As these poor souls know, living next to a nasty neighbor can be hazardous for your health. From screaming Karens to creepy stalkers, there's no telling what kind of strange characters live in your neighborhood. Buckle up, and let the rivalries, spats, and horror shows begin...
1. 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.
2. 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!
3. Drawing A Line In The Sand
Our next-door neighbors seemed very friendly at first. Weird, but friendly. The first time I met her she made it clear by mentioning 5-8 times that her house was a little bigger than ours, but still no problems. But then it started to get creepy. She also told me she could see that we removed a wall and she could see it from her bathroom window.
We just moved in in the spring after closing in February. Right away, we applied for a fence permit and the township needed us to clear something up. They sent a map of our lot with the surveyor stamp. My neighbor told me that the previous owner of our house told them, for the last 17 years, that the lot line followed a few bushes on the property.
Turns out that according to the township, my property extends about 20 feet over from what they originally thought. Our property is on a curved street so the section that we are gaining is shaped like a slice of pie. The neighbor's wife has made it clear she isn't happy. She mentioned 10 times that it's new information and for 17 years that's the way it was.
She said, "You have to understand that after 17 years this is a shock to us and this is how it's always been". She also was telling me how my fence should look and that she wanted the fence more than 6-10 feet off the property line. The township said it can be one inch off. I decided to have enough room for a mower; about two feet. Then it got simply ridiculous.
Finally, she said, "That window over there is my teenage daughter's and we don't want her looking out and feeling like someone is on top of her". Says the woman who looked into my house from her bathroom window. I get you thought your property was bigger, but it's not my fault you got your information from an unreliable source. I pay the property tax on that piece of land and I want to be able to use it.
My property is only .31 acres and my backyard is small but my side yard is big-ish. So then, the township told me to use a metal detector to find the property pin and I was out there. She came over and started yelling at me. She said the property line isn't contested and that what I was doing "was inappropriate and my daughter is right upstairs studying in that room".
She kept yelling but I walked away. We just had the surveyor out the other day. What he told me made me grin like a maniac. It turns out my property extends another 10 feet beyond where I thought, so that's 30 feet they didn't expect. Well, the surveyor came up to me and said "what's wrong with your neighbor? She was yelling at me saying I'm digging up her lawn and that it's her property, not theirs".
Apparently, her husband was on the phone with the township. Here is a text conversation we had. Him: Hi, I’m from next door. We saw that your surveyor was out today. Are you and your wife both available to talk with us for a few minutes sometime today or tomorrow? Me: Hi. Yes the surveyor was out today. No offense, but at this time we are not comfortable having a conversation.
Me: We went through the proper channels to ensure we are putting the fence on our property. We spent additional money to insure this was correct based off of your recommendation for it. Our son and our dog having their space is our main priority. Not to do anything out of spite. We feel like there is some hostility, as evidenced by things that were said to myself and the surveyors today. Just looking to avoid confrontation. Hope you understand.
Him: There's no hostility. We're not seeking confrontation either. We would just like to have a neighborly discussion about your plans for the fence. Any projects done along that property line have a significant impact on our daily lives due to the close proximity to our primary living and working space in our home, including our teenage daughter. We are not nor have we ever been opposed to you installing a fence.
Basically, they want to tell me where to put my fence. Eventually, I installed it three feet off the property line and I was thinking of planting greenery in that space. But they weren’t finished. They are now demanding I move my ring spotlight. The husband texted me, stating that the light shines in his daughter’s bedroom (on the second floor) and into his kitchen.
There is no way this is true. I'm not the only neighbor that has issues with them. I no longer communicate with them because last time I did I was yelled at for being on my own lawn. They continue to bring up their daughter, even though I've never seen evidence that she even exists. They've also recently reached out to me saying my dog was outside all morning barking.
I looked back at my ring camera and not only was she not out all morning, but when she was barking it was at him slowly walking his dog in front of my fence then yelling at her multiple times. Oh, and his dog pooped on my lawn and he didn't pick it up.
4. 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?
5. Counting Down The Days
My new neighbors moved in three days ago. Day 1: My husband and I get back from a food run, and we go to pull up in our driveway and their small children are riding bikes in our driveway. It is not shared. It’s 100% ours. Not a huge issue, we just asked them to move and pulled in. Day 2: The kids are riding bikes/power wheels/dirt bikes down our street.
We live in a huge family-oriented neighborhood, and I have four kids myself. I just called my kids out to go introduce themselves to the neighbors’ kids so they could get to know each other. My kiddos go talk to the new kids, and, ten minutes later, they come back saying that the kids were rude and they’d rather not play with them. Fair. Not everyone will get along.
Day 3: I’m sitting on my couch watching television and notice someone walking in my backyard. We have a six-foot privacy fence with a gate, so to get in our yard he would’ve had to purposefully open our gate. I walk out to my back patio to ask who he is and what he’s doing. He says that they were playing ball, it went over the fence, and he was coming to get it.
I told him that he needed to knock on our door, not just come into my yard. I asked if his mom was at home. At this point, my dogs come out of the dog door and make a bee-line to the gate that the kid left open. As soon as I made it to the front yard, I get the privilege of witnessing my dog getting hit by a car. She’s fine, just bruised (big dog, low speed limit, we were lucky).
Obviously, at this point, I’m concerned about my dog, forget to speak to the mom, take the dog to the vet, and finally get back home two hours later. The mom wasn’t home when I got back so I took the time to find a padlock to lock our gate. When I noticed her at home, I went to speak to her. Yeah. Didn’t go well. Before I could express my concerns over her son coming into my yard, she just started screaming at me to “not ever speak to my freaking son again”.
It’s only day 3. I can’t wait to see what happens on Day 4.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. The Pressure’s On
I have a new apartment neighbor who moved in about four months ago. I share a bathroom wall with them and almost every time I turn on my shower and am in it for a minute or so, they turn theirs on. This immediately makes my water colder and the pressure goes way down (this building is super old). But this is even creepier than it first seems.
I don’t take a shower at the same time every day. I work from home, so some days it’ll be 10 am or 6 pm or 11 pm, etc. But if they are home, they do this every time. I have started to turn on my shower and not get in and just let it run and listen. Sure enough, they turn theirs on too. The walls are thin so you can hear when someone has their shower on.
They usually run theirs until right after I turn mine off. This happens even if they have already showered that day. The only time this doesn’t happen is when they’re not home or if it’s really late, like 2 am, and they're asleep. Just wanted to vent because it is such odd behavior to me, and seriously ruins every shower I try to take. I usually take under 10-minute showers so I’m not being excessive or anything that would annoy them.
People are so weird and it drives me crazy.
9. Neighbors Are Doing It For Themselves
I just moved into my house a week ago. My neighbor Linda has been very much in my business. She wants me to cut down my trees that shade her vegetable garden. She also asked me to cut down my trumpet vine that runs along the fence between our properties. I told her I’d think about it. I came out this morning and saw that all the vines were withered and they had been sliced at the ground.
She must have come over a few days ago while I was gone. My yard is completely fenced so I don’t know how she got in. She may have a key to my house.
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. See No Evil, Hear No Barking
I have never had an issue with a neighbor. I've been lucky up until now. I moved into a new home at the end of February 2020. I introduced myself and my family to the new neighbors. Like usual, some were more receptive and friendly than others. Within 30 days of buying the home and moving in, one of my next door neighbors started construction on a large, concrete block building.
The building is really close to the property line as well as really close to his back porch and another building in his backyard. I went to speak to him. I had a bad feeling, and was proven right. He indeed told me that it was not permitted and agreed that it was probably too close to the property line. He said he'd stop construction on it but didn't know why I had such a big deal with it as it's just a shed.
As soon as I mentioned construction and fire codes, he walks off and stated again he'd stop construction on it. Two days later, he continues construction. I tried to talk to him again and he just says "whatever buddy" and walks off. So I checked with the city and the zoning in our area requires a 12-foot setback for any structure, more depending on the height.
This was less than four feet from the common wall between our yards. That wall is the property line. So I call the city. While describing my complaint, the operator pulls up recent aerial photographs of his property. It opened the flood gates. She says that he has no permits on file with the city for any of the three other buildings in his backyard, the porch added to his home, the wall around his property, the structure he built in his front yard, etc.
She also says that he has very obviously overbuilt his property and there are guidelines to what percentage of his property he can fill with buildings. The guy has A LOT of unpermitted, uninspected buildings and construction on his property. The city went out and gave him a notice for work without permits. He has been asked by the city, multiple times, for information on his property and has not replied.
That was April 2020 when he got the notice. He has a couple of dogs. When I first met him, he told me to come meet his dogs so that they won't bark at me too much. I did and it didn't seem like the dogs were barking that much. After he got the notice from the city, though, he would just leave his dogs outside for hours on end and let them bark and bark the whole time.
It is just about mind-numbing. The way his yard is set up, he has a driveway on one side that goes from the street out front to his back yard. The other side of his house borders mine, and that is where the dogs are most of the time. It seriously sounds like it is right outside. With the TV and home theater on, AC running, kids making noise and all of the other household noises, I can still hear his dogs barking.
5 am to 11pm, those dogs will bark. Lately, he has started keeping one dog at a time on his back porch but is confining them to some kind of kennel. It is only about 4ft x 6ft. The dog(s) will whine, yip and bark for hours on end and it is right on the other side of the wall from me. I feel bad for the poor dog, being confined for hours at a time.
Summer temps are now going over 100 degrees, will get up to 115+ regularly during the summer, and I also worry for the safety of the dog being confined when temps are extreme and it is confined in an area with no ventilation. So, I go over to talk to him about his dogs and their barking. This was December 2020. He has a large block wall surrounding his front yard.
It's about 7 or 8 feet tall. There is no way to access his front door or his yard without going through a gate, which has barking/snarling dogs on the other side. No doorbell, intercom. Nothing. So, I knock on the side of his house, that is facing the street. I'm standing in his driveway. Both him and his wife come out to meet me.
I asked him if he could do something about his dogs and their constant barking. His reply was blood-boiling. He said to me, with a smirk on his face, that he doesn't know what I'm talking about and that his dogs never bark. This whole time, his dogs are barking so much that we can barely hear each other. "You know what buddy, you already cost me way too much money. Get off my property" he then said to me.
I take two steps and I'm now on a city-owned sidewalk and near the street. His wife climbs on something from his front yard and is screaming and cussing at me from inside the yard, leaning over their wall. He comes out of his gate and takes his shirt off, trying to get me to fight him in the street. I just walked home. I didn't laugh, argue, yell, talk, nothing.
At that point, I just walked home to avoid the violent confrontation that they were wanting. His dogs have continued to bark almost all day, every day since that interaction. But karma came for him. I was contacted by a city inspector recently about the complaint. The inspector told me that they have been asking him for information for over a year and he has yet to comply so his notice has officially been turned into a citation and he will have to go before a judge.
The problem that the inspector has had is that he has been unable to make contact with my neighbor, as he cannot get to the front door. He said that he has to issue the citation in person and also has to take pictures of the property when he serves the individual. The city inspector said that he is most likely going to have to get an officer to take him onto the property.
I've been debating calling the city about the animal noise. If I do, I'll probably bring up the issue of the confined dog on the back porch. They handle animal noise separately than normal noise and disturbing the peace calls. He'll get fined between $50 and $500 per occurrence, as I'll be required to complete a log of when I hear the dogs. He has clearly shown that he is unable to have a conversation about it and resolve it between the two of us.
I know he's in trouble with the city already but does he seriously think he can just continue to be a jerk without any repercussions? I'm 40. I've had plenty of neighbors through the years and have never had any issue with any of them until this guy. He's in big trouble already and I feel like it might be too much under the circumstances but I'd also like to be able to get a full night of sleep without having to listen to the dang dogs.
13. Start Your Engines
I have a double driveway with three cars in it and a fourth that I like to park in front of my house. My neighbor is upset that I park ONE car in front of my own house, yet they take all of the parking in front of both of their next-door neighbors’ houses, plus the house directly across the street from them. My house is next to the house that’s directly across the street from them.
They also have a car in front of mine. Yet they’re super offended that I have one car parked in front of my own house. She says I should put it in my driveway because she really needs the space. HELLLO!!! YOU HAVE 12 FRICKIN CARS!!!! I don’t want to have to shuffle my cars every time someone at my house has to go somewhere to make things more convenient for someone with 12 cars.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. The Sound Of Silence
Our horrible next-door neighbor, an old man, has been routinely fighting with his old girlfriend for years, but from January to March, it ramped up to once a week. From March to mid-May it was every other day. We had a blessed week or two, but this last week it's been EVERY DAY. They scream and throw stuff, with ALL the windows open, going in and out of the house, EVERY TIME THEY FIGHT.
Usually, this only lasts a couple of hours. We live in a small complex, and everyone else hates them. But then they outdid themselves. Yesterday they carried on for FIVE HOURS. A few of us got together to decide whether to call the authorities, but they kept stopping and starting, and the last time we called them, they didn't do anything. Tonight, I'm relaxing after a long day, it's 11 pm, and I hear this woman start screaming again.
I lost it. I ripped back the curtains and screamed at them out the window to shut up. We are NOT doing this tonight. Shut UP. I am not the only one. YOU DON'T EVEN LIVE HERE! It's summer! It's HOT! We all have our windows open, we can all hear you! We're sick of listening to your fights SHUT UP. I'll be darned, it went silent and they left quietly within 10 minutes. WIN.
17. Into The Deep End
I'm an introvert, I love my privacy, and I hate small talk. A new house was built one lot over from us and every time we are outside, our new elderly neighbor is trying to get our attention and talk. We have a new puppy so we go out at least every hour. The first day, she stumbled through piles of dirt and clay through the lot between us because we didn’t make eye contact.
She came over to tell us how she just loves our pool and wishes she had one but can’t because her lot isn’t big enough. Okay, she’s old and wants company. But she took it to a new level. She also sits on her porch with her chair turned towards us and watches us, and she’s now trying to manipulate us to invite her over to swim. She keeps making comments.
Yesterday she and her granddaughter walked through the empty lot to stand at my fence and stare at our stuff for an uncomfortable amount of time. We were inside, thank God. I feel like I can’t go outside because my anxiety is off the charts because of this. We are getting privacy bushes put in but landscapers are about a good month out.
I don’t want to be rude, but clearly, she doesn't understand boundaries.
18. 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.
19. 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.
20. Every Dog Gets His Day
We are in Virginia outside of DC, in the outer commuting range. I am a retired USN and now work for Government in the DC area as a civilian. My wife is the Director of Nursing at a local hospital. We have four daughters, one assigned male at birth. We are also mixed race but present as various shades of black. The last item has become prominent with one of the neighbors.
We are out in the country, gentleman farms kind of area. Lower double-digit acres. It started with the dogs. Out next-door neighbors to the south let their dogs out and assume they will stay on their property. They don’t. I had seen them a time or two, but since I don’t currently have horses or livestock, I did not worry about it. Until the day it turned into a disaster.
One morning they came at my daughter, who was walking out to her car. After attempting to order them away, my daughter reached in her purse and pulled out her pepper spray, which includes a marker dye. She blasted both dogs. They took off and she went on her way. That night there was a knock on the door. It was the next-door wife.
She is very upset that her dogs had been “attacked” and asked did I know anything about it. I knew about the event since my daughter had asked for a new pepper spray unit since hers was empty. I told her my daughter had been mobbed in our driveway and had sprayed a couple of aggressive dogs and asked if they were hers. She told me their dogs had gone in their house and had rubbed the dye everywhere, ruining things.
They had taken them to the vet to get them cleaned up and treated if need be. Clearly, it was all our fault and we needed to pay for everything. I said under the circumstances, I would decline. She left furious. But she was just formulating her next move. The next day she and her husband came over with an itemized list of damages they felt they had incurred.
I reviewed the circumstances with them and pointed out that they were responsible, that we would be well within our right to even shoot the dogs, and that if they did not like it, they could sue us. I also said that any further communication on this matter would only be accepted in writing from us. They left unhappy, though I got the idea the husband understood.
Life went on. About a week later, it flared up again. Another neighbor texted me about the incident. I called him back and told him what happened. He said that the dogs had been a problem for some time. However, the wife was bad-mouthing us to anyone who would listen, saying that we had viciously gone after her dogs. Oh, she said more too.
She said we did not understand how to live in the neighborhood, and at least to him, she said it was because we were Black “city people” and did not understand country living. I asked him what he thought of what I described. He said we should have shot the dogs. Around then, I also observed some new fencing going on on their property.
It appeared they have put in a large dog run that connects to the house. Another week goes by, and we get a demand letter from a lawyer. Its contents are infuriating. It costs a pretty penny. Vet bills, new carpet, new upholstered furniture, pain and suffering, etc. I wrote a simple letter in reply that described the event, called his clients negligent, saying I had damages of my own, and said if they wished to proceed, I would see them in court.
There is a Next Door for our area. After the letter exchange, the neighbor's wife posted on Next Door about her dogs being viciously hurt by us and the resulting damage, costing them thousands. They had also had to build an enclosure to protect their dogs from us. Before I saw it and could tell her not to reply, my wife posted a rebuttal, pointing out the dogs were on our property, lunging at one of our children, and got pepper-sprayed in response.
A couple of other neighbors chimed in about the dogs running loose being a problem. Others chimed in about how nice her house had been. No reply was posted. A notice of a suit against me was served later. They had decided to go the small claims route. It included the list of damages well in excess of the $5K limit here in Virginia.
Their reasoning was that their dogs were friendly and would not hurt anyone, so the use of pepper spray was unnecessary, and we were liable for the subsequent damages. I knew exactly what I had to do. In my formal reply, I pointed out that I was not the person who did the spraying and was therefore the incorrect person to sue. My location could be verified by cell phone records and my employer’s time and attendance system.
They did not modify their suit and we proceed to court. Once there, it was clear they are being coached by an attorney. I immediately move to end the proceedings since I could not have been the person. The judge accepts my argument, and the case is dismissed. Afterward, their attorney asks me who sprayed the dogs. Again, I knew the perfect response to give.
I point out I was not there and had no direct knowledge. I also point out that his clients (turned out they were family with the lawyer) were fundamentally in the wrong and were going to lose regardless. He demands a name, so I sarcastically give him a made-up one along the lines of Diana Spencer (AKA Princess Di). A week later there is a deputy at the door trying to serve that “person” with a new court summons.
It gets declined since there is no one there by that name. At that point, I get another demand letter from the attorney saying that I must identify who sprayed the dog. I do not answer it. Eventually, we get a summons for each of my daughters except the male-to-female one. I write the response for each of them, documenting how they could not have been there.
Each response cites the previous case against me and asks the court for an immediate ruling without the benefit of a court appearance. They reply with a demand that someone needs to be made to identify which person did the evil deed. But there was one thing they forgot. The court says there is no means to compel the information and agrees to an immediate dismissal.
I then write a snarky letter to their lawyer about the ongoing harassment and that court costs would be in excess of the damages they seek, and they would still lose. I copy the husband on the letter. We don’t hear anything for a while. The neighbors could not let go. We got a letter asking for a negotiation session prior to the filing of a suit in circuit court.
My wife and I went to it. We brought absolutely case-closed evidence. Like, a huge binder and videos. The incident and the two front door conversations were recorded. We had so far declined to tell anyone that we had video. Our approach was to convince the attorney so he would convince his clients. He had not done that so far, so perhaps if we made it painful enough for them, they would listen to him.
At the meeting, the lawyer suggested that they make an opening statement and we could respond with one of our own, to identify matters of agreement. Then we could discuss matters of disagreement. Their position was that they did not know the dogs were leaving the property. That they were friendly and would never hurt anyone, and that spraying the dogs was unnecessary.
Therefore, whomever did it was responsible for all the subsequent damages and costs. Furthermore, we had obstructed determining who did the spraying and now shared responsibility. My reply was shorter and better. Their dogs were off their property, whether they knew it or not was not germane. They did lunge at a member of my family who legitimately defended themselves.
I said that they were well aware of those facts from the day it happened. Furthermore, I had a video to back up both points. The small claims attempts were harassment, as was this and a counterclaim was a real possibility under the circumstances. It was clear that the existence of video surprised them. At that point, their lawyer tried a diversionary tactic, and a good one.
He stated that as part of the process, they needed us to fill out a form and that they would provide us the equivalent from his clients. The form included name, address, employer, relatives, DOB, etc. I immediately declined. I said that could wait for the interrogatories and that we were not required to provide that information at this point.
He asked for copies of the videos. My response annoyed him to no end. Again, I declined, pointing out that if this went forward, he could subpoena them. However, I did agree to play them for him. The first video was of the infamous incident. The audio was poor due to range. However, there was no mistaking the aggressive demeanor of the dogs and my daughter after trying to command them, resorting to pepper spray after that failed.
I just previewed the one of the doorway conversations to show they had clear video and audio. The lawyer huddled with his clients for a moment. He claimed his clients did not give permission to be recorded. I pointed out it did not matter since I had a sign posted and there was no expectation of privacy. He then demanded that I give him copies immediately.
I declined. However, I did say that I might put them on YouTube and link to them from Next Door with a complete story of the nonsense so far. The lawyer said that I couldn’t do that, and I said I disagreed. He again demanded I state which of my daughters sprayed the dogs. I again declined. I also stated that his client’s claims were bogus, that we were tired of the charade, and were considering pushing back.
Finally, the wife spoke up. She said we did not see how miserable her dogs/fur babies were all day and how destructive the dogs had gotten being limited to an outdoor run. We had no idea how much they loved their home and how expensive it was to replace everything damaged. We needed to understand it was all our fault and that they were only asking for fair compensation.
As planned, my wife responded. Her reply was ice cold. While the neighbors were childless, she was a mother. She had to watch the fear those dogs had generated in the family that leads to PTSD with a lifetime consequences. That she could not have a dog since her daughter was now terrified of them. Of the fear and anger generated by the wife’s statement to the neighbor that our reaction was due to being city blacks, and that that attitude was inexcusable in the country or the city. It was all their fault, not ours since they chose not to control and contain their dangerous animals.
After that, there was silence with the women glaring at each other. After a bit, I asked the lawyer if there was anything else we should do at this meeting. He said no. I told him I expected a letter one way or another within a week if they were going forward or not. He agreed. It took closer to 10 days. When I saw the outcome, I grinned. They withdrew the complaint.
The letter also claimed that any publication of the videos would be considered defamatory and grounds for further action. So, the whole story: My male-to-female daughter was the one who sprayed the dogs. She was on her way to class at the local Jr College. The rest of us were all at school or work. She has changed her name, but the usual look-up sites have not caught on to that yet. None of us are afraid of dogs, having had family dogs over time.
This event did not really cause or trigger PTSD in the family. The statement was a negotiating position, not a sworn testimony. My daughter did all the right things. I doubt she would have shot them, even if armed. I would not have either, but it makes for good posturing. The dogs in question are male littermates, large hounds I believe, not sure of the breed or if they are fixed.
One is clearly the alpha. At this time we have a standoff. Most court action appears to be over. A couple of neighbors have asked what the status is on Next Door. Neither of us is replying. I have told a couple of friendly neighbors that the case has been dropped for reasons I have in video but am not allowed to share. Subsequently, larger issues have come up between the two of us…and their place is for sale.
21. Party On
My next-door neighbor filed a complaint to my Home Owner’s Association because I was “having a frat party”. Here’s what really happened: My 59-year-old British friend was picking me up, but I was not ready yet. She was talking to my husband in the garage. Her car was parked but was running with her radio playing. And it was 5:15 pm in the afternoon.
If that constitutes a frat party, I wasted a load of money in college.
22. 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.
23. 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.
24. Disturbing The Peace
So I just moved into an apartment alone and I was so happy. I was finally getting away from my family after living with them for the past year. But all of that went to heck the moment I moved in. I can constantly hear my upstairs neighbors running, slamming doors, jumping off things, moving furniture, and screaming constantly from 5 am to midnight every day.
They never go outside, they literally never leave the apartment. I finally worked up the courage to try and go talk to them. When I did, a man barely peeked his head out from the door and I introduced myself and asked if I had been being loud. I then asked if they could be more conscious because no one lived below them before but now someone was living under them.
He agreed and said he would try to fix it. Well, another week goes by and no change, if anything it has gotten worse. Being woken up at 5 am and listening to them be inconsiderate all day long, constant sporadic jumping, dropping heavy objects, screaming, running. They were interrupting my zoom meetings to the point that coworkers found it difficult to hear me.
I finally got my broom and banged on the ceiling a few times around 10 pm because I could no longer take it. I can’t even drown them out with a loud television. And can’t tell you how many hours of sleep I’ve lost. The next thing I know, the situation escalated. They’re banging on my door telling me to open up. This time it’s a woman. I start talking to her.
She says, “Me and my boyfriend and three kids live upstairs”. And I said, “Ok but I’m going to be honest, I specifically looked at apartment complexes that had a max occupancy of two people in a one-bedroom in the lease/addendums so that there wouldn’t be an obscene amount of noise”. This is when her large six-foot boyfriend comes around the corner.
I didn’t know he was there. He gets in my face and starts yelling at me, telling me that he'd screw me if I go to management and that their lease is none of my business. It was so scary. I was thankful I had my friend in the apartment with me because as soon as the woman saw my friend get up and come to the door and saw I had someone else in there with me, she told her boyfriend to back off.
Then she told me “I don’t have a problem with you”. I wanted to say, good, you shouldn’t because I’m not disturbing you. But then she said there was nothing she can do about her children as they are kids and she had to throw in that she’s a Navy veteran and I’m like girl...I don’t care what you are...I pay rent like you do too. Then I made a huge discovery.
As it turns out, I had been recording the noise from earlier (to take to management/have documentation) and had forgotten to turn off my voice memos before I answered the door. Our entire conversation, her stating her name and unit #, how many people were living in the apartment, how old two of the three kids were, and including her boyfriend harassing me was all recorded.
I finally wrote into management yesterday telling them about how they’re not following the lease and that it’s disturbing me in my home and I don’t feel safe having her aggressive boyfriend living above me. I can only imagine what would’ve happened if she didn’t calm him down. So happy I have the voice recording as proof as well as a witness.
My anxiety is spiking to the point that I’m already mentally drained and now I’m feeling awful and super anxious for reporting them for violating the lease. I can’t believe I’ve only been living here three weeks and am having to deal with this. I don’t know if I have adequate grounds to move to a new unit. I am losing my mind in here, I haven’t had a single moment to relax and I do not feel safe.
25. Do It Yourself
I'm not sure if I'm in the wrong here so I'll let you be the judge. I'll give a bit of a backstory before I start. I'm a disabled female (incomplete quadriplegic in a wheelchair). I live in a 20-unit complex with upstairs and downstairs neighbors, and I'm in a downstairs unit. I've lived here since 2013 when the units were first built. I'm quiet and mostly keep to myself.
My unit has one bedroom, a bathroom, and a lounge room/ kitchen area. Barely enough room to swing a cat but it's all been built for my needs and it works well for me. Around the start of 2019, these new tenants moved into the unit directly above mine. From the start of their tenancy, they've been nothing but a pain. There's a mother (60-year-old), a daughter (30-year-old), the daughter’s boyfriend, and a large dog in a unit the same size as mine.
The first week they were ok, but then they started their ridiculous behavior. Throwing their rubbish over the balcony into my backyard. Using my backyard as their own ashtray. Tipping their dirty dishwater over their balcony, sometimes tipping the water onto my clothesline. Fighting constantly, slamming their doors. Leaving their dog out on their balcony most of the time, making the dog howl and bark for most of the day.
Drinking excessively, which made their fighting and other bad behavior worse. Dropping their clothes over their balcony. I talked to the tenants and asked them nicely not to drop things into my backyard. When they answered me, I wanted to scream. They claimed to not know what I was talking about but promised to keep an eye out.
This stopped them doing it for a while, but a few months later, it started again. I gave up asking them directly and went to the landlord as a mediator. I started to become scared of the man that was up there, as officers were called multiple times when he would get violent. And then the world turned to poop and things got worse. Lockdown was enforced in my state in March until mid-June, which is when their fighting started getting worse.
They began drinking more and I suspect they were using other substances. A few days after lockdown is when they started playing their music. Having units so close together makes hearing music and other noises inevitable. But they had a boombox that played so loudly that my floors would rattle and wearing earplugs did nothing to dampen the noise.
This went on for three months from 10 am until 10 pm and sometimes even longer. I reached my breaking point. I made countless noise complaints to the authorities, the council, and the landlord. All of which did nothing until I made an official noise complaint to the authorities. The tenets were given a six-month noise abatement order.
Breaking the order would result in their eviction. This quieted them down for a little while at least. Now that you know where I'm coming from, this is what happened. Yesterday I found a note scrunched up at my front door. At first, I thought it was rubbish that had been blown there but then I noticed there was writing on it. I had a look and instantly rolled my eyes.
It said: "This is [unit number]. I dropped a brown nightgown into your backyard. Will you bring it back to us"? I had a look for it and it was around the side of my backyard along the grass down a slope. There was no way that I could access where it was sitting. The tenants know I'm in a wheelchair. This is where I got petty about it.
I called the landlord and asked if they could contact the tenant on my behalf. I would have had no problem if the tenant knocked on my door and asked to get it themselves. I'm not a total cow and I told the landlord that. The landlord relayed the message and called me back, telling me that the tenant suggested that one of my care workers get it for them.
Which I said no to, as it's not their job. In the end, one of the other neighbors got it for me and gave it back to them. I know I was petty about it but I just wanted them to be an adult and fetch their own stuff and not expect me or anyone else to do it for them. I understand that accidents happen but after the heck they've put me through I didn't feel like doing them any more favors.
26. 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?!
27. 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.
28. From Good To Bad
I lost some great neighbors about eight months ago when they moved. I knew the bliss wouldn't last forever, and I helped them pack up their stuff, took trips to the dump for them, and even said "anything that comes up at the last minute you need ditch, toss in my trailer on the side yard". The new neighbors moved in a few days later—turns out he runs his own business out of his home.
All home-based businesses require a permit which must be signed. The permit outlines the requirements/rules of a home-based business. Two of these rules are a) no customers before 7 am on the weekdays and no customers before 8 am on the weekends, no business to be conducted after 7 pm, and b) no more than three customers at your home at a time.
Sadly, our neighbor runs a gym/personal training out of his garage. We found out that he has classes every hour of every day between 5-9 am and then from 4-7 pm. He will routinely have four or more people at his class. After the first complaint to the city provided no relief, I purchased and installed some video cameras. I know it sounds bad, but get a load of this.
We are routinely woken up by his customer traffic, sometimes as early as 4:45 am. His customers love to talk—and talk loud without much thought given to anyone in the neighborhood. There was one that would announce her arrival by setting her car alarm several times while she walked into his garage. One Saturday, he decided it would be a good idea to open his garage up, pull out his equipment, and have class on his driveway.
About a dozen people showed up by 7 am. His customers routinely use my side yard and driveway to access his garage. His customers, generally 4-5, will line up outside his gate at 10 minutes to the top of the hours waiting for the prior class to finish. Routinely they will drop weights in the garage (on a padded floor) which will rattle his side door.
When his side is open, my side door and sometimes the windows adjacent to his home will rattle. And there is so much grunting going on. Clearly, he wasn't obeying the rules set forth in the home-based business policy set by the city. Finally, after several months of complaints, video evidence, sworn statements by myself and likely other neighbors, his business—and sole means of support for his wife and three young daughters—will be cut off this next week.
I hope for his sake he decides to move or open up a commercial space. Hopefully, he decided to move. I can suggest a few realtors that could help him and he'd be welcome to use my trailer to move his stuff.
29. Exactly Where I’m Supposed To Be
My parking spot is on the right side of the power box and my neighbors’ is on the left. For a while, especially while I was gone during the evening for work, they have slowly moved their car more and more to the right, until they were literally almost touching my car, keeping me from opening my driver side door. Since I had to enter my car from the passenger side and this has only been the case for two days, I decided not to immediately say anything to them or my landlords, thinking they just weren't paying attention.
My side of the parking lot also has an extra space that is unused and unpowered that my brother would park in when he visited. In fact, any visitors could use it as long as they didn't block my car or could fit between me and the light post. So a small compact can go there, but not a huge heavy-duty truck... For three years, there hasn't been an issue with anyone parking there.
So, the new neighbors moved in a year ago. Their friends would try to park in my parking space or box me in with their big Dodge Heavy Duties. My car is a small Ford hatchback. I never complained, but my other neighbors have complained on my behalf, as they could see I was being squeezed out and boxed in by people that parked like they were drinking.
Plus the offending neighbors’ friends would park in other units’ parking spaces without permission. I wish I could say that’s the extent of the idiocy. But no. On top of this, they had attempted to use other units’ power during the winter and began complaining when people started turning off their breakers for their spaces when they left the apartments.
I had been patient and honestly believed they would eventually get the clue that they only had one parking space (as they also drive big Dodges) and they should ask before just parking wherever. As it is summer, I could move over into the unpowered spot if they really needed to fit their two vehicles there until winter hit. However, I then got a lovely text from my landlord that made my head explode.
Apparently, these neighbors are complaining that I am the one parking too close and that I had dinged their truck. My landlord expressed that we only get one parking space and mentioned my brother's car, which was currently parked beside me in the unofficial visitor’s spot...and on the other side of him, my lovely neighbors had parked their truck on the street.
Meaning my brother parked before they got a chance to attempt to get their truck to fit there. So I texted back that they were trying to park in my space and that if they are so upset about how close I was, I would be calling a tow truck to remove their vehicle at their expense. I also explained where they have been parking, how they have been parking, and what they and their buddies have been attempting to do.
My landlord texted back that he wasn't trying to start anything. He just asked me to have my brother (who visits once a week to every two weeks) move onto the street out front and that no one is allowed to park in the unpowered spot until we have proper signage put up next month clearly defining who owns what space. Even though it's already labeled on the power boxes.
I have never had an incident living here for the past three years. My apartment needs repairs but I have been patient with my landlord. I get along with my other neighbors just fine. No one has ever complained about my brother or anyone parking in the empty space beside me. However, these kids move in with their loud heavy-duty monster trucks, not thinking that they either have to get smaller vehicles or pay for an extra powered space.
They then try to intimidate my elderly neighbor and try to take power from other units. Then when they get all worried that a tiny hatchback is parking too close and they might get dinged, because they are trying to fit two trucks in a single space. And all this is apparently my problem to solve for them. Yeah, well my solution is having one of their trucks towed and impounded at a nice big parking space located in the local junkyard two miles out of town at their expense.
I'm fine with no one being allowed to park on my right. Doesn't mean it will solve those dingbats’ parking issues. I'm exactly where I am supposed to be and that's that.
30. 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?
31. 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.
32. I Pity The Fool
We bought a house in April and the neighbors across the street from us are in the process of moving out. They have a HUGE house, six-bedroom, five-bathroom, that was top of the line....25 years ago. It was listed for 600k about six weeks ago (they took forever to pack), has been pending three times, and is now at 500k, so I'm assuming an inspector is finding an issue.
Other houses in my neighborhood that are that size are selling. They asked us to help change lightbulbs and fix little things, which was perfectly fine. Or it was until their latest actions. They’ve now started sending "requests". Painting their frame of the screened patio, replacing faucets, and cleaning their house. We painted their screened-in patio because we thought (mistake) it was the last thing they'd ask.
We honestly felt bad because the house is in need of some MAJOR TLC. It's got original carpet that has been cleaned and stretched so many times that it is desperately in need of being ripped out. The bathroom tubs are peeling, the house was freshly painted but was terribly done. When they put it up for sale, they left some huge furniture that they requested us to sell, and we could keep 10% of the profits.
They acted like this was a HUGE reward. It's a 20-year-old couch, mattresses, three dressers, and other outdated furniture that is worth nothing, and weighs a ton, and is upstairs. So obviously it didn't sell for anything, and is still sitting upstairs in their house. One person came for a dresser and it was too heavy for us to move, so we figure this is all custom-built and assembled in the room.
When they left, they "requested" us to do daily walk-throughs and send daily reports of their house, which is fine, but we stopped after a week because we have our own house that we are working on, work, and are not trying to spend weekends and time off at someone else’s house when we literally bought a house to spend time there.
We both get up at 4 am for work, get home around 4:30 pm, eat, and sometimes will literally nap the majority of the rest of the day. Yesterday was one of those days. I had no idea what was coming. Little did I know, these neighbors were back in town and had called each of us several times after 7 pm—once we get off work we don't look at phones.
They had then texted us multiple times. We gave polite replies but said we weren't able to help them. We wind down for the day around 7 pm because we get up at 4 am. So then they knocked on our door at 8 pm, 9 pm, 10 pm, and 11 pm according to our ring camera. If you had a problem, you wouldn't be going to just my house, you’d be asking other people.
I really want to just tell these people that we cannot help them anymore and this is not my problem. This doesn't go into detail about everything we have done for them, but it quickly became too much. Every time we leave their house after doing things there, we both feel so bad because it needs so much work. It’s so dirty, and with three people walking away from it, there has got to be some major issue as I notice it goes back on the market after an inspector is there.
33. Do Unto Others…
Last month, my daughter had a seizure. I had my teenage sisters staying over at the time so my parents came to pick them up. My dad’s car blocked over a bit of my neighbor’s driveway as he came to collect the girls. A few minutes later, my neighbor knocked on the door, demanding the car be moved. It was nearly midnight and the ambulance was blocking our driveway.
My dad immediately went out and moved the car and apologized. He explained they didn’t mean to block her in. Quite a few times since that night, the neighbor has now started to park over our drive and block us in. It’s got to the point where me and my partner park one of our cars on the drive and one blocks the drive, even though our drive can fit both cars on it.
When she’s blocked us in we’ve knocked on the door to ask her to move but she doesn’t answer the door. We can hear her in the house but she doesn’t answer. It’s driving us crazy and we’ve now got to the stage where we’re getting a lawyer’s advice.
34. 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.
35. 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.
36. Buzz Off!
My next-door neighbor is a middle-aged woman who lives with her elderly mom. Not because her mom needs to be taken care of—I believe it’s the other way around. She doesn’t work and is basically a little girl in a 50-year-old body. I work from home, and this woman is home all day, doing who knows what. Whenever I go outside, she magically appears and gives me her “expert” advice on whatever I’m doing.
If I engage in a conversation with her (just to be nice), it’ll eat up 20 to 30 minutes of my time. It's one of those inescapable conversations. And if I do anything, and I mean ANYTHING, like bite my fingernail out of nervousness because I don’t know when I’ll be able to exit this conversation, she’ll go: “STOP! Wait, I got a cream for that!”
Or if I shoo away a fly, she’ll go: “WAIT! I got the BEST bug spray! Top of the line!” Everything she has is “top of the line” or “the most expensive, highest quality out there," and she's got something for everything! I literally can't MOVE around her, because she's got something for everything I'm doing! One time she caught me painting a statue in my garden.
She came over with boxes and boxes of paint. And once she starts up with a new topic, tack on another 20 minutes of time And that's just my experience with her while I'm outside. Behind closed doors, it’s a total nightmare. Before I knew any of this about her, I made the mistake of inviting her into my house for a cup of coffee. No wait, let me correct that.
She actually saw me drinking coffee on my front porch one day and asked if she could have one. While I found that a bit intrusive, I felt rude saying no, so I made her one. And while I was making the coffee in my kitchen, she continued talking to me from my front porch, and I couldn't really hear what she was saying. I felt rude, so I invited her into the foyer rather than have her stand outside.
MISTAKE. Now she comes over twice, sometimes three times a week for coffee! And whenever she sees me outside, she asks, "can I have a coffee?" And when she rings my doorbell and I answer the door to greet her, she's already stepping into my house, like a vampire that I can't stop from coming inside because I've already made the mistake of inviting her in once!
And each time she comes over, I face new horrors. She's getting more and more comfortable in my house, sitting on my couch (She reeks of smoke. I don't smoke, and prefer to have my house not smelling like that). And now she's asking to borrow things, browsing the shelves in my living room, and then exclaiming, "Oh! My mom would love to read this! You're not reading it right now, right? I'll bring it back, you know where I live anyway”.
And then she helps herself to an item on the shelf. I don't like being mean to people, but I feel like the only way to stop her is to be That Person. I'm a single, 30-year-old woman, living alone. I think I'm way too nice, to the point where I let things go beyond what I'm comfortable with. This was my mistake, I know. But how do I undo all of this in the nicest way possible?
If I had it my way, I would have it so that she never comes back into my house ever again. She is my neighbor, not my friend. She is not my type of person. We have nothing in common. I just want to be left alone.
37. Disturbance In Suburbia
My husband and I moved into our first home last summer. Coming from the city, we found our slice of “suburban heaven," as the property offered a beautiful yard with well water-irrigated lush grass. We also chose it for what we perceived as privacy, at least compared to where we had lived. It didn’t take long for us to discover we had made a grave error.
When we first met our neighbor closest in proximity to us, she seemed very nice and thoughtful and we thought how lucky we were to have such a lovely neighbor. This changed quickly, as she became overbearing to the point where I couldn’t be in my backyard without fearing she’d yell over to me and to come over. She would interrupt me no matter what I was doing.
She has a dog of her own, and she’s single, middle-aged, no kids, divorced, and she let us know early on that our backyard was like her dog park before we moved in, as the old man who lived here previously passed and the lot was vacant for a year or so. She has her own fenced-in backyard, but it is the opposite of our green grass with rocks and planters and is quite unkept.
For a few months, we let her over frequently, then we began to avoid her. Other strange things happened with her that are beside the point of this thread, but anyways what really started to irk me, especially because I work from home all the time, is that she would be in our side yard property all the time. She tied her dog to our fence, on our lawn, and she used it as a potty spot multiple times a day.
One morning, I even woke up to her loudly on the phone BELOW my bedroom window, looking into our first-floor window. It was getting obnoxious. Our side yards have no barrier, aside from the fact that ours has lush green grass and hers has rock and pine needles. Not once did she have a conversation with us about this. And then it took another turn.
She started to call me in the middle of the workday as I was in meetings and trying to focus, to ask if her dog could come into our backyard. The final straw was when she left a voicemail, asking for permission to let herself into our backyard whenever she pleased, since my two dogs “were always outside”. I felt like that was asking too much after she’d been overbearing for the past four months of living there.
Granted, I think she had good intentions in her efforts to be nice to us, but my introverted husband and I found her overbearing and annoying, especially in the way she used our property as if we didn’t exist or as if she was entitled to it. So, I went outside to talk to her after I listened to the voicemail. It took a lot of working up to and courage because I truly hate confrontation.
I politely and timidly let her know that we don’t feel comfortable with her using our backyard whenever she pleases. She didn’t take that well at all. To begin with, she rolled her eyes and talked back. I went on further to ask that she stop using our side yard because we like our privacy. Then she really lost it on me. She said, “Well so much for having a good neighborly relationship” and stormed off.
I was taken aback because if someone let me know I was overstepping someone’s comfort and property zone, I would say “so sorry, I had no idea”. But of course not. Later she came to our door to pick something up we were borrowing, and she started saying some nasty things, like how I hadn’t tried to be nice (I had, but in my own way), and that my husband and I should get a fence if we were so concerned.
Needless to say, she’s a grown woman and the property line is obvious, but alright. Months have passed, and we hadn’t talked to her much, and I observed that now she would stand on her property with the dog leashed, but the dog is on our property so it can go potty. She was making an effort...? Well, that didn’t last long. A couple of weeks ago she got a new puppy.
She has returned to using our yard as she had done before. She is literally training her new puppy to “Go poo poo! Go poo poo” on our lawn. Really!?!? So my husband wasn’t too upset at first…until he found five piles of poop sitting in our grass. That was it for him. I’ve been annoyed about it for a while because I work from home and see/hear her doing it, and it is also the principle for me at this point.
He went over to talk to her with the poop bagged up in his hand and let her know our property is not her dog’s potty spot. She made a few excuses and said she’d get a property surveyor, and my husband said we’d respect the results. He also asked her to respect us, left the poo on her porch, and walked away. She hasn’t apologized or taken any accountability.
When she makes excuses as to why she uses our property, she passively tries to make us sound like jerks. As mentioned, we will respect the results of a surveyor if she gets one, but I know for a fact that our entire side yard is not her property. I genuinely don’t think any of it is because of land markers and the deed I read, but whatever at this point.
She’s still using our lawn with her dogs after we talked to her twice. Now my husband and I are submitting a fence permit with the town so that we can hopefully resolve this by building a barrier. But I’m bummed it had to come to this. This has caused us a lot of frustration and it slightly feels like “suburbahell” now. So much for our oasis.
38. 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.
39. 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.
40. A Game Of Chicken
I’ve been living in my current home for a little over five years. About two years ago, we bought some chickens and I made a run for them beneath our scuppernong vines. It’s a good sized area. This is in the back corner of my property, probably about 200 feet from the road. Shortly after, an old couple moved into a house across the street and one house down.
My neighborhood is an old mill house neighborhood, and my house is on two lots so my yard is twice the size of everyone else’s. I believe there used to be a house next to mine that burned down or something and that lot was purchased by whomever owned my home at the time. Anyway, one day it all started to curdle right before my eyes.
I started getting visits from animal control. I was told by my neighbors directly next to me that animal control would come by when I wasn’t home and walk around my property. I have one chicken who escapes daily and visits my neighbors, who feed her and let their kids play with her. The old couple across the street and one house down once saw my chicken in my neighbors’ yard, took a photo, and called the authorities.
I was given a ticket which cost me $295.25 even though the neighbors whose yard it was in didn’t mind. Animal control eventually stopped coming by after she and I had a conversation. She said the old couple across the street are the ones calling, specifically the wife. Her claims were beyond stupid. She says that the chickens are making her ill and she is deathly afraid of being ambushed by the chickens.
She claimed that it isn’t legal to own chickens within city limits (animal control assured her that it is). Animal control also told her that there is no smell from my chickens and said that I have the cleanest run they’ve ever seen. The neighbors also claimed that a specific animal control officer took their friend’s chickens last year because chickens aren’t legal but the guy who they say took them hadn’t worked in animal control in almost two decades.
The animal control officer also told me that the woman across the street calls animal control and/or the authorities least five times a week to complain about my chickens. My wife recently got a promotion and our landscaper is purchasing our home as we’re having to relocate about four hours north of here. He usually brings his son when he cuts our lawn and the little guy loves the chickens.
He asked if they can keep them so we’ve decided to include them on the sale so our awful neighbor will get to deal with the chickens for years to come.
41. Got This On Lock
So my complex is on a busy road, and until recently, everyone's mailboxes were just sitting there clustered together, and anyone could stop and empty them all in minutes. Just a couple dozen mailboxes all sitting out on a super busy road. I've lived here three years, and probably our first month living here, the sheriff showed up with our mail that they found shredded in a ditch. They showed up every six months or so now, to give all the tenants their mail
I spent a lot of time fighting with my landlord about how unreasonable it is to have two dozen unlocked mailboxes on a huge main road just waiting to be burgled. I wasn't the only one who complained either, EVERYONE was SICK of having the sheriff show up unannounced to deliver mail! He continually told me to pay for a PO Box, and basically "deal" with being unable to receive mail at my home.
I finally downloaded my local Tenant Handbook and found out it's illegal NOT to provide locking mailboxes for tenants in my state. I called and left a message with the cited law, got a bunch of other tenants to also call him, and without a word a month later (he ignored me and every other tenant every time we called to see what was going on), they installed locking mailboxes. WIN.
42. 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.
43. 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.
44. The Grassy Knoll
So I own my house, while the neighbors next door rent theirs. They don’t have a driveway. It sucks, but it’s not my fault or my problem. At first, they would park so the end of the car was blocking about six inches of my driveway. Enough for me to have to drive off the curb to get out of my driveway without hitting them. We asked them to stop doing that.
There is plenty of room in front of their house and ours for them to park. They did for a little but then they got two more cars. One day while my husband was at work I heard someone outside. I look out and see my neighbors shoveling my driveway. I thought ok that’s weird but whatever. I should have known something was up then. The next time I went out I saw they took those two cars, and used my driveway to pull up next to my driveway in the grass.
Now their cars are leaking oil in my yard. I’m afraid of getting a ticket because they are parked in MY GRASS. They also started having guests that come over and block my driveway completely. I’m so sick of it!! They also have the nerve to get an attitude with me when I ask them to move their cars! What the heck is wrong with people!?
45. Working On My Night Moves
I’m an upstairs neighbor, and no matter what I do my downstairs neighbors HATE me. I'm tired of feeling guilty because I'm doing something normal. I always try to make a minimal amount of noise—I purchased expensive headphones, stopped doing my dishes when he's home—but at this point, I don't know what to do. It’s 1 am and I'm just EATING CHIPS and he texts.
I don't know if he hears the rustling of the pack but bro, can't he just put some earbuds in his ears to sleep? He often invites his friends over, puts music on, and they laugh/ talk loudly but I put up with it, why can't he do the same? Am I really in the wrong? The only thing I ever asked him to do was to lower his TV volume because it triggers my OCD.
I'm scared that to "take revenge" he'll start watching it loudly again.
46. 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.
47. 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.
48. Up A Tree
My partner and I are renting the rear townhouse on a block of two. We have a shared driveway, and the area directly in front of my house and adjacent to my neighbor’s garage (technically our land) had a potted ornamental pear tree. The tree is beautiful and provides us with some privacy to our upstairs landing. The neighbor has made a comment that he does not like the tree as the leaves fall on his car in autumn.
The tree receives good lighting and is watered regularly, and, until last week, was very healthy. Last Monday, the leaves started getting dry but were still green. Unusual for an established tree. On Thursday, my neighbor came out for a chat while I was inspecting it. Without hesitating, he offered to cut it down. I told him that I’d fertilized it and would like to wait and see if it gets better.
On Sunday morning, I realized that the tree had been cut down, leaving an ugly stump with no leaves. On further inspection, three weeds that were thriving in the same planter were also withered, leading me to believe that the tree was poisoned. I don’t want to cause drama with our neighbors, but I am furious. Even if he didn’t poison the tree, he overstepped a boundary by cutting it down.
49. Not How I Thought My Day Would Go
I live in a studio apartment that's underneath a house, and a few years ago the original owners moved out and decided to rent it out to adults with special needs. It's pretty much a revolving door, some stay for a year, some stay for a few weeks. For the most part, they're great, they leave me alone, bring me my packages right away, and are generally quiet and friendly.
Then there's this one guy we'll call Larry. He's lived there the longest, since the beginning. He has severe schizophrenia and a speech impediment. He has multiple "people" he talks to and some are friendly, and some are hostile to him. One of these is "Mike". He and I got along for the most part but he's very, very loud. Unfortunately, he can't help it.
I've had to check on him a few times to make sure he's okay when he's having a meltdown and contact his social worker. He's a stomper, and the floors above my bedroom are laminate, so it's amplified. The walls are pretty thin, and above my room is where he likes to hang out the most. Usually, it's him just talking to himself loudly but sometimes he'll dribble a basketball.
He’ll also move furniture, or make other odd noises at times like 4 am when I'm sleeping. He's all by himself in the house this week because his roommates are with their families for Christmas right now. This is a recipe for disaster. He does not do well alone. Today, he had a full-blown meltdown. Screaming, shouting, banging on the walls. I work from home so obviously this got very distracting.
I went out to check the mail and he was outside aggressively playing basketball in the driveway, shouting, blasting music, and making a scene the whole neighborhood could hear. I asked him if he's okay and needs help, and that he's being very loud. I was as tactful as I could be but stern enough to get the message across that he's behaving poorly.
The look he gave me was deadly, and he nearly threw a basketball at me. He stomped off, went inside, and shouted some more. Mind you, I can't understand much of what he's saying because his speech impediment is so severe. I texted his social worker, who never came by. Then it turned downright terrifying.
I was in the kitchen making dinner when I heard him having a conversation with his other personality, and the conversation I overheard was "I want to kill him, Mike". "You can't Larry, he's nice". "But I hate him". "Don't do it". "Yes". "No". "YES I WANT TO”. "YOU CAN'T". It went like this for a few minutes until I heard him stomp off. I always felt safe in my apartment, but this is waaaayyy to much.
I can't say for sure he was talking about me because he never said my name but just the fact that he's contemplating this in the middle of a meltdown by himself is making me VERY concerned. I haven't heard back from the social workers, and my landlord is a state away.
50. 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.
51. 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.
52. Screw That Noise
So yesterday, I had an incredibly important job interview. It was my final interview with my local police branch and if I passed this interview, then the past six months of training and tests would have been worth it, and I would be a full-time officer. My interview was three hours long and I had a time slot for 10 am-1 pm. I had deliberately picked this time slot.
I thought an earlier one would mean that there would be less chance of noise from any of my neighbors. 7:30 am, next-door neighbors’ music is on full blast. No warning, so I was already startled from a rude awakening. This came after not being able to get to sleep until 3 am because the same neighbors were having a party. Less than four hours of sleep, and a three-hour interview coming up.
Safe to say I was not amused. However, I thought that I would give them the benefit of the doubt and give them time to turn it down. It got to 9 am and it was still going, and now the kids were screaming and running around outside, having to shout louder than the music just to be heard. So I sent my neighbor a text, just politely asking them to turn the music down (not off), as I had my interview in an hour.
It got to 9:30 am and I had had no reply and the music was steadily getting louder. So I went and knocked on their door, and of course, they couldn't hear me above the music, so I had to knock on their window and more or less felt like I was invading their home. It very much did not get better from there. The wife answered, the same woman I texted, and she was oblivious to the fact that I had texted her.
Unbelievably, she didn't seem to think anything was wrong with the level of the music. I asked if she would turn the music down, and she said that she would but she couldn't stop her partner from turning it up again if he wanted to. They were having another party, apparently, as it was their son's A-Level results day and he had done well. Oh, great.
I told her that as nice as that was, I had an important interview that I could not rearrange and could not afford to not get. Her response infuriated me. It was a shrug, and she said she would turn it down a bit. Thanking her, I went back home and immediately noticed that the music had turned down a bit, so I was a bit happier. I set up in my kitchen/makeshift office, and sat down to wait 15 minutes until my interview started.
I could still hear the music and the screaming, but it was enough that I could drown it out. The interview was going well until about 10:30. And I think you can guess what happened. Music whacked back up to full volume, even louder than before. All of the neighbors’ doors and windows are opened. The kids are screaming louder than ever, and everyone is now standing outside in the garden and talking loudly, right by my kitchen window.
I tried not to let it get to me, but when I saw one of the guys doing the interview look confused and distracted, I knew that they could hear it too. I immediately apologized and explained what had happened and said that I could move to another room and carry on. So I had to move from a proper office set up to my small and partially decorated, dark living room.
The interview went ahead, but I couldn't focus properly as all I could feel was their music thumping, and I was now getting a migraine. I had to ask them to repeat questions numerous times and I just couldn't drown out the music and screaming. The interview finished at 1 pm and at 1:15 pm, it suddenly went silent from next door.
The whole family and their friends (there were about 20 people there altogether), left the house at the same time. They 100% did it on purpose. Then I got horrible news. I just found out this morning that I did not pass the final interview, and I have to wait six months before I can apply for the position again. And to rub more salt into the wound, I have to do all of the tests and interviews (that I had already passed), all over again.
I have appealed the decision and have further explained the circumstances, so hopefully, they are lenient. I'm planning on confronting my neighbors today, after I've calmed down.
53. Getting Ahead Of Himself
I have a double lot, which gives me a good deal of space. Apparently, the lady who originally owned my house years ago deeded the original owner of my neighbor's house a five-foot strip of land from her lot, so they would have space to move on that side of the house. Otherwise, the house would have been right on the property line. He has graveled over his own backyard and parks two tow trucks back there.
So, I guess he sees this part of my front yard as unused and wants to pave it so he can park his tow trucks in front instead. I said that I wanted to think about it. Yesterday, a small front-end loader showed up, parked right in front of my yard.
54. 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.
55. 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?
56. 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.
57. The Cherries On Top
I'm retired from health and rescue after over five decades. I am now blind, but at the time of the following events, I still had my vision somewhat intact. Because of health issues, I recreated the golden years of my life and chose to raise trees and parrots. My son lived 1,500 miles away, so I lived alone—a geriatric wheelchair-bound ol’ bitty who chose to live by the beat of my own drum.
There was a catalyst event that started the following events. I will NOT disclose what occurred, safe to say, the authorities were called and warnings were issued to the neighbors in the strongest wording. That initiating event only seemed to light fires under them. I was about to learn a lesson of a lifetime. It was a lesson that was both unwanted and undeserved.
Nevertheless, a life lesson straight out of THE OUTER LIMITS or TWILIGHT ZONE. So decades ago, I had purchased acres of land from a family member, so I started planting on land that had just sat untouched up until then. The shape of the 40.2 acreages looked like a cooking pot with an S-shaped handle from high above. I had my home built in the eastern/southern corner.
I started planting southern-zoned trees 18 years ago. Many different fruit and nut trees. One special tree, an olive tree. One day, my tree man contacted me asking if I was interested in purchasing cherry trees from Japan. I jumped at the chance and obtained two of them, a male and female. There was just one thing. I thought to myself...where in the holy heck am I going to plant these trees?
My acreage was full. So I planted them near my southern home. Little did I know, that would be the wisest choice I could have made on many levels. The first season they bloomed, their fragrance could be enjoyed a mile away on a calm wind day. Their blooms proved to be one of the most beautiful things one could see, making them the showcase of my home.
They are the first things your eyes scan to and you become mesmerized by their enchanting beauty and fragrance. Throughout the following years, I noticed the female tree would throw babies every third season, sometimes every second. The roots of these saplings could, as they grow, strangle any trees near them, so they had to be uprooted and replanted in free ground.
I planted them along the sides of my winding driveway and along the sides of my home, like a gift-wrapped home of cherry blossoms. The land to my left was rocky soiled land. Not earth that one could easily plant on, but some developer bought it and sectioned it into about 3/4 acre plots and built one home on the most southern. When the new homeowners moved in, my years-long nightmare began.
I put up chain-linked electric fencing—and unknown to the neighbors, full audio-video day/night security cameras. This is because I was having fruits, nuts, and vegetables from my garden come up missing the following season after they moved in. Chaos broke out the following spring, a year that I had baby cherry saplings pop up. Nine of them to be exact.
I let them grow to a safe replanting age and rolled out in my wheelchair with buckets of water and shovel in hand to get to work. As I was on the ground busy digging up babies, the neighbor, Karen, came out of her house demanding to know what I was doing. I informed her I was digging up the saplings to give to the neighbor who lived north of my acreage. She shocked me with her response.
She went from 1 to 100 in a 10th of a second, screaming at me about how I couldn't do what I'm doing. Apparently, the trees belong to her and I had to give them to her. I informed her "that would not be happening". This angered her even more and she advanced toward me, spewing verbal vomit and anger. When she put her foot and hands on my electric fencing, in what to me was an attempt to climb over, she got the shock of her life.
After she regained her breath, her verbal vomit became pathetically comical. I just kept repeating "my land, my fencing, my property, my trees. I will do as I please, Karen”. I quickly grew tired of this tornado of spinning verbal vomit, put my shovel into the earth upright, and climb back into my chair. I grabbed the bucket that had a few saplings and yelled, “Bye-bye”.
As I was waiting for my wheels to engage, I watched Karen go back into her house and I went into mine. About 30 minutes later, I heard my parrots screaming. Someone was ringing my bell and knocking. My camera showed an interesting sight. Three officers. When I answered and asked what I could do for them, they informed me they received complaints.
Apparently, I was “stealing” trees and had attacked someone a little while ago. They asked if I knew anything about it. I said "follow me" and rolled them to the saplings I still needed to uproot. They asked me if I was planting them. I said, "No, I'm digging them up”. They asked "Where are the trees you're accused of taking?” I rolled them to my work shed.
They then asked me to take them to where the supposed assault happened. I rolled them back to the saplings in the ground, pointed to the fence line, and said "there". They asked where, clearly confused. At this time, Karen ran out and started her verbal vomit again. Both officers tried getting her to calm down and return to her home, to no avail.
In fact, I couldn’t believe what they did next. They called for backup. After what seemed an eternity of ear-shattering, nauseating verbal vomit from her, she was manhandled into submission by four of our finest in blue and they pulled her back into her home. The two officers still with me asked if I could try to be a little more “clear as to what had occurred”.
Without saying a word, I pulled my cell phone from my wheelchair pocket, pulled up my security archives app, narrowed in on the time in question, put the cell on speaker with the volume turned up to max, pushed play, and handed the cell to them. I then pulled up county land titles and deeds and showed them my property lines, and how my fence line was 15-feet inside my property lines.
I then pulled up the receipts, import/export clearance documents, and clear descriptions of the Japanese cherry trees, making sure they noticed MY name, MY address, MY signature of receipt, and dates/times. One officer walked back to their car and the other explained my right to have her cited for trespassing, to which I said "YES".
He then said he will file trespassing on her. He then walked to his car and I wheeled to the front of my home. I watched them talk with each other. After a short while, one of the officers who was in Karen’s house came out and walked up to them. They continued talking while one of them was writing on a clipboard. Two of them then walked back into Karen’s house.
Very quickly after, the situation escalated. I could hear Karen's verbal vomit permeate the air with a vile nauseating green haze of disgusting epitaphs. Then, as quickly as the verbal assaults began, a calming peaceful quiet crystallized in the air. I guess I had forgotten to breathe because I was shaken out of my fog by one of the officers, who was tapping my shoulder.
He placed his card in my hand, explaining his phone number and case number, then asked me to forward him a copy of my security footage relating to that complaint. I shook his hand, thanked him, and we parted ways. By then, I was exhausted so I went inside to eat an early supper and planned for early retirement that night and would finish the sapling work in the morning.
I called my other neighbor and told her "I'd roll by her way tomorrow". She said she would just meet me at the fence and use her hook line to pull the bucket over the fence. That plan suited me just fine. As I was eating my supper. about two hours after the afternoon’s crazy circus show, I got a shattering intrusion. Someone started pounding my front door as if trying to wake all the dearly departed within a 50-mile radius.
Security cameras showed Karen and her husband Kevin at my door screaming, "I know you're in there...come out here now". More pounding while I was on phone with the officer from earlier—I’ll call him Zeus. He could barely make out what I was saying over the pounding at the door and the parrots' screams of fear. Minutes later, I could hear sirens on my security feeds.
Moments later, six officers surrounded my front door, and after a few minutes, they were able to de-escalate the anger that permeated the air. An officer called me on my cell asking if I wanted to trespass Kevin now too, to which I gave him a resounding "yes”. I watched on the surveillance feed as the officers took them down my drive.
The cameras at the south gate were very blurry—it seems Kevin or Karen sprayed something on them, but the audio was still crystal clear. The officers gave Karen another trespass charge and trespassed Kevin as well. Karen earned her first trip to have a cozy meet and greet with the judge. I planned to be a visitor for that! After everyone was gone, I called my other neighbor's husband.
I asked if he could come on over after dinner to clean my cameras before sunset in exchange for a basket of fruits, their choice. It’s good to have great neighbors who are kind and giving of their time and elbow grease. The next morning, I resumed my sapling uprooting. If I thought it was over, I was so wrong. Karen came out to offer reruns of her verbal vomiting, her karenisms, and her mental gymnastics of pure rage and crazy.
It was then that I confirmed in my mind that this Karen was a special kind of Karen, a narcissistic sociopath who lived in some altered reality that consisted of unicorns, rainbows, and minions of monkeys who were at her every beck and call. I finished the last sapling and pulled myself to my chair to put all saplings into one bucket. While I was calling that neighbor to meet me at the north corner, I rolled past Karen.
She started screaming at me, demanding I hand over her trees. I told her "Karen, we went over this yesterday. WHAT IS YOUR MENTAL MALFUNCTION, KAREN??!! They're not your trees. I promised them to MY FRIEND. Not you”. I made my way to the good neighbor who asked me what was going on. While I was explaining to her the preceding circus show of crazy, our finest in blue rode up to us.
It seemed Karen called and made a second complaint against me. Only this time, I had supposedly taken money from her in exchange for the saplings. This officer knew nothing of the prior day's events. So...the three of us viewed the security feeds of 50 SHADES OF CRAZY. My poor neighbor just kept shaking her head and told the officer that Karen needed a pretty new white jacket with extra-long sleeves.
The officer snickered. After he regained his composure, he told us he was "ALL OVER THIS". My other neighbor and I chatted for a while longer. We arranged a time for her to come over to pick fruits and stop by for tea, then we parted ways as I had workmen due to arrive to restyle my south fence and gate. After the electrician, fence man, and his workmates finished up, I invited them up to my house for a quick BBQ of burgers and a salad from my garden.
Our late lunch was disturbed by a barrage of screeching that broke our sounds of silence, shattered the stratosphere, and gave the angels above some heavenly hearty laughter. When I realized what was going on, I burst out laughing. Apparently, Karen had gotten her hands on a megaphone. I called the non-emergency line. Funny thing is, that time I didn't have to say a single word.
I could hear the operator tell me she is "sending the squad back out there". Karen earned another meet n’ greet with the judge, and a couple more charges of breach of the peace and harassment of a disabled elderly person. We offered the poor officer who had already been there a burger and tea. He took us up on our offer and called in for a 20-minute break.
We had a too-short, lovely respite. It ended all too suddenly. The poor officer was called back into service. He thanked us, chugged his tea, and grabbed his burger and ran. I told the workers, “Welcome to my life...a never-ending soap opera entitled AS THE CRAZY CIRCUS TURNS". They heartily laughed. They thanked me, packed up, and did one last test on the gate before they left.
All was quiet, but we all know that hair-raising, fear-evoking old adage: IT’S ALWAYS CALMEST BEFORE THE STORM. On a Saturday morning. I was out pulling veggies from my garden. I heard a faint hissing sound I couldn’t make out. Then hell broke loose. The next thing I knew I was being punched and beaten. There was no way I could fend off the blows from fists coming at me from multiple directions.
The blows seemed to never end. When I awoke, it was evening. My chair was on top of me and I was laying in curdled puddles of blood...my blood. I tried finding my cell. It was at my side with the screen shattered. I dialed emergency but I couldn't talk...it was garbled. My old friend Zeus and his partner showed up along the eastern wall. I heard them calling my name.
I started screaming, it was all I could do. I guessed they called the fire department, because after a short while I could hear more sirens. I texted Zeus the code to open the south gate. They found me. I will spare you readers all the gore and simply say I ended up with my jaw broken in three places, seven broken ribs, a punctured lung, a concussion, a lacerated liver as well as other soft tissue and organ injuries, major black eyes, along with a broken arm.
My body looked like a patchwork painting in hues of white, black, blue, purple, and crusted browns. I looked the pretty picture. Zeus and another officer visited me after I arrived back home from the hospital. We talked—a difficult venture for me as my jaw was still wired shut—about what happened. And they took copies of security footage. I’ll never forget what that footage showed.
Turns out Kevin sprayed paint on what he thought were all the cameras facing me at the time of attack. He didn't know about the cameras in the fruit trees and along the western wall. Kevin never laid a fist on me but three men pummeled me while he watched and laughed, calling out blows as if he was a spectator at a WWE fight match.
Kevin is married to the right woman. They are BOTH that special kind of crazy. Kevin earned a pair of shiny new as well as free four-star accommodations after his photoshoot for his starring role in the movie 50 SHADES OF CRAZY, as well as his recurring role in the soap opera AS THE CRAZY CIRCUS TURNS. Kevin got out on bail while awaiting trial.
Investigators were now busy finding the three beasts from Hades. I told the investigators to search for Kevin and Karen's friends, associates, and family members because I had never seen them before. Well, well, well. Investigators do what investigators do oh so well. Weeks later, they found them. The truth was cold. It turns out they were Kevin's three younger brothers.
All I can say is Kevin's family tree grows nothing but rotten apples. Arrest warrants were issued and forwarded five states over. They were picked up in their home state and issued their own sets of “bling” and given photoshoots and four-star accommodations. Well, I assumed Kevin didn't like that we gave his brothers their own starring roles in this crazy soap opera and movie.
The night Kevin's brothers were given their bling, my security cameras caught something even crazier. Kevin and Karen were going shopping on my land. I called the brave Boys in Blue. They came up in the dark (no lights or sirens). The drama play that Kevin and Karen put on in my backyard was priceless. I popped my corns, sat back, and was entertained, nay, I was mesmerized by the pure audacity and entitlement of the Ks.
Their impromptu acting was chockful of gut-splitting jocularity at its finest. I remember thinking I needed to plan for an Emmy awards show because they both certainly earned one that night. A mix of Laurel and Hardy and Monty Python. Four officers chasing two rather rotund people around as they were throwing their ill-gotten gains at the poor officers.
Truly a food fight of gargantuan proportions. As all plays do, this one came to an end. After the bling was passed out and the curtain fell, the two K's were taken for more photoshoots and accommodations and invitations to visit the judge. Eight days after the special K food fight festival, I was suddenly jarred awake to horror. It was the thunderous sounds of engines roaring.
There was earth shaking-pounding, and the fingernail-on-chalkboards screeching of metal on metal. I called the authorities, naturally. Karen's two brothers were caught red-handed in their trucks with oversized tires, chains attached to their tow hitches. The other ends of those chains were attached to what was left of my mangled fencing.
Several poles were pulled out of the ground. Sparks were flying everywhere. These two brothers turned out to be a special kind of stupid, too. Attaching METAL CHAINS TO A METAL TRUCK, THEN ATTACHING THE CHAINS TO AN ELECTRIC SOURCE??? Really??? I shut off the power grid to the fencing and they got detained too. Ok folks, if you’ve been keeping up on your headcount, we are up to seven.
I thought to myself, just how bad can this soap opera movie get? Little did I know. Oh, how little did I know. I still had a lot of learning to go to find out just how deep this crazy rabbit hole went. While I was busy having my security fencing rebuilt and fortified after that, I was waiting with eager anticipation for my day to shine in court.
I was jolted out of my euphoric haze one day by a constant buzzing and knocking at my door; my security fencing was still under repair. Security cameras showed a couple of sheriff's deputies awaiting my response. When I opened the door they informed me they had a warrant for me and I would be going with them. They told me to stand up and not fight them.
When I tried to explain to them that I had been wheelchair-bound for about a decade by then, it got really bizarre. They told me they were informed I was “faking for sympathy” and they pulled me out of my chair. When I crumbled to the floor, the look of shock and embarrassment on their faces was almost worth what I was going through.
They spent the next three hours trying to figure out how they were going to transport me and my 1,000-pound wheelchair. They ended up transporting me using a folding wheelchair that they cuffed my hands to. After my own photoshoot, I was processed and told I was being detained for grand theft, filing false reports, and multiple charges of harassment and intimidation.
I used my one phone call to my lawyer. This was a whole new level of crazy. I will spare you people the quagmire my lawyer pulled me out of. But here is the juicy aftermath. According to what investigators and my lawyer were able to piece together, Karen's sister, who happened to work for the county court’s office, pushed through falsified reports to have the county's prosecutor file formal charges against me.
The grand theft was built on lies that I had pilfered all the Japanese cherry trees on my land, and by then I had 72 of them. They claimed each tree was worth $550. I was accused of taking $30,600 in trees. I was accused of harassing their family members. The family of crazy, both Karen’s and Kevin's families, were all listed on the complaint against me.
Mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters. They filed an 11-million suit against me. They each were asking for 1 million in damages. CRAZY OUTRAGEOUS. Oh, and Karen's sister used a gullible judge to sign the warrant. It took a little over two years to get my woes fixed and my record expunged.
Over another year and a half, Karen, her sister, and Kevin agreed to plead guilty to lesser charges and served six months, 11 years, and six years respectively. Karen's sister was fired by the very same judge she snowballed. Karen's two brothers served five years each and were ordered to pay me $50,000 each in restitution. Kevin and Karen were ordered to pay me $25,000 each in restitution.
Kevin's three brothers each received 25 to life on assault on an aged, disabled person with grievous bodily harm and ordered to pay $250,000 restitution each. My lawyer had his payday when he counter-sued both families. We settled for 3 million. My lawyer took 1/3rd. I ended up with five of the six homes that used to belong to the three main family units.
This was as well as cash, stocks, bonds, and jewelry. All parties involved in this nightmare were each given permanent stay-away orders to not come within 1,000 yards of my person or property. Everyone received 8-10 years’ probation with notices that their original charges (except Kevin's three brothers, who were prosecuted on all original charges) would be refiled and prosecuted should they fail to meet every stipulation of the original sentencing.
My good neighbors came for a visit after things calmed down. We reminisced. I promised I would try to keep our community peaceful from then on, but I seemed to be a magnet for crazy. We laughed, shared a great steak n’ lobster BBQ, and sipped mint juleps as the sun went down. Truly great people.
58. She’s Lost Control Again
Every time I tell this story, I feel so dramatic, but how else do you describe this situation?
In the fall, our elderly neighbor either got confused or lost control of her car, plowed forward, destroyed our trellis, bushes, and hit our house. We have a big dent in the front, awaiting cooperation from contractors to repair and likely replace all the siding. Oh, AND, she snapped our gas line when it happened so it was a very scary 20-30 minutes until that was repaired.
Thank God we both work from home because I hate thinking what would have happened to our dogs. Somehow though, it was the aftermath that hurt the worst. During those moments, she didn't come check on us. When she hit the house, my husband immediately ran over to her, asking if she was all right, showing genuine concern. This neighbor?
She has never apologized and has almost completely avoided us since then. The only time she has spoken to either my husband or me was a couple of weeks later when my husband was attempting to replace the trellis. She came outside to argue with him, claiming he was digging on her property. And then she said things like "No one is more sorry than me that this happened to you…”
He reminded her this is the second time she had lost control of her car. The first time, she plowed over her bushes, but she had paid to replace them. Hilariously enough, she plowed over those new bushes, too, in this incident. This trellis? So, the property line essentially runs through a flower bed. I am super into gardening and she is in her 80s.
I gradually took over the entire flower bed, always with communication with her. I weeded her side, I mulched it..."Hey, I like these flowers so how about I have them all through our shared bed?” "What do you think about me removing the lilac bush". "Hey, I want to put a trellis up. That way, all these morning glories we have can climb it. Will that bother you?”
“No? Ok, where exactly is the line? I would hate to put it on the wrong spot and have future people in your home getting angry. It will be this high—will that bother you?" She said it was nice to have me care for all of it, since she was too old. She told my husband she and I never talked about that trellis—not helping with her denial is the fact that she has dementia.
Every time she sees one of us outside? She scurries inside. Totally avoids us. Could you imagine being in your 80s but being afraid of your neighbors who are only in their 30s? We have a land surveyor coming shortly to tell us exactly where that line is because I want that trellis for some protection to stop her car. But there’s a secret I’m keeping.
I will not lie—I hope she gives them heck when they come over. I am ready for a fight. The authorities were useless. The transportation department in my state were useless. Her children are insane AND useless. So, fine. I'll fight an old lady.
59. 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.
60. 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.
61. Mind Your Own Business
Yesterday before I went to bed, I noticed that water was dripping from the ceiling of my kitchen. My first thought was that there's a water leak from upstairs, so I went up and knocked on my upstairs neighbor’s door. I could hear the sound of water sweeping/dumping. It sounded like a lake at the other side of the door. I knocked three times.
They did not stop sweeping/dumping water, but did not respond to the knock either. Then I heard someone speaking from the bedroom direction in Chinese: "Someone is knocking", and the guy responded, "Ignore them". Well, what they did not know was, my native language happened to be Chinese. Even if I was someone who did not know Chinese, I'd hear people talking and know they're ignoring me intentionally.
I kept knocking. I'm a very confrontation-averse person, but after another five knocks, they still did not respond. I had enough. I started speaking to them: "Hello, excuse me, could you hear me? There's water leaking from my ceiling, can you let me know what's going on”? I paraphrased and repeated these sentences about three times.
Finally, after around 10 minutes of knocking and speaking to them from the hallway, the guy responded with an attitude "If you have any question, talk to the management". I responded, "Can you at least let me know what's going on? Is it anything serious? My ceiling is leaking". He responded with the same sentence. I called the management.
It was past midnight then so the janitor came over, looked at my ceiling, talked to me briefly about the situation, and went upstairs. He knocked on their door about five times (with pauses in between), no response. I then told him that he might want to introduce himself because maybe they thought it was me again. The janitor did and knocked again for a while. Still no response.
Then he decided to talk to their next-door neighbor and see if they had any issues and explained there was a water leak. I was sure my upstairs neighbors could hear their conversation very clearly since I could hear it from downstairs. Then the janitor knocked on my upstairs neighbors' door again, repeated who he was, and said something like "I'd have to get my key or call officers if you don't respond".
Still no response, he then came down and asked me if I'm sure there's someone upstairs. So I think they changed their strategy and made an effort not to make any sound when the janitor knocked. But they had messed with the wrong person. The janitor grabbed the keys and went back up, then they finally opened the door because they were cornered.
I could not hear clearly what the guy said, but the janitor then told me they had a water overflow at their sink, and now it looked like the floor's fine, there's no water anymore. He asked them not to use the sink and wait until the plumbers come the next morning. And the janitor said the guy gave him an attitude as well. He said something like, "Why are you here”?
I was super annoyed, but as I said, I'm a very passive and confrontation-averse person, I just sat there feeling like I was treated really unfairly by rude neighbors. Luckily there's not much damage, the water dropped to a spot where I didn't have much stuff placed, I just had to wipe water off, and placed a plastic basin there. But…why???
62. Thank You For Your Service, Now Screw You
It was 9 pm. I live in a high rise on the seventh floor. I’m an ER nurse and, obviously, it’s been extremely busy. My wife and I had an early morning the next day, so decided to wind down the night, relax, and get to bed early before a hectic 12-hour shift. I’m brushing my teeth when I hear a knock on the door. It’s the building manager who I’m on very good terms with.
He’s accompanied by a plumber and they explain that the unit below is having a water backup through all drains. Obviously, a big issue and I get that, but why are you coming to me when it’s the apartment below? Well, apparently the pipes in question can be accessed through my unit easily. Then the plumber mentions they can also be accessed through the 6th floor’s unit, but that involves drilling a hole in the wall.
The tenant lady didn’t want to do that since it’ll then cause repairs. Still, how is this my problem? I say no. The manager says okay thank you for your time, we’ll let you know if we need anything. My wife goes to bed and I’m up for a bit longer doing some reading. My phone dings with an email from another manager telling me I must give access to the plumber.
I have no choice, she tells me. But I didn’t go down without a fight. I politely respond that they cannot have access, I have to be up very early tomorrow and people’s lives are in my hands so I need to be fully lucid and not fatigued. This manager calls me, but from a blocked number, and before I can answer it, hangs up. She leaves a voicemail very upset that I am not letting them fix the 6th floor’s unit through my unit.
Because it was from a blocked number I couldn’t call back. My only response is to email back explaining again that I cannot stay up, this isn’t my problem, goodnight. Knock knock at the door. It’s the 6th-floor tenant and the manager. The tenant is going off on me that she is a lawyer, is going to sue me, and will charge back to me all the damages that I am causing by not letting the plumber fix her problem through my unit.
I’m so tired, but just to get the issue resolved, I’ll let the plumber in. One huge problem arises. He isn’t there now. The manager and tenant leave. I decide to stay up watching TV for a bit, thinking the plumber will come knocking on my door. 11 pm, 12 pm, then 1 am and I finally get an email from the manager telling me the plumber fixed the issue by going through the 6th-floor tenant’s wall.
I have to be up in four hours now to care for people’s lives. I was left a nasty voicemail, sent rude emails, threatened to be sued, and have damages charged to me. I’m an ER nurse who’s been through heck and back these past two years and that’s how to treat me? Pathetic.
63. 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.
64. 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.
65. Some People’s Sisters
Miraculously, I found a home within a Homeowner’s Association that isn’t horrible! Unfortunately, Every HOA requires at least one Karen. Last year, I joined the HOA board for my neighborhood of townhomes. I wanted to finally have a say in what was happening in my community. In this short time, I have learned that very few people bother reading anything about their HOA before buying a home.
Because of this, I see endless issues where people don't know what rules they have agreed to live by. It now surprises me when somebody acts responsibly and contacts the HOA with an appropriate request. Two months ago, a responsible homeowner asked for approval to add a small patio to the grass in front of his home. This is a common landscaping feature in our neighborhood.
Our rules state that he is welcome to add the patio as long as it is identical to the others in the community. So of course, we approved the request. Now enters our neighborhood Karen. Karen lives next to this responsible homeowner. On Monday the construction began to install the patio. Karen started a verbal altercation with the homeowner's contractor.
She demanded to see written approval and construction designs for everything. Karen was told to mind her own business. As a Karen, she then felt it was her responsibility to contact our HOA management company's emergency line. She berated the office staff for never calling or emailing her to ask permission to do the construction or inform her that it was approved.
She felt that the space was close enough to her home that she had just as much right to it as her neighbor. She also kept repeating that there were many other HOA violations without giving any details. Karen was transferred to the property manager's mobile phone number to leave a message. Apparently, Karen said something concerning enough in the voicemail that I received an urgent call from the property manager.
She begged me to walk over to the responsible neighbor’s house, take a few pictures, and see if there was anything unusual about the construction work. She was worried that the patio may look different than the others in the neighborhood. So, I packed my toddler in her stroller and took a walk down there. Ladies and gentlemen, what I saw made me so mad.
Everything was perfectly normal. There were no problems. Worst of all, the construction was not occurring anywhere near Karen’s property. I was baffled as to why Karen would feel she has some claim to the area that is on the opposite side of the neighbor’s house from her. A few hours ago, I learned Karen isn't even the homeowner of the property next to the responsible neighbor.
She is the sister of the real homeowner. I learned this because the real homeowner went to our online resident portal to send the HOA a message. She seems to be embarrassed by her sister's behavior and stated that she actually read her homeowner documents and feels the HOA has done a great job of handling this situation. I am praying this is the end of this week's drama.
66. The Bearer Of Bad News
My neighbors went to visit family in another state about two months ago. Today we got a letter in the mail from his sister informing us that, during their stay, my neighbor's 13-year-old son seriously harmed his four-year-old girl cousin. This has been a complete shock to us, but definitely explains why they came home early. They didn't even hint that anything was wrong when they got back.
They all seemed perfectly normal. Their whole family has been so welcoming and so nice to us over the years. It's so hard to comprehend that this happened. I even had so many great conversations with their son when I see them outside. He's always so nice and polite. A small part of me (I would like to re-emphasize "small") almost wishes I didn't know.
How am I supposed to talk to him or his parents again? I see them almost every day and I have loved talking to them. I can't help but feel bad for his parents. They have so many friends in the neighborhood and I know that at least one of my other neighbors got the same letter. They have to face all of us every day and I'm not even sure they know that these letters were sent out.
It's going to be devastating to their whole family once they find out that we all know. I don't have a clue how to act around them now. Do I play it off as if I don't know until they bring it up? They are my next-door neighbors after all. There's no avoiding them and I have to live next to them. Or do I tell them we know and see what happens? I know my wife is not a forgiving person.
I think I'm more stressed about how she will react. Not the way I wanted to start my weekend...
67. 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.
68. 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.
69. Ghosts Of Homeowners Past
We recently moved in January. The previous residents moved out in the beginning of January, while we moved in at the end. One package she had sent here I held because maybe it took a minute for them to change their residence. But since then, it’s gone to a new level. She has had multiple packages delivered and comes to our home looking for them all the time.
Not only that, but someone has been checking our mailbox late at night. I continue to send the packages back and we also drop the mail off as “return to sender” but it just keeps coming. Almost as if she hasn’t updated her address. I don’t feel like at this point it is my or my husband’s obligation to hold her mail or packages. I don’t know this woman and it’s getting ridiculous.
70. Holding A Grudge
My neighbors planted a line of quite ugly bushes on my parents’ property about 10 years ago. My parents told them to take it out, and they freaked out saying the property line is wrong, refused, and are now incredibly territorial. Like, they still give us issues about it. I just want to finish them and get it taken out but I am unsure because it’s been a while.
71. 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.
72. 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!
73. The Silent Treatment
This afternoon there came a gentle knock on our front door. I answered to find an 11-year-old boy holding our newspaper. He introduced himself as Michael, and he was darling. Ever-vigilant for new neighborhood playmates for my kid Alex, I introduced them, and within minutes, Alex was invited to this child's home around the corner. I didn’t think anything could go wrong—it did.
I wrote a note to the parents explaining who we were, how we met their adorable son, and asking them to please send Alex home when they were ready and also to call me so we could meet properly. Ten minutes later, Alex showed up devastated. The dad, who was working in the yard, refused to speak to him, snatched the note and crumpled it, while Michael went into the backyard.
Alex came home. Figuring it was a simple misunderstanding (maybe the dad thought my kid was selling something?), I walked over with Alex. I walked across the yard, and in my very-best-meeting-someone-for-the-first-time demeanor, introduced myself. Y'ALL. The man stood sideways, grinning, and completely refused to acknowledge me as I explained I'd written the note, etc.
The entire minute or so, he made sure I saw that he was ignoring me and that he was enjoying it. I finished my spiel as if I were not being completely ignored, said, "Come along, Alex", and we left. The moment we were out of earshot, I told him to stay away from that house, to run away if he sees that man on the street, and to be super-kind to Michael.
I am concerned for that child. What the ever-loving heck?
74. Coming Out On Top
I have a huge hill right outside my backyard. A family has been sitting on top of the hill right in front of my backyard. I caught the husband staring into the window and the wife was filming/taking photos of my house the very next day when they came by again. This is stalking and creepy. There's a park right next to the neighborhood that they could sit and do whatever.
Why sit right in front of my backyard? The first time they came, I came out onto my deck with my dog. My dog was going crazy barking at them and as soon as I sat down, the husband jumped up and started to walk away. The wife was slower and laughing as the two kids and their dog were leaving. Next weekend if they come again, I plan to come out with a megaphone.
I’m going to ask them why have you been sitting right in front of my backyard looking into my window and taking photos the past few days? No one else in the entire two developments sit on top of the hill because everyone has the decency to know it’s rude to sit right in front of someone's backyard. Still, I don’t know if I’m overreacting with this situation.
75. 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.
76. 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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77. Watch Your Back
So this was almost 10 years ago. My dad moved to another state for work the summer I graduated high school. My dad had to leave a few months early for his scheduled start date and to have time to look for a new house while our family was packing the old one. Being unable to afford taking care of my 18-year-old self, I was forced to move with them much to my disappointment.
Still, my dad managed to pull some strings so that I could start my first job under him over the summer and get a jump start on enrolling at the local college. After a couple months of hotel living (paid for by dad’s company stipend) we found a great house that was relatively new, being rented out by the original owners. They had just finished building their new house by the lake and obviously didn't need their first house, so they thought renting it out would be a good investment.
This house was everything we were looking for, exactly where we wanted it to be. Near the schools for my siblings, near my dad's work, and with a pool and a rec room for movie nights and video games. The area and time of year made house hunting pretty tight at the time so my dad basically jumped on it. The landlord got the lease typed up from a template and my dad reviewed the whole thing before signing it.
Now my dad is a very meticulous person and has always ingrained the idea of keeping an eye out for loopholes that could be used against you. Read every word of every contract you sign and if something doesn’t seem clear, ASK! He isn’t a lawyer by any means and has made false assumptions himself, but he knows how to search law books if he needs to.
This is important later. We move in and get all settled, but quickly start to learn the truth. The landlords didn’t really want to leave their old house, they just couldn’t afford to keep both without extra income. They essentially viewed my family not as tenants, but as groundskeepers that paid them for permission to maintain their house.
One of the landlords for the most part wasn’t actually that bad, but the woman clearly wore the pants in the relationship and the man was busy with his full-time job as the local postmaster (also important later), so the woman did most of the landlord-type things. It was very clear that she no longer had anything else to do now since she had been a stay-at-home mom and their youngest daughter had started school.
I will say that I did not like this woman from the start. There were disturbing signs. There was a comment she made when we toured the house. In a very thick southern accent, it was something along the lines of not needing to worry about her younger daughter (who was adopted) growing tall enough for sports because she’s Asian.
This woman was a cartoonish stereotype who gave off narcissistic, white savior vibes. The orphanage lady from Despicable Me crossed with Paula Dean comes to mind. She also definitely did not like my mom and siblings when she first met them, as she had only met my dad and I who are white as white bread, but my mom is Hispanic so her and some of my siblings are more on the toasted whole wheat side.
She acted like it was a privilege that she was letting us live in “her house”. This lady would nitpick everything that wasn’t perfect about the house and loved showing up unannounced. We would get notes on the door about needing to water the flowers more, or that the grass is supposed to be mowed every Saturday, or don’t cut the invasive vines she planted and that were growing up the backside of the house.
I got up early to mow the lawn the next Saturday after the note to get her off our backs, and halfway through, a truck showed up with a paid lawn crew. Obviously, she hadn’t said a word about this to my parents. She would come to the door when my parents were gone and say she left something in the garage (which they had, like paint and insulation and other remodeling supplies), but then went upstairs because she was “checking on something she talked to my dad about”.
My dad of course had not spoken to her at all, and this was obviously an issue for my parents. But she didn’t stop there. At one point she tried to get my five-year-old brother to let her in right after he got off the bus. This was at a time of day when both my parents were usually working and I had just gotten out of class, but our middle siblings would have been home already.
So he wasn’t by himself, just no adults yet. To her surprise though, my dad had stayed home that day and parked inside the garage for once. He was so angry. He immediately told her she needed to leave and typed up an email to the male landlord stating that if they tried to enter the property again he would be going to court about it. This included not being permitted to enter the backyard.
She had obviously done this on numerous occasions, but the lease stated they had to give 48-hours’ notice if they needed to enter the property for ANY reason. They did not take this well and things just kept escalating. She would schedule “maintenance” on days we had planned for parties or family events, and we still have no idea how she knew when they would be.
She even had a tree removal service show up on my brother’s birthday to remove all the trees along the back fence. Supposedly for safety reasons, but that was obviously a lie. It did however prevent us from using the pool at our pool party. She would also claim all sorts of things weren’t allowed on account of HOA violations that my parents knew were false because the HOA president was also my little brother’s Sunday school teacher and they had brought up the issues with her.
The HOA president told us that she was a nightmare when they had lived in the neighborhood, and still showed up to the monthly meetings because she was still technically an owner and was using the meetings as an excuse to check up on us every chance she got, even asking the neighbors about us. The HOA was actually very lax in its regulations and mostly dealt with just the shared spaces and garbage removal.
My parents of course started looking for a place to move near the end of the lease and managed to secure a place three months before the end, but didn’t say anything to the landlords. Well come 30 days to the day before the end of the lease, she shows up at the door for no apparent reason. As I was the only adult home, I answered the door.
Just as I opened the door to hear her excuse, the mail truck pulled up behind her. She starts walking away as if she changed her mind because she thought my dad was home to talk to her, and I step out to grab the mail since it’s here. The postman gets out of his truck and says he has some certified mail that needs to be signed for by an adult. I still get chills thinking of the next events.
First, she pipes up, pointing at me: “He’s an adult, he can take it”. It was an eviction notice indicating that our landlords (standing three feet from me) had decided we were not keeping up to the standards of our lease and would not be renewing it. As such we should be out within 30 days. Well knowing that we were already moving, I just accepted it and went back inside.
It was very clear that she was there specifically to make sure we got the notice, which was only valid from the day it was officially received. She of course also knew exactly when it would get there, and likely timed it as such (again so that my parents weren’t home) because her husband, remember, was the postmaster. I called my dad right away and he was fuming.
Luckily we had actually already gotten the keys for the new house as the previous tenants were out the week before, so we were totally moved within two weeks and my dad and I spent the last two weeks going over every inch of the house to make sure there wasn’t a chip of paint or carpet stain in sight. We even went as far as repainting a couple rooms using the leftover paint in the garage.
Out of spite, my dad decided not to pay the last month's rent because we had paid first and last month's rent and security deposit when we moved in. Well, a month later, the couple have been harassing my parents about the last month's rent, and then claimed that we owed further beyond the security deposit because of all the “repairs” they had to make after we left.
We knew that was total nonsense because we had honestly left the place better than we got it. So one day we went by (we still lived pretty close) and peeked in the windows. My dad was wild with fury when we looked. Turns out, they were doing a full remodel and probably trying to get us to pay for it. This set a fire under my dad they would regret.
In that state, landlords are required to set up a specific bank account for security deposits that both the landlord and renter have access to that is not to be touched during the term of the lease. My dad, a couple months earlier, had asked the husband for the account information, having just recently discovered that rule while looking into ways to fend off their constant harassment.
Dad had only asked a couple of times and kind of let it slide because he was pretty high up the regional totem pole at work and always busy, including a lot of traveling. Now, however, he was on a mission and started demanding the security deposit be returned. In one particular phone call with the husband that was getting very heated, dad started spouting off the specific reference that he was reading right off the state’s website.
He very clearly heard the woman from the background say to her husband, “Is that the money that’s in the safe”? CHECKMATE. My dad immediately chimed in on not only that they had failed to meet state requirements, but also that the MINIMUM penalty, as stated on the state’s website in front of him, was forfeiture of the security deposit, but also any other dues and fees paid before move-in.
So not only were we not behind on rent and owing cost of repairs, but they actually owed us the deposit AND two months’ rent. My dad immediately pointed that out to them and added just to rub in that they couldn’t get out of it because ALL of their conversations for the last few months had been recorded either through email or the recording app on his phone.
78. 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.
79. The Ballad Of Frank
Meet my neighbor, Frank. He’s been my neighbor since I moved to the neighborhood around 8-9 years ago. To give a bit of a description of Frank, he’s a middle-aged divorced man with several kids, a love for riding motorcycles in the middle of the night, has a knack for confrontation, and has some sort of a superiority complex. This already sounds like a troublemaker, but you better brace yourself.
Here is a highlight reel from Frank’s extensive catalog of things he’s done. When we (my family) first moved into the neighborhood, we heard Frank might stir some trouble, but we didn’t have a terrible experience with the guy until a couple years later. Around this time, he picked up the hobby of flying drones. Actually, it was more like flying drones over people’s houses and looking at them with the drone’s camera.
Specifically, he liked to fly them over houses with teenage girls living there. It actually got to the point where he was put on the news, and he defended his actions in a pretty idiotic way. One of these girls that had been spied on by him talked about his desire to peep on her when she was in her pool to the news as well. While it did attract attention from the news, he was never faced with charges.
He basically got off scot-free. You’ll notice that this becomes a theme as the story goes on. Even with this attention on him with his perverted tactics, he still flew his drone every day, though he seemingly quit flying it over houses. He had a much stupider idea. Instead, he tried following people with it. This failed on his very first attempt.
On this attempt, he was following my sister and her friend (who were about eight at the time) when the drone crashed into a tree they were under. The drone lost power and dropped right in front of them. The drone fell with some force to it, to the point where if it had hit one of the girls, it might’ve done some actual damage considering how young they were and all.
My father confronted him about this, but all Frank did was scream and curse at him for daring to talk to him in such a manner. Although my dad ended the confrontation quickly due to not wanting to waste his time with a screamer, Frank decided he needed payback. You know, for something that was his fault. Remember when I wrote that he loved riding his motorcycle in the middle of the night?
For the next few days, he would wait till 1 or 2 am to rev his engine in front of our driveway and screech past our house at crazy speeds. Because we never went up to him and got mad, he grew bored from not being confronted. Not much happened other than his occasional late-night motorbike rides until about a year after the drone incident.
Something I didn’t mention at the start was that he has a love for owning an excessive amount of cars, motorcycles, and boats. Obviously, this takes up a large amount of space, more than a usual driveway and garage can hold. So, he began parking all of his cars and boats along the street. It got to the point where despite his house being about four down from ours, the vehicles were just about blocking our driveway.
He had them parked overnight, which our HOA does not allow. He got several violations for this, and even to the point where he got into a trial for excessive problems. Now, this started in late 2018. To this day, this court battle continues. This is due to extreme luck on his part as well as delay tactics. These tactics are appalling. Basically, he keeps writing letters to switch judges.
He does this by saying that the current one assigned to his case will be biased toward him, even if he and the judge have never spoken. They keep allowing him new judges to gather more evidence on him, but for now, he believes he’s winning. Once again, he gets off without any immediate punishment. The boat/car situation has been the main problem with him for these past few years.
But he’s done one other thing very recently (two days ago) which inspired me to share the story of Frank. Basically, about a month ago, Frank decided instead of wasting his valuable time walking his dogs and allowing them to use the bathroom, he would instead open his door and allow them to run free around the neighborhood until he saw fit.
These dogs aren’t regular-sized dogs though. They’re big dogs, and while I don’t know the exact breeds, I can tell they have Rottweiler features. He did this a few times before my dad decided to record him doing this, as it’s against the law. Frank did not like this. So after having a raging tantrum at my father, he began parking his large car right in front of our driveway.
It’s actually OK for him to do this, as it doesn’t completely block us from backing out of the driveway. It’s still very annoying, but knowing how much he loves to be confronted, we have not said a word to him. In the end, we were the ones getting revenge. It’s almost comical when we’re outside and we watch him park his car right in front of our house, and then he proceeds to make the LONG walk to his house.
Since it’s the summer and very hot outside where we live, we thought he’d stop by now. However, he’s continued for weeks. About a week ago, he attached a trailer to the already large car, making it more difficult for us to exit our driveway. But still, above board. At least, until he used a piece of cardboard to replace his license plate on his trailer.
We sent an email to code enforcement, but we didn’t call in since we knew they were already dealing with other Frank-caused problems. Two days ago, code enforcement knocked on our door. He said someone called in the car with the trailer and assumed it was ours because it was obviously parked right in front of our house.
We told him it was not ours, and it was Frank’s instead, and that we had video proof to back that up. As soon as we told him that, he had a surprised look on his face. He then revealed that Frank was the one who had called the vehicle in. That’s right: he called in his own parked trailer to get us in trouble. My mother wanted to walk the code enforcer to Frank’s house to have him dealt with.
The man said he was told by the higher-ups not to have any contact with him. Apparently, no one can contact him directly, since they don’t want him to have a harsh reaction. So for now, he gets off without a hitch. His karma will come soon. Frank has claimed several times throughout the years that he will move, yet never has. My parents have told me that I cannot speak to him as long as he’s living here.
Ever since then, I’ve been waiting to tell him my thoughts on him right before he leaves his house for a new one. I was in second grade when we moved here, and in fifth grade when we started having problems with him. Now, as I begin to move into junior year of high school, I doubt I will still live in this house the day he finally leaves.
Though I plan to come back home to celebrate the day he leaves if I’m in college when that happens.
80. Just Play Nice
So one day I ran into a former co-worker and we went to get coffee and talk about what was going on since I left work. So his parents have a very large home and were talking about downsizing and getting a smaller home because all the kids are grown and gone. They were talking to some of their friends about it. Well, one friend piped up.
They said they knew about a friend of theirs that might be interested in selling their three-bedroom home and would set up a meeting with them. This couple was getting up in their years and couldn’t take care of their home anymore and were about to put their home on the market and move into a retirement home. The parents liked the home, so a deal was made and everything started falling into place.
The parents put their home up for sale and the elderly couple said that they would need two months before they could move into a retirement home. They said that would be no problem because they were in the process of selling their home and they had a few people interested and were waiting to see who would make an offer. Well, the offer was made and their home sold.
They had to put some of their stuff in storage, sold/donated the stuff they didn’t want, and moved into a hotel for about a month. The elderly couple got into a retirement home after a month and a half. The parents had a general contractor go in and make needed repairs and then moved in. Now, this home is on a corner lot. This corner lot is bigger than the rest of the lots in this housing tract.
It has a very large backyard and had a wooden gym set they had no use for. The parents said that this needed to go and called one of their friends and offered it to them since they have young kids. A few weeks later they come over and take the thing apart and loaded it on a trailer. Said thank you, and left. Now it’s the start of spring and it’s getting warm.
One day, the mom saw a strange sight. A few kids come running past their house and towards their backyard. She then hears a loud scream and these kids run back down the street. About 10 minutes later there is someone banging on the door and trying to hurt the doorbell. The mom opens the door and there are two mothers, with a bunch of kids behind them.
She asked what they needed and they said they wanted to talk to the elderly couple about what happened to the wooden gym set that was in the backyard. The mom said that she and her husband now own this home. Well, it went from 0 to 100. One of the mothers cut her off and said that she didn’t believe her and that she must be a caregiver or something.
She demanded to see the elderly couple. Again the mom said that they owned this home. The woman cut her off again and said whatever and that the wooden gym set belonged to the neighborhood and that they had no right to have it removed, and what are their kids are going to do now? The mother said that they didn’t want or need it, sorry.
Then the second mother cuts in and said that it needed to be replaced for the good of the neighborhood—and with a bigger one so the kids have something to play on during the summer. The owner said that is not going to happen and since they. were being rude/demanding, she just shut the door in their face. They scream that they were going to call the authorities for theft and sue them.
About an hour later, the inevitable happened. Officers knock on the door and want to know what is going on with a wooden gym set? So, she invited the officers in and explained to them that they now own this home and had the gym set taken out because they have other plans for the backyard and the gym set was in the way. She explained that she didn’t know what arrangements the previous owners had but that was not her concern.
Plus, the way the neighbors just came up to her door pounding and screaming at her was not how to make friends or be good neighbors. Also, there was nothing in the deed/title about the gym set belonging to the neighborhood. They talked some more and the officers thanked her for her time and said that if the two women come back to call and they will come and deal with them.
It seems these ladies have had run-ins before and are well known to them. So, now that the wooden gym set is out of the way, the parents can get some real improvements done. So what better way to deal with hot summers, you got it, put in an in-ground pool and hot tub, and what better time to do this than in the springtime. The digging begins.
Since the house is on a corner lot, all the work is on the side that cannot be seen by the entitled ladies. Besides, they are at the other end of the street screaming at those neighbors to set up their above-ground pools so the kids can go swimming when it starts to get hot. Now, the parents are friends with their next-door neighbors and the ones at the end of the street.
They told them that this goes on every summer and that the wooden gym set was a magnet for the kids and that they were very loud and demanding of the previous owners. This is when the whole story came out. That elderly couple hated the two ladies and their kids, but the women would just strong-arm them into doing stuff like letting the kids on the equipment, make them lunches, etc.
So the mom told the neighbors not to give in to their demands, and that they had a plan. The hole is dug (big hole) and all the workers are staying out of site so the bad moms don’t see what’s going on. A brick wall is also being put up along the back of the property, still leaving room to complete the pool/hot tub. This wall will be about 10 feet tall with a special topping.
If anyone tries to get over it, they won’t be able to get a grip. They also built a wall between their neighbors, including between the two houses. All the gates installed have spikes on top and have special locks. Now the pool is done and the progress on the wall is moving along. When it is done, it will be about three feet from the sidewalk. The water trucks have been and gone and the pool is full.
The pumps are running, lights are something else, and they can change colors! Great for night parties. Now, since the parents like camping, one of the things the wall will block is the spot for their camping trailer on the side of the house. There are two large gates that open so the dad can back the trailer in and lock the gates. There is also a wall between the pool and parking spot for the camper, also with a spiked gate.
For the first time this spring, the entitled moms take notice of some changes that have been made. At first, they are staying back because they are still trying to strong-arm the neighbors at the other end of the street, to get them to get their pools set up. You know summer is right around the corner, and that water needs to get warm, right???
The parents are just counting the days until they come knocking, asking about when they were going to put that wooden gym set back up. Well, are they in for a surprise. It’s the beginning of summer and getting warm. The women are angry that the neighbors at the other end of the street haven’t put up their pools and are making it known how mad they are and having a meltdown.
It’s going to get hot so what are they going to do, they need those pools up. The parents are having a housewarming and a neighborhood pool party and only invited those on the corners by them and those neighbors at the other end of the street. On the day of the pool party, everyone that’s invited is heading over in their swim gear and towels with food.
Everyone is having a good time, swimming, and the BBQ is in mass production with steaks, hotdogs, and hamburgers. Well, the entitled moms come out and go to the neighbors at the end of the street. Would you know it, they are not home, and no pool either. They are mad and then they smell the BBQ and start back up the street. The closer they get, the stronger the BBQ smell is, and the sound of people having fun.
The sound of kids playing and having fun can be heard. Now they think that the gym set is back and go around the side of the house…only to find that the wall goes all the way around, and they can’t see anything. The sound of people talking is being heard and it sounds like everyone is having a good time. Then comes the sound of kids splashing IN A POOL.
They quickly go up to the front door and start knocking and ringing the doorbell. Now the dad is no stranger to these women, so he opens the door and asks what they wanted. They first tried to demand to know why there was such a big wall, second was why they weren’t invited to the party. Third was they were going home to get their kids and come and use the pool. He had the perfect response.
He said, the wall is mandatory by city code when there is a pool. Second, you burned that bridge a long time ago. Third, NO YOU WON’T SHOW UP WITH YOUR KIDS AND EXPECT TO USE OUR POOL. At this point, they started to protest and he just shut the door. They said they were calling the authorities (again) So, about an hour and a half later officers show up.
The dad invites them in and can see the women and their kids across the street all dressed in swimsuits with towels. The officers were led to the backyard and were greeted by everyone, the mom said hello and asked if they liked what they had done to the backyard.
The officers said it was one heck of an improvement. The mom asked if they would like something to eat and have a sit while they talked about the women. Both officers said yes and thank-you and went off-duty for lunch and talked about the women. Other neighbors told the officers what the women had been doing and that this was the last time they would let them get away with it.
No more pools, no more feeding them. They were done with them and their kids. The officers said they understood and couldn’t give any details but they were well known for getting into trouble. They also said that a report would be made, so if need be, they could request a restraining order against them. After about 30 minutes, the officers said they had to get back on duty and said thank you again for lunch and to enjoy your pool.
The parents walked them to the door and bid them a good day. Then came the cherry on top. They stood in the doorway and could still see the moms and kids still waiting across the street. They waved to the officers and closed the door. The mom went back to the party while the dad was still watching from a window. The women ran up to the officers.
They talked for a few minutes, and the dad said he heard them start screaming, and the officers driving away with them just standing there, the kids crying and the moms just standing in the middle of the street trying to figure out what to do next. They had lost the gym set, and now, couldn’t force their neighbors into letting them use their pool and feeding them and their kids.
I think it just hit them that they would have to now deal with their own kids for the summer. The look on their faces was priceless. By the way, there is a spot set aside in the back corner away from the pool for a “wooden gym set” when the parents have grandkids. Now that’s Karma.
81. 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.
82. 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.
83. Call And Reply
A couple of years ago, a new family moved into a house across the street. My kid nephew quickly made friends with their son. Things seemed good…until it went downhill fast. One of the first incidents was with their dogs. They have two aggressive dogs who love to maim other people’s pets and jump on passerbys. They refuse to keep the dogs indoors or in a pen, so the dogs run the neighborhood.
The dogs destroyed all of our chickens (on camera) and are prone to lunging at any cat they see. The father complained to my mom about getting “thousands” in dog tickets, but he still refuses to control them. Their son and my nephew would get along at first, but then their son became violent and wanted to hurt my nephew because they both liked the same girl.
Then once, the kid told me he wanted to kick my dog in the face...“just because”. So he did. One day, my dog was in our side yard and this boy ran over and kicked her right in the face. He did this in front of my nephews and their friend. The dog nicked his leg. He cried and his parents called the authorities, who took my dog away to the pound despite their dog having bit many people in the past and not being taken away.
We later got her back after one of the officers agreed that our dog was defending herself on our property. Any possibly good relationship with these people was over then. Later on, their family was involved in a bad wreck. Feeling sorry for them, we bought balloons and candy for their kids. They were happy to get them and things seemed good again with our neighbor.
We had just lost my father to cancer that week and were desperate to spread any positivity around. The paradise didn’t last. That night, the neighbors had a large number of people over. Everyone was drinking and loud and my nephew had been over there playing with their boy, but we had him come home after the “party” started. Not long after he came home, their little boy showed up at our door.
He asked if my nephew could help him find his cellphone because my nephew was the last one to see him playing with it. Strange, okay, but we agreed—only after dinner was done. He came home and we were eating when the kid and an adult man showed up at the door. “Can he help us find his phone”? “We just made dinner”, I said. “Just ten minutes, please”.
I didn’t want to be rude and so I let him. Soon he came back. No, they didn’t find the kid’s phone. We’re eating again. It’s dark out. All of a sudden, someone’s at the door again. I open it to three adult women. They’ve been drinking and are about to beat down our door. They’re screaming and cussing, saying my young nephew must have taken their phone.
My mother tells them to leave and they won’t. They’re screaming and my mom yells back for them to leave. They keep it up. I try to calm it down by going outside with the women. They are too aggressive. They claim we have the “$1,000 phone” and they “tracked it to our house”. They’re cussing me out more and finally go back to their house.
Jeez. I sit down with my nephew. He’s never taken anything, but I give them the benefit of the doubt and look through his things. He swears on his grandfather that he did not take this phone. My nightmare gets deeper and darker. The doorbell rings again. I open the door to the father. He’s a huge man, probably over 300 lbs, and is so far in his cups that he’s falling on my porch.
He demands to speak to my nephew. I say no. I do not want this adult around my 10-year-old. As if he’s never heard no before, his sweet voice turns violent. He stands straight and begins screaming and cussing. He’s pushing in our door. My mom, me, my teenage nephew, and his teenage friend are holding this man back as he tries to push into our house.
He makes eye contact with our 14-year-old and tells him not to look at him. My nephew keeps staring. The dad shoves me and my mother and breaks in to try and hurt my nephew. We all shove him back outside. He’s cussing us the whole way as he walks into our front yard. In our yard, we see the entire party of people—they’re about to jump us. 20 people, maybe more.
My nephew calls emergency. I demand these people leave. The dad is trying to get my 14-year-old nephew to fight him. What the heck? My mom tells them to get off our property. The man begins to rant at her. He calls her several names, which she ignores. Then he keeps going. “Where’s your old man? Where’s your old man? Oh, that’s right. He’s dead!”
He goes, “I bet he died to get away from you”. They finally go back to their house while still cussing at us from afar. Finally, officers arrived. They weren’t any help. “You didn’t have it on video, so we can’t detain them”, they say. They write some city tickets and say we could go to court and state our case against them, that’s the best they could do.
Even though they broke into our house. Admitted to it. Put their hands on me and my mother. In front of several witnesses. Later on, they encourage us to drop the charges and get cameras for our property instead. Because if we don’t drop the charges, these people will retaliate against us. We dropped it. We were grieving and emotional. We couldn’t handle a court hearing.
Here and there they say something to us, or have their friends do it. Our mailbox was knocked over. Their friends stand in the street and flip us off. They kept making remarks loudly from their porch as we installed the outdoor cameras. After living here for 20 years, we are ready to move. Oh, by the way: Officers found the cellphone that very night. It was in the wife’s purse the whole time.
And no. They didn’t apologize.
84. You’ll Pay Someday
So I have had a very tense relationship with my neighbor for years. 10 years ago, I moved into my current apartment in Paris, which belongs to my parents, when I got an entry-level job. I have since moved up in the world but not paying rent is frankly too good considering how costly it is here. When I moved in, I met my new neighbor. God was it a doozy.
He inherited the place from his mother a few years before. He was unemployed, hit his wife, had a party or a fight at his place pretty much every two nights between 2 am and 4 am, stocked building materials in the public areas of the building, had such a badly-taken-care-of place that once when I sent the authorities there, they came back a few days later because they were worried about his child's health.
For months he forced his door because he lost his key and couldn’t pay for a locksmith, he once tried to force my door open at 5 am because something he had left unattended in the public area disappeared and he thought I had taken it. Anyway, he disappeared a few years ago with his wife and daughter, and about a year ago, has come back alone.
Since then, I’ve been looking for a way to get rid of him for my peace of mind. Boy, did I find one. Note also that the day after his “friends” helped him move back in, someone tried to force my door open while I was at work. One day, while telling some of his friends that they couldn’t just keep forcing the door open instead of making new keys, one of them told me he wasn’t afraid of me since he had already gone behind bars.
So, this weekend, that genius called the authorities. When the officers arrived he explained to them that he wanted the people in his apartment out and they didn’t want to leave. Here is a summary of what the officers were told by both people during the discussion: First, my neighbor rented his place to a man but still lived in the place since he doesn’t have anywhere else to live.
The man had now arrived at the end of the rental agreement but didn’t want to leave. My neighbor failed to notify the authorities of the rental, meaning that he did not pay tax on it and didn’t have the proper authorization for rental, including things like the place having a fire escape. He readily admitted so. He also doesn’t have a document proving the place belongs to him.
See, his mother left it to him in her will. But in France, that’s not enough: Once you pay the taxes on the inheritance, a notary needs to write a new paper to say it actually belongs to you (which costs money). He doesn’t have such a paper and doesn’t even know what it is, which means it’s likely he never paid the taxes on the inheritance.
There is also a possibility he dodged local taxes on the apartment since it’s not in his name. Lastly, it just so happens that in France you can’t just throw someone out like that. See, if they’ve been in the place for more than 48 hours, officers can’t just evict them; they need a judge to order it. Furthermore, you can’t do that between November the 1st and March the 31st to prevent people from being out on the street during winter.
So my neighbor did all that for nothing. Officers couldn’t force the occupant out without a court order and even then couldn’t apply that court order before the last day of March. They growled a bit at everyone for the waste of time and asked the squatter to leave before Wednesday—which he agreed to, since he will have his own place on Wednesday.
All in all, it was a very, very fun evening and I feel like I will have a discussion with the fiscal administration to talk to them about those inheritance taxes.
85. 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”.
86. 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.
87. Back Off, Get Your Own Husband
I’m a single 32-year-old female, and I bought my house in September 2020. It’s fully fenced but it’s a chain-link on my neighbors’ (they are in their late 60s) side. She thinks I’m after her husband because I’ve spoken to him three times. She even told me I’m disrespectful for talking to him about mulching the property line and apologizing for my dogs barking.
She has been stalking us, waiting for us to go outside, and then she goes on her back porch and cusses, threatening my dogs. This lady used to baby talk to my dogs and now she threatened to shoot my dog once. Then she waited for me to go outside at 5 am to walk my dog, and she threatened to shoot me if I ever walked onto her property.
At this point, I called the authorities. They agreed she is nuts, thinks everyone wants her husband, lied to them, and said she feels threatened for her life, and then they basically told me I should call them anytime she does something like that again and to put up security cameras. That evening , I came home to a cardboard sign on the tree facing my house that says “private property, keep off, this is from her husband”.
Then she just reported that my dogs are running at large and she feared for her life (they are always either leashed or in the backyard). Oh, those cameras I ordered? The irony! They were delivered today, but the delivery person delivered it to their house and she won’t give my package to me. What the heck? I put a letter in her mailbox, asking she give it back.
So tomorrow I may have to call the authorities to go over and ask for it. This is insane y’all. Why on Earth would I be after her old fat husband? Ugh.
88. Party Down
We have a main road behind our house and on the opposite side is a street identical to ours, kind of a mirror image estate layout with that street’s version of our house directly behind us but across the road. The set-up is two sets of semi-detached houses with gardens backing onto the road. Ours is the same, back of our house and garden facing their garden and rear house.
The people living there are in their early 50s with a daughter in her 20s. Next door to them, on one side, lives their sister and her family, and on the other side are their elderly parents. Their gardens have no dividing fence so it’s one big space with a pagoda-type thing and a hot tub. Plus a bloody big sub-woofer and professional DJ set up, complete with disco lights and microphones for karaoke.
They have parties literally three times a week. Not just people having a few drinks together but 20+ people screaming, dancing to trance music and singing bad karaoke until 3 and 4 am. I feel like I live in a bad Spanish holiday circa 1999. I'm all for people having fun and could put up with it within reason, like on a weekend or something, but these people are doing it on a Tuesday night.
I have work and a toddler and “Vengabus” being played on repeat at 2 am was frankly making me contemplate dark things. Complaints to the council were useless. In five years, they've not done anything other than send letters and interview their neighbors on either side, who are related to them. Their latest party was significantly bigger than usual.
89. You Don’t Scare Me
My neighbor who has been after me because he's bored as heck had the Geek Squad install a Ring floodlight pointed directly at my house. It switches on every time a car goes by. Good thing Halloween is around the corner. I bought some of that stretchy cotton-like spider web and stretched it enough to block the camera. I also added some bird reflecting mirrors along with a long strip of reflective roll and bounced that light right back.
Talk about a waste of $200 dollars. However, there’s icing on the cake. I also added a banner that says “scary” that points in their direction since they will be looking in a mirror. Be right back, I'm gonna work on my evil laughter.
90. 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".
91. 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.
92. Keep It Down!
My neighbor cuts wood starting at 7:00 am every morning, including weekends. He stops for an hour or two and then is right back at it. His woodpile is right on our property line and about 20 feet from my office and bedroom. Due to the constant noise, I lost my job for not having a quiet work environment and I can’t get another until this is resolved.
We live in a development in a rural area. I called the township and they stated that they have no noise ordinances but they will discuss it next year. My husband works 12 hours, third shift, and can’t sleep, my son is meaner than the devil due to lack of sleep, and it’s driving us insane. We tried talking to him numerous times and he is apologetic (nice guy) but the next morning he’s on the chainsaw again.
I don’t know what to do at this point in time. Isn’t there some kind of universal rule for noise levels?
93. Caught Red-Handed
This happened about 20 years ago, but it still makes me giggle a bit. We had just purchased a house out in the countryside. The nearest neighbors were 300+ feet away, quiet, clean air, etc. I loved this place. I went down to the local hardware store, bought myself a post and a mailbox then set about getting it installed. There are regulations about where a mailbox must be installed with respect to the hard surface of the road.
There are also some guidelines for how the post should be installed as a safety measure for motorists. Note that mailbox PLACEMENT is a requirement, but installation is guidelines. This is important later. My new mailbox was up for no more than two days. Then disaster struck. Someone came along and hit it with a baseball bat. The side of the box was caved in and my mail was all over the ditch.
I figured it was kids being kids and I'd just replace the box and that would be the end of it. Nope. The new mailbox was up for almost a week before someone homered it. The box was almost 100 feet away from the post and the post had been pushed over. Fine. I'll just build a stronger post. This time, instead of a 6-foot 4x4 post sunk 2 feet in the ground, it was an 8 foot post sunk 4 feet in the ground and set in 2 feet of concrete.
About a week goes by and my mailbox has been hit again and the post broken off. I didn't know who was doing it, but I intended to get revenge. I dug my concrete out of the hole and prepared my nuclear option. I rented a PO Box and forwarded all of my mail there. Using the same 4-foot deep hole, I cut an 8-foot length of 6-inch well casing (large-diameter thick-walled steel pipe used for water wells).
I set my well casing in the hold and filled the hole completely with concrete. Then I filled the pipe with concrete (all 8 feet of it) with concrete. I welded on a crossbar (2-inch square tube) to extend the mailbox to the required position relative to the road surface and mounted the cheapest plastic mailbox I could find on it. Then I really ensured my point was made.
I then got a bread bag and filled it with some old-school red barn paint that I had. That stuff doesn't come off. I tied the bag up really tightly and put it in the mailbox. Sure enough, a couple of days later I happened to be at home when I heard a relatively loud engine coming down the road towards my house.
There was an EXTREMELY loud metallic "CLANG!", and then some screaming, and, finally, the engine noises proceeding down the road and out of earshot. I went to look and found that, as expected, my mailbox had been demolished. There was a large splatter of red paint on the ground. When I looked at the post more closely, I noticed a shallow dent on one side as though the steel had been struck hard by something metal.
Perhaps an aluminum baseball bat? I never did find out who it was, but I did spot a black Toyota pickup truck several weeks later that had a bunch of red paint down the passenger side. I wonder how that got there?
Piqsels
94. 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.
95. 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.
96. Bad Habits
One of the residents at my apartment complex will point a high-lumen flashlight as they pass you or you pass them. He does this to vehicles too. My first encounter with him made me think it was a one-off incident. I got home from work around 10:30 pm with a friend (it's almost pitch black outside) and I noticed him walking his dogs because he had a strobing light.
I slowed down and got far over on the street. As I passed, however, he switched to a blinding light and pointed it directly into my car's cabin, blinding me and my occupant. As I mentioned, I thought this was a weird, one-off incident. Well, it soon turned much worse than that. Tonight I was walking my dog and saw him point his high-powered flashlight at other vehicles as they passed.
He was walking on the grass adjacent to the road. We walked past each other and in passing he would periodically point the flashlight directly at my face, going as far as to turn around and continue to do it. Definitely not a one-off thing. I eventually told our office about this and the main lady said, "Is he doing it again?!?" So they know about him from previous experience.
97. Taking More Than His Share
Approximately four years ago, I finally convinced my husband to make the move to Florida. The kids are grown and on their own so we made the leap and bought a wonderful (little) house close to the beach. All is well and good. We meet the neighbors and get along with all of them. I’m very happy at this point. My backyard fence is vinyl on three sides and wooden between me and my neighbor on the left, Andrew.
We had planned on changing it to vinyl but hurricane Irma beat us to it. Knocked it down pretty as you please. It took me about three months to save up for the materials and labor costs of my new fence. I like to pay cash if I can. Anyway, Andrew and my husband are unloading my new fence and out of nowhere Andrew says, “I don’t know why you spent all this money on the fence, you can’t put it up”.
Wait, what? What do you mean I can’t put it up? He then proceeded to tell me that the property line between us ran right through the middle of my shed—which the fence had been attached to and where I planned on putting the new fence. He also said that the neighbor on the other side of him put up a new fence while he was away and when he got home, he made her take it down!
You have got to be kidding me. Insert eye roll. I, however, am not so easily intimidated. I was actually quite mad. Having so recently purchased the home, I called the surveyor and explained what was up. We set up an appointment for the following week. Immediately when they pulled up and got out of their vehicle, Andrew runs over talking about “Y’all can’t be on my land. This is private property”!
The boss man of the crew was very polite as he explained that they could and would be on his property to settle the dispute over property lines. If he didn’t agree with their findings then he was more than welcome to hire his own surveyor and proceed to take it to court. Boy howdy, he was angry. I found out that my property line was 22 inches past the shed, where the original fence had stood.
98. 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.
99. Meet The Looneys
My boyfriend and I moved into a “nice and quiet” neighborhood about six months ago. We chat with a few of our neighbors here and there, especially while walking our dogs, and are friendly when we encounter anyone, but we mostly keep to ourselves. Showing up at someone’s door with a basket is just in the movies, right? Two weeks ago, I got out of the shower and heard my boyfriend talking to someone in the entryway.
I peeked out and saw him nervously talking to a woman. I had just taken my glasses off, so I was extra blind and didn’t recognize her. I assumed because she was standing inside our house that my boyfriend knew who she was and carried along getting dressed in our bedroom. I have never been more wrong in my life. A few moments later, my boyfriend shouts out to me and asks if I know what’s going on.
“No, I thought you were going to fill me in on what’s going on”. The woman is chiming in now with short cryptic phrases like “Oh really? You don’t know who I am? You should know exactly why I am here”. I have severe anxiety, so my mind was already starting to race and I was trying to place this woman’s face. She seemed vaguely familiar, but in the context and confusion, I couldn’t place her.
My boyfriend keeps asking her who she is and she gives no indication of who she is or why she is there, but keeps insisting that we know what’s going on. He finally asks that they step back outside to talk. I can’t believe the woman’s reaction. She reaches behind her and LOCKS THE DEADBOLT with a smirk on her face. I thought things were about to escalate, so I start looking around for something to grab.
When I see nothing, I just shout for my boyfriend to quickly open the door himself so she can just leave. He follows her out of the door while she is still rambling. As soon as they step outside, I realized who she was. She is a neighbor! Her backyard is diagonal to our backyard, and I see her from afar here and then while walking our dogs, but she never comes anywhere near, smiles, waves, or even makes eye contact.
Now I’m even more confused, wondering if our dog had dug a hole under the fence and she came to chastise us, or what? My boyfriend comes back in and I ask how the heck that all started. He said he didn’t have the slightest clue who she was, or why she was here. I said, “she must have given you some kind of reason for you to let her in the house”. His next words chilled me.
That’s when he said, “I didn’t let her in…she rang the doorbell, I started to answer the door and she pushed in and shut the door behind her”. I felt panic flooding my brain. What did we do? Did we offend her in some way? I decided to text my neighbor whose backyard directly faces ours and asked how well she knew her next-door neighbor, and gave them a brief summary of what had just happened.
She responded quickly that a few years prior, the woman fell and cracked her head open and had gone through multiple brain surgeries since. Good neighbor said loony neighbor was never the same since, but “friendly”. Not in the list of adjectives I would use to describe our interaction. She offers to give us looney’s husband’s phone number, or suggests that her husband could talk to looney’s husband in the morning.
I accepted both. I had never even seen her husband so didn’t want to call out of the blue with something like that, but figured it would be nice to have his number just on the off chance that anything else out of the ordinary ever happened. Boy, we had no idea what our future actually held. The next morning, Good Neighbor texts me that Looney Husband was extremely apologetic.
He explained she had a seizure earlier in the week and started new meds that caused confusion. He said he would take care of it, and that he was so glad we had informed him. I kept thinking that her behavior did not seem like someone who was disoriented, or confused…she seemed paranoid and hostile, but I still felt sympathetic towards their situation and decided to write it off as a weird evening.
Two days later, I get out of a meeting at work and saw someone ringing my doorbell three times. My doorbell records a short clip each time it’s rung. When I saw the footage, a shiver ran down me. It was her. In each clip, about 10 minutes apart, she would slam the doorbell, then huff and puff and pace around, visibly upset we had not answered the door.
She was peering in the windows near our door. In one clip, she glared directly into the camera for about 20 seconds before hitting the button. So creepy. I texted my boyfriend and sent him screenshots, but we were both working, and after all, she was just ringing the doorbell. Maybe she had come to apologize, but was just not a pleasant person?
Three hours later, my boyfriend was on the way home and I was still at work. She’s back at the door. Waiting, pacing, stomping her feet. (Have you never heard of a 9-5?!) I warned him in case he was close but she ended up leaving. She came back 10 minutes later, though. He was right around the corner, so he drove straight to THEIR house and her husband was outside.
My boyfriend told Looney Husband that this is getting a little weird and we would appreciate if she would stop patrolling our front porch. The husband said he’d take care of it and they had a doctor’s appointment coming up. 9 pm rolls around. I decided to take my dog out for a quick stroll. No more than two minutes after I leave, I see the notification that someone rang our doorbell.
No. Freaking. Way. Yep, it was her. So I started screen recording. I thought SURELY my boyfriend would not answer, but he did. It turned into chaos. She tried to rush towards the open door and he quickly stepped out on the porch and shut the door, which upset her. She said, “Don’t even TALK to me” (again, you rang OUR bell). She continues rambling that she knows everything that's going on.
She says she’s hearing all sorts of things from our house, and he needs to let her in so she can see everything we’re doing, and know everything that’s going on. He jests that he was just folding laundry, which really set her off. She started cursing him out, calling him a liar, and insisting she must come inside. She must know. My boyfriend tried to tell her that he understands her situation.
Still, he said, there’s no need to get hostile. This set her off even more. Looney took his sympathetic statement as an admission of guilt that we really were spying on her. He offers to walk her back to her house and she curses at him some more and then storms off. I had him text the husband the video. We wanted him to see that it was not just confusion.
There was something more serious going on. He said he was on his way home from work and would, you guessed it, “take care of it”. We never heard back from him. We were going out of town the next morning, so we had two days of peace. We came home and for a few days, a little more peace. Maybe we all just needed a few days of space for things to settle, right?
Wrong! The last incident had been nine days ago. Today, I’m at work and I see the doorbell alert. I knew in my gut what was happening. It was her again. I tried to open the video, but the signal in my office is atrocious. I was anxious, so I kept an eye on the activity log. All of a sudden I start seeing things pop up… “Front door open”….“Front door shut”….“back door open”….“back door shut”….”front door open”…“front door shut”…and so on.
I quickly called my boyfriend to see if he had come home from work early. My heart sank at his response. He said no. I told him that someone was in our house, and we needed to get home. I was mainly worried about our dogs. At one point, Looney had made a weird comment about our dog, and we had also just gotten a puppy.
Puppy was crated, but I was worried a door was open and our other dog would be wandering loose, or worse. I sped home and ran in the door. No dog running to greet me and no puppy in the crate. I start shouting for them and racing through the house, shouting all throughout. I felt like the house was spinning. I was sobbing uncontrollably when I thought I heard a faint jingle.
I sprinted for the backyard, and there they were. I have never been more relieved but was still terrified. It had to be her. Was she still there? What had happened? My boyfriend got home, and I tried to load some of the doorbell clips again. The first two were unavailable. But when the clips from about an hour later loaded, I gasped. We saw …paramedics.
Paramedics banging on our door and trying to get in, and at some point, they came inside. Who let the puppy out of the crate?! Could not tell you. Apparently, when the fire department comes to your home they don’t leave a notice or anything? One of the only things I could hear in any of the clips was, “She’s gonna flip again when we call her back”.
Who is SHE?!? You guessed it…Looney Neighbor. We called the fire department and they told us she had called to report someone inside of our address was collapsed from a seizure. I’m not sure if she’s just trying to make our life a nightmare at this point, or if she was just trying to find a way to get into our home. My boyfriend went to talk to her husband and he was still extremely short with responses.
He was also not taking it any more seriously. I called the non-emergency line and they sent an officer out. The officer was not remotely helpful. He had gone to talk to the Looneys first, and then gave us the same lines about “she’s trying new medication”. “He’s going to call her doctor”. I 100% understand how stressful that kind of stuff can be, and I truly do feel bad for them.
BUT, I am also scared for our safety. Every incident has escalated, and nothing has changed. I asked about filing a restraining order, but I knew this was a long shot since they live close. I asked if there was anything that could be mandated about her being supervised, or getting a caretaker. Her husband is a firefighter so she’s completely alone for long stretches of time and is always walking around the neighborhood alone.
The officer told me not to hesitate to call again if she comes back…that was it.
100. Oh Yeah, He’s A Character
This happened about four years ago now and still is one of the more ridiculous things to happen to me. I was living in San Diego at the time in a small apartment building with seven or eight units. I lived on the 2nd floor. Our building was right near the highway overpass on the outskirts of downtown. We were also very close to the airport flight path, which made our neighborhood pretty loud.
At this point, I had already lived in my apartment for just over three years. I decided to get a cat, got the permission from my landlord, and paid a pet deposit. When I got her through a shelter, she was probably about three months old. One night I was watching TV when there was a knock at my door. I answered, and couldn’t understand what I was seeing.
Standing on my porch were two officers, both with their hands on their holsters, both seemingly tense. They told me they had a noise complaint from my downstairs neighbor and that he thought I was on substances and rolling a bowling ball around. It took me a few seconds to understand what they were talking about. Then I burst out laughing.
"Oh haha, that's probably just my kitten running around". They were not amused. They told me if they had to come back they would have to do something—which is a pretty wild threat after finding out the noise was from a cat. I left a message with my landlord to let them know what had happened. The next day, my downstairs neighbor came to my door to apologize to me.
He said he thought I may have been into some shady stuff because his “army intelligence friends” told him that those noises he heard align with substance activity. That made zero sense to me, but I came to realize this guy wasn't all there. He said he was sorry and was happy I had a cat and that he even had a toy he would give me. Cool, problem solved, right? Oh, so very wrong.
About two weeks later I had officers at my door again. This time, they were aware of the situation and we all chuckled about how absurd it was. However, since they were called, they had to come. They just told me I'm doing nothing wrong, don't worry about a thing. Right around this time, my neighbor began hitting his ceiling anytime my cat ran around.
It got me anxious to the point of having my cat sleep in a separate smaller room so she couldn't run around. This only lasted a couple of nights since she would cry the whole time. I just thought, whatever, I'm doing nothing wrong, we live in a city in a loud area, it’s an apartment, etc. I'm not sure of the exact timeline, but about a week later, I had an officer at my door again.
This time, it was the San Diego County Sheriff. And that wasn’t all. He had a court summons. This neighbor was trying to get a restraining order against me! For what?? ELDER ABUSE. Yes. Because of the noise of a now six-month-old kitten! The court date comes around and I had printed up about 15-20 pictures of my cat to show the judge. I was furious.
My neighbor’s "evidence" was handed to me, which was basically a list of dates and times that he marked down when he heard noises from my apartment. It's legit insane, and five pages long and I still have it. The judge didn't want to hear any of it, just forced us to enter into court-appointed mediation. I'm fine with that, I just want things to improve.
I received a call a few weeks after our court date to let me know that the neighbor refused mediation and that we would have a second court date towards the end of the month. Throughout ALL this time, he was banging on the ceiling and scaring my cat. But then, things took an even darker turn. He started being malicious and would just whack the ceiling in the middle of the night, oftentimes waking me and causing my cat to go crazy and run around.
Finally, the second court date was here, and at this point, I had already decided I would be leaving San Diego. It had nothing to do with this ongoing situation, but it was a light at the end of the tunnel for sure. We're in court, and the judge starts yelling at my neighbor for refusing mediation and wasting the state’s money. I interrupted to say, "Just want to make sure everyone knows this is about the noise my six-month-old cat is making!"
I hear laughter from other people behind me in the courtroom. Neighbor pleads his case, says I am harassing him and making too much noise. I repeat, this is about the noise my six-month-old cat is making. The judge is clearly angry that this old man is wasting the court's time and said that we must enter mediation. I tell him—I'm sorry, we shouldn't even be here.
“I'm moving out of state in just a few weeks, and again, this is about the noise a CAT is making". Again, more chuckles from the courtroom. To this, the judge replies "Oh. Well, if you don't end up moving then you'll need to come back to court". I said ok, and was ready to be done with all this. My neighbor tried to have pleasantries with me at that point but I just ignored him and walked out.
I wish there was some sweet revenge at the end, but really, I never spoke to him again and my cat and I are living happily in an apartment where she can run around to her heart’s desire and no one can tell her otherwise! By the way, during this entire ordeal, my landlord did nothing to help me out. The most he did was just chuckle and say "Oh yeah he's a character".
101. A Momma’s Boy
Not a single one of our neighbors can stand this girl on our street. She's angered everyone on all sides of her. Her son's a cop so she'll send him over to yell at you if you do any of her pet peeves. She did that about one of our dogs as she hates animals. My wife answered the door, and the son thought he could manipulate her, but he had no idea who he was messing with.
The poor kid got an earful from my wife, who then called his captain to complain about the "momma's boy" who lived next door and was harassing people. It was hilarious. She regularly gets into it with her neighbor on the other side, which is a mistake, since that woman is taking care of a dementia-suffering husband and puts up with zero nonsense. I can hear her regularly telling her to get bent.
Her college-aged other son comes home now and they get into shouting matches in the backyard, calling each other names and such. It must be tiring to be so horrible all the time.
102. This Neighbor Had Some Bad Juju
When our neighbor moved in and we met him, he gave my roommate and me bad vibes from the get-go. There was no reason for it at the time, but our gut feelings said he was no good. For an entire year, almost every time we went out the door, he'd come out to our house to try to hang out. We couldn't even walk across the road to check our mail in peace.
Then he would walk up the road and stand in front of our house staring or pace on the road in front of it. He started knocking on our door in the middle of the night, but there was no way we would answer it. When we would go out, we would come home to find him sitting in a chair in our yard like it was his house. He then started showing up at stores and other places we were at in town and tried to follow us around there.
It got to the point where we hated even going outside and couldn't hang out in our own yard because we felt like we were being watched. We complained to our landlord multiple times, so he warned our neighbor multiple times, but it still continued. Luckily, he got behind on his rent and was kicked out. He messed up the house he was renting so badly that it took months to renovate it.
There were holes in the walls, floors torn up, and hundreds of empty bottles, burnt foil, and used needles.
103. Neighbor Under Surveillance
My wife and I were happy to move into our new house in the summer of 2019. The neighborhood seemed really nice and we were excited to meet the neighbors. The first two families we met—neighbors on either side of us—warned us about the people renting the house directly behind ours. Apparently, they had been known to cause trouble and blow things way out of proportion, bordering on paranoia of everyone around them.
We kept this in mind but had no issues for the first six months or so after moving in. Their house sits on a hill behind ours, and so overlooks the majority of our backyard due to the elevation change. Well, one night (morning, technically) at about 3 am we wake up to ring notifications from our phones showing video from our front doorbell. When we realize what it is, our blood runs cold.
There’s a man standing barefoot in a sleeveless shirt on our porch POUNDING on our front door. We give it two or three minutes just watching him on the app, thinking maybe he’s intoxicated and has the wrong house—essentially giving him the benefit of the doubt. But then we start to hear him say “come out you two, I’m gonna mess you up” etc. and he leaves the porch and starts to head around the side of the house towards our backyard.
Considering we had no idea who this was, my wife now immediately calls the local detachment for officers to come by, as I move out of our bedroom towards the external doors to look and listen for any attempt of a home invasion. At this point, our neighbors directly behind us throw a HUGE spotlight into our backyard from theirs.
We’re thinking, okay cool they know something’s up and they’re trying to help us out by shedding light on our backyard. Officers arrive several long minutes later and knock.We explain the situation and they head out back to look around and get the scoop from the neighbors with the spotlight. Well, the officer comes back with the news that really shocked us.
It turns out that the spotlight neighbor was the one on our porch, and he had jumped our fence into our backyard and then went up into his yard and then threw the light on. He told the officers that several nights prior, I had let my puppy out into MY OWN backyard in the middle of the night and, because I was in my boxers, he said that I was “trying to expose myself to his family.”
He then followed this up to the officers with “evidence.” This was the most chilling part of all. This evidence consisted of videos he had taken THROUGH OUR WINDOWS of my wife and me inside of our own home doing totally normal things like chores, watching TV, etc. Nothing inappropriate or scandalous—not that it would have mattered anyway, since we were in our OWN HOME.
Because of the elevation difference, if they went out of their way they could technically slightly see through our closed blinds due to the angle…so they had been filming us for no reason at all and expected the officers to see this as reasonable? The constable came back in and my wife was devastated. It was a huge breach of our privacy of course and totally unfounded accusations as we had never done anything to anger these people, we hadn’t even met them.
The officer told us “just don’t worry about it, if he tries something again just give us a call,” which wasn’t the most comforting at the time. They moved out a few months later without any additional issues, and my wife and I celebrated like it was a holiday when we saw the moving van in their driveway.
104. They Say He’s A Real Blockhead
We grew up in one of the worst neighborhoods in my state. It was really rough. Anyway, 80s childhood being what it was, we used to ride our bikes everywhere, regardless of danger. Our home street was divided into three parts. The upper and middle parts were relatively okay in the daytime. The lower part was off limits no matter what, because that’s where the creeps and dealers lived.
We moved out finally and went somewhere a lot safer. Years pass. Our old neighborhood makes the news every so often for various outrages. One day, I saw in the newspaper that a woman had recently been found deceased in her house—she’d been sitting there for a month on her couch. It was already sad, but then things took a horrific turn.
When authorities showed up to deal with the situation, they discovered a big slab of cement in a strange place in the backyard. A neighbor told them that they’d frequently seen her at night sitting near and talking to the slab. If you knew how strange the people were in our neighborhood were, you’d have brushed this off as yet another weirdo.
Well, it turns out it was her husband. Only they weren’t officially married, so when he passed on—it was suspected to be natural causes, surprisingly—she couldn’t live without his Social Security check every month, so she buried him in the backyard and kept up the pretense that he was alive and living with his out-of-state relatives.
We used to ride by that house frequently when he was already buried in the yard. Oh, the 1980s.
105. Karma Took Care Of His Complaining
My old neighbor was a grumpy old lush. He complained when we had our light on in our bedroom too late at night. He was also quite horrible to my girlfriend, even calling her names. Whenever I tried to talk to him, he wouldn't open the door or would run away. When I was at work, he would knock on the door to moan to my girlfriend. Naturally, my girlfriend started ignoring him when he did this—and karma would end up getting him BIG time.
Unfortunately, one day he started knocking, and she ignored it, not realizing he was having a stroke. He went to a nursing home after that.
106. Blood On Her Hands
Some 15 years ago, when my parents and I lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana, we ended up befriending one of the neighbors and her two kids. Well, one day, we were all hanging out together when I noticed her son had some pretty bad bruises and a nice size knot on his head. I just shrugged it off and we continued playing. Then, that night, the mother came over and made a shocking confession to my mom.
She said she ended the boy's life. She went into some pretty disturbing details, and she wasn't remorseful at all. When she left back to her house, my mom called the authorities immediately and she was taken to the station shortly after. The worst part is, she vowed that when she got out, she'd do the same thing to my mom. We noped the heck out of Indiana and moved to another state.
107. Your Term Is Up!
I had one neighbor who was the self-appointed mayor of the block. He would tell me all the time what I was doing wrong, from having my sprinklers on at the wrong time to not properly sorting my recyclables. I took his suggestions under advisement and even read the four-page typed note he wrote to me about the correct timing of the crabgrass preventer.
One evening, when I was cleaning off my deck, he walked up and began telling me about the latest landscaping issues. My niece, who was 13 at the time, was showering off after being in the pool. She walked out in a robe from the shower area and slung her suit over the fence to dry. I thanked him for his vast landscaping knowledge and told him we were off to dinner and shooed her inside.
I closed the slider and remembered I left the hose on, so I slipped the door back open and I saw her suit slid over the fence. I took two steps to the edge of the deck expecting to see her bathing suit on my grass. That’s when I spotted him—and it was the most disturbing sight of my entire life. The mayor was on his hands and knees in my grass, sniffing the suit crotch. We had a long talk about how he was going to come with me to the station.
108. No Shame
One of my neighbors was expecting their first baby. The wife had passed out and went unresponsive at home while an elderly relative was visiting. The baby was born at the hospital, and the wife's condition rapidly deteriorated. Only the baby came home. The husband was understandably overwhelmed when all this happened. The poor guy didn’t leave the hospital until his wife passed a few days later.
Their townhome only had two parking spots. Our HOA had recently changed the rules for our overflow parking. Residents had been allowed to park no more than four days a month in those spaces. Then it went to 90 minutes a month which became effective two days after the wife went to the hospital. The wife's car was in the overflow parking lot when the elderly relative was there visiting.
The wife's mom came to care for the baby and help with funeral arrangements. She flew in, took a taxi to her daughter's home, and got the extra car keys from the house. She went to the overflow parking, and her daughter's car was gone. The HOA towed it. The husband came home with the baby and got all the mail that had accumulated in his absence. What he found was truly awful.
There were multiple fines from the HOA, from the towed car to trash cans being out past 4:30 PM and on non-trash days, to some weeds that had sprouted in the driveway. There was also a bill from the HOA president, who "impounded" the trash cans and recycling bins with a $30/day "storage fee" per item. The HOA president lived on their street.
He was aware that an ambulance had come and that no one had been at the house for days. He would not dismiss the fines because the husband was still physically capable of going back to the house. The situation ended up on the news, but, unfortunately, you just can't shame some people. But it wasn't all bad. One of our other neighbors realized there was nothing in the HOA rulebook about needing HOA permits for rummage sales.
So, they organized a giant neighborhood rummage sale to raise money for the fines. The look on the HOA president's face was priceless when he tried to shut it down, and multiple people came out with our 300-page by-laws book to show it was within the rules. The rummage sale was also reported as an update on the news.
We were able to raise a few thousand to help our neighbor out. I eventually moved away and will never buy another property with an HOA because of the petty nonsense HOAs bring out. The husband ended up moving back to where their families were from, partly due to not wanting to deal with the HOA.
