A person’s home is their castle—a refuge to relax, unwind, and enjoy. But sometimes, any semblance of a sanctuary is completely destroyed by a troublesome neighbor. Whether they are loud slobs who disturb the peace or whiners who complain about every little thing, bad neighbors can turn one’s humble haven into a house of horrors. These shocking stories will make anyone realize that a good neighbor is indeed a priceless treasure.
1. Rear Window
I used to have neighbors who were, for lack of a better word, trash. They were clearly addicts and did not live well. My family was always cordial with them because we never had any issues with them despite how they were, but my parents always told me to be wary. Plus, they had a couple of young kids who were good and one my age who I hung out with sometimes.
Once, I was about to walk into my house with my friend. Their young son, who was my age, was outside his house. He started with some general chit-chat—nothing out of the ordinary—yet. But as we were walking into the house, he kept trying to find ways to keep us outside, as if he was stalling. Eventually, we went into my house.
We immediately heard a noise coming from the back room. When we rushed in, our jaws dropped to the floor. We stepped in to find my neighbor with one leg in my window, clearly climbing through. My friend and I just stopped and stared at him as he stared back, looking like a deer in headlights. We had absolutely no idea what to do or how to react. We were young kids, and this was a grown man who I had caught breaking into my house.
He just awkwardly smiled and said he was just making sure the window was closed. As he did, we heard his son run around the back and warn him that we were home. He just told his son that he knew and that we were right there and he was talking to us. He then nonchalantly said bye and climbed back out the window, leaving my friend and me to wonder what had just happened.
2. The Sovereign Psycho
When I was in high school, our across-the-street neighbor declared himself a member of the Montana militia even though we didn’t live in Montana or anywhere near it. He decided that paying taxes and car registration fees were unnecessary since he was now a sovereign nation unto himself. He knew that eventually, the government would be coming to claim his properties, so he made sure to prepare.
His plan was absolutely bonkers—he removed the fence to his backyard, lined up his three cars side-by-side, and replaced the fence. He then welded all three cars together via a couple of long bars across their bases and left his yard hose on for days, possibly weeks. When they finally came to take his cars away, they removed the fence and tried dragging the first car out.
The one car carried the other two along, which pulled them all deep into the mud. They had to get several trucks and a welder out to take care of the matter.
3. All Bark, No Right
My neighbor’s dog barked nonstop. He was likely just acting out because it was never walked or shown any affection from its owners. He was often left in their empty backyard for long stretches, usually all day. I would wake up many mornings to barking, as early as 5 am. When I would walk out into my backyard, the dog would bark the entire time. The sound is deafening.
Not only was their dog a problem, but so were they. Once, they blocked our driveway by accident, so we had to ask them to move their car. For the following days, their car's bumper was about one inch from our driveway, and they parked so tight against the mailboxes they likely had to crawl out the other side. Then they continued to block our driveway and mailbox on purpose. We decided enough was enough.
We notified the Homeowner’s Association and they had to intervene multiple times because we stopped getting mail. The post office confirmed that they had to hold our mail, as they could not deliver it. Not only did they block our mailbox, but they would also block our driveway on trash day. They had 50 feet of curb space but instead put their cans right in front of my mailbox or driveway, which was also completely out of their way.
4. Long Term Losers
I lived across the street from my neighbors for 20 years. They were the worst people I knew. They would work on their lawn at 5 am on a Saturday but would complain if I would be playing basketball in my driveway in the afternoon. They also complained that I would park too close to their driveway, even though I would be 15 feet away from the edge of their drive on my side of the street.
But that's not even the worst thing they did—they also liked calling the authorities for every little thing, from lighting fireworks on the Fourth of July to our dog being outside for more than 10 minutes. The only time they didn’t call the authorities was when our house was getting robbed!
5. Beasts Of Burden
Every spring, my neighbor’s kids would become an issue. They would constantly scream at the top of their lungs, and it always sounded like one of them was getting hurt. They would jump all over my porch swing, even though I had repeatedly asked the parents to tell them not to. They would also run up and down the stairs of my porch constantly.
Those were all bad enough, but one summer, they really ticked me off. One of the kids got his bike wedged between my house and my car’s passenger door, completely scratching it. They would just run wild, and the parents didn’t care or were too intoxicated to notice. I don’t know when I turned into a crotchety old man at thirty years old, but those kids were the worst.
6. I Lived Next Door To Animal House
A bunch of college kids was renting a house next to mine. Every single weekend for three months straight, they threw parties and would be extremely loud until about 3 am. However, that’s wasn’t the worst of it. Whenever the parties ended, all those intoxicated kids would get into their cars and drive home, leaving their mess behind. Every single neighbor, including myself, has had windows shattered, cars dented, or side panels destroyed because of them.
There was not a single note left or insurance info exchanged. In three months alone, we had eight hit-and-runs.
7. She Was Loopy
My neighbor was a single mom with a teenage daughter. For the first few years, we more or less got along. I helped her move furniture in, listened to her complain about her work, and ignored the smoke that billowed off the adjacent back deck. I don't know what happened, but one day, she just absolutely lost it. Suddenly, everyone was out to get her, myself included, and she began to call the authorities for everything.
Once, she called them because the garbagemen put my trash can too close to her driveway after emptying it. Usually, she would call them when I watched TV at 9 pm because she thought any noise coming from my house was a pointed attempt to keep her from sleeping. However, the craziest moment was when I was having an argument during the summer. I had some windows open, and she called the authorities.
She told them that I had been recording an argument that she had with her daughter and was playing it back on loop to torment her.
8. We Had Our Fill
My neighbor had absolutely no sense of time. Once, we had to talk to him about not using power tools or splitting wood at 3 in the morning. Not only did he not stop, but he also decided to take his antics to the next level. He got a smaller trash can to pay less to the city but then he would put all his extra trash into our bin so that ours would overfill and we would have to pay extra.
9. Boomerang Brat
I lived in a room with a private bathroom that was off of my landlady’s house. I was rarely home other than to sleep, so generally, little annoyances wouldn’t bother me. However, her 19-year-old daughter was terrible. She was taking time off from college and living back home. She would hang out in the room directly next to mine and scream full volume at her mother pretty much every day.
They weren’t normal arguments either. Her mother was always very calm and reasonable, while this girl would throw child-like tantrums because she didn’t like what her mother was making for dinner or because her mother wasn’t paying enough attention to her. It was the kind of stuff toddlers complained about. Usually, I would just tune it out, but I worked an overnight shift on weekends and needed to catch up on sleep during the day.
Unfortunately for me, she had the weekends off, and it seemed like that was her favorite time to scream for hours on end. And the cherry to top it all off? This girl also fancied herself a singer and was trying to get herself into a performance art program at some college. She would practice for her auditions in the room right next to mine. Her voice sounded like a dying cat. The headache just from listening to her in the next room never seemed to go away.
10. Invasion Of Privacy
My roommate and I had an elderly couple in their mid-70s who lived directly below us. They were sandwiched between our apartment and the one below them. They would stay in all day, every day, and only went out at the crack of dawn for a walk or a couple of times a week to shop. Even though they lived underneath two people, they expected total and utter silence at all times.
They complained when we walked around. After the first time, we made a pointed effort to be more light-footed by removing our shoes, etc. We had carpets, but they still complained that we walked around too much. They also complained that they could hear us go to the toilet. One time, I was lying in bed, without any music, surfing the web, and I got up to use the washroom.
As soon as I shut the door, I heard my front door open and a chill ran up my spine. Thinking it was my roommate, I shouted out, "Yo!" However, I heard a strange voice in return. I stepped out of the bathroom, and there was my downstairs neighbor. He had let himself in and was complaining, saying, “All I can hear is banging all day!" Meanwhile, I had been in bed for the last few hours.
I had to drive him out amid his protests of, "But your door was unlocked," as if that was an invitation to come in.
11. He Left Me Peeved
When I was a kid, we had a neighbor we just called "Freak." One time, he was upset that the water from washing our cars was going downhill into his driveway. His next move had us all gagging—he decided to walk over with a five-gallon bucket of his own mess that he had been saving and he poured it all over my mom’s flowers. He was an odd one, to say the least.
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12. Our Problems Just Multiplied
My neighbor got a dog that had some severe anxiety issues. Not only that, but he was not often around, so the dog just barked and barked. As a result, my dog would get all riled up and anxious. My dad went next door to give him a piece of his mind, but the guy was just genuinely at a loss at what to do. The guy thought it'd be a good idea to give his dog a companion, so he got another dog a couple of months later.
Worst. Decision. Ever. He ended up with two dogs that would not stop barking. What made it even worse was that the other dog he got was a female and he didn’t bother to get either of the dogs fixed. The noise more than doubled from that moment on.
13. I Tried To Flush My Troubles Away
I lived in a pretty nice apartment, but there was one big downside—I shared a toilet with another person on the same floor. To get to it, you had to leave the apartment and enter the attic that also had storage units. The neighbor I shared the toilet with was a senile geezer who would never flush and seldom closed the door.
Pretty much everyone in the building had, at one time or another, walked in and seen him sitting on the throne, me more than most. He would even go on the floor sometimes. I have no idea how he would do it, but occasionally I would walk in and find his mess EVERYWHERE—on the toilet ring, on the floor, on the walls, everywhere. One time, he let it rain on the corridor outside our apartments and it smelled something unholy.
I almost threw up right there.
14. Caught On Tape
My old neighbors were lushes and they held nightly gatherings for other boozers. They kept going #1 on my fence and into my yard. Every time I told them to stop, 10 of them would show up in my yard, threatening me with fire and destruction. Not only that, but I'm pretty sure one of them had my cat by its tail while swinging it over his head.
I had to pay $2,000 to get its spine reattached and the tail cut off. That was the final straw. I began filming everything in plain sight and told them I was filming. Eventually, they broke under pressure and went ballistic, causing $10,000 damages in less than five minutes. They got a huge bill, and I had enough evidence to get one of them fired and two of their kids removed, so I did.
15. It Was Time To Face The Music
In the apartment to my left was a guy studying music at university. He played the guitar and he was amazing. Above me was a 14-year-old kid who played the most beautiful piano every afternoon at 4 pm. Then, there was my other neighbor. He was a 35-year-old, scooter-riding, unemployed dealer. He knew one Nirvana riff, which he repeatedly played from 3 am until 5 am and never got it right.
To make ends meet, he sublet his windowless one-car garage to a woman who seemed to have a different guy over every night. Some days, she would leave the garage door open, and we could see the squalor she lived in. Then, the lady at the front apartment and I both had babies. I decided that was the perfect opportunity to get my revenge.
I put the crib against the wall I shared with the scooter-rider so that he could be sandwiched between two screaming newborns. It felt great.
16. I Couldn’t Catch A Break
I lived across the street from a duplex that housed a bunch of awful people. The first year I lived there wasn't too bad. My one neighbor was a reclusive guy, and the other was a woman with three kids. The only problem was that the woman wouldn't watch her kids at all. They would be playing on the road all the time, and during the summer, they were up until midnight every night.
The worst part was none of the kids were over 10 years old. One of them continually bounced on a pogo stick, and I would hear that annoying sound until midnight. Every night I would fall asleep to a sound I can only equate to people getting busy on a bed of springs. When the reclusive old man moved out, things got really bad. Every few months, people would move in and prove themselves worse than the last tenants.
The first group of people would sit on their porch all day yelling at people who walked past them. That was an interesting few months. Then, they got replaced by these people who were just plain loud. They didn't seem too bad until one night when the girls of the house got into a fight at 2 am. They started beating the daylights out of each other in the street. One girl fled to her car and side-swiped three cars on the road before crashing.
The last lot was the worst. They were obviously dealers and had swarms of people in and out of the place. They also blocked traffic, which was annoying but still tolerable. We put up with everything until they started throwing insanely loud parties every night. They would constantly throw their empty bottles into the street, so there was broken glass everywhere. I finally moved out.
17. Heading Down The Rabbit Hole
We had a cranky old man named Earl who lived a few houses away. He kept security cameras in his front yard pointed at the street. He would dash out to scream at children for "trespassing on private property" when they set one foot on the drainage ditch across the street from his house. He even threatened to injure our dog once. He was just a weirdo in general.
In addition to Earl, we had "The Chanter." She was a woman who lived at the end of the street and she was a member of a local cult. She would chant weird mantras while walking down the street, knocking on everyone’s door, trying to get us all to convert. She was scary but relatively harmless. No one compared to the guy at the end of the street.
We called him "The Rabbitmaster." He was the scariest one of them all. This guy used to be the landowner of our housing division, and he set all the rules for what we could keep on our property. We started noticing domesticated rabbits appearing all over the neighborhood a few months after we moved in. This guy had a rabbit breeding mill in his backyard where he was breeding hundreds of rabbits to sell for pelts and meat.
Eventually, he got charged and decided to flee the country and run off to Mexico. Before he did, he released all his rabbits. We kept seeing them roaming around for many years later.
18. Party Poopers
I lived in a complex that was a rectangle with a central courtyard. All the units' doors faced inward. It was a very social place, a block away from the beach, and all the neighbors were friends, except for one couple. We would congregate in the courtyard almost every day to barbecue, picnic, or just kick it at the end of the day.
It rarely ever turned into a full-blown party, but occasionally we would have courtyard parties for the complex and invite friends over. This one older couple didn't realize they were moving into this kind of complex and they were on a mission to stop any socializing outdoors. They would call the owner anytime people were talking outside.
They would yell through their screen door at people to keep it down, even in broad daylight, and if anyone was gathering outside after dark, they would call the authorities. I lived next door to them, and any time I would watch TV at night, have friends over, or even talk on the phone at night, the guy would bang on the wall like a maniac. We ignored them until they took things too far.
The woman eventually convinced the landlord to remove the patio furniture and, ultimately, the BBQ, which belonged to me. The landlord said I could have it back but had to remove it from the premises. They managed to get the landlord on their side, which destroyed the good vibe we had going. Then one day, a young family with their new baby had a picnic in the courtyard.
They were sitting on a blanket because the patio furniture was gone. The nasty neighbors actually came outside and started photographing them, causing them to take their baby and flee indoors. That was the last straw. We wrote up a petition and sent it to the landlord with an ultimatum—shut them down, return the patio furniture and BBQ, or we will all move out.
I got signatures from every single tenant in the complex. The nasty neighbors moved out the following month. On their moving day, we all threw a going-away party in the courtyard, without them, of course. When they were finished moving, and they locked the door for the last time, we all sang, "Nananaaana! Nananaaana! Hey, hey, hey! Goodbye!"
19. Nosey Neighbors
I had a family living next to me. I had no idea how many people were actually living at the house, but I had briefly met four of the children and the father. As far as I knew, they also had a mother there who recently had a baby. I had seen more than one toddler hanging around, and I believed their grandma lived there too. They always had a few extra house guests because we saw their conservatory made up with extra beds.
Nothing could have prepared us for the chaos they would bring. They were absolute slobs. Our houses were situated at the top of what used to be an old quarry but now had several hardware shops. They would bag up their garbage, and instead of putting it in the bins at the front of the house, they would climb up the fence and throw it over towards the old quarry. Once, they tried to chuck an old duvet down there, and it got stuck in the tree.
Their children were filthy, lazy, and nosey. We couldn’t even take in a parcel delivery without seeing their noses pressed up against the window. Privacy became such an issue that when we replaced our garden fences after a recent storm blew them down, we replaced them with even higher ones than before. I noticed that the neighbors on the other side did the same.
20. Land Lifters
I have had lots of awful neighbors and different stories to tell about each of them. However, the worst ones took a five-foot-wide strip of my family's land. They tried to claim an easement across our property to get water access and they built a new house, with their side entrance staircase encroaching on our land. Our property line had been marked by an old post in a marsh, and theirs by the end of the road.
When their road was paved, it was extended farther onto their land than it had been when the road was just made of dirt. We woke up one day to a horrific surprise—we believe they had some friends take our post out of the marsh, as it was just suddenly missing, and they then recorded a deed to their property, claiming their boundary was five feet farther than it actually was.
At the time, my grandfather's health was beginning to decline, so my grandparents decided to settle with them and have that be the end of it. That turned out to be a big mistake. They took it as a sign of weakness and tried to file an easement on our property to allow them to drive over our land and use the end of our road to launch boats. We denied them the easement in court, so in turn, they decided to build a big ugly house way too close to ours out of spite.
21. I Wish They Would Scoot On Out Of Here
I had just moved out from my parents' house and into my first rental with my best friend. It was a semi-detached, two-bedroom house in a good area. However, we still ended up next door to a nightmare family. The father was usually seen in dirty grey sweat pants and a white vest, with a can in hand. He wore a gold chain, had bad tattoos, and a handlebar mustache to complete the look.
He didn’t seem to be fully employed, but he did have a large, high-sided blue box van which was parked in a way that permanently blocked any sunlight from getting into our front room. Occasionally, he went out in it for an hour or so. He had two wannabe kids who rode around in de-restricted scooters that didn’t seem road legal or insured. They would go buzzing down the road at 3 am in their tracksuits without helmets, crashing into stuff.
One day, after screaming profanities at one another, one kid stormed off into his room and put on drum-and-bass at full volume. This caused the dad to go into what sounded like Hulk-smash mode. I could hear and feel him thundering up the stairs kick the bedroom door down. The following sounds I heard sent chills up my spine. There was screaming, furniture breaking, repeated cries of pain, and what I was certain sounded like a person being bounced down the stairs.
I contemplated calling the authorities when the one kid burst out and took off on his scooter. This scenario would happen roughly once every six to eight weeks. Our back gardens were separated by a waist-high fence, so there was no privacy. It was impossible to have any kind of BBQ party with friends without one or more of them trying to bum drinks and smokes off the guests or inviting themselves over.
I would regularly come home from work to find our garden gate wide open. I was obsessive about keeping it shut. I set up a webcam which confirmed these guys were regularly letting themselves into the back to see if I had remembered to lock the back door. I printed off a screenshot of one of the kids peering through my kitchen window and gave it to the father. I also complained to my landlord and got a better gate and lock installed.
If it wasn’t that, it was their dogs. One would bark from dawn until dusk at his own shadow. He would step it up a notch if we were in the garden. This would fire up the other dog, who could easily jump this fence and charge. Their only redeeming feature was a lovely Russian blue cat with three legs. I obviously hated living in that madhouse as it was at our place 90% of the time. We adopted him unofficially.
22. They Were As Bad As The Neighborhood
When my wife and I were newlyweds, we lived in a bad area. Our next-door neighbor was a guy named Mike and his girlfriend, Lucia. Mike and Lucia were still married to their former significant others, and Lucia was pregnant. Mike and I became buddies. We played video games, hung out on our balcony, and talked often. One day, I found out a truly dark secret—Mike was also harming Lucia quite often.
I came home one day, and she asked me to take her to a shelter. I came over, and Mike had destroyed their house, the soon-to-be baby's dresser had been smashed into pieces, all the tables were turned over and broken, and Lucia had cuts all over her body. I called my wife and asked her to come home from her friend's house.
We patched up Lucia and asked her if she wanted us to call the authorities or just take her to the shelter. She declined both. She had the baby, and postpartum hit her like a train. She would sit in her living room while Mike was at work and leave the baby in his crib crying all day long. I'd go over with my wife and help her change the baby and give her a break.
Mike would work all day and ignore the baby while at home. One day Mike was outside, and his face looked different. Lucia had tried to harm the baby while it slept. The baby was successfully resuscitated, and Lucia was taken into custody. She got probation, and Mike became a serious boozer. Several years later, I saw Lucia on a racy website.
23. She Complained, And I Chirped Right Back
I had recently bought a camping stove and wanted to test it out. I put in some little twigs, lit it up, and heated up some beeswax for a woodworking project. Two minutes after lighting it up, my nosy neighbor came out onto my driveway and started yelling at me, threatening to call the authorities. What she said made my blood boil: "It's summertime, and our doors are open.
“The smoke from your fire is entering our home and making black char marks on the wall; you're destroying our property. And you're also choking our parakeet. He can't breathe the smoke from your fire and is suffocating." The camp stove had a tiny flame and very little smoke. She was obviously exaggerating. I was annoyed but also found it comical.
I decided to take things up a notch. I told her to stop gossiping in the neighborhood and stop making problems where there weren't any. She started crying and sobbed to her husband, who then told me not to insult his wife. I told him that these were modern times and that women were equal to men. Hence, there was no need for him to finish a fight she started, especially since I did what she wanted and put the fire out.
24. Hipster Horrors
I lived next to a hipster couple with two daughters who made me afraid to go outside during the daytime. For reasons unbeknownst to me, they would scream and curse at me when they would see me—especially the wife. She would actually follow me around until I would go inside, screaming insults at me. They would pound on my door at all hours of the day and night without giving up.
I stopped answering my door when they would knock because the wife had come over with one of her daughters the last time I did, screaming at me to give her my landlord's phone number. I figured it was to call him and complain about me. But that's not even the worst part—one day, I came home to find a broken window on a wall that only faces their house. I was pretty quiet and kept to myself, so I had no idea what I did to offend these people.
25. The Fallout
I lived next to the craziest family I have ever known for about six years. The couple had five kids and they were very religious. For the first few years, they seemed normal. My sister and I hung out with a couple of the siblings and we had fun. Then, one day, their father passed, and everything went NUTS. When my sister broke up with her boyfriend of three years, the one boy took this as some type of invitation.
He began by texting her more often than usual, which was no big deal. Then he opened up about how he was depressed, dropped off a dull samurai sword, and told her he couldn't handle having it around. My sister said that they would find help for him, but he was not a fan of that idea. One day she got strep, and the guy decided that, as her self-declared best friend, he would text her incessantly, come over, sit in her room, and comfort her.
When she told him no, he responded in the most chilling way: "I'm not taking no for an answer! I will tell your parents to let me in because you need me!" She eventually stopped talking to him, but he did not stop talking to her. The texts gradually got weirder. He'd tell her how pretty she was, how much he loved her. He would send her the lyrics to love songs about how he wanted to touch her.
On her birthday, he left a love letter inside her car. Then one day, she officially got back with her boyfriend, and he went absolutely bananas; calling her a tease, saying he was going to harm himself and that he would "end her if she told anyone." At that point, my dad took her phone to the authorities and filed for a restraining order.
26. Patio Pooper
I had a neighbor who would take her dog out to relieve itself in the patio area every day. There were designated, well-maintained dog walking areas at regular intervals throughout the complex, with free bags, trash cans, and proper lighting... But apparently, that wasn’t good enough. She had to do it right outside my window. And the worst part? When she would try to pick it up, it wouldn’t all come up out of the grass.
So, when I would open my window, I would get a whiff of dog mess. I had no fresh air. While doing this, she would stand in her doorway with the leash and yell at the dog in this high-pitched voice, saying, “COME ON! GO POTTY! GO POTTY! COME ON! GO POTTY.” A dog kept inside all day does not need such instructions. The poor dog would strain on the leash, wanting to run around the complex because it was the only time it was ever let out.
27. They Were Total Crackpots
I had a neighbor who found a crack in his foundation. They had to rip up most of his lawn to fill it in. There wasn't any space on his lawn for the dump truck with the gravel, so they came up with a disturbing "solution"— they drove up on our lawn and dumped it. I probably would have let him if he asked, but he didn't. When we got mad at him for it, he said he would fix the tire tracks on our lawn, but he never did.
His wife was just as bad. Our dog got out of our yard, and she took it to the pound. We were the only ones with a big black lab around, plus her collar had tags on it with our name and number!
28. Enough Was Enough
We lived at a place that had a seemingly lovely couple next door. Then, one Friday night, we had a decorating party. We were stripping wallpaper at 9 pm when the dude from next door turned up, angry about how he had to work the next day, and saying that we were keeping him up. My first thought was that his problem was not my problem. However, to be considerate, we stopped. I even put a bottle of wine by their door the following day.
A couple of weeks later, on a Wednesday night, 2 am, they were having a noisy party, and these sounds like a sled thumping down the stairs were coming from their place. We ignored it and let them get on with it, despite the next day being a standard workday. That was a big mistake on our part because the Wednesday night partying became a regular occurrence. We dealt with it and still did not confront them.
Then, one Saturday afternoon, the woman knocked on my door while I was playing video games and said, "Can you turn your TV down? It's driving my dog crazy." I was a little miffed as it was Saturday afternoon, a pretty decent time to be noisy. Still, I turned it down. The noisy Wednesday parties continued. Then, one morning at about 9 am my son, who was one at the time, woke up crying.
I went in to check on him, only to hear a "BANG BANG" on the wall and a "SHUT UP!" being shouted through it. I flew into a rage. I knocked on their door and unleashed it on my neighbors with no mercy. I also said that if I could deal with their Wednesday night parties, they could deal with 9 am baby noises. I had my rant, noted their house number, got on my laptop, and signed them up for every single piece of odd mail I could. I felt much better after that.
29. Muskrat Love
The town I lived in was odd because we didn’t really have a designated “bad” part of town. Instead, there would be a couple of nice houses surrounded by bad ones that looked condemned, even though they weren’t. All of the houses across the street from me looked like that. My house happened to be the nice one on our block.
I don't think any of the people worked because they would sit out on their stoops all day in their NASCAR pajama pants, puffing away and being loud. They usually weren’t too bad, though, and they kept to themselves. However, my next-door neighbors were AWFUL. They would cook outside a lot, and it smelled horrendous. That was bad enough, but then they crossed the line—one day, they brought home a muskrat and cleaned it with a flamethrower.
The smell of burning rodent fur was not something I ever cared to smell again. I was able to handle their six kids yelling and screaming all day. I was able to handle their yard being full of trash and picking up whatever garbage should come into ours. But I just could not handle the smell of rotten-smelling fish, burning fur, and deceased rodents. My husband instantly vomited from the odor on more than one occasion. It was gross.
30. The Village Idiots
We had a neighbor who appeared to have some mental issues. Their entrance was opposite ours down a track that nobody really owned. So people visiting us had a tendency to turn around by driving up to the front of their gates, then reversing into our driveway before heading back out again. They absolutely hated this.
Their next move made me absolutely livid—they decided to chain up their garbage bins a few yards in front of their gates so that nobody could turn around there. They didn't put their trash in the containers because they were paranoid that the waste collectors might go through it, so they burnt it in their back garden. Whenever we had building work or deliveries, people tended to drive past their driveway and park on the lane.
Despite it being an access road for the fields behind, it was rarely used, and the builders could always move if someone needed access to the area. However, the neighbors hated this as people would have to drive within a few yards of their gates to get to that part of the lane. So, they would threaten workers and occasionally throw eggs at their vehicles.
They eventually bought that field, which was watermeadow, and they decided that they needed to get rid of all the channels in it because they wanted to keep sheep on it. The aftermath of this was brutal—it messed up the drainage and caused flooding problems for everyone. These neighbors were infamous throughout the village and had caused problems for other neighbors as well.
When we got chickens, this neighbor used to wake up early and start making crowing noises to try to agitate the cockerels. We had to record her doing this to show that it was wholly provoked by her, and that the cockerel wasn't waking HER up in the morning.
31. Nonstop Nonsense
We had a neighbor who would constantly call the authorities on us for noise complaints when we were doing things like playing board games in our living room at 9 pm or just existing in our backyard in the afternoon. She would routinely try to have our cars towed because she felt like the street parking in front of her house was "hers" when she had a two-car garage and large driveway.
Later on, she tried to tell us we had to do all of her lawn care because sometimes leaves blew into her yard from our trees. That was annoying enough, but she took it one step further—she said that we had to cut down our trees because they siphoned all the water from her yard. She also had a habit of tossing partially eaten chicken wings over the fence into our compost heap.
Furthermore, she would sunbathe without clothes on in her yard yet complain when I was wearing a bathrobe in mine. Luckily, after a few calls, both the authorities and our landlord were like, “Okay, this lady is crazy.”
32. Mobile Man Cave
I had a neighbor who went to my landlord to ask if he could borrow my parking space for a short time. I didn’t have a car, and he had two, one of which he was trying to sell. So, when my landlord asked me, I said it wasn’t a problem. Two years later, he still had made no move to sell the car. Instead, he would sit in it, in my parking space, next to my house, day-drinking until he would be too sloshed to walk home.
Any time I needed to access my bins, which were at the far end of the parking space, he would be totally rude about it. He wouldn’t move his car or help. He would just sit there, drinking, and watching me, trying not to scratch his mobile man cave. Any time someone came to visit me and parked across the back of him, he would give them a minute to get into my house and settle in.
Then, he would show up at my door intoxicated and insist they move their car because they were blocking him in. The guy couldn’t drive anywhere—he was trashed. The most frustrating bit was when my landlord came to check-in. This guy happened to be sober enough to have gone out for a drive and the landlord parked in the space. That's when things got interesting.
The neighbor showed up at my door, asking that my friend vacate his space. The landlord appeared and explained it was his car. The neighbor immediately backed down, began smiling, acting grateful, and said, “Don't be daft. It's your parking space!” I had to correct him that it was actually MY parking space that I was letting him BORROW.
33. Hallway Of Headaches
There was this middle-aged wreck of a woman who would come to my building frequently at night and stand outside screaming like crazy for my neighbor to open the door. I called the authorities on her several times when I needed to go out because I didn’t want to let her into the building. Every once in a while, she would sneak in before the doors locked and would spend the night in the hallway outside my neighbor’s door.
Her behavior was absolutely infuriating. She would often soil herself, smoke, and spill her booze everywhere. I had to climb down the railing a few times to avoid stepping on her or her puddle when she would be passed out on the stairs. When my neighbor did let her in, she would play old records on the highest volume imaginable and stand on the balcony shouting profanities at people. She was the absolute worst person I've ever met.
34. It Was The Circle Of Strife
We had some neighbors who were your typical bums that we made the mistake of being nice to. It was one of those situations where doing one nice thing meant they felt comfortable asking for more. For example, if we would let them use our phone, they would later knock on our door late at night and ask for a ride to the store.
It wasn’t a one-time thing. They were constantly asking for rides to the point where it became ridiculous. Not only that, but they would get mad if you asked for gas money or if you couldn't drop everything you were doing to give them a lift right then and there. One time, they asked for a ride to the grocery store and made us wait outside for OVER AN HOUR in a bad area of town while they did a week's worth of shopping.
We put our foot down, but they had the nerve to ask if they could just borrow our car instead. And here's the kicker—Neither one of them even had a license! The entire time we lived there, it was pretty much a cycle of one of them asking for a small, reasonable favor like borrowing a cup of laundry soap or using a cell phone that would later escalate to something ridiculous.
When we would refuse, they would stop talking to us for a couple of weeks; then, the cycle would start over again. They also kept getting cats that they would let roam around the busy apartment complex. They refused to have them neutered because "they might want to be fathers someday.” Thankfully a local group went around trapping and fixing stray cats, so theirs kept disappearing and returning a few days later.
35. There Was Controversy Cooking Next Door
My previous neighbor would always fight with her husband, constantly accusing him of cheating on her. There were continual shouting matches through the walls. The dude seemed generally confused about where the accusations were coming from. The worst part was the crazy loud sounds that I could hear fo them knocking boots multiple times a week, usually around 7 am to 8 am each day.
For the longest time, I couldn't understand how they could go to bed so mad at each other and then go at it like wildebeests first thing in the morning. Then, I got into a conversation with the husband in the hall one day, and I had a shocking revelation—he told me he usually had to be at work at 6 am each day! Soon after that, he figured it out, so he left her and their two-year-old.
Her boy toy moved in almost the next day. They fought almost as much as she did with her ex, only this time about money, and it usually ended with threats of harm. I sent the authorities their way several times. Her ex showed up one day, and they got into a huge shouting match. She struck him, he struck her, grabbed the kid, and stormed out. I called officers again.
Eventually, the child was returned, and she filed a restraining order against the dad. The fights and threats from the new boyfriend continued. Social services showed up and took the child away. The fights got worse, almost always about money. Then, one day, I got home, and my bedroom reeked of chemicals. I couldn't quite place what they were, but I didn't want to sleep in there.
I reported it to the landlord, who questioned the neighbors. We searched the building laundry room, which was right below my bedroom. The smell disappeared after a couple of days, and I was able to air out and return to my room, but we couldn't find the cause. I would come home and find faint traces of the smell again about once a week, but it would always disappear in the evenings.
Not long after that, I heard shouting and banging at the neighbor’s door. I assumed it was the baby daddy again. I walked to my apartment and had my hand on the doorknob when I heard firing. I retreated to the far side of my place and called for help. I heard the assailants shouting as they stormed through the neighboring apartment. What they were yelling made my face go white: "He's in the parking lot! He jumped!"
The boyfriend had jumped from the second-story balcony and was racing down the alley. The assailants unloaded their clips into the parking lot and neighboring building, trying to get him. Then they disappeared into the night. Law enforcement came to investigate. The boyfriend was declared wanted, and the girl was declared missing.
The source of the chemical smell was also found. They had turned their apartment into a lab and were cooking illicit substances. They were the worst neighbors I've ever had.
36. My Childhood Nemesis
When I was growing up, the neighbor’s kid would taunt me like there was no tomorrow. It started when I was about two and she took my favorite dinosaur ball and popped it. Another time, I was invited over for a summer party, and she pushed me up against their shed and tossed a basketball at my head over and over. It wasn't just their daughter, though.
One time, they were backing their car out of their garage and ripped the passenger door off because it was left open. Their next move made my blood boil—they called the authorities and tried to blame my brother when he was about five or six, saying that he must've snuck over to their house, gone into their garage, and opened the car door when they weren't looking.
Several years later, they called the authorities on me because their inflatable snowman went missing from their front yard. At 10:30 pm, a state trooper was knocking on our door, and I had to wake my parents up to talk to him. As it turned out, one of their foster kids broke it and buried it behind their house in the woods.
37. We All Got Burned
I had a neighbor who lived across the street and would park his commercial van on the road, impeding traffic. His son, who was 40, also lived there. Although I was irked by the van, I hated them for something much worse. One day, the son decided to burn some leaves and some of the insulation from some wiring, which was not permitted, as we lived in the suburbs with closely-packed houses.
The fire jumped out of his control set his yard ablaze, along with his neighbor’s and five other lots. The fire burned three homes, lit up a car, and melted four fences. It nearly burnt down a deck and almost collapsed an above-ground pool. This all occurred mid-afternoon, around 3 pm, when everyone was still at work.
The only reason it didn’t burn the whole block down was that an officer saw the black smoke from the highway as he was passing through, turned back around, and came to the neighborhood. Once he quickly realized he needed more than his standard-issue fire extinguisher, he called in the fire department. They put out the fire, but when they shut off the hydrants, the water system broke.
A pipe up the hill ruptured and was forced out of the ground. The pipe at the front of the subdivision a quarter-mile away, uphill, ruptured as well. A pipe three blocks away in a cul-de-sac also broke and began bubbling up through the garden in the center. Needless to say, it was an absolute disaster. Our entire pipe network started to fail because of that idiot's wrongdoing. Plus, the temperature had recently risen above freezing, which made things worse.
For two months, the water company kept finding leaks and main breaks. As soon as they replaced a section, something somewhere else in the subdivision suddenly failed. We constantly had yards and streets being torn up because of it. What made it even worse was that the authorities couldn't even charge him with anything because nobody actually saw him being irresponsible.
38. He Was A Derelict Dr. Dolittle
My neighbor to the rear of my house had farm animals, including a couple of mini-horses, a donkey, and some other unidentified creatures. He kept them in pens that backed up directly onto the privacy fence, separating his property from mine. The fence was the farthest possible distance from his house and the closest possible distance to mine, about 15 feet from my kitchen window.
He didn’t tend to his animals' living conditions as he should have. The result of this was horrifying—I frequently stepped outside my house and smelled the sweet aromas of barnyard animal waste. I couldn’t open my windows because of the odor, which got worse in the summer. I had to call animal control on him, and they ended up taking two of his full-sized horses away because their hooves were rotting off.
We were zoned for residential and agricultural, so there were no grounds for him to get rid of the animals.
39. Killing Them With Kindness
Believe it or not, my worst neighbors were awful because they were too nice. They pretty much lived in their driveway. Every day that it wasn't raining out, they would be out on their lawn or driveway, and they would hang out there all day long. They'd talk to all the neighbors, play with their kids, and generally be nice people.
They would BBQ on their driveway a couple of times a week and invite everyone in the cul de sac over when they did. Although it may sound pretty cool, it eventually became too much to handle. This went on every day and every week. Having someone knock on your door twice a week every week, especially after you have turned them down time and time again, was too much.
I couldn’t walk my dog or even just come out of my front door without being greeted and forced to make several minutes of small talk. It got to the point where coming out of my house gave me anxiety because I just wanted to be left alone. Even my kids were getting tired of their kids insisting they play with them every time they tried to go outside. They were just killing us with kindness, and it was driving my whole family nuts.
40. My Neighbor Was Pure Poison
My old neighbor would stay up until midnight on most nights, but once or twice a week, he would stay up until 2 am partying in his garage and blasting music. I was in school and had to wake up early to go to class and get homework done—I didn't want to hear it. I talked to him a couple of times, and he said he would cool it, but he didn't.
I finally got tired of it and called the authorities. I was shocked with what happened next—turns out, he was friends with them, so they didn't do anything, and he retaliated by putting sugar in my gas tank. The next night, I called the sheriff's office. Same story, except now they were getting mad at me for calling them because a guy was blasting his music in the morning.
So this time, he put anti-freeze on our patio while I was at school and poisoned my dog. She started having kidney problems and seizures. However, I couldn’t prove anything, so I bit my tongue until one day I spoke to the maintenance guy. He told me that the guy had lived there a long time and was good friends with the landlords.
He also told me that he had the authorities called on him numerous times. Apparently, he argued with his wife often, broke things in their house, and drank nonstop. We told him the story of our dog, and he said he wouldn't put it past him to do something like that. We got the vet to pull lab work to confirm anti-freeze in our dog's system. He got evicted shortly after that.
41. It Was A Bad Feeling, She Was Banging On The Ceiling
I lived in the same apartment for 18 years without any issue. I also had the same neighbor beneath me for all that time and throughout my childhood. She never complained about anything until one day, I moved my office chair, and she started banging viciously at her ceiling so I could hear it. She then started calling us names, so I took my fancy office chair and threw it away just as a courtesy to her. But it didn't stop there.
She continued to bang for every little thing. If my phone would accidentally fall, she would bang on her ceiling. If I got out of bed, she would go banging. She finally got tired of banging and would just turn her TV on to the maximum volume. To make matters worse, one day, she walked upstairs to my apartment after texting both my parents, who no longer lived with me, saying that I was following her around her apartment, mimicking her moves from mine.
She came upstairs, knocked on my door, and asked me why I was following her, even though I wasn’t. I was sitting on my bed watching The Flash. She would also harass my parents by calling and texting them. The landlord had to take her to court for reasons I don't know. She just made living there a nightmare.
42. These Teens Gave Me Angst
The two trashy, tough-guy teens who lived across the street were terrible. They had a punching bag hanging from a tree in their front yard that they liked to show off on while constantly blaring pseudo-metal music. They would enjoy shirtless wrestling with their friends on Tuesdays, which in practice, looked a lot less like Fight Club and a lot more like playground slapping. And that's not all, folks...
Some genius would supply them with cheap booze and smokes, the packaging of which they would donate to my yard as they traipsed through it on their way to mess around in the woods behind my house.
43. Property Busters
The house directly next to mine was full of people. There were so many people coming and going from the home that I was unsure how many actually lived there. They kept a dog in their yard, which was never walked or played with, and it would bark all the time. Their yard was also a junk heap, and how they dealt with this made me livid. They would just toss snack wrappers and bags into their yard, and the garbage would drift into mine every day.
They were inconsiderate, loud trash whose existence lowered the property values of every house around them.
44. I Was Fighting A Losing Battle
I used to have neighbors who would constantly throw garbage over their back fence into my yard. They did it all the time. During the summer, I would go out to the shed in the back and find the most random stuff, like a ripped open stuffed animal, used diapers, etc. I started throwing the trash back over, but it kept coming back no matter how much I battled it. The teen son would also work on his car in the driveway and blast music all day long.
In addition, they had a basketball hoop in their driveway that they eventually took down. They discarded the hoop and backboard in our front yard, off to the side, as if we wouldn't notice. I kept pushing it back into their yard against the same fence they kept throwing trash over, but it somehow kept finding its way back into our yard. Eventually, my patience would pay off—they later moved away, and all the problems cleared up.
45. Tunes Of Torment
Before I moved, the people who lived next to me were just horrible. On multiple occasions, at around 3 am, I would wake up to a horrific sound—four-wheelers ripping around in my own yard with music blaring so loud I could hear it from everywhere in my house. Their music would literally wake me from a deep sleep. They even did this on weekdays when I needed to sleep. I'm glad I moved.
46. She Was Looney Tunes
In my first apartment, I lived above an old crazy woman. Our apartment was the only one on the third floor, and hers was the only apartment on the second floor. What she did to us was nothing short of sadistic—she once poured vegetable oil on the staircase leading to our door and then sprinkled thumbtacks on top of the oil so that we would slip and fall onto the tracks, like in Looney Tunes.
She would also scream profanities at my roommates and me whenever she saw us. We called her "the crazy lady”—we were not wrong.
47. Anything But The Purr-fect Neighbors
My neighbor was the textbook definition of a hoarder. They had two trucks that were full of trash, a pop-up trailer that was full of trash, a pop-up tent that had trash all underneath it, and basically trash everywhere else. Their house reeked of cats from the sidewalk, and he would just let them breed and breed.
Those cats would come over to our yard and relieve themselves everywhere. And that's not even the most annoying thing he's done–he liked to park his cars in the alley behind our houses, and so did his son, even though the only access to the driveways on my street was through that alley. He and his son also liked to pretend they were the speed police and would scream at you if they thought you were going too fast.
48. He Pulled The Trigger
I lived in the countryside where houses were roughly 300 to 900 feet apart. My goofy chickens went onto my neighbor’s property once. He yelled at me to come over. He told me that he pays too much in taxes to let his yard get full of chicken mess. It happened once, so l put up a fence. A few weeks later, he told me that he didn’t like my barn cat hunting birds on my own property.
He told me that my cat was a nuisance animal. I ignored him and went out to a birthday dinner. When I returned home, I was in for the shock of my life—I called for my cat and...nothing. I had a bad feeling, so I hopped on my four-wheeler and drove through my fields. There, right on the end of my property, was my lifeless cat.
Before I left for dinner, I had seen my neighbor’s kid walking around with a .22. The same kid was firing at rabbits by his pond. A round had ricocheted off a stone and landed in the side of my house. I had called the Sheriff multiple times, but they couldn’t do anything without evidence. So, I had to install cameras all over my property.
49. Karma Took Care Of His Complaining
My old neighbor was a grumpy old lush. He complained when we had our light on in our bedroom too late at night. He was also quite horrible to my girlfriend, even calling her names. Whenever I tried to talk to him, he wouldn't open the door or would run away. When I was at work, he would knock on the door to moan to my girlfriend. Naturally, my girlfriend started ignoring him when he did this—and karma would end up getting him BIG time.
Unfortunately, one day he started knocking, and she ignored it, not realizing he was having a stroke. He went to a nursing home after that.
50. First Time Buyer Beware
My wife and I were moving into our first house. Our new neighbors were on their front porch drinking, which was no big deal. While bringing the last load of boxes into the house, my neighbor came up, welcomed me to the neighborhood, and mentioned how nice my TV was. A week later, my wife and I were headed out to dinner, and he stopped us to ask how long we would be gone. Something felt really off about him at that moment.
I lied and told him I was just running to the gas station one block away and that I would be back immediately. Twenty minutes later, I got a phone call from the local authorities. This moron broke into my house in broad daylight, while three other neighbors were watching. He cut his hand on the window as he attempted to climb through it and used his bleeding hand on every doorknob in my house. He is now a number in the US penal system.
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