Neighbors come in all types—from considerate and caring to downright obnoxious and dangerous. Whether it's rescuing horses from a burning building or being kept awake all night by barking dogs, these stories will either warm your heart or make you cringe.
1. Nobody Saw That Coming
A friend of mine had his high school graduation party at his house. His neighbors were invited. The worst choice he ever made. They showed up, drank their ale, ate their food, and even swam in their pool for a while. They went home around 6 pm and decided that, since the party was over for them, it was over for everyone else too. They called in a noise complaint and the officers arrived by 6:15 pm.
2. Snippy Resident
My neighbor cut the cable with her garden shears. I presume it was over a disagreement with her bill.
She wouldn't let the cable company in to repair it. So they had to bypass her house, my house, and about six others who had no TV, phone or internet for eight days.
3. Never A Dull Moment
My neighbor once asked to borrow some of my vitamin pills because she had run out. When I asked her what kind she needed, she just casually said, “Oh just whatever—the druggies don’t really care and I have a rave to get to”.
“Yeah sure- wait what did you say”? I whipped around from the cabinet and gaped at her.
She mimed zipping her lips shut, then grinned at me and held her hand out. Not wanting too many details lest I end up incriminating myself in one of her crazy schemes, I simply pushed a bottle of zinc tablets into her hand, told her to be safe, and shut the door behind her.
The next morning, I woke up to an envelope stuffed through my letter slot with a thank you note and a number of £5 bills in it. I stared at the grubby crumpled bills with narrowed eyes for a minute before tucking a loaf of home-baked lemon drizzle cake in a box and trotting off down the street to interrogate my neighbor. I had to know the full story.
It only took a few slices of cake to break her. She gleefully began to tell me about how she’d stumbled upon a way to make a roaring profit by going to parties and selling people vitamin pills in the guise of recreational narcotics. She’d already been through several bulk bottles of vitamins and evidently had no plans of stopping anytime soon.
I sighed internally as I watched her happily shovel cake in her mouth, and wondered for the hundredth time how I—the most mundane person in the world—had ended up befriending someone who seemed to have fallen straight out of a television dramedy.
At least there was never a boring day with her around.
4. Indebted For Life
In 2015, a wildfire ravaged our town and several others nearby. We only had enough time to pack up our dogs and cats. Unfortunately, we didn't have a trailer at the time to get our two horses out and had to let them loose. But before I let them out, I wrote my phone number on their hooves with a permanent marker so, if someone found them, they would know who to call. All night, I stressed and cried about my girls. I didn’t get any sleep.
The next morning, I received a call from an unknown number. It was our neighbor (at the time, we hadn't lived in the area for very long, so we didn’t know everyone yet). He said our house caught fire but the horses wouldn’t leave our property, so he went and grabbed them both and took them to his dry field for safety. I thanked him profusely—cried tears of joy, and celebrated that my girls were alive.
For the next two weeks, our town was closed off. People who left couldn’t get back in, so I wasn’t able to get to my horses. Power lines were also down, so the wells didn't work and the horses had no water. That's when another neighbor came to the rescue and brought buckets of water and hay to make sure my horses would be okay. They found me on Facebook to let me know.
I’ve never been more indebted to neighbors—or anyone for that matter—in my life. Both horses were seniors—in their early 20s and late 20s and have since passed of old age, but they had quite the experience in 2015. I’m glad that wasn’t the end of their story.
5. Hush, Please!
My neighbor called 9-1-1 on me. They were new neighbors, a couple, who moved in next door. Before I had a chance to formally meet them, the man came over and started banging on my front door and yelling at me to turn down my TV. I thought, "Great first impression". I didn't have a clue yet...
I turned it down but the next night he was banging again. Just as I started to suggest we try something, he didn't even wait to hear it out and stomped away. The time after that, it was the officer who showed up.
I turned the TV down even more since then and quit talking to my neighbor altogether. He called Johnny Law on me four more times. The final time, the Captain came knocking ever so politely and asked if he could come in and listen to my TV for himself.
He did, and told me it seemed fine to him, and that he would explain to the neighbor that when you live in a house that shares a common wall with another house, you are sometimes going to hear some things and that he was not to call again about it!
6. Parking Fiasco
I live in an apartment with no off-street parking. Every other day, we have to park on the other side of the street. This means that half of the time, I have to park across the street in front of my old, spiteful neighbor's house.
She had a totally ridiculous plan to stop me. She painted the curb yellow and called the officers whenever I parked in front of her house. She tried to convince them that those are handicapped spots because of the yellow paint.
I caught her repainting the curb one summer and called the officers on her. They arrived just as she was touching up the yellow paint on a tree. All they did was tell her to stop. Several months later, the curb is still yellow and she still calls the officers every time.
Not only does she not drive or own any cars, but she has two "driveways". I say "driveways" because one is just where she paved over her lawn to make a second driveway but still calls the officers to say I'm parked in front of her "driveway".
I'm moving in less than a month and I can't wait.
7. Barking Mad Neighbors
We never had much luck with neighbors, but by golly the last ones were horrible. They had two massive dogs that were completely untrained. They were left outside of the house day and night, and would constantly bark. This set my dog off as well.
One time, one of their dogs escaped by leaping off their patio furniture and over the fence. We had to call animal control because he was sitting at the end of their driveway charging at people who walked down the street for goodness knows how long. The second time the intoxicated neighbor accused my dad of stealing one of their dogs after it escaped and took off down the street.
They eventually left a couple of months ago. The day of their move, my dad was so excited he took a chair and sat in front of our window watching them load their U-haul truck.
8. Man's Best Friend
Several years ago, my wife and I went to North Georgia for a mini-vacation. Our neighbors had agreed to look after and feed our two dogs while we were away.
One day, his wife, who was very pregnant at the time and was off work, came over to go swimming. That's when she made a devastating discovery: Our poor old cocker spaniel—who was very old with poor vision, had fallen in and drowned. She called another neighbor who came to fish our dear dog out of the pool.
When her husband returned home from work, he buried my dog. They didn't want to ruin our vacation and didn't tell us at the time. When we came back, they both came to tell us the news since we could not find one of the dogs. They explained what had happened and why they did not tell us.
Fast forward a couple of years and this time, my neighbors were out of town. A little twister tore out a tree in their yard. When the storm was over, I got my chainsaw out. My wife asked what I was doing. I told her that I was cutting up their tree. She asked why since they are out of town.
I said, “Because he buried my dog".
They were the best neighbors ever. I sure do miss them.
9. Sneaky Proposal
Last year, a teenager from across the street showed up at our door. She asked if we owned any pythons, which we did. She asked if she could see them. So I let her into the house and we went into the snake room. She then asked us for a favor to help her grandma out. When she told me what it was, my jaw dropped.
Apparently, there was some awful woman who kept coming around her grandparents' house and flirting with her grandpa. She would show up at all hours, asking him for favors, calling him incessantly on the phone, etc. They couldn't get her to stop. The grandma and granddaughter thought that they had found her Achilles’s heel—she was terrified of snakes.
So, the next time this woman pulled up in front of their house, they wanted me to grab my biggest snake and to come moseying across the street with him, to scare the woman away.
As much as I would have liked to have helped her, we had to decline. That's a great way to endanger the snake, and cause a lot of other problems too.
10. A Warm Welcome
I moved into my boyfriend's house a month after he had bought it, sometime in February. He was working in New York at the time and was gone all week while I stayed home alone.
It was hard for me to adjust to the drive to work in the morning. Before moving, it took me 15 minutes to get to work, whereas now it takes 45 minutes.
One morning, I woke up to find that it had snowed a lot overnight. We had a long driveway that led to the main road. Since my boyfriend was away in New York and I had no time to shovel, I simply jumped into my Volkswagen Beetle and reversed down the long driveway. Before I realized it was a mistake, it was too late.
I hit a hunk of snow and became stuck halfway between my driveway and the main road. I stopped traffic for the longest two minutes of my life. After what seemed like an eternity of tires spinning, I eventually managed to drive away but was insanely embarrassed.
About a week after getting stuck, we had another snowstorm. At 7 am, I heard a snowblower and was a little confused. I ran out to see some guy plowing our driveway with his snowblower. Turns out, it was the husband, a retired teacher, who lived across the street with his wife. Apparently, he saw me struggling the other time and figured he would come help me out.
It was a very warm welcome.
11. What A Handyman
Twelve years ago, I came home to find the deck to my back door missing. Later, I noticed that my next-door neighbor was burning old lumber in his backyard. He laughed as he told me he hated my old deck. He then left in his truck.
The next day, I came home to a new deck and a note. He got the lumber from a job site where he was tasked with removing the existing decks and walkways that were almost brand new. The deck was twice the size of the one he removed.
12. Good Neighbors Are Better Than Gold
My folks owned the house next door to theirs which they rented out to many people over the years. One couple who rented it were named Dallas and Anna. They lived there with their two boys. Dallas confided in Dad that they were looking to buy a house. Dad offered to sell them the house they were renting. He offered it to them well below market value. He offered to finance it for them far below market rates as well. Dallas was no fool and jumped all over it. When I asked Dad why he offered them such a deal, I'll never forget what he said to me: “Money comes and goes but good neighbors are better than gold”.
A few years later, Mom and Dad returned from vacation and found their front porch, which had been sagging for some time, completely replaced with a brand new one. Dallas had built it while they were away. My folks thanked him and he was a bit embarrassed. Nothing more was ever said.
Dallas and Anna first rented the house in 1970. Dad passed on in 1999. We lost Mom in 2008. Dallas and Anna are still in the old house.
13. Creepy Belief
Two days ago, my neighbor let the air out of my tires. She thinks that I'm using mind control and 'no-touch torment' on her family. She believes that I'm in a cult, and constantly says I'm the most pathetic thing on the face of the Earth.
On Christmas a few years back, she left a brown paper bag with three baby potatoes inside with a note that said, “redruM” on it. I've got enough stories to fill a book.
Mental illness isn't a joke but there is nothing the officers can do until she actually does something to me.
14. Those Dang Kids
Every spring, the neighbor's kids would come outside and scream at the top of their lungs. It sounded like children were being massacred on a daily basis. They would jump all over my porch swing, even though I have repeatedly asked the parents to tell them not to. They would constantly run up and down my porch stairs. I am just waiting for one to get seriously hurt and then get blamed for it.
I have a narrow driveway. Last summer, one of the kids got his bike wedged between my house and my car's passenger door. He scratched the bejeezus out of it.
Basically, they just run wild and the parents either don't care, or are too intoxicated to notice. I don't know when I turned into a crotchety old man at 30, but dang those kids.
15. Helping Hands
Just before last Christmas, I was hit by a car and broke my pelvis and leg. I was seven months pregnant at the time. I didn’t really know my neighbors that well, but I had spoken to them a couple of times before and thought they were nice enough.
Two months of barely being able to do anything went by and finally I delivered my son by C-section. The day after I brought him home, we were hit by an intense blizzard; I think it dropped a foot and a half before dark. We didn’t have anywhere to go, and I was snuggled up with my lovely baby, so we didn’t bother to shovel the driveway. As we were cleaning up after dinner, we heard a weird crunching noise outside. I looked through the window—and just started crying.
Our neighbors were shoveling our driveway. They didn’t have a snowblower, and it was freezing brass monkeys outside. They’d already spent a good amount of time shoveling their own driveways. But my neighbors on both sides teamed up and shoveled us out because they wanted us to be able to get out if we needed to. They shoveled a couple more times each over the course of the week. I never asked, but they did it anyway.
I couldn’t believe that they would go out of their way to help me like that, especially since I barely knew them. We brought them cookies to say thank you.
16. A Dam No More
I work in the agricultural industry and sometimes have to help sort out disputes between neighbors. I have always been shocked as to how two grown adults (or two families) could allow a situation to degrade to the point of brutality.
One time I was contacted because of a dam usage dispute. Basically, the two warring neighbors were unsure of the boundary between their two properties and both wanted to use this one particular dam. Both had in the past fenced it off, and both had cut the other neighbor's fence down.
I identified who the dam belonged to and provided advice accordingly. The neighbor who came off second best wasn't happy with the new-found information. He didn't say anything to me but he did throw a ton of dynamite in the dam, rendering it useless. It also exploded the animals drinking from it at the time of detonation.
17. Overflowing Anxiety
The neighbors upstairs keep overflowing their washing machine which causes flooding in our house. Now I have anxiety whenever I hear water running. Thanks for that.
18. Shocking Execution
My neighbor wanted to pull down a low, lifeless limb from a pine tree next to his house. He tossed the steel cable of a come-along winch over the limb, cinched it up, and attached the lower end to his lawn tractor. He then got on the tractor and started to drive slowly away from the tree, figuring the cable would snap the limb off the trunk. He was about to make a fatal mistake. As the cable pulled taut, it contacted the power line into his house—electrical line, steel cable, tractor—my neighbor was electrocuted on the spot.
It's hard to believe as he was a nice guy—a father of two pre-teens who was always helpful to his neighbors. Without him bringing home a paycheck, his property fell to ruin. The wife and children moved away not long after. Nobody has heard from them since.
19. Just Like In The Movies
We recently moved out of our old home which I grew up in. It was a beautiful starter home that had countless renovations done on it over the multiple years of our residence. As sad as it was to sell it, we were just as excited to see how it would do on the market and to build our new house.
The most important perk was our neighbors. They were a wonderful family who were nothing but kind and gracious. We had dinners together, the kids were lovely, and the family just reminded me of those perfect American neighbors you see in movies. They were truly the best.
A few months after moving out of state, we put our house up for sale remotely. To no surprise, within a day, we had an offer. Then all of a sudden, we got a disturbing call from our realtor: “There are about a dozen perished birds in your backyard that suddenly appeared overnight”.
Our buyer “just randomly” got cold feet and pulled out the next day. Coincidence? I don’t think so. A few hours after losing the sale, our neighbor texted us to let us know that they had several deceased birds in their backyard and since they knew our house was on sale, they took a look in ours and found about 20 carcasses, which they removed.
The house was sold again the very next day and everything went smoothly this time.
I honestly cannot believe their foresight or their general caring attitude. It’s refreshing to see such nice people like that. I just hope that our new neighbors are half as good as they are.
20. Bad Stakes
I bought a house that had to be surveyed because the neighborhood had some issues due to a surveyor’s mistake in laying out the original plot plan. That's when I noticed that one of the surveying stakes had fresh dirt on it and a few flowers around its base. That wasn't going to work on me.
Yep, my neighbor had moved the stakes to add to his property. He somehow thought that planting flowers around the stakes in their new location would be taken as a nice, neighborly touch.
Well, I moved the stakes back to their proper location, and transplanted the flowers to another place on my property. I treated them as a housewarming gift from my would-be thief of a neighbor.
21. Is This A Joke?
This happened around 10 years ago. We received a phone call from the precinct telling us that our neighbor had filed a complaint. The complaint was that there was a very large pile of dirt and debris on our lawn in the backyard and that it was obstructing our neighbor's view out of their kitchen window.
Now here's the best part—my family hadn't even moved in yet. We were in the middle of having the house built. It was a new subdivision.
The worst part was that we had a week to have it removed, otherwise we'd be fined. There actually is a bylaw against keeping piles of dirt on your lawn.
22. You're Getting On My Nerves
We lived on the second floor in our last apartment. A family who lived on the fourth floor had a kid who was about 3 years old. Every morning between 6 and 8 am, they'd walk up the staircase after having been out, and most of the time, the kid would start crying—loudly.
What was the parents' solution for this? Leave the crying kid in the staircase on its own for 15 minutes! Our apartment doors carried sound through them very well, so it was basically like having a screaming 3-year-old in your hallway every morning.
Let's just say that it got on my nerves rather quickly. So what did I do? Nothing of course—I'm a Swede!
23. Startling Discovery
My mom's neighbor is a lovely lady with adorable kids who play with my nephews and nieces on a regular basis. She’s been my mom's neighbor for about 7-8 years.
Very recently, many cars parked in my mom's neighborhood were keyed on multiple occasions. Some cars were worth in excess of $50,000 and others a lot cheaper. The officers were called a number of times but nothing was ever done.
My sister, who has a very expensive car, planned to leave it at our mom's while she and the family went away on vacation. Being the techie that I am, I decided to put up a CCTV camera outside of my mom's house overlooking the road outside. The camera was able to easily see my sister's car and many of the other cars parked on the road.
A few days went by before one of the neighbors complained that her car had been keyed. This was my opportunity to check the CCTV. I was 100% sure that they were vandalized by the neighborhood kids. I wasn't prepared for what I was about to find.
To my absolute shock and amazement, the culprit turned out to be my mom's lovely neighbor!
At exactly 3 am, she walked up to the car in question, put her hoodie over her head and proceeded to scratch the car.
She’s a single mom and now I’m conflicted as to what to do with the information.
On the one hand, there are these innocent people with hundreds of dollars worth of damage to their car and then there’s this mother who is a true Jekyll and Hyde!
I moved my sister's car and am considering letting the neighbors know who the culprit is who damaged their cars.
24. The Most Heartless Neighbors—Ever
When I was 10 years old, I used to pick up our neighbors' two daughters who were 5 and 6 years old and walk them to school. This was in the 70s.
These neighbors also had three black labs that were used as hunting dogs. I would often see the dad training them on the street in front of our houses using deceased birds. I still have visions of bloody bird parts laying in the snow ingrained in my head—just nasty.
These dogs were kept outside 24/7, regardless of the temperature. And they would bark—and bark—and bark. After being woken up at 6 am on several occasions, my dad finally asked the neighbor to do something to keep his dogs from waking up the neighborhood. But nothing was done and the dogs continued to bark—continuously.
My dad ended up calling the city to complain. After the bylaw officers paid them a visit, they knew it was because of my dad since he was the only one who complained.
At the time, I was just a kid and didn't know anything about adult business, nor should I have. So the following Monday morning, I went to pick up the girls as usual and the mother screamed at me. She said that I wasn’t going to be walking the girls ever again and to never step foot on their property. I ran home in tears.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the worst part. The neighbors never brought the dogs inside but fearing further complaints about the barking and risking a hefty fine, they ultimately removed the voice boxes from all three dogs. Those poor animals. I still shake my head thinking about it.
25. Innocent Disposal
I was a terrible neighbor and still feel pretty bad about what I did.
When I was about 6 years old, whenever it rained where I lived, we would get a lot of snails—I mean buckets full of them. It was a ritual of my mother's to go out afterward to collect them all and 'dispose' of them 'humanely' with a brick.
Being a child, I absolutely loved snails and felt terrible for the fate of those little guys. So I would go out and grab as many as I could in order to 'save' them. I'd then throw them over the fence into my neighbor's yard where they could go live happily ever after.
It was only much later that I discovered what my actions had done. I overheard the neighbor tell my mom that almost all her roses had been destroyed by snails. The worst part was that the roses belonged to her late husband so they held a lot of sentimental value.
After that revelation, the snails got 'released' to the house behind us who my mom didn't like so no one was none the wiser.
26. What A Sight To Behold
We live near a protected area for endangered animals. One of the animals that the sanctuary protects is the bald eagle. Since we live next to a field, it's pretty common for an eagle to sit on our porch and disembowel its rabbit for dinner.
We have a neighbor that keeps calling 9-1-1 on us because the bird is on our property and claims it is distressing his innocent children. He treats us like we're the ones murdering fluffy bunnies for our own amusement.
27. Time To Move
I lived in a tiny house that was separated only by a thin driveway. Every day at 3 am, my neighbor would get picked up for work—I think she was a nurse—by a car that HONKED the horn. It was just one honk, but it was totally unnecessary. Not to mention, the driveway was right next to my bedroom.
I went and asked my neighbor if this person could knock on their door or call instead of honking the horn. Incredibly, she started complaining about my tree hanging over the driveway.
In the end, they cut half the branches off my tree, which were hanging over their property, but the honking continued. I moved.
28. Smashing Bad Time
I lived in a house that had been split into two apartments. The woman who lived next door was a junkie. Normally, she kept to herself and didn't bother me except to bum a roll-up or two every few days.
One day she needed a smoke, but I was down to my last pack, and payday wasn't for another three days, so I said no. She must have really needed a smoke, because it was like a rage switch had been turned on in her head.
I left and went back into my apartment to get away from her screaming at me. When she went back into her apartment I heard all this pounding on the walls. It turned out she had grabbed a hammer and was smashing her way through the walls to my apartment.
I immediately called her boyfriend, who was basically a decent dude. He rushed home and calmed her down. By the time she had stopped smashing the wall, the hole was the size of a basketball. Luckily for me, they were already being evicted, so I didn't have to worry about her anymore.
29. Wimpy Excuse
I was having a lively conversation with my brother who lives in Hawaii (I live in upstate New York) and was looking admiringly out my window at the lilies that I’d just planted that spring. They were just about to bloom into beautiful flowers.
Suddenly, from out of nowhere, my new neighbor appeared with clippers and cut all my flowers down. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I dropped the phone, ran out of the house and demanded to know why he did that.
“I thought they were weeds”, he said.
“Well, they aren’t weeds!!! They were lilies and they were just about to bloom! Why would you come over into a neighbor’s yard and cut down their flowers”? I screamed.
“I didn’t know where the property line was”, he replied.
“Wouldn’t that be a reason to NOT do that”? I yelled.
I pointed out that the property line was one foot away from his garage, a detached building that paralleled my backyard. I had very carefully planted my lilies about three feet away from that line. If he’d asked, I would have told him where the line was.
He grumbled a faint “sorry” and walked away. I went back to my phone conversation, really shaken up. Then I heard my mailbox being opened. I’d already collected the mail.
When I went out to check on it, I found a $20 bill in the box. No note or anything. It must have been what my new neighbor thought my flowers were worth.
30. Pitiful Plan
It was summertime, sometime in the late 80s. My mom was out grocery shopping and I was left at home with my dad. The mosquitoes had been particularly annoying that year and my ingenious father decided that he was going to destroy them all.
I remember my dad coming in and telling me to stay in the house. He said, “Those skeeters aren’t going to bite you anymore”! as he walked outside and shut the door. I looked out the window and saw him pull his truck into our side yard. Then I heard him revving the engine quite obnoxiously.
The next thing I knew, our entire yard and the city block were covered in tons of white smoke. My dad had poured Marvel Mystery Oil in his truck, I think he said the carburetor but I could be wrong, and revved the engine, producing the thick white smoke that blanketed our neighborhood.
At this point, I heard screaming. Lots of curse words being thrown at my dad by the neighbors before the four fire engines arrived.
My poor mom had no idea what was going on. On her way back from the grocery store, she saw the thick smoke as she crossed over the viaduct to cross the railroad tracks. The smoke was coming from the general direction of our house. She raced home, only to be stopped by the fire department and officers who had now shown up.
I was finally greeted by her bursting through our front door to see that I was okay as she continued to cry in relief while screaming profanities at my dad.
The person I heard screaming first was from our next-door neighbor, Imogene. It had just rained earlier so she decided to leave all of her windows open to get some fresh air.
Let’s just say that we weren’t invited to any neighborhood BBQs that year...
31. We Get The Message
We live at the top of a wooded hill along with three other neighbors. Our backyards all border each other’s through the woods, which prevents us from looking into each other's houses. None of us have fences.
One fine day, my husband and I were sitting on our back porch, when we noticed a weird splotch of orange amidst all the greens, browns, and blues. On closer inspection, it appeared that one of our neighbors had put up KEEP OUT signs on a couple of trees. We’d never met these neighbors before, as they lived directly behind us, and we generally don’t go traipsing around a bunch of trees and undergrowth to try to get to people’s back doors. Our other neighbors were all friendly.
We noticed this every time we hung out on our porch, which was every evening. Every time, we would see the signs yelling at us to KEEP OUT of their personal sanctuary. At first, we tried to ignore it, but man, that orange splotch could not be denied. Instead, it kept reminding us that we have a neighbor—whom we don’t know, but have somehow offended enough that they felt the need to desecrate the awesome, peaceful haven at the top of our little hill.
One day as we were driving around, we decided to take a quick detour and stop by this neighbor’s house. We wanted to knock on their door to see if we could make peace over whatever we did that was so terrible.
We pulled up to their house, and it was a sight to behold. There was absolutely no mistaking it was their house because there were hundreds of KEEP OUT signs all over their yard and property. They were EVERYWHERE—like little square black and orange warriors standing in block formations on their lawn. They were tacked to their front porch, marching up along the edges of their driveway. There must have been at least 500 of the obnoxious little things, making it absolutely, 100% clear that no one, and I mean absolutely NO ONE, was welcome on their little patch of land.
My husband and I paused, looked at each other, and booked it out of there.
Eventually, we decided that the two signs they had set up for us had to go. I suppose the fact that they only felt they needed a measly two signs to tell us to keep out meant that we were probably okay as neighbors.
32. Plant Crazy
We used to live in a property with two units. We lived in the back for 4-5 years before the new front unit neighbors—a couple in their 60s or 70s moved in.
A few weeks in, she complained about a small bit in our front yard, which was not a shared area. It consisted of a tree and three or four small bushes. She wanted us to plant something nicer in OUR private area which was only 2m x 1m big. Keep in mind that we were in the back so no one from the street could see it anyways.
My mom told her that she didn't have the time to do that. So she suggested that we hire her gardener to take care of our area. My mom told her that we simply didn't have that kind of money to spend.
The next thing you know, she sent us her grandson who was in his late 20s, to try and convince us to change our plants to what she wanted. She hinted we should do it because he was a professional private detective and he was really good at his job. What a crazy plant lady.
33. Manic Scissorhands
I looked out of my window to see my neighbor leaning over my 6-foot high fence, stretching right into my yard to saw some of the main branches off my tree. My tree had never extended over the fence and her limb-hacking destroyed it.
A few months later, she cut one of the wires attached to our boundary fence that was holding up a shade cloth in my backyard. I called 9-1-1 on her.
A couple of weeks later, all the plants along our boundary fence mysteriously perished, along with serious damage to some of my trees—and I still have no idea what her problem was!
34. Glorious Comeback
My grandmother's next-door neighbor planted a mulberry tree when she was a newlywed. When I was a kid, the tree grew so big that it hung over my grandmother's driveway. The bird turds were so bad, they would stain the paint jobs on any of the cars that were parked nearby.
City ordinance said that my grandmother couldn't cut the branches down herself because the tree roots were on someone else's property. So she hatched the craziest revenge plot I've ever seen.
When my grandmother retired, she used the huge bonus from the company to purchase the lot on the OTHER side of this neighbor's. She lined both sides of his yard with mulberry trees that she patiently groomed and bent so that they'd hang over his yard.
He got really enraged about it and cut off the branches of the trees. So she called the city and sued him for destruction of her property. He was forced to reimburse her for all the trees. It was glorious.
35. Stellar Dad
When we first moved into our house, we had neighbors on all three sides, but no fences. My dad made a deal with all three neighbors to split half the fence that touched both properties. The people on the right split their half, as did the people behind us. The couple on the right, however—they reneged, and said they didn't care if they had a fence or not; they had no kids, and would not pay. So my dad, being the stellar guy that he is, still had the fence put up—a foot back on our property line.
Years pass, and that couple now has kids. Now they want a fence. So they asked if they could simply attach one to the one my dad built years earlier. My dad said, “Nope, not until you pay for your half, at the price it would cost now”,—which, being years later, is substantially more.
They built most of a fence, and planted a large bush in the extra foot. My dad uprooted it. They planted another one and my dad uprooted it again.
Eventually, they paid. I love my Dad.
36. Appalling Incident
Our neighbor has a really yappy dog named Jimmy, that drives us crazy. When the neighbor asked if we would cut down a little tree in our yard that was casting a shadow on her garden, my husband resolved that we would cut it down only when Jimmy shut up. That is—never.
A couple weeks later, we found the tree cut down. The maniac must have snuck into our yard in the middle of the night and cut it down. I can't stand that lady.
37. Sweet Revenge
I used to have a neighbor who put their extra bags of garbage out next to mine. This might not seem like such a big deal, but it was nearly every week that this happened. Our municipality had a two-bag limit. If you had extra bags, you had to put a sticker on them which one could purchase for a mere twenty-five cents or they would not be picked up.
So, every week, after putting my two cans out the night before, I'd find the extra bags of someone else's garbage left beside mine.
After a while, the couple of extra bags each week added up. So, determined to find out who the guilty party was, I put on my rubber gloves, opened the mystery bags, and sifted through them, trying to find incriminating evidence. It was very frustrating because every week, there were no clues left behind. I did find out that the culprits had kids, because there were always dirty diapers. I also knew that they were disgusting, lazy jerks, because every bag was full of styrofoam plates and plastic cutlery, which they apparently found more convenient than washing dishes—hence their production of surplus waste every week.
This went on for a ridiculously long time. I would sift through their bags, be disappointed, re-bag their garbage, and then grudgingly store the extra garbage in my garage. The only other option was to pay for surplus stickers to take them away. Fortunately, we didn't have a car, so there was a lot of space in the garage.
Then one fine August day, it happened! A bill! A bill was in their garbage! A bill with an address on it! Finally, I knew the household which was responsible for all the extra garbage. The cheapskates that could not find it in their budget to affix the mere twenty-five cent stickers for their surplus waste, and instead sneakily put their garbage out in their neighbors' yards—lived three doors down, and across the alley.
Finally, it was time to get back at them. I waited for their van to leave before going over to their gate. I opened it, and placed all their garbage carefully back on their driveway. Since fair is fair, and I was already obliged to handle their garbage and re-bag them. So I emptied them all out and took my bags back, leaving their six months' worth of extra garbage in a heap on their driveway.
I don't think they ever worked out who had had their revenge on them, since it was pretty clear that they were leaving extra bags for everyone who shared an alley with them. But that was the end of their unlawful dumping.
It does give me some satisfaction to know that, even if I had to handle and re-bag their garbage when it was fresh, they had to re-bag it after it had been fermenting for months in my non-climate-controlled garage. Pricks.
38. Screwball Madwoman
A neighbor who lived behind my house would scream at her kids daily to the point our kids would be afraid to play in the backyard.
By "scream," I mean shouting vile things that shouldn't be repeated, especially to a kid who looked like he was just 8 or 9 years old.
My ex even tried to help once when one of her kids was too afraid to come down a three-story-tall tree of hers that hung over our fence. He was terrified and wouldn't climb down—I wonder why? This banshee was screaming all sorts of bile at him to get down. My ex calmly said to the boy, "Please climb down, sweetie. You might fall", to try and convince him. The woman then turned to him and shrieked, "What the heck do you think you're doing? Don't you frickin talk to my kids"!
I made the mistake of calling the officers on her once while she was mistreating several people. She then came after me physically.
39. Ridiculous Act
When I was growing up, we lived in a house with a driveway that we shared with our neighbor. The two houses were originally built by two brothers so I guess sharing the driveway worked for them.
By the time we moved in, those brothers were long gone. We ended up with fantastic neighbors—an Italian family who were always rather loud and incredibly generous and very fun to be around. My family was rather reserved so it was fun to become close to a family that was so very different from ours. We grew quite close.
It was sad the day our neighbors moved out. The wife came over and hugged my mom. She cried and apologized over and over again for having to leave. I was young and didn’t understand then what was wrong but eventually. I learned the truth the hard way.
They had sold their house to a really awful individual. We called her “Clarkie'' and she seemed like she was about 100 years old to my younger self. She smoked like a chimney and wore short shorts and high heels to do her yard work. She did have beautiful little garden beds but I have way too many memories of her mowing her grass in those shorts and heels with a dart hanging out of the corner of her mouth.
She just could not deal with this shared driveway arrangement and gave my parents all kinds of trouble for it. She fought over every little thing—things that our old neighbors had just assumed we would do together to care for the driveway such as shoveling it in the winter and laying down new gravel every few years.
Her biggest beef was with my parents navigating their cars in and out of “her side” of the driveway. It was, in fact, impossible for us to back our cars out of the driveway without going on to “her side” just as it was impossible for her to not go on to “our side” to get in and out. Before she moved in, there was never any talk of “our side” or “their side”. It had always just been “the driveway” which all the adults used in a reasonable manner.
She took this to insane lengths. In order to preserve her sense of ownership on “her side” of the driveway, she used to set things out on the driveway. Her favorite booby trap was stacking a big flower pot on top of a cement block, right behind where my dad needed to put his car in order to back out. Well, try as my dad might, he wasn’t always able to navigate out of the driveway without hitting her stupid pot. One day, he knocked it clean off the cement block and it broke.
The next day was weird. My mom was on the phone with all their friends trying to find some place for my sister and I to go for a while. When she couldn't find anywhere for us to go at such late notice, they decided my dad would just go out for a while instead. It was all very confusing until an officer showed up at our front door to serve an arrest warrant for my dad (who conveniently wasn’t there—not sure how they figured out it was coming). This crazy woman had charged him with “malicious destruction of property” for backing over her flipping flower pot.
After that, she seemed to make a hobby out of taking my dad to small claims court over every little thing. I have no idea how many times the poor man had to go to court to fight her ridiculous claims. Fortunately, it never came to anything. I think the officers thought the whole thing was as ridiculous as we did.
40. Disgusting Betrayal
When my husband and I moved here, we were warned about this one neighbor in particular. He was known as the neighborhood idiot. Even though this was the universal consensus, I never decide how I feel about someone based on the opinion of others.
It took a few years for our friendship to develop. My husband began regularly speaking with this neighbor and his wife began inviting me to their home for lunch and a movie. She was a sweet dear woman.
We regularly did things to help each other out. Whatever was needed, we were there for each other. It was really nice to have a neighbor like that.
Then he began coming over when my husband wasn't home. I didn't think anything of this. One day he called and asked me to meet him in his driveway. He said he wanted to talk with me face-to-face. My husband wasn't home and I didn't think anything was amiss, so I complied. I never thought he'd commit such a betrayal.
I can't recall now what the conversation revolved around but he suddenly lunged forward and grabbed me and said, “Kiss me”.
I pushed him away and said no. I backed away from him and ran into my house. I was frantic when I called my husband. I was screaming so loudly into the phone and telling him what had happened that everyone standing around him heard what I said.
When he came home, we talked at length about it. His instinct was to go to our neighbor's home and beat the stuffing out of him. I had to talk my husband out of this with reason. I told him that if he went and beat him, he'd likely have my husband behind bars. Then who would be here to protect me? No one. After pushing past the feelings of betrayal and wrongdoing, we agreed that the best way to handle this was to simply cut off all contact with them.
We had not spoken to them since that day. I lost my friends. It was painful but we still live in the same neighborhood. We decided not to allow this to drive us away from the home we love.
Since then, that neighbor has taken many cheap shots. He called Animal Control and claimed we kept one of our dogs outside with no food or water. It was investigated and immediately dropped. Our dogs are our four-legged children. We spoil them. He sent registered No Trespassing letters. My husband and I just shared a laugh and went on with our lives. Sometimes the best response is silence.
41. Cold-Hearted Scoundrels
When I was 15 years old, my family's house burned to the ground. Our awful neighbors sat in lawn chairs pointing and laughing as we watched our whole lives burn down. I'll never ever forget as long as I live, the smug smirk on the dad's face as he saw me and my little brothers crying over the loss of everything we knew.
42. Inconsiderate Jerk
We had 18 inches of snow on the ground. I spent two hours shoveling the driveway without a plow, snow blower, or any other such labor-saving device. I eventually left for work, 10 minutes late and was completely exhausted.
Less than an hour later, my wife, who was seven months pregnant, called to tell me that we'd been plowed in and she couldn't get to her doctor's appointment. I took my lunch break at 9 am to go home to shovel her out.
Apparently, our neighbor who drives a truck with a plow, had pushed the snow off his driveway and straight across the road into ours. It formed a three-foot wall of ice and snow, which took me another hour to dig out by hand. I wish they would just move already!
43. Inconceivable Complaints
When my parent's house burned down, the neighbors complained of the smoke and the noise the fire trucks made.
44. Meddling Tittle-Tattlers
My neighbors like to sit in the middle of our cul-de-sac and gossip about other neighbors. They stare at everyone who comes home and even have security cameras pointed at the cul-de-sac.
My mom has heard them say that they know everyone's daily routine. Nosy little scoundrels.
45. Beyond Generous
We moved to rural northern Maine about six months ago. The home we moved into was in worse shape than we were originally led to believe. We had a lot of difficulty coming to grips with the size of the project and the money it would take to repair everything. It was also next to impossible to find any to hire to help out. Once our new neighbors caught wind of our plight, the help came pouring in.
Some of the things we were given included boxes of food, home-cooked goodies, a riding mower, a key to someone's house to use as needed, hand-knit beanies, tools whenever we needed them, a snow blower, a generator, we were also offered free childcare, and the list goes on.
Our neighbors have been so incredibly loving, generous, and helpful. They are a big reason we didn't simply head back to Denver with our tails between our legs.
After talking to others, it sounds like this is just how people are up here and I am so grateful to be a part of it. I love being part of a community and giving to each other whenever we can. Denver was not like this at all—we hardly even talked to our neighbors.
46. Stinking Protest
My parents have a small inground pool in the backyard. This one neighbor makes a big stink about how the pool—which is properly maintained with chlorine and all, is attracting mosquitos and West Nile. The guy even complained to the city council about it. We are still getting the pool filled in anyway though.
47. Careless Scoundrel
My neighbor's chihuahua would constantly get out of their fence and run around everywhere. I would catch it and return it to their yard because it would wander into traffic. The owner didn't seem to care much about it. They eventually paid a terrible price for it.
After a few years of this, I was taking my daughters on a walk one day and the dog darted out in front of a car and was instantly crushed. My daughters witnessed this and were pretty shaken up.
The idiot got a new chihuahua the NEXT DAY! It shouldn't be like a broken toaster oven you just replace.
He never fixed the fence and now the replacement dog runs out into traffic too.
48. Karma Is A Stinker
My parents' neighbor complained about some hedges—a raspberry and blueberry bush—that were supposedly growing onto his property. He made some vague threats, but rather than deal with him my parents just chopped the bushes down. It was a sad day for all the kids on the street who loved eating the berries in the summer. Oh well, what's done was done and we all moved on.
Well, a few years later, this guy decided to make some additions to his house. What a jerk. He brought the house right up to the property line. He skipped a bunch of early inspections, which was unlawful, and continued building away.
After all the framing was completed, the first inspector said, "Uhm you know you are six feet over the property line right"?
Oopsies! He now had to beg my parents to let him keep going or else he would lose thousands of dollars.
"Can I please buy that piece of your land? Can we work something out"? he pleaded.
Finally, my dad's chance had arrived. He said, "Remember when you made me cut down those berry bushes the kids loved because it bothered you? Remember all the times you called 9-1-1 on me or harassed my children? We remember all of it well! So you're gonna have to eat the loss. Sorry".
Yeah—karma is a stinker. In the end, he patched up the house enough to sell it and moved.
49. Disappearing Act
When I was growing up, there was a woman who lived down the street from us who had a TON of cats. She gave us the creepiest vibes.
Incidentally, we had an outdoor cat who started disappearing for days at a time. We just assumed he was doing his thing since he always came back healthy and looked fine.
One day, the cat lady showed up to our house and asked to speak to my mother. She then asserted that our cat harmed one of hers and that we were going to have to pay the vet bill. Then she told us the REST of the story.
She then went on to tell us that the reason our cat hurt hers was that she had been taking our cat into her house for days at a time and kept him there against his will. So THAT'S where our cat had been going for days at a time.
My mom told her that we were not responsible and to stop taking our cat. She was FURIOUS and told us that she was going to take us to court over the vet bills.
Two weeks later, our cat disappeared, and she moved away. This was NOT a coincidence.
50. You're Busted
I had a neighbor whose teenage children were regularly left unattended for several days, and would throw raunchy parties. After the parties, they would toss their litter, including many booze bottles, and on one occasion even a mattress, over the fence into the nature park.
I politely asked the parents repeatedly to clean up the mess. They blatantly refused and said that I was lying and the litter was not theirs, nor could it belong to their well-behaved offspring who never drank or partied.
So I began to throw the litter back over the fence and into their yard. The mom came out and cursed and yelled at me, threatening to call the law enforcement officers. That threat was incredulous, but I couldn't believe when she actually did call the officers. Can you guess what happened next?
Needless to say, I wasn’t the one they busted when they arrived.
Effective immediately, the mom lost custody of her sweet, well-behaved darlings. They ended up having to move in with their mean, judgmental dad who, like me, believed that their innocent darlings required actual supervision.
Sources: 1,
