled in enough.
I'm the crazy one though.
37. A Little Too Honest
I live alone with my five cats who are my babies. I'm gone daily from 7:30 am to at least 6:00 pm, if not longer. Four of my cats are seniors. Two came to me because their first “parents” were elderly and had to move to a nursing home. My cats only go out on the front steps for a little while and spend most of their time on the back deck, in a fenced yard.
So I get home last night and the first thing two of my seniors do is go out the front door to sit on the warm cement and wait for the neighbor kids to come give them pets. It’s their nightly ritual (the other three hate children).
After 15-20 minutes, I hear the bang on the screen door that means they want in and I go let them in. There are a couple of kids still there and the one little asks what my real name is. I tell her. She informs me her mom said my name is Crazy Cat Lady, but she didn’t think that was a real name. It’s always good to know what your neighbors think.
38. The Long Goodbye
Eight months ago, family of six moves in next door. Mom, dad, four young kids. I've known the dad for years, and the mother is a relative of a friend. Had my reservations, but was polite anyway. The trouble started quickly. The mom and dad have a volatile relationship. Mom drinks heavily every weekend, staggers home at midnight, has a screaming match with dad.
The kids are screamed at or ignored constantly. Unwashed, fed whatever they can find, which is often not much, as drink comes before food shopping. The kids are also expected to get themselves ready for school and nursery. The eldest, who is seven, is responsible for making sure the rest are ready to leave when the mom gets up. The inevitable happened.
They were reported to social services. The schools know about this and are "supporting the children". In April, the weather turned nice. The neighbors opened the door to let the kids out in the garden, and the smell made me close all our doors and windows. I’ve spoken to the landlord on multiple occasions, but her hands are tied due to the tight tenant laws here.
They are paying rent sporadically, so there's not much the landlord can do. Then, two weeks ago, I woke up to an envelope behind my door. It had keys and a note asking me to pass them on to the landlord as they'd moved. I called the landlord, who came round. Me and the landlord went in to check that they'd left. I couldn’t believe what I saw.
I've never seen a house look so bad. Dirty nappies everywhere—in kitchen cupboards, piled up in the corner of the living room. Poop wiped on the walls. Empty food tins all over the house. Writing on the walls. Broken bottles all over. The house was rented partly furnished, and all the furniture is broken and stained. The washing machine has a load of wet, moldy clothes inside.
There are letters from debt collectors piled up on the porch, and there is no electricity. There are holes in the internal doors, and two of the doors are missing. The landlord has spent the last two weeks documenting the mess, which has been sent on to social services and the school. She has had to empty everything out of the house.
She's basically had to rip it back to the brick in most of the rooms, and the floorboards will need to be replaced. As far as we can tell, the mom and dad have split up (again), and the mom’s disappeared with the kids, probably to avoid social services and the debt collectors. She'll turn up eventually, because she's not clever enough to manage to hide for long, but the landlord is out tens of thousands of dollars, and she's got no chance of getting anything back. I'm just glad they've gone, and I don't have to live next door to them anymore!
39. What’s Yours Is Mine
We have had issues with our neighbor since we moved in four years ago. Besides being an inconsiderate weirdo who spends a half-hour revving his motorcycle at 6 am, he also planted trees on our property. Fortunately, the neighbor recently fulfilled his life-long dream of becoming a Florida man and I have thoroughly enjoyed sleeping past 6 am for the past few months.
I was randomly scrolling through Zillow to see if the house sold yet and imagine my surprise when I saw my property listed as part of his land for sale, including the stake that shows where his property begins on the far right of the picture. I contacted his real estate agent and she came out one day when I was at work. My husband took her back to show her the property line.
She said the neighbor said that was his property. My husband had a printout from the GIS with my name listed as the owner and she agreed to contact the potential buyers to let them know. The trees he planted are ugly and falling apart but I figured I would ask the potential buyers if they wanted to move them before I get to work with a chainsaw but we haven't heard back from the real estate agent.
I went back there to determine the best way to remove the trees and discovered that before he left, he planted some kind of tree seedling, which turned into a tree with thorns all over it mixed in with the sick pine trees. It was a serious “what the heck” moment. One would think a real estate agent would spend five minutes verifying property lines before listing the house but what do I know.
40. Mind Your Business
I know this sounds ridiculous, but I’m getting fed up with my neighbors and I’d like to explain the situation here. I live in a small house in the country. I have a small farm with a vegetable garden, chickens, and goats, as well as a very surly old bulldog and a barn cat. There is only one house within viewing distance of my yard, which is next door to me, with a large field and a stone wall separating us.
The house was previously owned by an elderly couple, but when they passed a few years ago, the property was bought at a cheap place by a landlord and renovated to be rented out. I had no problem with the landlord or the reno. In fact, he never bothered us and did a beautiful job with the house. I know him personally and went to high school with his sons.
I do, however, have an issue with their current tenants. Now, to understand my issue with them, you should know that I do not like people and I live in the country for that reason. I want my privacy and quiet. As soon as these people moved in, my worst nightmare began. They put up at least 20 different flags relating to Christianity as well as multiple other flags.
It looks really tacky, but whatever, as long as they leave me alone I don’t really care. About a week after they moved in they (husband and wife in their 60s and their son who is in his 40s) show up while I’m outside tending to my animals with their loud, aggressive poodle.
I had never spoken to them before and was taken aback that they would feel okay just showing up on my property. I admit I wasn’t exactly warm and welcoming, as I got a creepy vibe from them. I curtly introduced myself and told them I was busy working, and asked them to kindly keep their dog away from my property since I have animals that would not take kindly to a strange dog.
They didn’t take the hint and continued to introduce themselves. Then it got weird. They told me all about their old town that was full of “Satanists”. Now, I was taken aback by this, as I am not religious or conservative, so I kind of just looked at them like they were crazy and said “Uh, okay. Hope no one bothers you around here. Have a good night. I have to go”.
I shut in my hens and goats for the night and turned to go inside, when I see them continue to walk around my yard like they were inspecting it. I casually just let my dog on the fenced-in patio, and she went crazy barking at them. This seemed to alarm them and they finally left. I thought they were weird and had no social skills, but were otherwise harmless and expected that they’d just keep to themselves.
Soon enough, I found out how wrong I was. In November, during the election, they showed up at my doorstep and had the nerve to “make sure I’m voting Republican”. I was appalled and told them it was none of their business who I vote for and to leave me alone. We didn’t have any interaction again until the pandemic hit in March. Then, woof.
At the beginning when people were panic buying and store shelves were empty, I wasn’t worried because I always keep a well-stocked pantry in case of storms. I had bought a 50lb bag of flour directly from the manufacturer to use for baking, and my neighbors had been in their driveway as I was hauling it inside. They soon after came to my doorstep, with their dog off-leash, and tried to convince me to give it to them so they could bake bread for church.
I said no, and the husband smirked and started coughing into my doorway, making no effort to cover it. I shut the door, locked it, and called up the son of the landlord since we used to be good friends. I asked him nicely to let him know that his tenants were acting threatening to me, and since I have asthma, I could be seriously ill. I told him about all the times they showed up on my property uninvited.
He said he would ask his dad to speak to them. I don’t know if he ever actually did. They still tried yelling things to me from across their property whenever they saw me outside, but I ignored them. Now we’re up to the present day, and a tropical storm hit our area this week. Most of the town was out of power for a few days. I have a big street lamp on my property, which comes on at 6 pm and shuts off at 7 am.
Obviously without power, this wouldn’t be lit up. I know the neighbors can see it from their house, and it’s a good indicator that shows if we have power in our neighborhood or not. This past Tuesday, we lost power around 6 pm due to the storm. At 7 pm, the neighbors show up at my house to ask if I have power. Obviously the answer is no. Somehow, it kept getting worse.
They show up again at 9 pm, it is now dark. Again, no. 11 pm rolls around and I was asleep. I hear banging on my door like officers trying to bust it down and my dog goes crazy. I’m scared. I don’t have a light outside obviously, so I can’t see who it is. I don’t answer. They shout “is your power back yet?” I had enough. I rip open the door and tell them to screw off and use their eyes.
We’re next-door neighbors, and obviously if they have no power, then I don’t either. I tell them to never contact me again, and I was sick of them being weirdos who think they can just waltz onto my property whenever the heck they want. They didn’t respond, and I slam the door shut, seething. I was tired and had to go to work at 5 am.
I’m now thinking about hanging upside-down crosses and other “satanic imagery” around my home and yard to scare them away. Even if they don’t move out, I’d be happy with them just leaving me alone.
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41. Ghosting The Neighbors
I just got this text from my horrible next-door neighbors. One of the people in my building gave them my number. My apartment is pretty spooky—it’s my aesthetic—and I have some cute ghost decals on my window. They’re smiling cartoons, nothing scary or offensive. Anyway, when I got this text message, it immediately sent my blood boiling.
“Hi: We would really appreciate you taking the ghost stickers out of the window. We have spent, and are continuing to spend, thousands of dollars to improve our property. This includes negotiating with your landlord to remove the chain-link fence and rotting material that is on our property line. We are footing the bill for this improvement, which will benefit everyone, including you.
“I don’t think you understand that we literally have to look at the stuff in your windows from every living area in our home—our kitchen, den, and dining room. We have no choice but to look at it unless we keep our shades drawn at all times. We will ask your landlord to intervene if needed, but it would be great if we could avoid this.” Well, thanks.
42. It Wasn’t Me
My next-door neighbor is horrible. Yesterday, she came banging on my door. I’d seen her outside my house with her son for a few hours and they were gathered around the drain opening. Some dirty baby wipes were blocking the main pipe on the street and she thought it was us. I asked how come she thought it was us and she said because we have a baby and they’re baby wipes.
My partner chimed in, saying we don’t flush the baby wipes. But she didn’t believe us, she just repeated that we were the only ones with a baby. I explained they could be make-up wipes. This neighbor is always caked in make-up and dodgy fake tan so I assume she must go through a lot of make-up wipes. She then stormed off and said she’d send us the bill.
Today, someone came out to fix the drains. The guy spoke to my partner. Apparently, our neighbor asked them to bill us but they said they’d have to bill whoever’s calling them out and it’s up to our neighbor to get others to pay them back. My partner asked for details on where the block was. Surprise, surprise. The blockage is before our drains hit the mainline.
It must have come from our neighbor’s house or the house on the other side, which is currently empty as it’s being sold. We’ve emailed the company and they’ve sent out a small description of the blockage and where it was. This evening the neighbor came round to tell us how much we owed her. We told her to take us to small claims court if she wants us to pay.
43. Getting Catty
I noticed a cat started showing up on my street a few weeks ago. She's thin, dirty, and has scabs and ticks around her head, ears, neck, and tail. She is also incredibly friendly and has been begging neighbors for food and attention. She's been drinking the water coming from my neighbor's sump pump. Once I realized the cat was abandoned, I took it in.
It's cold and it was going to rain that night. I couldn't let her stay out there. So here's the thing... this isn't just the “normal” bad neighbor who moves and abandons their pet. They live across the street. Still. They abandoned this indoor cat, outside, after I guess they decided they didn't want it. They've been watching their own cat starve and suffer for almost two months while the surrounding neighbors tried to figure out who the cat belonged to.
I hate them. And the cat is heading to the vet tomorrow. Hoping to get her cleaned up and find her a good home.
44. You Get What You Give
So last week at about 12:45 am, someone pulled into my complex. They parked near enough to my apartment that I could hear their bass. I was surprised how loud it was for nearly 1 am. I imagine it woke up everyone in the complex. At one point though, it got much louder. It stayed that loud for a while. Like...there is no reason to play music that loud outside at nearly 1 am.
I personally don’t get off work until midnight, and then I usually stay up reading or gaming until 4 am. So 1 am noise isn’t a huge deal for me. I’m not trying to go to sleep. Fast forward to the next day. I leave for work. My car is stored in a garage that is right around the corner of my staircase. Walking there, I pass like four cars and one of them was a Porsche SUV with...maybe ketchup all over the hood, windshield, and driver's side.
Maybe salsa. It was chunky and bright red. I didn’t even connect the dots there. Fast forward again to today and there is a note on the community chat room that says putting anything on someone else’s car is considered vandalism. I lost it. I assume someone got angry at that guy blasting music at 1 am and went out and covered his car in some condiment.
I so badly want to respond to that community post and say "whoever you are I want to buy you a drink”.
45. Talk About A Perfectionist
So, I hate it when people don't pick up after their dogs. It's a minuscule amount of effort and is kind of a jerk move when you don't care enough to do it. I just had an...interesting conversation with a neighbor I'd never seen or spoken with before. He lives a few houses down and has a wooded lot between his house and the next. A couple nights ago, my dog decided he NEEDED to poop in the woods next to this guy's house.
I don't know if the neighbor owns the lot or what, but after my pup had done his business I used my phone as a flashlight and bagged his poop for disposal at home. I had no idea how this would come back to haunt me. A couple of hours ago, I was throwing the ball for my dogs and minding my own business when someone walked up to my house with a manila envelope in his hand.
My who-the-fluff senses were tingling, and he actually looked MORE nervous realizing I was outside. He identified himself as the man who lived three houses down and started rambling. I won't give a play-by-play because there was a lot of backpedaling and stammering, but here's what this man actually thought was going to happen when he came over.
He says he knows my dog pooped on his property and he knows I cleaned most of it up. But I didn't clean up all of it and he would like $2,000 to cover the cost of the tiny turdling I left on his land. He actually had an entire presentation in the envelope, night-vision pictures of me walking my dog, my dog pooping, me bagging the poop walking away. He wasn’t done yet, either.
He also had a bunch of pictures of “the scene” complete with a little yellow number things they use on CSI to identify bits of evidence to show where the poop lay and the leaf my dog had kicked over top of it. It also contained an itemized receipt of all the money he spent on catching whoever wasn't scooping poop on his property. Like the night vision, motion-activated camera, the camera he purchased to play dog poop detective, the evidence thingies, and a bunch of other random stuff.
When he realized he was close to a nice round number with those things, he added in the remainder under the heading "emotional distress". I told the guy I'm really sorry I missed a little bit, but I am not paying you $2,000 because I missed a bit of poop smaller than an M&M. I'll make sure we walk on the other side of the street from now on.
He got a bit huffy but saw I wasn't going to give, and he goes on a rant about everyone’s dogs pooping on his lawn. When I remained unmoved by his passionate ranting, he said he'd see me in court. I waved bye. Maybe he'll have better luck with some other chump.
46. We’re Always Watching
My friend's sister has been working on the front lines as a nurse while her husband takes care of their four kids. A couple weeks ago, they finally had the finances to get their driveway repaved. I will mention they have lived in this neighborhood for six years and this is not a HOA. Anyway, yesterday they received this letter from some anonymous neighbors.
"Thank you for finally upgrading your driveway after years of significant deterioration. It's a significant improvement. We are all so happy to see that your family is in a financial position to do this improvement or maybe it took this long to receive enough donations to find this project. Regardless, it's been long overdue. It would also be appreciated if you would give attention to your front lawn.
“Many of us take pride in having weedless lawn and don't appreciate any residents who don't put any effort in keeping the dandelions down".
47. Excuses, Excuses
Long story short, my neighbor Greg was into me. We made small talk once in the elevator and a week later when he saw me walk outside, he chased me down the street and asked where I was going. When I told him I was going to get coffee he asked if he could come. But there was something huge he didn’t know. I’m not only in a relationship, I was also 15 weeks pregnant at the time but not showing at all.
I told him I was meeting a friend for coffee just so he would leave me alone. He then asked our doorman for my phone number, claiming I told him they could give it to him. I wish my door people would have asked me first, but they gave it to him. Ever since then, he has been non-stop texting me, asking me to do stuff. Well, enough was enough.
Finally today I replied and told him I’m moving into a house in October with my long-term partner, that I’m pregnant, and while I think he’s a nice person I’m not interested in spending time together. His reply stunned me. He said lol, you don’t have to make things up just to not hang out. I didn’t even want to sleep with you. I replied and said not making anything up, but ok.
You know, take care and best of luck to you, etc. Now I’ve had multiple people in my building tell me that Greg is running around telling everyone that I’m lying about being pregnant and being in a relationship because I don’t want to date him. I’m shocked that a 35-year-old man is acting this way. The good news is my other neighbors know he’s full of it.
Still, it’s going to be so uncomfortable now if I run into him in person. I feel like I’m in high school.
48. Just Deserts
My neighbor has been harassing me for nearly five years, though he's been mostly quiet for a few months. Today, I heard screaming and saw several of his siblings and their mother storm out of his house while he screamed at them to get out. He allegedly threatened to shove his 80-year-old mother down the stairs and his sister called him a lunatic.
Why? Heh. He committed bank fraud. He forged their mother's signature on a loan for 50k and they just found out about it. While shamelessly listening, I found out he lives in the house for free, his mother pays his electric bill, he claimed her on his taxes without her knowledge and took her stimulus check. His sister kept saying she is calling the authorities and that they're going to sell the house.
I'm not holding my breath on anything but I love that he was so stupid as to do this. He's probably over there panicking and I truly hope that he is no longer a thorn in my side someday soon. I'll be on the lookout for an outburst coming my way, anytime he’s angry about something he winds up screaming at me while I'm outside. Hopefully he doesn't go completely nuts.
49. You Are What You Eat
I’ve only been living in this apartment for about two months. The first time I ordered DoorDash late at night, the delivery driver let me know they gave the order to “my girlfriend”. Just one problem. This was a clear indication my food was taken. I live alone, while my neighbor and his girlfriend live together. So, yeah, I knew for sure that it was them.
The second time this happened was yesterday. It was my fault for falling asleep and never going to the door for my food. I had a feeling my neighbor took it again but had no proof. This morning, though, I found a box of what I ordered half-eaten and thrown on the ground of the parking lot. I’m of course angry because it’s a respect thing.
Like, who proudly takes from their neighbor? On one hand, I’m ready to simply ask them did they take it and explain all this, letting them know I don’t appreciate it. However, I don’t feel this conversation will even matter. Any neighbor who brazenly takes from you is a shady person with NO SHAME. Instead, I’m thinking of the perfect revenge plan.
I want to order delivery again, then add something to induce diarrhea—no real poison or anything—and put it out for them to take the bait. They need to be taught a lesson. I’m a single mom and live alone. It’s pitiful to think a family with TWO HEADS sees no shame in taking from me. Whatever I end up doing, my next move will be cold and calculated.
50. Leave It Well Enough Alone
For the past few months, I've suspected that my upstairs neighbor has been taking some of my mail. I buy a lot of things online like books and craft supplies and every now and then there's been small things that were meant to arrive on a certain day that never did. One day, I caught her wandering around my front door. When I asked her what she was doing she said "Oh, I was looking for something I think I dropped into your yard”.
I got surveillance cameras installed a while ago, which were not noticeable to my neighbors. The camera that's pointed at my front door isn't visible from the driveway. So here comes the trap. I purchased a few postage boxes to set up for her. The first one was a glitter bomb. I set up the box to make sure she would get glitter to the face as soon as she opened it.
I packed it to make it look like a postage parcel, then sat it at my front door. 20 minutes later I saw her walking to my front door. She looked around then picked up the box and walked away. My only regret is that I didn't get to see her reaction when she got a face full of glitter. I haven't noticed any other mail going missing after that, but she will regret it if she does it again.
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