Some people get along with their neighbors—they have them over for dinner, bake them bread, and lend them sugar. These are not those people. These Redditors had to deal with some of the worst neighbors imaginable, and they barely came out the other side. Lock your doors, close your blinds, and sit down for these ones.
1. What A Gas
My downstairs neighbor decided to sandblast his brick wall on the down-low without telling the landlord. Living in an old brick building, I asked him if he sealed up all the cracks in his unit, and he said sure. Fast forward a week later, and sandblasting commences. It ended in disaster. I’m watching football when suddenly this white dust starts coming up from the floor.
I look around and it’s coming up everywhere. Five minutes later, my entire unit is completely filled with white dust. So now I’m in a gas mask, terrified it’s asbestos or another dangerous substance. I can’t really do anything. I tried to tell him to stop, and he told me to go screw myself in so many words. It’s Sunday, so the landlord isn’t around, and I think it’s a bit extreme to call the authorities.
So I guess I’m just going to sit here in my gas mask...
2. Let ‘Er Rip
I once lived in an apartment where the walls were thin. The neighbor’s bathroom was on the same wall as my bedroom. This neighbor had the loudest flatulence I've ever heard in my life and he liked to come home late at night, run a bath, and let it all rip. He could hear me laugh and he'd be like "IT'S NOT FUNNY DUDE"!
Any time we saw each other around the complex it would be kind of awkward.
3. Back To The Beginning
My neighbors used to be absolute hicks. I live in a small town, sure. But these guys took it a step further than most. Makeshift hot tubs made of a tarp and a radiator, drunken fights every night, etc. They were also notorious for not paying for ANYTHING. They would drive away from the gas station after fueling up and "forgetting" to pay.
Same with groceries. Everyone knew they were dirt poor, so the community as a whole let it slide. My mom is the town administrator, so she takes all of the payments for land titles and utilities, and such. This house was supposed to be foreclosed on about 14 months prior. After one too many drunken fights, my mom decided they had gone too far.
One of our windows got smashed. When we asked “What the heck, man”?, they said, "Well maybe you should mind your own business then"! So what did our family do? My mother gave them their notice of foreclosure and after it was seized, we bought the property and bulldozed it to build a garage.
4. No Safe Haven
While I was going to college, I lived in my mom's apartment with her. The building only had four units in it. Her neighbors across the hall and down one floor would perform bedroom Olympics on an almost nightly basis. I'm talking out-of-proportion screaming and banging on the walls—think of the most over the top things you can and you may be close; it was obviously done so that people would hear it.
The same neighbors were selling substances out of their apartment, which was right across the hall from where the landlady lived. They left a quart-size Ziploc bag full of the stuff out on the front porch one day, apparently for someone to pick up (it was hidden in a potted plant). The landlady found it, knew what it was, and threw it out.
I can only imagine their panic. Also, since they were shady as heck, they found my mother's phone number on a piece of trash (I'm assuming) and gave it to debt collectors as their "primary phone number".
5. Music To My Ears
I lived in the basement suite of a fourplex, and the people above me were awful. The guy's alarm would go off every day at 5:30 am. It would go off continuously for two hours when he would actually get up around 8. No snooze button or anything, just constantly blaring the entire time. On multiple occasions, I would get mad enough to go up and bang on his door to get him up and shut off the alarm.
He was nice but never changed... until he got a roommate. She was a sex worker, which I don't really harbor any negative opinions over. The problem was that she did her business at home and my room was directly under hers. Sometimes I would be outside and these guys would come out with their heads down and scurry off.
Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night to someone outside my window, tapping on hers (above mine) to get her to answer the door. I would hear her with these guys almost every day. But the worst part of it all was that the only song I ever heard her listen to, ever, was Creed, “With Arms Wide Open”. Every day, that song, at least a few times.
Day and night. I still cringe thinking about it.
6. The Voices In Her Head
I had a lady live above me who had severe schizophrenia. She constantly thought the units on each side of her and below (me) were yelling at her and making noise. Being that she did not work, this meant she spent a good 12-16 hours a day stomping around the apartment yelling at us and kicking the walls. The authorities were called out there so many times they stopped responding.
Unfortunately, the leasing office had a bloated eviction process they had to go through before they could get rid of her. It escalated to the point where she started vandalizing our doors by spraying ketchup on them, knocking and running, and calling officers on us for making the phantom noise. I ended up having to sleep with earplugs and move my bed away from the wall just to get four to five hours a night.
7. Nosy Nelly
My neighbor from behind my mom's house once literally asked her, "Why don't you use the master bedroom? I never see you go in there with my binoculars". He wasn't joking. She actually doesn't use the master bedroom, which is visible from his back window. On top of that, he also started harassing the repair guy from DirecTV, who happens to be black.
This guy had a uniform, expensive equipment, and everything. The neighbor claimed he looked like he was doing something "suspicious". Oddly enough, he didn't seem to think the white kid who did try to break in (in broad daylight no less) was "suspicious”. On top of THAT, he asks my mom one morning if he could have his lawn man remove a tree that he didn't like.
Seeing as it was on our property (even the branches, it was small), she said no. Three hours later: BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. What heck was even the point of asking?
8. That Was A Close One
I live in a duplex. I work pretty early, and on the weekends, and generally go to bed around 11 pm. This Friday night, my neighbors in the duplex on the far side of me threw a "Welcome home from the clinker” party for somebody. Sure enough, loud music late at night, but I figured "Meh, it's Friday, people should be able to party".
Plus, like the Blues Brothers say, "You can't call the cops on him, he just got out of the joint". So I just try to tune it out. Not so for the neighbor who I share my backyard fence with. He comes out and tells them to shut up. Angry words are shouted back and forth, kind of across my yard. It escalates so fast. Pretty soon, it becomes threats.
At this point, I start to get the phone and dial—but a twist was coming. "I will shoot you”! "Bring it! I'm in the 512 Crips"! (I think that's what he said) "You're in the 512? So am I"! "No way”! "Well, come on over and have a drink”! Crisis averted, music turned down, no violence that night.
9. Beyond My Help
This roommate I used to have accused half the house of conspiring to assault her. Banging and kicking and knocking with fists and feet against walls as well as her own and other flat doors. She messed with the gas lines in the cellar. When the landlord finally had all the legalities required to evict her at hand, she threw their lawyer's bag—including laptop and whatnot—out through the third-floor window and onto the street.
I was lucky, though. She said she was in love with me (because I reminded her of Jesus Christ) so other than the door smashing and occasionally cutting off my electricity because of "TV noises" (I have no TV or anything that could sound like one), not much happened to me personally.
10. Where There’s Smoke…
I am a blacksmith. One day my forge broke, so I ended up using a wood-burning forge (I heard it would work, it didn’t). I usually use a coal forge that is relatively smokeless if I use a fume hood. This time, however, I was doing it in my garage with the garage door slightly open to let the smoke out. Fast forward a few hours, and an unexpected effect starts to happen.
I didn’t realize it, but my garage was now entirely filled with thick, black smoke, which is also pouring out my garage door, making it look like my house was on fire. So one of my neighbors comes bolting out his door and into my garage, only to see me, making whatever it was I was making, not even noticing the smoke.
He screams at me, and in the end, the smoke was cleared out, the fire department was called, and he reamed me out for a good hour about being irresponsible and inconsiderate towards my other neighbors for almost burning down my house, which would result in his house being devalued. And I kind of had to give him that one.
11. Sometimes The Wrong People Win
Back when I was in elementary school, I lived in the upstairs portion of a split house. Neighbors lived in the basement. Eventually, the good neighbors moved out, and some people that slept during the day and worked during the night moved in. Except I'm pretty sure they never actually worked because they were always partying or something when it was night-time and we could never go to sleep.
I never understood why they were partying either, because it was an old guy, his girlfriend, and their godchild. Anyway, after we complained to them and asked them to stop playing their music so loudly, they complained to the landlord that WE were the ones keeping THEM up. Then we got kicked out. My parents never told me the actual reason we had to move until I was older, though. But it doesn't end there.
I had an adopted stray cat that would come to my house to be fed every so often. When we moved a few blocks away into a full house, the stray cat actually followed us, but eventually stopped coming to our new house. I rode my bike down to our old house and was greeted by the old man, now in control of the entire old house.
He told me to "get off our street or I'll have my dog kill you just like he killed your cat”. What is WRONG with people? I should also mention that these people were Catholic, and I was also friends with the kid that lived there for a bit. But eventually, she randomly started to hate me. Meh.
12. It’s Like An Oven In Here
I was living in a shared house at the time with my neighbors living downstairs. They were the typical annoying neighbors. They would play loud music early in the morning with a bass that shook the entire floor, use up all the hot water with their half-hour showers (it was an older house with a single shared tap), and attract jerks who would burst through my front door because they neglected to mention to their friends that they live downstairs, etc.
This one day they had all gone to a wedding of some friend of theirs, and I was loving every minute of the peaceful silence that had finally settled over my house. Looking forward to a relaxing Sunday afternoon, I put my shoes on and grabbed my keys, intent on stopping by the nearest corner store to grab a few drinks for the quiet time ahead of me.
That's when I smelled the smoke. I didn't think much of it at first; it was summertime and the area I lived in was quite dry, so grass fires weren't uncommon. As I sat there, though, the scent became increasingly potent. With a groan, I got up and looked out of my windows, searching for where this fire could be. Not being able to see any smoke or flames, I realized the scent was coming up through the vents of my floor.
Great. Unable to get downstairs in an attempt to douse whatever it was before it got too large (there were only two doors to get down there, and I didn't have the key to either), I just sighed, shook my head, grabbed everything of value I had, and went outside to sit on my front lawn as I was on the phone with the fire department.
They arrived shortly after, sirens blazing. But then it got REALLY bad. My idiot neighbor was parked in front of the fire hydrant, so the firemen had to bust through his windows to fit the hose in. I probably would have smirked if my house wasn't burning down. By this time, visible smoke was streaming out from the cracks in the basement window.
I directed the firefighters to the exterior entrance to the basement (locked, of course). Donning his mask, one of the firemen brought out his axe to hack down the door. Their stove and surrounding area were burning in a red-orange flame. After 1-2 minutes of showering the fire with the house, all that remained were the smoldering black ashes of that part of the kitchen.
Thankfully, nothing of mine was damaged. Oh, the look on their faces when they returned a couple of hours later, I'll never forget it! They had left a chicken in the oven before leaving for the four-hour wedding. Darwin awards for them, I know. My floor smelled like a firepit for a week, but it was worth the silence that came from the neighbors being kicked out by the landlord.
13. Spring Breaker
Allow me to tell you a tale. The first day of welcome week my freshman year, I'm put in a small group to tour the campus and whatnot. We're all sitting in a room, learning each other’s names, and in comes a 7-foot giant. She's barely dressed with horrible tattoos all the way up to her butt cheeks, which are entirely visible to everyone in the room.
She informs us she is a go-go dancer. She's odd, to say the least, but hey, who am I to judge her? But I didn’t realize the most crucial detail. She lived right next door to me. The first night on campus there's a loud ruckus in her room. Now I'm a pretty tolerant person, but this was ridiculous. I go out of my room and can hear her screaming a dude's name.
I go down the hall, and can still hear her clear as day. Finally, I go down the hall, around a corner, and into a closet area, curious just how far her voice carried. Still able to hear her screaming. It was a long night. Fast forward through the year. Every night she has multiple dudes over, blasts god-awful music until 3 am, and my personal favorite, shouts on the phone at all times.
I don't know what kind of cell plan this girl had, but it must have included unlimited calling. She talked to people in the bathroom (which was shared by about 20 other people), usually putting them on speaker phone. Or she'd be shouting to them while she was in the shower. Or yelling at someone in her room loudly enough I could hear the whole conversation.
I must have sent in at least a dozen complaints to the housing director, but she stuck around until the end of the year.
14. Like It Or Lump It
I lived next to this woman who was extremely irresponsible, had four noisy children, and her mother all occupying the same small space. All day long, I got to listen to children screaming and throwing things and her yelling at them, and all night long I got to listen to her blast music and fight with people. It was unending. There was never quiet for very long.
I couldn't really call the authorities, because they wouldn't do anything when I did call them, and my neighbors would punish me for calling by smearing dog poop my door and leaving garbage around my front step. I was the new guy living in the complex, and a lot of people were noisy like her, so she knew it was me calling the officers.
Eventually, you just learn to sleep with Ke$ha blasting through the paper-thin walls. I was so glad when I finally moved out.
15. Flexing His Power
My current neighbor has had my parents and other neighbors go to court because of him. Long story short, he has a history of messing with the law because of his "connection". So he likes to screw with his neighbors, trying to get them put behind bars for his own pleasure. He files protective orders against my parents, yet stalks them to their workplace.
He's gone to the restaurant my mother works at to eat. Keep in mind that he knows she works there and has a protective order against her because "she threatens him". He then sits there for hours just staring. But here’s the kicker. He really does have connections, and every time someone calls the authorities on him, the officers take his side and we end up getting screwed over.
One of my neighbors was taken into custody last night because he called the authorities on the bad neighbor, as he had been flashing a laser pointer from his porch at him and my father. Officers came, but they just said the good guy neighbor was violating the bad neighbor's protective order, and they cuffed him. All thanks to this jerk.
16. Up In Flames
It was the middle of the night, about 3 am if I recall, and I woke up to some crazy loud noise and shaking that felt like a pretty strong earthquake. Living in California, BOOM! I was in the doorway, as back then that was the place they told you to be in an earthquake. Within minutes there are officers swarming our apartment complex, banging on all doors REALLY loudly, and yelling for everyone to evacuate.
It was all very surreal. Most of us still thought it had been an earthquake and meandered out into the street away from the other complex. We were in our pajamas still not knowing what had happened. Apparently what happened was some guy in the apartment complex next door to ours was trying to off himself and had left the gas on in the kitchen and then went to bed.
The apartment filled substantially with gas. Then his on-again, off-again girlfriend showed up in the middle of the night, with a child (toddler-ish age if I recall) and, APPARENTLY not having the wits to smell all the gas, lit up a ciggy and BOOM! The whole place exploded in a fireball and destroyed a whole bunch of the units in that complex.
It also caused the ground to shake massively, which is why we all thought it was an earthquake.
Miraculously no one perished, but the three who were in the apartment were badly burned. I didn't ever see any further follow-up in the newspapers.
17. Timing Is Everything
I was in a fourplex that was older but had been stylishly remodeled, especially on the outside. Since it was older, the interior walls were pretty thin. The remodeled exterior, however, included double pane windows as well as sliding doors, and the heavy front doors had such intense weather-stripping that we had to push/pull pretty hard to get them to close.
The neighbors on one side had a child that would throw temper tantrums of doom at least a couple of times per week. We could hear her screaming and whining and yelling and crying, and the parents trying to calm her down, sometimes very nicely and sometimes yelling right back at her. Anyway, we lived there for almost 2.5 years.
The first Halloween comes around and I throw a party. The neighbors with the screaming offspring come over, bang on the door, and demand we turn it down. We do, but obviously, it's not enough. They come back a second time, we turn it down again. Apparently, this isn't enough either because a little while later some of the partygoers start freaking out that there are two patrol cars out front of our apartment.
I run upstairs and look through the window at them and I see them standing there, observing...but then came the twist. They get in their cars again and leave. That’s because while the neighbors could hear all the party sounds, the officers couldn’t hear anything through all the exterior wall improvements. Anyway, the next year progresses with the kid continuing to have these horrible tantrums.
We're getting close to the second Halloween party and my roommate and I hatch a plan, but he makes ME follow through with it because it's technically my Halloween party. We wait for the week of the party, knowing the kid's going to tantrum again, and just wait for it. When she does, I slowly meander to their front door and wait until she's in top form of her screaming and then knock on the door.
The father opens the door (the one who knocked on our door twice the prior year). He's got a look on his face like he fears we're going to flip out on him because of his screaming kid but instead, I smile brightly and inform him that the following Saturday we're going to be having a party and that it might be loud and we wanted to apologize in advance for any loudness.
I said we promise to keep it down as much as possible as we know that the prior year he was concerned about volume, etc. I continue to smile brightly. With his child still screaming bloody murder in the background, he begrudgingly states that the noise won’t be a problem that year. And it wasn't.
18. Another Day In The Neighborhood
I live in the Netherlands in a type of 1930s apartment that seems to be unique to this country, with my own front door at street level leading into a small staircase with some steep stairs, and the rest of the apartment on the 2nd and 3rd floor level. I have one downstairs neighbor, one on the left and one on the right. The walls are pretty thin.
The neighbors left of me were obviously careless as well as very noisy, including at night. They never gave me any other sort of trouble, except that they would often get random visitors at 3 am or something, and sometimes one of them would ring my front door instead of theirs by mistake. But one day it all came to a disturbing climax.
All of a sudden a SWAT team came and busted in their front door so violently that my wall got damaged too. I looked and they yelled at me to get away from the window. One of the guys then tried to flee over the balcony onto the inner courtyard but was caught in time and ended up on my balcony, so the officer kindly asked if he could come into my place to take the guy out my front door.
Later a lady from the department came and asked me if I had any questions or wanted to talk about the experience. They wouldn't tell me what they had done, though, but it seems pretty likely that they were dealers.
19. The Invisible Man
My neighbor on the other side was clearly lonely and in bad health. He never seemed to get any visitors. Sometimes I would hear him through the wall making bizarre noises at 4:00 am or so. One day officers showed up and sealed off his apartment. Investigation of a possible crime is all they would tell me. I think he offed himself but I never got an answer.
About a month later, some housing association guys came with a truck and I heard and saw all his stuff being thrown unceremoniously out of his living room window and onto the trailer. It felt bad.
20. Oops, My Bad
In this story, I think we were very much the bad neighbors. Last night one of my mates somehow puked diagonally onto our downstairs neighbor's porch screen. To put that into perspective, our balcony extends perhaps 4-5 feet out past the level of their screen. I have no idea how he did it, I only know that it is difficult to clean puke off of a screen.
21. Get Off My Lawn
My jerk neighbor shot my cat with a BB multiple times because she was in his yard. She wasn’t doing anything except walking through his yard. Our backyard had a pretty big wooden fence that was like eight feet tall so we didn't think she could escape, but she did. Still, she just wandered around a few yards for a couple of minutes.
That was the only time she has ever been in the front yard. He had no reason to shoot her when she wasn't doing anything, except exploring for a bit.
22. Normal People
I rented a room in what I later realized was a sketchy part of the city. The landlord owned both sides of a semi-detached house. Then he made a strange confession. He told me he'd put me in the “normal people” half. One of my roommates is a woman named Charity, who later told me that she was studying “Dental Administration” in college.
So far everything is fine as she is paid by the landlord to keep the place clean and everyone keeps to themselves. About a week in, though, I start noticing that she's always bringing these random dudes home, who I keep bumping into in the kitchen. They're typically big, muscular Black guys, always a different dude each time. This was a bit strange considering she was quite the opposite of in-shape and attractive.
But whatever, maybe she found a trove of ripped guys. Then came the loud, loud intimacy that would last hours and hours of her screaming like a dying elk. Three months later, I realize I had it all wrong. I find out that she's actually married and has an apartment down the street with her husband, but she rents out her room so that she can hire male escorts.
23. Getting Along Like A House On Fire
When I was 14 I lived in a duplex with an elderly woman and her husband, my family, and I on the bottom floor. She had smoked when she was younger and was in possession of oxygen tanks. She was also an obvious past user. Now, we knew she wasn't the greatest of people from day one, but her husband was an awesome, also elderly man.
He collected scrap metal, and one day, when locked out, he climbed to the second story Spider-Man style and went in through the window. The year we moved into the house was turbulent for my family, but we were okay. My mother was with her dying grandmother over Thanksgiving, and at the same time and day her grandmother passed, so did this woman's husband.
We offered condolences and part of our Thanksgiving meal to her, and we had always been kind to them. Christmas wasn't the greatest to begin with that year, but it would end tragically. Around 10:00 Christmas night we were going to head to bed, all of us tired, but my sister insisted we watch the movie she had bought for me, The Goonies, so we put it on.
On the opening credits, my mom smells something and my father heads to the kitchen window. It smells smoky. I immediately head to the room in-between the two houses and the door to this lady’s apartment is wide open, filled with smoke and fire spitting from the stairs. I call 9-1-1, get my dog out of the house, and my dad rushes upstairs with a fire extinguisher fully ready to pull this woman out of a burning building.
It turns out the fire had been burning for 30 minutes and this lady had tried to put it out for 20 minutes, then ran across the street to her friend’s house. No one calls the fire department, no one tells us. You literally cannot leave the building without passing our door. She made an active decision to leave us. All the neighbors thought the authorities had been called already.
Soon enough everyone in town is at my house, staring at me in my Christmas pajamas as I’m watching my house burn. While watching, my upset mother shouts, "Oh my God the house is on fire"! This old woman turns to her and says, "What are you talking about?! My house is on fire"! That is my worst neighbor experience.
24. Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind
My roommate liked to "disinfect" hairbrushes by boiling them. Well one day, he put a couple of brushes on the stove and then left. I was taking a nap upstairs and luckily smelled the smoke and woke up. We had no smoke alarms—that kind of sucked too. The whole house was filled with toxic smoke, the kind you get when plastic burns.
I had to run outside in my underwear and hang out there until the smoke cleared. What a moron.
25. The Creeps Come Out To Play
A neighbor of mine—who is no longer a friend—wanted me to film my other female neighbor in the shower and send him the footage. Of course, I said no and I also told her what he wanted me to do in case she heard someone outside her bathroom window. I ended my friendship with him instantly.
26. Bringing The Vibe Down
We live in a wooded neighborhood about 30 minutes from the nearest large city, and 15 from the nearest town. It’s also less than a minute from a volunteer fire department. For many years, there were no houses within sight of ours. We had empty lots on either side, and there were trees and tall grass between the front and back.
Then someone buys the land to one side of us, spends months getting it ready—very loudly I might add—then puts an ugly mobile home right by the fence. They then let their large dog roam free. This wouldn't be a problem, except he loves to dig under the fence and jump on us. Fast forward a year or two—my absolute worst nightmare happens.
After many times of them chaining the dog up and it still getting in our yard, it kills our chihuahua mix. Not long after that, they moved out.
27. No Love Lost
Over the last 10 or more years my neighbor has: poisoned neighbors’ dogs, smashed my dad in the head several times with tennis rackets and frying pans—sending him to the hospital—because my dad was trying to save the dude’s then-wife from his physical mistreatment, and had numerous sketchy “friends” stay over for months at a time.
He also verbally mistreats his own mother, steals from her, allows his girlfriend to take stuff from her, and yet somehow manipulates his mother into getting him out on bail every time he's put behind bars. I would go on, but these are the things that really stick out in my mind.
28. All’s Not Well That Ends Well
I lived above two women for a short time. At this time, I had one dog. Well, one day said dog was sick...sick of the exploding diarrhea kind. As he was about to have his first attack of that day, I couldn't get him to the front door in time so I got him out on the porch. All of the porches are above each other. Theirs was under mine, and the wood slats had enough room for large chunks to fall through as well as the liquid.
This went all over their stuff on the porch as well as their open grill. I cleaned the dog up, cleaned my porch up, and went down to tell them about the poop. They said no worries, that they'd clean it up. They had dogs as well and it was no big deal. I checked a few times and they never cleaned it up. I never saw them clean the grill ether…and then they used it.
They cooked hot dogs and didn't wash it. They didn't wash it.
29. Music Therapy
One of the neighbors we had that lived right above us would play his stereo at a really loud volume. It was so incredibly loud that my wife and I couldn't hear ourselves talk. He played this at all hours of the night, and it wasn't long before I went up and hammered on his door for 10 minutes until he came and answered. The sound of the stereo, while I was standing there, was worse than any concert I had ever been to.
It hurt my ears and this guy...he tells me that "he can't sleep without music". I wanted to grab him by the throat and ask: "How can you sleep with it that loud"?! He turned it down, and we didn't really have the problem again.
30. Wild Things
I went to bed one morning (I work the night shift) and I laid down in my bed with my book at 7 AM. I was going to read a chapter and fall asleep...until I saw a terrifying sight. There is a black and white snake hanging from my ceiling lamp. I was in the military, and my training told me to assume that all unknown animals/creatures were poisonous.
I had never seen this kind of snake before, and I chased it into the bathroom. The landlord came up and got it after about three hours, and I didn't sleep at all that day. I couldn't stop thinking about the snake. Apparently, he had slithered his way down through the walls, and came in from one of the other apartments. Then, in an attempt to cover up their trail—animals weren’t allowed in the building—the owners discarded their terrarium in the dumpster outside.
31. A Night He’d Rather Forget, And Probably Does
A few months ago, my wife was getting ready to leave for school (she's a teacher) and I heard a knock at my door. This guy was standing outside of my door with a coat, a hat with ear flaps on, and he was asking me to let him into his apartment. He did not look sober. I am only a tenant and I don't have any keys, so I told him I couldn’t help him.
20 minutes later I’m getting ready for bed and I hear this loud grinding sound coming from outside of the apartment. I get up to investigate, and this guy fell asleep right outside of my door. His snoring was SO loud...he didn't wake up no matter what I did. I eventually had to call the authorities, and they came and woke the guy up.
He was really out of it, and the best part of it all...HE HAD NO CLOTHES UNDER HIS COAT! So, I got a really “nice” view, and I wasn't too pleased about that. I really just wanted to go to bed, not have to deal with morons falling asleep outside of my apartment door. The guy did apologize to me, so I will give him that.
32. A Shining Example Of Manhood
We had neighbors who lived above us. The guy was the tenant, and his girlfriend would come and stay with him. They were volatile...always fighting...constantly, constantly fighting. I could hear her screaming and blubbering all the time. But it gets darker. I had to call the authorities on them several times because I thought the guy was beating her.
It happened almost all the time, at all hours of the night. I had a friend over one day, and we heard a sound that was so loud, it was like a cannonball had been shot into the floor. Our apartment rumbled, and a piece of the ceiling fell through our own ceiling. I went upstairs, and I was literally just moments away from clubbing this guy with my fists.
I calmly asked what happened, and he said his stereo fell over (right, sure...). I called the landlord, and she came up to investigate. That's when she decided to evict him. A few weeks later on, I guess he ran into my wife outside and he had the audacity to say: "Thanks for getting me evicted". He should be glad I wasn't there to hear him, because I WOULD have throttled him then.
33. Do Your Thing
My brother and a friend were hanging out at his condo and they heard a strange noise. They thought it was a cat outside at first and ignored it. Still, they kept hearing it so eventually, they went outside to check it out. They couldn't find a cat anywhere. They follow the sound…to find his neighbor staring outside the window, meowing at them at 1 am.
34. One Good Turn Deserves Another
When I was a kid, we lived in an upstairs apartment of a duplex. As it happened, the people that lived below us were related to the people next door. Well, one day my bike went missing. Okay, tough luck. I saved up, bought another bike—and then that went missing. Then the truth came out. A few months later, an ice storm knocked down the fence in the backyard…and there they were.
Both of my bikes were in the neighbor’s yard, stripped. So my dad confronts the neighbors about it. The next night, my dad comes home from a wedding and gets jumped in our driveway. Both the next-door and downstairs neighbors beat the heck out of my dad. The next day my dad gets dropped off from work by some buddies and the neighbors try it again. But they weren’t so lucky this time.
My dad's friends see it and swing back. Suddenly, about five guys jump from the Cadillac and an all-out brawl starts in the street. After about a week it all settled down…or so we thought. We then tried to get our car out of the driveway so my mom can go to work, and the downstairs neighbors refuse to move it. As a parting gift, we had a buddy tow the car off.
I have no idea where he put it, but later that week we ended up moving out.
35. One Sick Lady
I rented the basement of a house during my undergrad. My bedroom was directly underneath the landlady's bedroom, so naturally, I got to listen to the joyous symphony of squeaking springs, moans, groans, and the sound of vigorous spankings pretty much like clockwork every two to three days. I didn't directly complain because hey, that's life right?
People sleep together, the walls are thin, whatever right? Well, I ended up getting my wisdom teeth out two years into moving in and was wicked sick for nearly a week afterward due to the surgery and antibiotics. So I pretty much spent all my time puking and sleeping. I literally never felt so sick in my life. But I couldn’t believe what happened next.
I kid you not, four hours after I came home she bashes on the door and demands that I somehow try to find a way to puke quieter. My boyfriend was with me, being awesome and cuddly and pretty much making sure I didn't fall asleep throwing up and he got pretty mad at her. I don't recall the full conversation because I was already back in the washroom puking again.
Loudly, too, I'll admit—this time on purpose. The next day the same thing. She comes down and complains while I stand there, wavering in place. Only this time she has an added complaint. It seemed as though since I was sleeping the sleep of the drugged-up, I was apparently snoring for the first time since moving in. Which, she claimed was seriously messing up her sleeping schedule.
The next day it was the same series of complaints but with progressively more aggressive language and tone. And this time I lost my temper and basically told her that if I have to put up with her wild bedroom sessions every other night, then she could put up with this temporary bout of snoring and marathon vomiting. I was sick, darnit.
She left red-faced and I thought that was the end of it. But it wasn't over. The next morning when I dragged my butt into the kitchen for crackers I found that she entered the apartment without knocking and put a box of snore strips on the counter. To this day I am still utterly staggered by her complete lack of empathy and self-centered behavior.
36. Don’t Mess With The Hoff
I was in a dorm room next to a soccer girl named "Maddy". Highest-pitched, loudest, most obnoxious voice ever. She constantly thought everyone wanted to hear her ululations. My roommate and I finally had enough. We agreed that whenever we could hear her in her room, no matter what time it was, we would play David Hasselhoff at full blast with my brand new speakers against our shared wall.
37. Giving New Meaning To The Term Eavesdropping
Whenever we had company over and we greeted them or said goodbye out the front, our neighbor would be there, lifting her little pile of bricks and moving it to the other side. There were about 10 bricks that she only moved from one point to another. It was amazing how nosy she was, and we couldn't believe how much she listened to our conversations.
38. The Cat-napper
My family has always had cats. One day, two of the cats went missing. One of the missing cats had recently been partially shaved by the vet due to a medical condition. My parents started asking neighbors and searching around. Eventually, my mom made a trip to an animal shelter and found one of the cats, but just one of them.
When she retrieved the cat, she asked about the second cat. The answer was heartbreaking. It had been put down. Apparently, no one expects partially shaved cats to be adopted. Then the people at the shelter described the man who brought her in: It was our next-door neighbor. I was young so I don't remember if my parents found out the details from the shelter or the neighbor or his wife.
But what happened was the guy had started trapping our cats. The reason? Apparently, he had noticed paw prints on his car and they made him angry enough to do something like that. He never said anything to my parents about the paw prints. He just set out traps and catnapped the cats.
39. Joke’s On You
My upstairs diagonal neighbors like to do cross-fit in large groups at midnight. All I hear are stomps for like an hour. Also, they throw huge parties and they like to throw their bottles off the balcony when they're done with them. The next day there's glass everywhere. I can't tell them anything because they only speak Spanish.
One party, they threw up off their balcony onto my patio. I got so angry that I flung open my door and yelled "Do you mind not puking on my stuff"?! They said they'd clean it the next day. They didn't. Last week one of my chairs was stolen from the patio. But the joke’s on them. That’s the one that got puked on all those weeks ago.
40. Doggone It
I've lived in the same apartment for almost 15 years now, and have had nothing but the best of neighbors. I'm talking people who will not complain if I blast music in the middle of the night, subwoofer and all. I don't do it very often and the walls keep sounds pretty well, so I guess they just let it be. Anyway, there was one exception, which lasted about a year.
Also, it wasn't a person, it was a dog. A couple that lives downstairs from me are a strange bunch, probably alcoholics. They’re about 50 years old and drive a huge, old American van (no one does here) and seem to leave and come home completely randomly. Anyway, at one point they bought a dog. At first, it was no problem. Then it got downright scary.
As the dog got older, it started getting more and more aggressive every time I saw it. Then, little by little, it started barking and howling at night. Sometimes they'd be at home and would shut the dog up, more than often not. But it kept getting worse. In a few months, this dog was literally banging its body on the radiators and furniture in the middle of the night.
At worst, it could go on for hours. Woof, woof, howl, bang bang. Now I'm a solid sleeper so it only bothered me in that sense a little, but it was obvious the dog was suffering. When I'd come across them taking the dog out, it would literally be trying to jump my throat, growling and barking. Lots of little kids were in the same house as well.
It didn't take long before the combination of the night noise and the danger of the now-large dog had people putting up notes in the hallway. They'd tear them down, and people would put up new ones. I talked to one neighbor who told me they'd visited the couple in question, and they had told him that they "weren't aware of any noise at night" and "the dog is just energetic".
It lasted for about a year and then, one day, I met them in the hallway and the dog was gone, replaced by a new, same breed puppy. That was about two years ago, and the new dog seems to have its stuff together, so to speak. Not that I blame the first dog for anything, obviously they were horrible owners who didn’t do enough when it was young.
41. Some Pros And Some Cons Here
My Korean neighbors made kimchi in the shared basement. Mitigating factor: the kimchi was AWESOME, as well as the other metric ton of food they'd bring to us over the course of the week. Still, fermenting cabbage in August in New England sucks, I can tell you that.
42. The Accusations Are False
I have an inspection tomorrow at 10 am because the people above me claim that something I am doing is making the pregnant woman throw up in the morning and at night. I called my landlord, super angry, and said "Yeah, I made someone sick when they were pregnant once. It was my mom, and I was in her womb". I am looking for a new place to live.
43. It’s In The Eyes
My neighbor once looked over his fence, looked at me straight in the eyes, and said “the last time I looked at somebody like this, they perished a week later”. After that, he just went back to his business like the conversation never even happened. Here’s the thing. I was about eight when he said this to me! So I spent the next week living in fear. I'm alive and well, screw you Ray!
44. That’s Not Normal
My neighbors were mad that the school called child services on them because of how much poop their kids had on them, "but it was only a normal amount of poop”. They do a lot of stuff that drives me crazy, but more than hating them I feel bad for their children. And no, I do not know what they consider to be a “normal amount of poop”.
I personally consider any amount of poop greater than none as too much poop to have on you.
45. An Absolute Dumb-Dumb
My neighbor passed out with a pack of bacon in the oven, still wrapped in plastic. Suddenly, their kitchen caught on fire and it burned through my kitchen floor. They then told the fire department to lie on the investigation report because they didn't have the insurance the lease required.
46. Loud And Proud
My boyfriend's last neighbor stomped hard core. You could hear her coming from a mile away. Stomp stomp stomp all the way up the stars ending in a slamming door...EVERY TIME. Man is it annoying.
47. Popular Guy
When I first move into my own place, a dealer moved in across the hall. Dozens of people would be coming and going at all hours of the day and night, seven days a week. The hallway constantly reeked. But that wasn’t the worst of it. I woke up one night at about 2:00 am to a girl outside his door screaming her head off. "DEREK! GIVE ME MY PURSE! OPEN THE DOOR”!
Over. And over. And over again. Being a small, cowardly, twenty-something female, all I felt brave enough to do was listen at the door while this went on for half an hour. I finally heard someone from down the hall come out and say, "You need to get out or I'm calling the authorities”. It backfired so badly. It was just fuel for the fire.
"SEE?! YOU'RE GONNA GET THE COPS CALLED ON YOU, DEREK! GIVE ME MY BAG"! The same neighbor had a "friend" who came over around the same time when the dude was CLEARLY not at home and banged on the door for almost an hour. When I woke up to this, I opened my door (chain lock on, of course) and said in as clipped a tone as I could manage, "He is obviously not home. Please stop banging on the door. It is 2:00 am”.
48. Not Fit To Parent
I had neighbors who had six-year-old twins (a boy and a girl). Then one day, we made a horrific discovery. They had been locked in a room for almost four years. The boy managed to escape this past February and was found wandering the streets, super dirty. The authorities were called and upon entering the house they found a padlocked door.
In this room was a small bed and a toilet chair. In another bedroom, there were five pitbulls chained to a bed. Needless to say, the kids were taken away and the parents were taken into custody. But wait, there’s more. When the mother appeared in front of the judge, she actually told the judge that she didn’t know what she did wrong.
49. A Heart Of Stone
I live next to a bitter old man, probably about 78 years old. When we let our dogs out, usually it's just for a few minutes so they can do their business. But it was one of the first nice days we'd had in a while, so we let them be outside for a while. They both went to the front of our house to lay in the sun, although they've never gone off our property.
I guess our neighbor was spraying his lawn with weedkiller, because he walked over to where our dogs were laying and sprayed it in their faces. Their cries and whimpers were one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever heard; they sounded like they were in so much pain (and I was in my room when it happened).
My mom saw what was happening, stormed outside, and started screaming through tears at him. My mom is usually a very calm person, I've never heard her that upset. She took the dogs to the closest vet, and thankfully they're both okay still.
50. Open Your Mind, Man
I had a neighbor who had a drug-induced mental break and decided to break into my house in the middle of the night. He was in serious tin foil hat territory. He told me the aliens that we're beaming the movies into his brain and said he had to come to talk to me. It took me several attempts to get him off the proverbial ledge but eventually, I had to get the authorities involved. Downward spirals are terrifying to witness.
Sources: Reddit,
