We can pick our friends, but we can't pick our neighbors...and these stories are proof that if you end up drawing the short straw, it can quickly turn into an absolute nightmare.
1. An Insoluble Solution
A few years ago I lived in a bit of a tract home situation. In my cul-de-sac, on trash day everyone would line their trash cans up on the curb where the trash truck with the mechanical arm could easily get to them. My crazy neighbor would get upset if everyone didn't pull their trash cans in immediately after the truck came.
Trash day was on a weekday so I couldn't bring my cans in until after I got off work. Needless to say, this totally angered her. It started with her just spinning the can around, or moving it in front of my garage. Eventually, it escalates to her knocking it over or pushing it across the street into a small park. I'm at work, lady. What can I do about it?
So eventually I had enough. I bought a tube of marine grease. For those who don't know, it's intense stuff. It's made to stand up to all conditions and is difficult to get off your skin without a strong solvent like kerosene. So I lather up the handles and take the can out with a pair of gloves then head out for work. When I came home the can was moved a few feet and sure enough, her stupid little hands had left a big imprint in the grease.
2. I Didn’t Hear Anything, Did You?
My old neighbor made me question my own sanity by drilling holes in his walls many hours each day for almost two years. When we confronted him he denied drilling and asked what was wrong with us, even suggesting therapy and psychological help. He was a nice and well-spoken guy too.
So after two years, he moved out and our landlord told us that he had done some substantial damage to his apartment by drilling all the walls, floors, and ceilings full of small holes. He was sued, acquitted due to mental health problems, and institutionalized for severe schizophrenia. Our landlord told us after court that the guy had drilled to find government spying devices...
3. What Nightmares Are Made Of
My crazy neighbor from two neighborhoods back thought he was protecting me—but it ended up being the most terrifying experience of my life. He entered my apartment while I was fast asleep and stood beside my bed to make sure I was "OK" after finding my front door had been left unlocked. I woke up to hear him trying to strike his lighter in my pitch-black bedroom (2 am) where I'm supposed to be alone. Without opening my eyes I instantly woke up and began planning how I was going to handle the intruder before he finally said my name and I recognized his stupid voice.
4. The Pressure’s On
I have a new apartment neighbor who moved in about four months ago. I share a bathroom wall with them and almost every time I turn on my shower and am in it for a minute or so, they turn theirs on. This immediately makes my water colder and the pressure goes way down (this building is super old). But this is even creepier than it first seems.
I don’t take a shower at the same time every day. I work from home, so some days it’ll be 10 am or 6 pm or 11 pm, etc. But if they are home, they do this every time. I have started to turn on my shower and not get in and just let it run and listen. Sure enough, they turn theirs on too. The walls are thin so you can hear when someone has their shower on.
They usually run theirs until right after I turn mine off. This happens even if they have already showered that day. The only time this doesn’t happen is when they’re not home or if it’s really late, like 2 am, and they're asleep. Just wanted to vent because it is such odd behavior to me, and seriously ruins every shower I try to take. I usually take under 10-minute showers so I’m not being excessive or anything that would annoy them.
People are so weird and it drives me crazy.
5. Drawing A Line In The Sand
Our next-door neighbors seemed very friendly at first. Weird, but friendly. The first time I met her she made it clear by mentioning 5-8 times that her house was a little bigger than ours, but still no problems. But then it started to get creepy. She also told me she could see that we removed a wall and she could see it from her bathroom window.
We just moved in in the spring after closing in February. Right away, we applied for a fence permit and the township needed us to clear something up. They sent a map of our lot with the surveyor stamp. My neighbor told me that the previous owner of our house told them, for the last 17 years, that the lot line followed a few bushes on the property.
Turns out that according to the township, my property extends about 20 feet over from what they originally thought. Our property is on a curved street so the section that we are gaining is shaped like a slice of pie. The neighbor's wife has made it clear she isn't happy. She mentioned 10 times that it's new information and for 17 years that's the way it was.
She said, "You have to understand that after 17 years this is a shock to us and this is how it's always been". She also was telling me how my fence should look and that she wanted the fence more than 6-10 feet off the property line. The township said it can be one inch off. I decided to have enough room for a mower; about two feet. Then it got simply ridiculous.
Finally, she said, "That window over there is my teenage daughter's and we don't want her looking out and feeling like someone is on top of her". Says the woman who looked into my house from her bathroom window. I get you thought your property was bigger, but it's not my fault you got your information from an unreliable source. I pay the property tax on that piece of land and I want to be able to use it.
My property is only .31 acres and my backyard is small but my side yard is big-ish. So then, the township told me to use a metal detector to find the property pin and I was out there. She came over and started yelling at me. She said the property line isn't contested and that what I was doing "was inappropriate and my daughter is right upstairs studying in that room".
She kept yelling but I walked away. We just had the surveyor out the other day. What he told me made me grin like a maniac. It turns out my property extends another 10 feet beyond where I thought, so that's 30 feet they didn't expect. Well, the surveyor came up to me and said "what's wrong with your neighbor? She was yelling at me saying I'm digging up her lawn and that it's her property, not theirs".
Apparently, her husband was on the phone with the township. Here is a text conversation we had. Him: Hi, I’m from next door. We saw that your surveyor was out today. Are you and your wife both available to talk with us for a few minutes sometime today or tomorrow? Me: Hi. Yes the surveyor was out today. No offense, but at this time we are not comfortable having a conversation.
Me: We went through the proper channels to ensure we are putting the fence on our property. We spent additional money to insure this was correct based off of your recommendation for it. Our son and our dog having their space is our main priority. Not to do anything out of spite. We feel like there is some hostility, as evidenced by things that were said to myself and the surveyors today. Just looking to avoid confrontation. Hope you understand.
Him: There's no hostility. We're not seeking confrontation either. We would just like to have a neighborly discussion about your plans for the fence. Any projects done along that property line have a significant impact on our daily lives due to the close proximity to our primary living and working space in our home, including our teenage daughter. We are not nor have we ever been opposed to you installing a fence.
Basically, they want to tell me where to put my fence. Eventually, I installed it three feet off the property line and I was thinking of planting greenery in that space. But they weren’t finished. They are now demanding I move my ring spotlight. The husband texted me, stating that the light shines in his daughter’s bedroom (on the second floor) and into his kitchen.
There is no way this is true. I'm not the only neighbor that has issues with them. I no longer communicate with them because last time I did I was yelled at for being on my own lawn. They continue to bring up their daughter, even though I've never seen evidence that she even exists. They've also recently reached out to me saying my dog was outside all morning barking.
I looked back at my ring camera and not only was she not out all morning, but when she was barking it was at him slowly walking his dog in front of my fence then yelling at her multiple times. Oh, and his dog pooped on my lawn and he didn't pick it up.
6. Counting Down The Days
My new neighbors moved in three days ago. Day 1: My husband and I get back from a food run, and we go to pull up in our driveway and their small children are riding bikes in our driveway. It is not shared. It’s 100% ours. Not a huge issue, we just asked them to move and pulled in. Day 2: The kids are riding bikes/power wheels/dirt bikes down our street.
We live in a huge family-oriented neighborhood, and I have four kids myself. I just called my kids out to go introduce themselves to the neighbors’ kids so they could get to know each other. My kiddos go talk to the new kids, and, ten minutes later, they come back saying that the kids were rude and they’d rather not play with them. Fair. Not everyone will get along.
Day 3: I’m sitting on my couch watching television and notice someone walking in my backyard. We have a six-foot privacy fence with a gate, so to get in our yard he would’ve had to purposefully open our gate. I walk out to my back patio to ask who he is and what he’s doing. He says that they were playing ball, it went over the fence, and he was coming to get it.
I told him that he needed to knock on our door, not just come into my yard. I asked if his mom was at home. At this point, my dogs come out of the dog door and make a bee-line to the gate that the kid left open. As soon as I made it to the front yard, I get the privilege of witnessing my dog getting hit by a car. She’s fine, just bruised (big dog, low speed limit, we were lucky).
Obviously, at this point, I’m concerned about my dog, forget to speak to the mom, take the dog to the vet, and finally get back home two hours later. The mom wasn’t home when I got back so I took the time to find a padlock to lock our gate. When I noticed her at home, I went to speak to her. Yeah. Didn’t go well. Before I could express my concerns over her son coming into my yard, she just started screaming at me to “not ever speak to my freaking son again”.
It’s only day 3. I can’t wait to see what happens on Day 4.
7. A Family Affair
I am a combat veteran and a school teacher at the time of this story, and my wife was a school teacher as well. So, I bought my first house 12 years ago. It was in a low-middle-class neighborhood with a lot of working-class families. My house had a pool in the backyard and my parents bought me and my wife a hot tub as a wedding/housewarming gift.
Two weeks after moving in, we came home to an unsettling sight. We found a stranger and six teenage kids swimming in our pool when we got home. We will call them Entitled Mom, the Entitled Daughter, the Entitled Son, and the others I assume to be their friends and/or boyfriend. The daughter was about 18 or 19 years old and her brother was about 17.
When we told them to get out and get off our property, the mother told me that the previous owner gave them permission to come over whenever they wanted to swim. I explained to her that I was the new owner and that I was not ok with it. I told her that not only do I not know them, but there is a liability for me if they got hurt. I couldn’t believe her response.
She yelled and faked cried, saying I was being a bad neighbor, selfish, and forcing her kids to sweat in the summer heat. She told me that if they got heatstroke, it was my fault for not letting them swim in my pool. I told her to get the heck off my property and never return. Fast forward two weeks. I had put up a "No Trespassing" sign on my property in multiple spots and had gotten to know many of the not-entitled neighbors.
They were great and told me to ignore the mom and her kids. They told us she was already badmouthing us, but no one ever believed her. This is when it took a strange turn. Now I start to notice when I wake up in the morning that there is evidence of people using my pool and hot tub at night when we are asleep or away. Like, I find cans and other stuff.
I figure it has to be the mother and/or her brats. So I install cameras on the grounds and start video-taping. Sure enough, I catch the daughter and a few others hanging out in my pool on Friday nights when my wife and I are out. I figure they must have been waiting for us to leave and then threw a mini-party or were quietly swimming while we slept.
So I discussed it with my wife. We decided to teach the mother and her brats a lesson. So the next Friday night, I park my car a street over and my wife does the same. We wait in the dark house to see if any of them come over. The daughter and I assume her boyfriend, the son and I assume his girlfriend, and four other teen couples come right over and start getting in my pool and hot tub.
I wait 45 minutes for them to get really into their fun. And let me tell you, it was getting hot and heavy out there; they were all undressed. I then spring my trap. I go out with my piece, pointed at the ground but at the ready. When I reach the pool, my wife flips on the backlights and I yell for them to freeze or I'll shoot. Meanwhile, my wife calls the authorities.
They all have the deer in the headlights look on their faces and not one of them tries to speak for a good minute. The daughter then starts to tell us that she has permission to be there and that we need to let them get dressed. I tell them that if they move towards me or their property, that I would consider them to be charging me or reaching for a weapon and I'd shoot.
They must have believed me because they froze. One girl begged me to give her her clothing. Not being a total jerk, I say that I will throw them all their clothing. But there was a twist. I then walk over to their piles of clothing, phones, and purses and throw EVERYTHING into the pool. They freak out trying to save their phones and other goods.
After ten minutes officers show up and they have the kids climb out of the pool wearing their soaked clothes and trying to shake their phones dry. I show the officers the videos from our cameras, the No Trespassing signs, and explain to them that I had told them and their mother they were persona non grata. The kids were detained for trespassing and a bunch of other charges.
The officers recommended that next time, I leave my piece in the safe and let them just come and get them. I told them that I thought they may attack my wife and had to "stand my ground." I proved that I never pointed it at them with the videos, so I couldn't be charged with anything. Then came the very best part. As the kids are being loaded into the cruisers, the mother shows up yelling at the officer, my wife, and me.
She demands they let them go and even tries to open the door on one of the cruisers. The officers threaten her with being detained if she doesn't back off and leave my wife and me alone. I later found out that the charges against the teens were reduced and they all got plea deals. They all got community service, fines, and were put on probation. We got a restraining order against the mother and her brats so they couldn't bother us again.
I then sent a bill to the mother for the cost of draining, disinfecting, and refilling my pool and having a professional cleaning service clean up the kids’ mess. The bill was for about $400. I had my parents’ attorney send it to her with a letter stating that if it was not paid in 30 days, then we would sue her for a larger amount. She sent a check to my attorney and thankfully it did not bounce.
About a year later, the entire entitled family moved away and we never heard from them again.
8. What She Does In The Shadows
I put up a doorbell cam yesterday. My neighbor has not slept and I woke up to 45 new motion alerts. One of which was her throwing herself down the stairs. I now figured out what that thumping in the hallway I’ve been hearing is. It has not stopped going off. She also stands in front of our door and stares at our apartment for random intervals of time. Wonder how long she's been doing that!
9. Running Water Hero
We have had several sets of crazy neighbors but my favorite was J & Y, an old Cuban couple who got inebriated and fought loudly every night. One time we were late on our water bill, and in the US the water company can cut off your water if you don't pay. The truck comes and the guy gets out and opens the door on the sidewalk, shuts off our water, and drives away.
Immediately J explodes from his house with the largest wrench I have ever seen in my life, (bigger than a small child) screaming curses in Spanish at the retreating water company truck, runs to in front of our house, throws off the door in the sidewalk and turns our water back on. Then walks back to his house, still muttering, and walks in, slamming the door behind him.
Flickr, Marco Verch Professional Photographer
10. Caught In The Act
I lived in army housing. They were small apartments, each with a balcony. One day, the lady across from me (who would often invite men into her home when her husband was at work) invited two of the German law enforcement officers in. Well, they were in for a surprise.
Her husband came home early and the two officers vaulted over her balcony while pulling their shirts on.
11. The Trash Panda Trap
I lived in a complex of sorts with stacked townhouses and a communal backyard. One night I went out for a smoke and heard a commotion. There is a weird middle-aged woman who is yelling at her upstairs neighbor for stealing her raccoon. Yes, she yelled that it was her raccoon because she left a bag of sugar out for it which is apparently a delicacy to raccoons.
The raccoon was on the upstairs neighbors' balcony so to get it back she constructed this ramshackle stairway of garbage (upturned garbage cans, broken chairs, etc) and tried to climb up while wielding a hula hoop. She managed to get to the top of the garbage mountain and somehow thought she could trap the raccoon with a hula hoop. The other neighbor came out and a fight ensued with the upstairs neighbor biting the weird lady. Authorities were called. Raccoon was never seen again.
12. Doggone It
My neighbors let their children scream like they are in unbearable agony. My service dog doesn't like it and will bark three short alert barks at them. And honestly, I didn’t stop him. It scares the kids a little to hear the dog, but they finally stop screaming once they hear it. These kids will literally scream high pitch like they are having their limbs sawed off.
So yeah, when I hear this and my dog hears this he starts to get visibly concerned. He thinks tiny humans are hurt and I think genuinely wants to make sure they are okay. So usually while this is happening, I let him out, he runs to the shared fence, does a few barks until the kids stop screaming, then he stops and lays down next to the fence.
In my opinion, my dog does a better job at moderating the kids than their own mother does. Anyways, this happened again this morning, my dog does his thing, the kids stop. But then I hear one start to cry. This was the beginning of my nightmare. Their mom comes over to my house furious. I answer the door politely and ask what’s the problem.
She says my dog scared her kids and I responded with "Oh, well he was concerned. Your children were screaming extremely loud and it sounded like they were hurt. They scream quite often in fact". She gets angrier and basically says they are kids being kids. I say "No mam, I am a kindergarten teacher and a mother myself—your kids are being excessively loud to the point where it's concerning the neighbors with their screaming”.
She got super angry and said they weren't screaming that loud, to which I responded I can show you my porch ring if you'd like. You can't see your yard but you can definitely hear the noises your children make". It took a bad turn. She then threatened to have my dog taken away. He is a seizure alert dog trained by the academy near here and I have his actions directly on tape.
He simply did three short barks, kind of like "stop it," then laid down. Not a threat at all. I told her she could try, but also maybe work on her kids not sounding like they are in a Saw film. She left more angry than when she arrived. I went ahead and made a call to the local dog trainer to let them know in case this lady makes a false claim against my dog.
Thank God for ring cameras set up everywhere so my husband can monitor my seizures, because I can validate my dog’s whereabouts at any time.
13. Neighbors Are Doing It For Themselves
I just moved into my house a week ago. My neighbor Linda has been very much in my business. She wants me to cut down my trees that shade her vegetable garden. She also asked me to cut down my trumpet vine that runs along the fence between our properties. I told her I’d think about it. I came out this morning and saw that all the vines were withered and they had been sliced at the ground.
She must have come over a few days ago while I was gone. My yard is completely fenced so I don’t know how she got in. She may have a key to my house.
14. See No Evil, Hear No Barking
I have never had an issue with a neighbor. I've been lucky up until now. I moved into a new home at the end of February 2020. I introduced myself and my family to the new neighbors. Like usual, some were more receptive and friendly than others. Within 30 days of buying the home and moving in, one of my next door neighbors started construction on a large, concrete block building.
The building is really close to the property line as well as really close to his back porch and another building in his backyard. I went to speak to him. I had a bad feeling, and was proven right. He indeed told me that it was not permitted and agreed that it was probably too close to the property line. He said he'd stop construction on it but didn't know why I had such a big deal with it as it's just a shed.
As soon as I mentioned construction and fire codes, he walks off and stated again he'd stop construction on it. Two days later, he continues construction. I tried to talk to him again and he just says "whatever buddy" and walks off. So I checked with the city and the zoning in our area requires a 12-foot setback for any structure, more depending on the height.
This was less than four feet from the common wall between our yards. That wall is the property line. So I call the city. While describing my complaint, the operator pulls up recent aerial photographs of his property. It opened the flood gates. She says that he has no permits on file with the city for any of the three other buildings in his backyard, the porch added to his home, the wall around his property, the structure he built in his front yard, etc.
She also says that he has very obviously overbuilt his property and there are guidelines to what percentage of his property he can fill with buildings. The guy has A LOT of unpermitted, uninspected buildings and construction on his property. The city went out and gave him a notice for work without permits. He has been asked by the city, multiple times, for information on his property and has not replied.
That was April 2020 when he got the notice. He has a couple of dogs. When I first met him, he told me to come meet his dogs so that they won't bark at me too much. I did and it didn't seem like the dogs were barking that much. After he got the notice from the city, though, he would just leave his dogs outside for hours on end and let them bark and bark the whole time.
It is just about mind-numbing. The way his yard is set up, he has a driveway on one side that goes from the street out front to his back yard. The other side of his house borders mine, and that is where the dogs are most of the time. It seriously sounds like it is right outside. With the TV and home theater on, AC running, kids making noise and all of the other household noises, I can still hear his dogs barking.
5 am to 11pm, those dogs will bark. Lately, he has started keeping one dog at a time on his back porch but is confining them to some kind of kennel. It is only about 4ft x 6ft. The dog(s) will whine, yip and bark for hours on end and it is right on the other side of the wall from me. I feel bad for the poor dog, being confined for hours at a time.
Summer temps are now going over 100 degrees, will get up to 115+ regularly during the summer, and I also worry for the safety of the dog being confined when temps are extreme and it is confined in an area with no ventilation. So, I go over to talk to him about his dogs and their barking. This was December 2020. He has a large block wall surrounding his front yard.
It's about 7 or 8 feet tall. There is no way to access his front door or his yard without going through a gate, which has barking/snarling dogs on the other side. No doorbell, intercom. Nothing. So, I knock on the side of his house, that is facing the street. I'm standing in his driveway. Both him and his wife come out to meet me.
I asked him if he could do something about his dogs and their constant barking. His reply was blood-boiling. He said to me, with a smirk on his face, that he doesn't know what I'm talking about and that his dogs never bark. This whole time, his dogs are barking so much that we can barely hear each other. "You know what buddy, you already cost me way too much money. Get off my property" he then said to me.
I take two steps and I'm now on a city-owned sidewalk and near the street. His wife climbs on something from his front yard and is screaming and cussing at me from inside the yard, leaning over their wall. He comes out of his gate and takes his shirt off, trying to get me to fight him in the street. I just walked home. I didn't laugh, argue, yell, talk, nothing.
At that point, I just walked home to avoid the violent confrontation that they were wanting. His dogs have continued to bark almost all day, every day since that interaction. But karma came for him. I was contacted by a city inspector recently about the complaint. The inspector told me that they have been asking him for information for over a year and he has yet to comply so his notice has officially been turned into a citation and he will have to go before a judge.
The problem that the inspector has had is that he has been unable to make contact with my neighbor, as he cannot get to the front door. He said that he has to issue the citation in person and also has to take pictures of the property when he serves the individual. The city inspector said that he is most likely going to have to get an officer to take him onto the property.
I've been debating calling the city about the animal noise. If I do, I'll probably bring up the issue of the confined dog on the back porch. They handle animal noise separately than normal noise and disturbing the peace calls. He'll get fined between $50 and $500 per occurrence, as I'll be required to complete a log of when I hear the dogs. He has clearly shown that he is unable to have a conversation about it and resolve it between the two of us.
I know he's in trouble with the city already but does he seriously think he can just continue to be a jerk without any repercussions? I'm 40. I've had plenty of neighbors through the years and have never had any issue with any of them until this guy. He's in big trouble already and I feel like it might be too much under the circumstances but I'd also like to be able to get a full night of sleep without having to listen to the dang dogs.
15. Start Your Engines
I have a double driveway with three cars in it and a fourth that I like to park in front of my house. My neighbor is upset that I park ONE car in front of my own house, yet they take all of the parking in front of both of their next-door neighbors’ houses, plus the house directly across the street from them. My house is next to the house that’s directly across the street from them.
They also have a car in front of mine. Yet they’re super offended that I have one car parked in front of my own house. She says I should put it in my driveway because she really needs the space. HELLLO!!! YOU HAVE 12 FRICKIN CARS!!!! I don’t want to have to shuffle my cars every time someone at my house has to go somewhere to make things more convenient for someone with 12 cars.
16. Don’t Try Me
I live in a town center above a shop with two lovely neighbors. I'm lucky enough to have off-street parking. Over the past few months, someone who lives in a neighboring block of flats has taken it upon himself to park in our spaces. Basically, he moved into a rental property knowing it had no parking and recently dropped $12k on a flashy car.
Yes, we've told him he can't park there but as three single women (46, 60, and 83 respectively) he has used being a large male to try to intimidate my two older neighbors. He won't directly speak to me but does leave aggressive notes on my car. But I still had no idea what he was really planning. A couple of weeks ago, I had a call from the authorities.
They were requesting me to go to my local station for an interview pertaining to damage to his car. Off I trundle to the station, only to be confronted with CCTV and photographic evidence. Turns out, he installed a camera pointing at our property without our knowledge. Sucks to be him, though, because his camera gives a full view into my bedroom and my neighbor’s bathroom—strike one for him.
It did show that I walked past his car with a wheelie bin, apparently scratching his car. They showed me photos of damage to his car. There was just one thing. I pointed out that these were on the opposite side to where I passed. No evidence of damage I supposedly did. I had photos of his undamaged car—strike two for him. In his statement, he said he had it in writing from the owner that he could park there, but couldn't produce the letter.
I had an email from the owner saying he had no permission—strike three for him. I went to the station with the expectation that I would end up with a conviction. I left the station with him having a formal warning for misuse of CCTV and giving a false statement. Couldn't have gone better for me and now he has to find somewhere else to park.
17. Good Riddance
I live in a 20-unit complex, but only half of us have assigned parking spaces, me being one of the lucky ones. My car space is right next to my front door and there is a sign that clearly states that the car space is allocated to my unit number. But this doesn't stop some of my neighbors or their guests from parking there. That was ok enough to live with, but then it got bad fast.
A new person had only recently moved in when he started parking in my spot, usually for most of the day and occasionally overnight. I confronted him and asked him to not park there, as he didn't have assigned parking and was required to park on the street. When this request was ignored, I went to the landlord who then sent him a letter.
When this too was ignored, I thought of a petty revenge plan. He would park there around the same time in the afternoon and when he would leave his car there overnight he would leave around noon the next day. He was entitled but predictable. When I was a kid, I read books about practical jokes like putting double-sided tape on the toilet seat or baby powder inside a powdered donut.
This book brought me hours of joy by pranking my friends and my well-deserved entitled mother. While thinking of my plan, one of those jokes came to mind. So I went shopping to find what I needed. A roll of industrial-strength double-sided tape and a huge roll of bubble wrap with the really big bubbles. Now all I had to do was wait until he left his car parked in my spot overnight.
It didn't take long. I asked another neighbor if he'd like to be my partner, and as soon as I told her what I was planning, she was all in. There are lights outside the unit complex at night, so we could see what we were doing. Even so, they aren't bright enough to expose us. Perfect. In the cover of moonlight, we put double-sided tape all over the back tires of his car. But we weren’t done.
We proceeded to stick the bubble wrap in multiple layers on the back of each wheel. We wedged even more bubble wrap between the back of the front wheels and the car so that when he reversed his car, there would be even more bubble wrap he'd be driving over. The back bumper of his car was hiding most of the bubble wrap so it was very unlikely that he would notice anything out of the ordinary.
I have surveillance cameras outside of my unit with a large monitor inside and one of the cameras points directly at the car park, so I had a direct view of his car. The next day I kept an eye out for him. Sure enough, around noon I saw him walking to his car. Brilliant! He started his car and as he reversed out of my car space, there was the loudest and most deafening banging sound I've ever heard.
The noise was so loud that I could hear it clear as day from inside my unit. His reaction was priceless. I heard him scream and saw him duck down, as if the sound was real. It took him a few minutes to get out of his car to investigate what made the noise. When he did, all I could hear was him shouting inaudible sentences with multiple swears thrown in for good measure.
The other neighbors came outside to see what was going on, as did I. ME: (faking concern) "OMG what happened?" NEIGHBOR: "Who the heck did this????!" ME: "I have no idea”. See, I'm in a wheelchair and couldn't possibly be capable of doing such a horrible thing. He spent the next few hours trying to get the bubble wrap off his tires.
Remember when I said the tape was industrial strength? I'd gone out of my way to find tape that would NOT come off easily. Eventually he got it off but for the next few days his car made that sound like when you get chewing gum stuck under your shoe. He never parked in my car space again.
18. Nice To Naughty
This is how I handled my problem neighbor: Throughout my entire adulthood I've owned my own home, except for a two-year period when my son was born and shortly after until we bought another house. During my time as a renter in a bigger town I had very rude neighbors, middle 50's couple, fairly well-to-do, who would spy and sneer and stare constantly.
Their adult children and grandkids did it too. They would stare and once they saw you looking back, they would slowly shake their heads before turning away. They lived to my immediate right. If you so much as coughed outside, they’d literally seek you out to stare at you for a minute, mutter something under their breath, then shake their head and turn away.
Three months of this and I had enough of it. Mind you, I'm quite big (6'4 1/2", 295 lbs) and very imposing and had a long biker beard at the time. My size didn't seem to intimidate them, at first. So I decided on a much different plan. It would have to be all mental. Since they were always so grouchy, I decided the best attack was kindness, mind you OVER THE TOP kindness.
Whenever I saw either of them looking at me, or both at the same time for that matter, I would walk/run right towards them with a loud jovial HI!!!! Get very close to them and forcefully initiate small talk. The moment they would try to respond, I would cut them right off and talk over them. Everything they said, I would laugh extremely loud at before they were even finished talking.
It was to the point where they would start backing up and I would wave my arms around and act like an idiot. This was an almost daily occurrence for a couple weeks. They seemed to give me more space and weren't outside staring at me nearly as often after that. Until one day it changed again. That day, a close friend drove by while I was in my front yard.
It took me a second to realize it was him because he wasn't in his own car; it was a rental because his was in the shop. The neighbors were on their front porch at the time. He beeped the horn and I looked and saw it was him and he promptly gave me the middle finger and yelled “Screw You!” out the window, which is something we often did to each other.
Then it hit me! The neighbors saw the whole thing! I sprang into action. I yelled back "You're done!” to my friend in the car as he kept going down the street, ran inside, grabbed my gun, threw it on the front seat of my truck, then ran next door and up on the neighbors’ porch where they were quite startled. I yelled at them "Who was that!? Did you send him!?"
They were too frightened to respond. I then ran over, jumped in my truck, and lit up the rubber, pulling out of the driveway and flying down the street. I caught up to my friend a little ways down the street and got him to pull over. I shared the story with him about what I'd just done (he had been well informed as to what the neighbors were doing) and he almost peed his pants laughing. Then we planned the next step.
It went like this. I returned 20 minutes later to the neighbors still on their porch, staring at me but trying to make out that they weren't. I pretended I didn't notice them. I went inside, got a large beach towel, and went outside with it. Knowing they were watching me, I pulled my piece out of the truck and started wiping it down with the towel. After clumsily and purposely looking over both shoulders in a fake attempt to check if anyone was watching, I wrapped it in the towel and ran around to the back of the house.
I brought the weapon inside and put it away quickly. I grabbed one of my baseball bats and wrapped it in the towel and went into the backyard. I then very loudly opened the shed and got a shovel. Making quite a racket the whole time. I could see when I came out that they were looking at me from an upstairs window in their house to see what I was doing.
I dug a small hole and threw the towel-wrapped bat in the hole and promptly buried it. The neighbors never spoke to me or stared at me again.
19. The Garden Of Eden
So. My cat didn't come home for dinner. Very strange. He's usually the one (we have two) demanding I get to opening the tins. So I look in the usual spots, is he stuck in a closet or the garage? Nothing. I eat dinner, thinking he'll be around meowing any minute. Well, no sign of Frank (the cat). He's mostly an indoor lazy guy who wanders a bit around outside.
Anyway, my neighbor previously (a month ago or so) had yelled at my wife about the cat "pooping" in his garden. Okay that's not cool, he has a litter box, we have a garden. I get that's a bit annoying. So anyway I go over to his place and knock on his door. Said I understand my cat has been bothering you. I gave him my business card, said if he ever bugs you again please call or text me.
I said I'll deal with whatever mess or whatever. Meanwhile, I'll try to improve the situation. I bought some dirt, catnip, made an outdoorsy litter area for my guy, showed it to him a few times. We made an effort to keep him inside more. But I'll be honest, eight years as an indoor/outdoor cat and he gets antsy and crafty about getting outside sometimes.
Anyhow, I'm wandering around the roads near my place hoping not to find a tire print over my cat. No sign. He doesn't come home so now it's worry time. I kind of know in the back of my mind what happened. I sense that the neighbor did something. So I'm wandering around outside and I approach his driveway, calling for Frank—and I hear him.
He's meowing for me. Okay I follow the sounds and yep, he's trapped in buddy's garage. So I tried the door, figured he could have wandered in and got stuck. Darn, he's gotten stuck in mine before. Door is locked. Knocked on buddy's door. Said I hear my cat stuck in your garage. I couldn’t believe his response. He says, verbatim, "Yep! Bye" and goes to close the door.
I knock again, bit louder. Now this guy is a boomer, probably 65 years old. And he says, "What?" and I said, “Man, you got my cat in there. Just let him out thanks”.
And he says "No". At this point I'm at the front door and as he's closing it I put my foot in there. I'm like bud, let him out. He says no again. I said should I break this window to get him out? He pulls out his phone and starts recording and says "You're threatening me!" and I'm like "Bro you took my cat let him out" and he says no again. Goes to close the door and I knocked hard as it closed and it popped open. Guess it didn't latch. It hit a breaking point.
He tells his wife to call 9-1-1. And she does. He slams the door with his shoulder and locks it. I hear them literally on emergency calling the authorities. I'm like, ok, he took my cat. He can't keep him, that's not a thing. So I dialed the non-emergency line and told my end—the neighbor threatened my cat before, now he has him captive. And she tells me a squad car will be there soon talk to him.
Like five seconds later, the first car pulls up. I give him my ID, tell him my cat is in there. He says how do I know. I said I can hear him. Well, does he have a cat? No I’m pretty sure he hates cats. I show him a picture and say he's in the garage here. Two more cars pull up, four more officers. I'm like wow, this is really something. First officer talking to buddy, watching the video.
But then two more! Five total, one guy is like in SWAT gear ready to take somebody down. They talk to him. Cat is meowing like crazy beside us in the garage. The SWAT guy is like "did you take his cat?" the other guy says "he says he did, says that’s this guy’s (me) cat in there...” “He poops on my property! Right there”! He points to a little dirt patch behind a bush.
I'm like, I'm sorry man I didn't tell my cat to come over here and find a good litter box. I'm working on it. It really devolved at this point. SWAT guy is like, we drove 90 mph up here because... Cat poop? Neighbor says "He was threatening me!" At that point I said I just asked how I should go about getting my cat out of the garage.
SWAT guy tells buddy he's called a break-and-enter to 9-1-1 because I was "sneaking around his garage" and the first cop is like "this guy took his cat". SWAT guy is like "why did you call a break-and-enter?" Neighbor says "I didn't" and the officer is like "should we go down to the shop and pull the tape”? Neighbor starts pulling a "do you know who I am? Don't talk down to me”.
The guy is like it's a crime to call emergency for a non-emergency. Like down to the station kind of deal. First officer is like "let the cat out now" and he finally does. Frank runs out and home. The officer is like this is stupidly unreasonable that you called 9-1-1 over cat poop. Guy finally apologizes. Shakes my hand and says sorry to me. I knew just what to do.
I say “do you still have my number? I'll literally come fix whatever he messes up while I try to get him trained up to stop using your garden there”. The officer says to me to do what I can to keep the cat indoors. I'm like “I do try, but my niece and five-year-old live with us and sometimes he's crafty". Anyway—now I'm not sure what is going to happen to my cat if he gets out again.
20. Wrong Place, Wrong Time
I bought a townhouse last year and within six months had to sell due to a neighbor from Hades. He was extremely mentally ill. Between the threats to myself and family, damage to our shared wall from him pounding on it, bottles being thrown at us, etc we couldn’t take anymore. The authorities couldn’t do anything, HOA doing nothing—we had to sell.
Without getting into too much of the story, this neighbor was not disclosed to us at closing between the seller and HOA. This neighbor was a serious issue for YEARS before us buying the townhouse. This whole process was very obviously very awful I still suffer PTSD from this person. A beautiful house I renovated and was so excited to start a family in our new 3-bedroom home.
It all came crashing down due to one man. My lawyer (who helped me close on the house to buy and then again six months later closed on the house to sell) put a provision in all his contracts and named it after me, saying all social issues with neighbors must be disclosed when buying a home. Maybe it’s because I’m now pregnant, but I’m crying my eyes out.
I’m so happy that my lawyer put this in all his closing contracts going forward. I tried everything to keep my home.
21. An Act Of Hate
I was in a car accident when I was young, maybe eight years old. I had my two sisters—one younger and one older in the back seat with me, and in the front were our babysitters who were very close family friends. We went off a curb on our very own road that was notorious for accidents and the car flipped several times. It was the middle of winter in Northern Vermont.
We had tons of snow and it was cold out. We were all okay as it was a low-speed accident, but the Jetta doors had crunched in and the only way we could get out was by kicking the cracked windshield out. While our babysitters did their best, we couldn't get out. By that time, the person whose lawn we had rolled onto came down. He was very nice, but he couldn't get to us either. He told us he would go get his parents who lived just up the road to help.
He returned with his parents and my babysitters' faces were a mixture of disbelief and concern. You see, my babysitters are Black, and the guy's parents were their next-door neighbors who were EXTREMELY supremacist. They would shoot in the air and in the general direction of the family's home, shouting "American and proud!" on basically every even remotely patriotic holiday.
It came to a head one year when they shot through two layers of the fence that our babysitters' father had installed out of worry for his many kids. Now, while analyzing our situation, the faces on the parents of the guy were a mixture of disgust and amusement. I'll never forget what they said: "We aren't lifting a dang finger for these losers," and how they turned away, chuckling to themselves.
The guy was embarrassed and apologized on behalf of his parents. A few minutes later, a fire truck arrived and they broke open the doors to help us out. I was freezing and confused as were my sisters. That act of hate has always stuck with me. I sincerely hope those two jerks met a painful end.
22. Nonstop Nuisance
I managed a triplex building, so I have come into contact with all sorts of characters, but this one guy took the cake. He was the meanest, rudest, craziest person I had ever met. If the tenants in my building left a window on the ground floor open and were cooking, or watching television, he would come on over and scream through their open window that they were being too noisy.
When I told him that coming onto the property would be trespassing and in the future, I would press charges, he stayed on his side of the fence and screamed louder in the general direction of whatever window happened to be open. For the record, these weren’t overly noisy people. There is a fairly long, but only about 3-foot high fence separating his property from the triplex.
But he didn’t stop there. If I, or the tenants, did yard work, or if I hired a crew to do yard work, he would pick up trash on his side of the fence and throw it onto the freshly manicured lawn, claiming that, "We left it on his side," when we did no such thing. He even waited until they'd finished with a section before throwing some piece of garbage onto it.
If the tenants sat out on the back patio, he would call law enforcement with noise complaints and whatnot, even if there was no music playing and they were just sitting there. One time officers came over and said they had reports of a party with escorts there. They were looking at one girl who lived there, who, quite frankly, was probably the most attractive person I had ever met.
She started bawling her eyes out, and her boyfriend had to explain that she was a tenant and not a paid date. The officers left without saying anything to the old guy. As soon as the cruiser was out of sight, the old guy came up to the fence and said something so disturbing, it’s unforgettable. He told her, "If you didn't want officers to be called you shouldn't have been dressing like that."
Then the old guy tried to fight the girl’s boyfriend, who teaches MMA and competes in tournaments. Toward the end of the summer, he hired some random guy to cut down all the trees on our side of the fence. Not just the branches on his side, the entire tree. I had a professional reputation to protect and lived in a fairly small city, so, unfortunately, there was not much I could do.
23. Real Peaches
My neighbor sprayed our hedge between our houses with something that destroyed it. Initially, we planted it there next to her cyclone fence so we wouldn’t have to look at her. Everything we’ve planted there dies, and they always start dying from her side. She’s super nosy and is always watching out the window, which is why we plant things there!
She also moved her in-ground sprinklers onto what I think is our property. They are touching our driveway, and she sets them to go off in the middle of the night when our cars are parked there. She refuses to set them for when we’re at work because it “interrupts her yard work time.” The water spots on our cars are from the irrigation water, and they leave huge, white, amoeba-shaped marks down one side of our car!
I paid someone $250 last year to use acid to remove them and they were still faintly there. She actually had the nerve to suggest our son park his car there because the color of his car won’t show the water spots as bad! Her husband walks up and down the backyard fence and whistles at our dog to make her bark, then the wife complains to us about our dog barking.
They're real peaches.
24. Property Pigs
We lived in our house for 40 years. During the height of the boom, the house that shared the same back property line was sold to a couple who paid WAY too much money for it. When the market tanked, they started blaming the neighborhood for their house being underwater. Everyone else in the neighborhood had been there for over 20 years and would help each other out with lawn and house projects.
Over two years, this new couple would randomly stick wooden stakes on our property trying to claim it as theirs. They tried to cut down lilac bushes we had planted and cut down trees on their property that would cause flooding on our property. They put up a fence between them and another neighbor that was not allowed because they said the neighbor's car was ugly.
After we caught one of them creeping through our yard at night measuring things. I knew how to finally get revenge. We called officers and the town council. They immediately told the couple to never set foot on our property again. I ended up paying $700 to get a surveyor out there the next day to map out the property, officially. I ended up gaining six feet, and the surveyor reported their fence, so they got fined. It was the best $700 I ever spent.
25. The No-Gooder
We were trying to sell our house and the neighbors' nephew was sabotaging it. When we’d leave so people could look at it, he would sneak around creepily which turned off a lot of buyers. He even went into my house during an open house and told people not to buy it. He lived like 100 yards away from us and to this day, we still don’t know what his deal was.
Once he started threatening my sister who tried to help him after he passed out on my driveway, we called the authorities and made him sign a paper that said if he was caught on the property again, he’d be put behind bars. Luckily, we were able to sell it after that.
26. The Apartment Downstairs
One Christmas Eve, my husband, our one-year-old, and I had gone over to visit some friends down the road and got back home kind of late. As we approached our building, we made a chilling discovery. We noticed the glass door that led into the complex was shattered, with a fair amount of blood coating the frame and a trail of it leading to one of the downstairs apartments.
We called law enforcement, and while we waited, the woman from that apartment came out and started mopping up the blood trail. When officers arrived, the woman and her boyfriend were taken to opposite vehicles to be questioned, as were we. Our neighbors kept changing their stories. He had tripped and fallen into the door, she'd fallen into him, they'd been arguing and he slammed it in a rage, and so forth.
It finally came out that they'd been growing weed in the back bedroom, and had gotten into a heated argument over how much they were going to sell it for. She had pushed him, and he fell into the glass at just the right angle for his elbow to smack it, thus shattering it and tearing up his arm and side pretty badly. We wound up having to crash at a motel for the night while the damage was assessed and the crime scene cleaners did their thing.
27. Crossing A Line
This is about my neighbor two houses over. We were good acquaintances, probably almost friends; but everything changed in a single moment. I worked for the guy for a little bit—he was actually my boss at the time this happened. I noticed that he's really big on using people's stuff when they aren't around—like one time, he used a guy's woodworking tools while he was gone.
I told him multiple times, "Hey, I'm cool with you borrowing my stuff but just make sure you ask. I also don't like unscheduled visits, so call or text if you want to stop over." I just wanted to let him know where I stood if he wanted to borrow some more tools from me or whatever. I had let him borrow a 17 mm impact socket from me once.
Then, two weeks went by and I assumed the jerk probably lost it. Whatever...I just told myself never to lend out stuff to him again. Well, after another few days, he said, "Hey, you weren't home so I returned the socket and borrowed another." Yes, he hopped over my fence mid-day while I was gone, opened my garage door, returned the socket he borrowed, very scratched and marred up, and helped himself to some of my other tools.
He told me this a week after he did it, out of the blue, as if it was no big deal. That was the breaking point for me. I told him to stay the heck away from me, my house, my family, and my property.
28. Make Up Your Mind
Directly across the street from me lived a single male, around 50 years old—and he had strange dating/break-up habits. He would date a woman for about six months to a year, and her car would pretty much be at his house every evening. Around that six-month or one-year mark, he would wave my wife and me down to have a chat when he’d see us outside.
He would say, "If you EVER see my girlfriend's car parked here again, call me and tell me. She is NOT allowed to be on my property." A few days would pass, and he would let us know that it was, once again, okay for her to be at his house. This has happened with about four different women.
29. Driveway Dispute
We moved into an apartment and our neighbor informed us that she owned half of the driveway. Cool, whatever; it was a huge driveway and it had more than enough room for all of us. After a month or so of living there, she divided the driveway in half with a bunch of rocks. Still fine, as we had plenty of room. But over the course of two months, she slowly moved the rocks closer and closer to our apartment.
It got to a point where we would have to physically move them out of the way to get in and out of our driveway. The landlord finally got a survey done and found out a shocking truth—she didn’t own ANY part of the driveway! From that point on, she was forced to park her car on the road. Serves her right for lying to us and taking advantage of our kindness.
30. This Is One Messed Up Neighborhood
Instead of just one person, my whole neighborhood was chock full of THOSE people. At the top of the street was the so-called de facto neighborhood watch leader who had followed my friend's car, honked constantly at my house only to drive away when I would go to see what was going on and sat at the top of the street asking anyone who entered the road if they were going to MY address.
Down the way a little bit, was a couple who minded their own business, but always had their dog outside barking. They also had, presumably, their adult son sit in front of the window with no clothes on at night. Across from them was an almost senile elderly woman, who had cinder block sculptures in her yard. The neighbors on my side consistently called law enforcement on my house, ranging from disturbing the peace to accusing my brother and me of taking things from their shed.
When an officer came to investigate, he informed us the neighbors believed we were the thieves, along with accusing us of selling illicit substances and turning the neighborhood into garbage. Well, the next day, the truth finally came out. it was revealed the thieves were some of the family's son's friends. The mother of the household was extremely cocky about the situation and flat out refused to accept her own son's friends did it and refused to apologize for the incident.
However, the worst one of all was my neighbor across the street. He lacked any common sense and spent most of his time revving his motorcycle or driving his just as equally obnoxious truck. When we first moved in, he immediately stated that we were NOT to use his driveway for parking, which was understandable and which we never intended to do because…why would we?
Throughout the months I had officers knock on my door around a dozen times, ranging from theft claims to claims our cars were blocking the neighbor’s driveway. Each time the officers were extremely polite to us and were on our side, realizing what the neighbor said was a lie. He threatened us with a weapon as well as repeatedly told us not to "try anything" as he had his whole yard hooked up with cameras.
He took pictures of my friends' license plates and would call law enforcement to try and dig up ANYTHING incriminating, even something as minuscule as a slightly outdated sticker. We served him with a trespassing notice, and he upped his ante. Now I have officers knocking on my door about once a week and they are just as sick of him as we are.
31. Go Away Doggone-It
My one neighbor would try to organize huge doggy play dates. She would try to get upwards of 20 dogs together in this 50x50 fenced area our apartment complex provided. If you didn’t go, she would knock on your door and ask if she could take your dog without you. My dog didn’t like being crowded with a bunch of other dogs that were twice his size, and I didn’t need her to tell me how to take care of my pet!
He's happy and healthy. I wish she would quit knocking on my door!
32. Bird Calls
I'm probably someone's bad experience, although they don't know it's me yet. The malfunctioning smoke alarm in my apartment complex hallway has almost become a sort of a bitter joke among my neighbors—it's been chirping multiple times a day for the past two months; but no matter what, maintenance just can't seem to make it stop.
What my neighbors don't know is that the smoke alarm only chirped consistently for about three days. Everything since then has been my parrot, who liked the sound so much that she's been mimicking it as often as she likes. They don't know I have a parrot. The woman immediately next door does think I have a dog, though, because the feathery little witch also likes to bark and then scold herself for it.
33. Up In Smoke
I came home to a smoke-filled apartment and I called 9-1-1 right away since I couldn't find the cause myself. Turns out, our downstairs neighbors put a charcoal grill on their stove so they could barbecue indoors. Brilliant. My only relief was that a friend had walked my dog earlier that day so I know he wasn't in a smoke-filled apartment all afternoon.
34. Total Eclipse Of The Spot
I was living in an apartment a while back. We all got two parking spots, I used one for my car and the other for my motorcycle. My neighbor had a newer Eclipse and a big 4-door 4x4 truck that would barely fit in the spot. One day I came out to notice that the Eclipse was completely over the line into my parking spot, next to my motorcycle.
I brushed it off and figured it would stop. After about a week of her taking up more and more of the spot, to the point where their car was right next to my bike, I decided to take action. I moved my bike and parked my car inches away from hers. About two hours later, my door was being beaten upon. I opened it to find my neighbor, who happened to be about 5'2", 300 pounds, and one of the ugliest women I have ever seen in my life.
She was cursing and yelling about how she needed to go to work and I had her car blocked in. I knew exactly what to say. I looked at her and suggested that she climb into her car from the passenger seat. This infuriated her further since it is obvious with her size this would be impossible. She then said she was going to call the housing manager and have my car towed.
I pointed out that I was WELL inside of my parking spaces and welcomed her to call. She pointed out that since she had two "real" vehicles and they didn’t both fit well inside of her parking spots, that she was somehow entitled to some of mine since I only had a motorcycle and smaller car. I laughed at her and headed inside.
I watched out my front window for about five more minutes while she stomped around yelling at people on the phone, getting more and more frustrated as she went on. She has realized that almost no matter what happens, she was going to be late for work, so she called her work crying. I let another couple of minutes pass.
Once I saw the look of defeat overcome her face, I walked out and moved my car. Huffing, she crammed herself into her compact car and drove off, obviously without a word of thanks. We lived next to them for another couple of months before they started a fire in their apartment and almost burned the whole place down. She didn't cross that line again.
35. Nosey Neighbor
We have a nice wooded area behind my parents' house where my brother and the other boys from the neighborhood would go play paintball. This one time when my brother was walking back home, a woman called law enforcement on him because he had his paintball gun out while he was walking back. Despite being covered in paint and having the gear on, she saw the weapon and freaked out. I get it, not a huge deal.
Officers came, asked my brother a couple of questions, and reassured the lady that it was just a 12-year-old with a toy. That should have been the end of it—but it wasn’t. This woman proceeded to tail us whenever she saw any of us leaving the development. The neighborhood is nice and full of families who walk around with their kids at night.
So, whenever my mom would go for a walk around the neighborhood to get some air, this lady would follow her. She would also stand on her porch to watch my dad every time he stepped outside to have a smoke. Once, we were pulling into our development at the same time and she pulled into our driveway after me to "introduce" herself and ask invasive questions. One was, "So how long do you guys plan on living here?"
36. Public Pool
They insisted that we pay to have a gate installed between our backyard fences so that they may use our above-ground pool as they please, preferably when they invite friends over. When we denied it, they threw a hissy fit and found an excuse to "punish" us. You see, the pool was going through some expensive issues with leakage into the yard.
They threatened to call the fine-happy HOA because the water was leaking into the yard they rarely used and their dog was allegedly getting sick from drinking the water. Not wanting to deal with that nonsense (and also wanting to clean our own backyard of the pond that began housing frogs), my father spent his birthday day off from work in the Texas heat digging a trench and installing a pipe so that the water could drain.
The neighbors came outside and harassed dad the entire time he was digging the trench, telling him it would've just been easier to install the gate. Would've been easier to install a shovel into their frontal lobes, those freaking profligates.
37. Don's A Dog
My old neighbor used to walk his dog on a leash to let it take a dump in my yard. My mom had me throw the mess back into his yard once and he called the authorities on us. A few months later, my family and I were going out of town and after we left our house, my mom had realized she had forgotten something. We turned around—and what we witnessed made our blood boil.
There's our awful neighbor, standing in the middle of our yard with his dog on a leash dropping a nice present in our front yard. All I remember is my mom winding down her window and yelling, “Screw you, Don!”
38. The Sounds Of Sirens
The neighborhood I lived in had several characters—but the strangest had to be the siren dude. He was maybe 35-40 years old, skinny, and bald. He would walk around the neighborhood at seemingly random hours pulling a small cart behind him with whatever he felt like having that day, imitating siren noises with his mouth.
It didn't matter what time of day it was either. He would sometimes wake me up at 7 AM, and other times, I would see him strolling around during the day, or even at 1 AM. He made high-pitched noises that sounded like cruisers pulling you over. You could hear him coming from a few streets away until he would walk by, and wave to you. If you made a siren noise at him, he would continue on his way. It was so weird.
39. No More Room In The House?
There's a woman in my town who has a house but lives in her car, in the driveway of said house. A car that, I'm almost certain, doesn't even run. She's seen at least once a week walking around our neighborhood picking up any trash she finds, which she then brings back to her house. She then throws it in a huge pile in her backyard.
The pile is so big, it could probably fill an industrial-sized dumpster. It's a miracle she hasn't been fined by the township for it, or maybe she has we don't know. She's never spoken to anybody. We are not even sure if she can speak. We have attempted to ask her questions, but she just smiles and continues walking. Weird.
40. Don’t Drink The Water
I lived in a suburban town in New Jersey before I went away to university. There was this one field behind a church that all the town kids used to go to hang out at. There was a jungle gym, four baseball diamonds, a basketball court, a concession stand that was open on the weekends, and a big open field to run around in.
The only issue was that there were only two ways to get into this field, and they were about half a mile away from each other. Therefore, if you didn't want to add an extra 10 minutes to your journey, then you had to walk past the "water guy's" house. The water guy would stand outside his house every day from March until October, straddling a bicycle and saying, "Don't drink the water," to anyone that walked by.
His voice was very reminiscent of Hector Herbert from Family Guy, although not quite as high pitched or whistle-y. It got so bad that parents complained to the town. However, being weird isn't an actionable offense and he never did anything but stand on his lawn and say, "Don't drink the water" to passersby. This went on for the entire time I lived there. He was by far the weirdest guy I have ever seen in my life.
41. Sweeper Swiper
We have this one family on our block. There must have been at least 10 people living in a modest-sized row home. Once when it snowed heavily, I had to dig my car out with my shovel and I also brought a broom to sweep it off. I barely got my car out, but I left the shovel and the broom next to my spot which was right in front of their house.
I forgot it at first, so I figured I would just circle the block and pick it up. Sure enough, I came back around and the shovel was gone and standing where it used to be was their 12 or 13-year-old daughter holding my broom. I asked her for it back and she started telling me I had to prove it was mine. At this point, I was furious.
I told her to leave the broom and get her parents. Of course, she ran inside with the broom and locked the door. I started pounding on the door for 10 minutes. No one answered. I was confused as to why anyone would want to take a broom! My only hope was they used it to clean the mess they lived in. I knew this because their front door was always wide open when they were outside. Luckily, they moved.
42. Snitch To Win
I had a neighbor who won the lottery (about $800k USD after taxes) and he decided that made him God. He also had an addiction problem and would stay up late partying and playing music at all hours of the day and night. I live in a small mountain town and the sound echoes terribly. Well, this guy "Dear John'd" his husband of 8 years and at one point was making violent threats against him.
The authorities got involved and the neighbor got slapped with domestic charges. But that's just the beginning: AFTER the charges were filed, this neighbor decided he would buy a firearm, which was totally not allowed. He had to lie about the pending charges to get it, and then he told his ex that once he got it, he was going to end him. After that, he decided that partying out in Portland was more important than attending his court date, and he subsequently had a bench warrant issued to him.
On the Friday of a St. Patty's weekend, he was blasting his music again, so I called 9-1-1 to register a noise complaint. He likely had a scanner, because every single time, before they came, he turned down the music. They'd arrive not hearing any music, then let me know there was not much they could do. At that point, I let it slip that he had an active warrant. They ended up taking him in.
Because he blew all of his lottery money and alienated himself from every friend he used to have, he spent the whole long weekend behind bars with every other jerk who was there. About three weeks later, he put his house up for sale. A crowning achievement for me.
43. Slip-N-Slide Set Up
Our neighbor would have a bonfire going every day. One day he decided to put a TV in front of the bonfire and he would put a trash bag over whenever it would rain. He then got a gigantic banner that said something, something "USA" that he used as a slip and slide. He also had a taped-up hose on the side of his house that he would use to water his plants and slip and slide, which were fantastically set up next to his barbecue grill.
44. Bringing The House Down
I had the neighbor's house condemned and torn down. It's kind of a long story, but it was so worth it. So, the property next to me had two houses on it. The owners decided to gut and remodel one of them, and they piled the demolition debris in the front yard...directly next to my house. That stuff stayed there for a full year, with the owners ignoring my every effort to get them to do something about it (they did not live on the property, they were renting it out).
So I eventually checked with the city about their remodel permits and found that not only did they not have permits, but as far as the city was concerned, the house didn't exist. It had been built with no plans or permits filed and tied into the other house utilities. So I talked to the city planner’s office and they came out to put a stop-work order on the house (which was not really necessary since no work had been done in a year).
They also condemned the house. They told the owners they wouldn't be fined or prosecuted if they demolished the property. That sounds drastic, but the house was already gutted with no windows or doors, and they weren't going to let them restore it. So that's how I got someone's house torn down.
45. Grudge Holding Granny
Our ridiculously awful and crotchety old neighbor had an ongoing feud with my grandparents, who moved into the area over 30 years ago. The woman called the city on my grandfather when he was renovating because she was sure he hadn't applied for permits and wanted to get him in trouble. To her surprise, he had. She then called saying the front yard was a mess.
In our city, if you have a bunch of stuff on your lawn, such as spare tires, car parts, or other attractive things, you can be forced to remove them. We had a full garden instead of a lawn, so we wouldn’t have to mow. The inspector agreed it was ridiculous because it is clearly a garden and not an eyesore. She would also wash her driveway after the rain, wasting water, as well as her car every two weeks. This, despite the fact she was in her 80s and never went anywhere.
She would mow her lawn in diagonal stripes and flat out screamed at her daughter when she mowed it the wrong way once. Every time someone new moved into the neighborhood, she would "warn" them about us. We still have no idea what she would say, but we know she would do it, because of her other feud with a new neighbor.
A young family moved in beside her with their two lovely children—they didn’t know what they were getting into. She would engage in extremely passive-aggressive tactics until things blew up and the man and she got into a screaming match on their front lawns. The neighborhood is well to do. People screaming on their front lawns is something you wouldn’t expect to see here.
While they were screaming at each other, my grandma was out front working on the garden, something she does regularly. The crotchety neighbor decided to call over to my grandmother, telling her to mind her own business. Next thing I knew my grandfather was screaming over to her to mind her own business, as we are on our property.
The man came over shortly afterward and we talked about the crotchety neighbor, and he confirmed that she had warned them against talking to us.
46. Clean Freak Ken
When I lived in the city, there was Ken. I only knew Ken's name because when we moved into the house, the landlord said, "Oh, and that's Ken's place." I never met Ken, but I would watch from afar, as my bedroom window overlooked a room in Ken's house. I'm pretty sure it was either his bathroom or his kitchen, which means one of two things.
Either he did his dishes by hand every night as naked as the day he was born, or every night he stood in the bathroom and vigorously scrubbed his junk for sometimes upwards of a half-hour. My girlfriend at the time and I used to get tipsy and watch him. Sometimes even in the middle of getting busy, one of us would casually go, "Ken's back," and we'd giggle to ourselves.
The funny thing is, he kept the curtains in place during the day, so I never had a reasonable chance to peek in some more. He kept to himself. We kept to ourselves. And every night he would clean the bejeezus out of something with the curtains pulled back, daring the world to peek in on his proud vulnerability.
47. Rock On
My house is right on the corner of an area where the road turns into a T, and I had issues with people cutting the corner and driving through my yard. One time, someone even nearly hit my dog. So I bought a boulder that was probably 300 or 400 pounds and put it right on the corner. That winter, we had a bad snowstorm.
Someone was coming through in a lifted Dodge and he hit the boulder going about 20 mph. He totaled the truck. Since then, I’ve had zero issues with people.
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48. Barefoot And Bananas
There used to be a girl who lived in my neighborhood who was downright crazy. She would always walk around with no shoes on and hated me because I dated someone she was into, who also happened to live in the neighborhood. She came over to my house late one night and harassed me a couple of times, usually when she knew my parents were gone.
When I refused to come outside, she broke a car window with a rock. I’m so glad I will never have to see her again.
49. The Psycho Next Door
My aunt, who was a single mother at the time and ran a daycare service in her house, lived next to a psychopath. After a bad ice storm one day, my aunt had a bunch of tree limbs fall into her backyard. Her neighbor's husband came over and cleaned it up for her; you know, just being a good neighbor. In turn, my aunt thanked him with a case of drinks; you know, just being a good neighbor.
Well, his wife took that as flirting, and so began a one-sided feud against my aunt. It was a while ago, so I don't remember everything. What I do remember, though, was horrifying. She tried to run over my aunt's dog once. Another time, she called child protective services and told them my aunt was a night worker and working at her house during the daycare hours.
Probably the worst one though was when my aunt found a bit of grass near the house burnt. She's old high school friends with the fire inspector, so he came and confirmed a fire was started using a propellant. My aunt took her to court over these things, but I don't remember what came of it. I'm pretty sure she at least got a restraining order.
50. A Huge Disturbance
Our neighbor burned something in his oven. Rather than open his windows to get the smoke out, he opened his door to the hall and set off the building's alarms. We all had to stand out in the cold and wait for the fire department while he watched from his apartment. The fire department opened his windows and told him he was an idiot.
We still had to wait outside for them to do mandatory checks of everything to make sure it really was just him being stupid. It was January. In New England. During a cold snap.
51. Noise Pollution
I used to have a terrible work schedule. I'd have to wake up at 2:30 am every morning so I could be at work by 4 am. My downstairs neighbors would blare loud music at all hours of the night and I could feel the bass through my mattress. I went downstairs and politely asked them to turn down the music, and they seemed to kindly agree.
As soon as I got back into bed, they turned it up even louder and kept it going until about 1:30 am. They didn't know who they were messing with. Before I left for work at 3:30 am, I turned over my amplifier so that the speaker was facing the floor. I turned the volume up and set my guitar on top of it. I left for my 12-hour shift, and the feedback was still screaming when I came home. The neighbors never blasted their music again.
52. When Greed Takes Over
I live in Puerto Rico, where most of the island has been without power for the past two months following Hurricane María. Due to our government's power authority being quite slow in the recuperation process, a lot of neighborhoods in my area have been hiring private contractors to bring the electricity back. In my case, I found a contractor willing to bring our neighborhood's power grid back on, but I needed unanimous support from the neighbors to pay and authorize the process.
Most were on board for this, but two of my next-doors opposed it for some reason. When we asked them why they were, their response floored us. They said that they wanted the neighborhood without power so the rest of us would eventually leave and they'd never have to see our "annoying and pathetic" faces again. So it was pretty much a no-go on the contractor.
Fast forward a week and we found out that these next-doors had a friend in the power authority who asked them to keep away private contractors from the neighborhood so the authority could take credit when the power is eventually restored.
53. Ulterior Motives
My next-door neighbor was always creepy. He always asked us to come inside and play with his cats. Then, when he was moving out, he offered me an Air Force One jacket. I was about 10 at the time. He said that if I wanted to get the jacket, I had to come with him to get it from some guy's house. After I told him I needed to ask my mom, he disappeared.
To this day, I think he wanted to abduct me.
54. Serial Mower
I lived next door to a guy who would mow his grass every single day. He was nice enough to start at 8 AM, although I think that was only because according to the law, that was the earliest he could do it. Same thing with the rain. As soon as it was over, out came the mower. At that time I would work until 2 AM or 4 AM, so sometimes I didn't get to bed till 6 AM. It sucked, and earplugs didn't seem to help much. I moved out ASAP.
55. Trail Of Destruction
My next-door neighbors had a daughter who was an addict. She would come around fairly often. She looked like Mickey Rourke in booty shorts and would wear an undersized tank top, and had a super bleached, teased mullet. She would usually help her elderly parents with yard work, etc., and was always nice to me. Her arrival, however, was usually accompanied by screaming matches with her friends.
Her little dog would be yapping and pooping everywhere too. There was even paraphernalia left in the yard, and sometimes she and her friends would appear to stash illicit substances/stolen goods in the shed that was out back. I've seen her mow the lawn in a negligee and nothing else. She would arrive with different people and cars nearly every time she showed up. The rest of my neighborhood was normal, but I swear sometimes looking out my back door was like going to the zoo.
56. Caught In The Middle
My neighbors had...problems. They had constant, nightly blowouts and physical fights. They were together but not married, so they were constantly on and off. The dad was an avid drinker and the officers knew him by name. Once, when we were sleeping, we heard the screaming and cries of their son (who was my little sister's best friend). A minute later, the boy was knocking on the door for my mom to help.
She pulled him inside and a few minutes later the mom showed up, bloody and beaten up. She asked my mom to lock the door and held onto her son. She wouldn't call the authorities out of fear they'd take the son, so my mom pulled the couch out and made them a makeshift bed. She locked the door and made the mom food while my sister and the son slept. But that wasn't the end of it.
About an hour after they'd showed up, the dad started kicking our door and screaming. My mom fought with him through the door for over an hour, and he eventually left. My mom then arranged for a place for them to stay in a women's shelter an hour or so away and brought them there the next night after he thought they'd already left.
She spent two weeks sneaking as much as she could to them until she found an apartment back locally and felt it was safe for them to come back.
57. The Dog Days
My current neighbors are the worst. I'm in the Navy and so I'm often away, leaving my wife to deal with things alone. Our neighbors recently got a Staffordshire Bullterrier and rather than walk it, they would just throw it into their yard to do its business. After a while, it ran out of places to go in its own garden, so it started to jump into ours to take a dump.
My son is also scared of dogs, so he feels unsafe about going into our own yard to play. Since I'm at sea most of the time, there isn't a great deal I can do apart from telling my wife that I'll deal with it when I get home. But now the dog is growling at my wife in our own yard as it spends so much time there that it probably thinks it's his. I told my wife to leave the gate open and if the dog jumps over, it can go outside to do its thing.
The next day, my wife opened the door to a man screaming at her and calling her a witch because his dogs ran away and might have been run over. He then threatened my wife and son over the issue and left. So my wife called the authorities and to her astonishment, the jerks next door said we were being unreasonable by not letting their dog do its business in our garden; our property.
Anyway, he got a warning from the officers and an order to control his dog by building a fence or risk having it taken away by the dog warden.
58. A Messy Message
We lived in a neighborhood of townhouses. One neighbor let her dogs go #2 all over everyone’s lawn and she never picked it up. We tried asking her to be more considerate, but she didn't listen. We even tried picking the mess up for her and putting it on their doorstep, but she still refused to do it. So, my one neighbor decided to get a piece of it and smear it all over the front of the house. After that, she started picking it up.
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59. Heavy Footed
I live in Brooklyn, NY. I recently got my own apartment in Greenpoint. I have a pretty great job in midtown Manhattan that offers a lot of overtime, so I have crazy hours and I commute to work. So, when I leave work late (usually around 11:45 pm every night), I catch the late trains and it takes me anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour to get home.
When I get home around 12:30 am, I’m exhausted—I just kick my shoes off and just throw them and my duffle bag wherever they land (usually on the floor right by my apartment entrance). When I first moved into my apartment, I always heard banging from the neighbor downstairs. I never thought anything of it, and I was always like, “Is this person serious? They’re working on their apartment at 1 am in the morning?!”
It wasn’t until maybe three weeks ago that I realized that he was getting upset about the banging that I was doing over their heads. I guess our apartments are set up differently and their bedroom is directly under my living room? I’ve since become more conscious of the noise I make when I get home—I started gracefully taking my shoes off and placing my belongings on the couch.
Regardless, the person who lives down there has never actually come up to my apartment to address the issue, but I find it hilarious because I just picture them laying in bed cuddled up with a broomstick or something similar and just waiting for the slightest pin drop to jump on top of their bed and start stabbing their ceiling.
60. Driveways And Fences
My current neighbor wants us to tear out our driveway because she doesn't like the fact that it's on a slant and lets water roll downhill. She’s a loon. When the driveway was put in 25 years ago, it was all done by contractors and it is up to code. She’s threatened to sue us because her yard is at the bottom of the hill. We’re in Georgia and last year we had a BUNCH of rain—like, more than normal.
So of course, she had three inches of standing water. She said she talked to a lawyer and apparently, he said her case was solid. Then, later, she corroborated everything with our builder neighbor across the street. When intimidation didn’t work, we came home to a fence separating our properties. I guess it was supposed to offend us? Anyway, that was the best fence ever!
Guess what they say is true... great fences make great neighbors. She hasn't bothered us since then and we're both pretty civil nowadays.
61. Open Fire
Just three days ago, the neighbor's dog mauled my dog in the street. My dog was on a leash, while the other dog wasn't—it just came charging at us. Being that the dog looked like a pitbull and was about 60 lbs, and I didn't know if it had diseases. Not wanting to risk getting bitten, I tried to shoot it. Just one shot and it ran away.
The shot woke up the entire neighborhood and the owner came out yelling at me as if allowing my dog, or myself, to be ripped open would have been the better choice. Three officers showed up and it created quite the show. Now I have to go to court for discharging a firearm within city limits. I can't wait to go actually.
62. The Phantom Neighbors
My story is a bit different—but still totally weird. I have lived two houses away from the same neighbors for 20 years and have never seen them. None of the other neighbors have seen them either, but they do exist. The light on their garage door turns on at night and off during the day. They drive their car into the garage, then close the door. When they leave, they open the garage door once they are already in their car and drive off.
The windows on the car are tinted, so you can't see in. They don't answer the door when you ring the doorbell and put a "no candy" sign on the door during Halloween. They have no mailbox by the curb, instead, you have to put it in the door mail slot, and they hire people to do yard work. I think they must be serial killers.
63. This Ain’t No Country Club
Some neighbors lived a block away, on the same block as a country club and golf course. Million-dollar riverfront homes would start about seven houses away from them. However, they wouldn’t ever cut their lawn, or clear their snow. They would keep a pile of old mattresses and garbage in their backyard/alley. They would also have 'meetups' in their front yard, complete with cars parked on the sidewalk and bonfires.
I even caught one of them going through my shed last summer at 2 AM.
64. The Worst of The Worst
I saw my neighbors hang their pet dog on its hind legs to “train” it. It was at 5 pm and my sister and I were chilling at home, watching some Doctor Who. We then heard this really loud yelping outside our house and my sister and I decided to walk outside and peer through a bush and see what the heck was going on in our neighbor’s backyard. When we saw it, our blood ran cold.
We decided to call 9-1-1 and get the authorities over to apprehend the jerk. By the way, it turns out that they have mistreated animals before, but it was only when we caught them that they were taken in.
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65. Floridian Feud
We moved to Florida and our neighbors there were the most messed up people I've ever met. There's almost too much to get into, but here are some highlights: They threatened to poison our dog, they threw stuff in our yard all the time just to try to get a reaction out of us, and they set up two webcams in a window to watch our house. It goes on and on.
One day, a shoe landed in my pool while I was swimming, so I, being a 13-year-old kid, picked it up and threw it back over the fence. I kid you not, they called the authorities and told a total lie—they said I threw a shoe and it hit their grandma in the head while she was watering her plants. It almost got me in serious trouble.
To this day, I swear we didn't do anything to provoke their horrible behavior. We were friendly with them until they started acting out.
66. Don't Be Crabby
My mom's neighbor called the city on my mom to force her to repair the fence that divided their yards. This lady had always been a crabapple for 10-plus years, but this move really ticked my mom off. The fence did need a few mild repairs, and my mom would have done them right away if the neighbor just talked to her about it (she was already in the process of getting quotes).
The city contacted my mom and told her that she needed to maintain her fence. My mom asked if she had to have a fence by law and the person she talked to could already sense where this was going. Turns out, there are rules about maintaining a fence, but she was not required to have one. So my mom paid a contractor to tear it down entirely.
The neighbor came to talk to my mom and asked when the new fence will be built. My mom replied, "If you want a fence, build it yourself!" A couple of weeks later, my mom had a nice new fence, courtesy of her annoying neighbor. A little petty, perhaps, but hilarious nonetheless.
67. No Consideration
I can tell so many stories about my current next-door neighbor. One time, she decided she didn’t like the bush that was next to my mailbox, so she tore it out. She also has four dogs and none of them are EVER on leashes. They always run over to everyone else’s yards to do their business, and she doesn’t bother to pick it up. She also allows them to run in the streets, and gives people dirty looks when they need to slam on the brakes to avoid hitting the dogs.
I myself recently got a puppy. When I take him outside, I have him on a leash in my front yard. If her dogs are outside, they’ll come charging over, scaring my dog, and he’ll run up the steps to go back inside. I have asked her to put her dogs on a leash so that they don’t come into my yard. Her response? “They don’t like being on a leash,” and “Your dog needs to get used to other dogs.”
Yeah, screw you and your poor dog ownership.
68. Neighborhood Karen
When I was around 10 years old, my neighbor would occasionally watch me open my mailbox to see if my GameStop magazine had arrived. She would threaten me each time, saying that she would call the authorities on me since it was unlawful for me to check my parents' mail. I actually believed this until I was 15 years old.
69. The Best Revenge
We lived next to a family when I was younger and they were the worst people. They were loud and obnoxious, always playing their music loudly and throwing trash on our lawn. They also had a Great Dane who would always run into our lawn and take huge dumps, sometimes on our porch. My dad talked to them a couple of times and they said there was nothing they could do.
My dad took matters into his own hands one day and started picking the mess up with a shovel to catapult it back into their yard. But that's not even the best part—they had kids our age who were not very nice. One day, they were playing in a blow-up pool that was placed on the hill. We were watching them play when all of a sudden, the best thing happened...
The whole pool tipped over, and those little jerks went sliding down the hill. They stood up, covered completely in their dog's mess. Best day ever.
70. About The Garbage
A retired woman on my street follows the garbage truck and moves the garbage cans off the street while the rest of us are at work (because they are an eyesore). This would be fine, except she leaves them in the middle of the driveway, and that's a problem because there is no stopping on our street during rush hour. You either need to park a block away to move the garbage can, then go back to get the car, or risk getting a ticket while you move it.
Since the houses are quite close together, we found out what she was doing for the first time when we turned and hit the garbage can. It was just far enough back that you couldn't see it until you turned.
71. Nature's On Her Side
My grandmother had a neighbor who refused to help her repair the fence between their properties. It was still fully functional as a boundary line, but it was falling apart. Any conversation about fixing the fence ended with him saying that it was on her property, so it must be her responsibility to repair it. I guess that was fair.
She took a fall and was hospitalized for a few weeks. Upon her return, she found a new fence built an extra five feet into her property and a bill in the mail from the neighbor. He argued with her for months that she owed him, saying that the original fence was actually on his property and that where it was now was the boundary line. So my grandmother got a surveyor and...surprise!
The neighbor had taken five feet of her yard. At that point, she was already very old, frail, and tired of fighting her neighbor. But she had an ingenious way to get her revenge. She planted blackberries along the back fence and within two years, it was covered. Every year, she’d walk the fence and throw seeds over it because, of course, it was still her yard.
After five years of fighting, the blackberries had reclaimed her property. She’s been gone for a few years now but the blackberries remain, and it's her way of haunting her neighbor. He’s tried ripping up the ones on his side of the fence on numerous occasions, but the plants reseed themselves and grow back every year from her side.
72. Black Tie Event
My next-door neighbor growing up had someone in the family pass. On the day of the funeral, he came to our door and asked my dad if he could borrow a tie. My father complied and gave him a nice black silk tie, suitably appropriate for the occasion. He felt bad for the guy and thought it was an easy way for him to help the guy out during his time of sorrow.
We showed up at the funeral and saw the neighbor, strangely not wearing the tie he borrowed. Then we looked at the casket and my dad's tie was being worn by the body. Not wanting to be rude, none of us said anything, and as a result, the tie was buried with the body, never to be seen again.
73. You Think You Know Someone
I lived behind Bob Berdella, the notorious figure from Kansas City. I lived there for five years and I talked to him daily, as he was the head of the neighborhood watch. Little did I know that he had also been living a secret life, kidnapping people and sending them without remorse. The day he was caught, it was because one of the young gay men he captured escaped and ran down the street wearing nothing but a dog collar.
Because I listened to tapes and CDs at the time, I had not heard anything about it on the radio. I drove home that night to a neighborhood full of officers, and it took me by complete surprise. When I found out the truth, I sounded just like every other neighbor in that type of situation: "But he was such a quiet and nice guy..."
They used excavators and backhoes to dig up his yard, and they tore down my fence as well. Eventually, he was given life in prison, where he eventually passed. His house was later sold and demolished. It was very weird. He had a store in a flea market, plus four skulls in the window with a sign that read "Final Four." One was from a victim.
74. A 'Hole' Lotta Trouble
My great-grandfather was one of the last people in town to get indoor plumbing, and as such, he had an outhouse in his backyard. Every year on Halloween, the neighborhood kids would come into his yard and knock over the building, exposing the cesspit. He got tired of it. So one year, the night before Halloween, he moved the building forward and covered the fess with burlap, disguising it in leaves and grass clippings.
In the dark, it was almost impossible to tell it was there. On Halloween night, he sat in the outhouse and waited. It wasn’t long after sundown when he heard the wet splat outside as a couple of kids fell into the muck. He lowered a ladder into the cesspit for them and said they could leave, but only if they promised to never mess with his outhouse again.
The kids honored their promise and even spread the word around the neighborhood not to mess with that outhouse anymore.
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75. The Pesky Beggar
I once had a neighbor in college who would knock on my door and ask me for money. I would just say that I was a broke student who couldn’t spare anything. It was weird as heck because it was a weekly occurrence at the least. She was in her 50s and working, so I didn't understand why she would do that. One day, I got fed up, so when she knocked on my door, I said, "Yeah, I got some money for you."
I asked her to hold out her hands and gave her like, two dollars worth of nickels that I had in a change jar. Surprisingly, she never bothered me again after that.
76. Problem After Problem
I lived on the top floor of a sketchy house in college because it was the only place that would let seven of us rent together. The first week we were there, the SWAT team did a raid on one of the units below us. They busted in the door and used flashbang grenades on them. One of the other units smelled like urine and constantly had people coming in and out buying illicit substances.
Our keys barely fit in the lock because people had tried to pick them so much. Our cable and internet stopped working, so we called the cable company to check it. The guy took us over to the box outside and showed us nine different lines that were ripping our internet. I could go on and on. On the plus side, we could shoot bottle rockets in our hallway because it wasn't like anyone was going to call the authorities on us.
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77. Shade Of Blue
My dad was talking to our neighbor about what color he should paint the house and he said, as a joke: “Well, I might as well paint the old house blue.” The neighbor became angry and responded, “You can't do that! A blue house? How stupid and annoying! Don't be dumb,” etc. And that’s how I grew up in a blue house.
78. Doorbell Bandit
We had a neighbor of ours—a retired officer in his 50s—doorbell ditch us for around a month. The crazy thing is we never knew it was him. Apparently, he was mad at us because we had a dog that would bark and disturb him. He never told us about this, so I didn’t feel too bad about his little prank. But we did want to catch him in the act at least once, just to spook him a little.
Finally, one day before we were moving out, he doorbell-ditched us. My wife and I looked at each other straight in the eyes, and without a word, I sprinted out the front door. She, on the other hand, went out the back door. We had this unspoken thing where we were like, “Let’s trap this jerk!” I was so impressed that we did this without needing to say anything to one another.
I caught up with our shirtless neighbor and he put his hands up, saying, “Okay, you got me.” I said, “Dude, what the heck? Why are you doing this?” He was tipsy as heck, and he proceeded to tell me about my barking dog. He apologized and said he should’ve told us about it.
79. Downstairs Disturbance
I rented a house that had a rental basement suite. It was a one-bedroom, but an adult mom and her two adult sons all moved in there. They would fight, burn their food, and it would stink up our house. But the worst part? The mom had the yappiest dog ever. At the time, my five-year-old son had seen something on TV and told the mom that he heard that yappy dogs have short lives. She got offended and from that moment, she stopped talking to us.
They all eventually moved out, thankfully.
80. The Foolproof Solution
I was visiting my aunt a couple of years ago in Arizona. She lives outside of Phoenix. Her next-door neighbors had three or four kids who were super annoying. There was a brick wall dividing their backyards, and such is common for the area. Upon my arrival, I found out that the kids next door were throwing things over the wall for fun.
Not just like harmless objects like twigs and pebbles, but like rocks, toys, garbage, and even knives. My aunt’s family had to keep their trampoline on the other side of the yard so it wouldn’t get stuff thrown into it. I asked my aunt about it and she said she talked to their parents, but they still kept throwing stuff. So that night, I went online and filed a report with their address.
A couple of days later, the neighbors left a note at the front door with a long apology that basically said “it won’t happen again.” It pretty much stopped after that.
81. Right Back Atcha
I had this one downstairs neighbor who lacked any respect for the fact that our building wasn't sound-insulated. He would listen to loud music mostly through the day and sometimes late at night. This lasted for months, but nothing had yet been done by the landlord. One day, though, I think he discovered that he really, REALLY loved Gnarles Barkley's "Crazy."
He decided it was appropriate to play it half a dozen times in the course of an hour, and I just had it. So, being a karaoke jockey and having my equipment on hand, I decided to show him what "loud" was. I connected my speakers to my computer through my console, then I went hunting for the absolute worst "karaoke cover" of that same song.
I remember vividly it was a cover by this creepy fat basement dweller in his late 40s and it was horribly off-tune. I played it with the speakers flat on the floor so he'd get the full brunt of it. I played it three times in a row, loud enough that he would definitely suffer the consequence of his lack of respect. And, wouldn't you know it, he never played that song again.
He started being much more conservative in his volume levels. He left that summer and I never heard "Crazy" again from his collection. I wonder why.
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82. Exam Stress
My upstairs neighbor, who was quiet and respectful for the entire year, decided to crank his music during finals week in my senior year. I knocked on the door twice and asked him to turn it down, only to have him crank it up minutes later. It was so loud that my windows were shaking from the bass. Finally, on the third try, I called the authorities who issued him a citation.
After the officers left, he decided to bring three or four friends over to knock down my apartment door. It took pointing a pistol at them through the window to make them go away. I was happy to be done with college.
83. This Land Is My Land
When I was really young, our neighbor demanded we move our septic tank because he claimed it was partially on his property. He was a complete jerk about it and just kept hounding us to do it. My dad's a really laid-back person, but eventually, even he got annoyed. So one day, he had the property line surveyed. Turns out, not only was our septic tank on our own property, not his, but the corner of the guy's house and part of his driveway was actually on our land as well.
My dad spent the next few months asking him when he was going to move his house off our land.
84. Lawn Invaders
My neighbor had a super annoying son. His friends were constantly running over into our yard and breaking stuff. So, we got a dog named Molly. Every time she had to poop, I'd put her on a leash and walk over to the property line so she could drop off some landmines for the kids. They were always on my property so the neighbors couldn't complain about my dog pooping in their yard.
Finally, the bratty kid had his bratty friends over for a bratty birthday party and his parents sent them all outside to play. Of course, they were running over into our yard. I ended up getting three or four of those little jerks with Molly's landmines. After that, they never came into our yard again. Molly got belly rubs and a hamburger that night.
85. Family Feud
One got the authorities called on them because their eldest son was under the influence of something and got into a huge fight with the mom on the front lawn. Turns out, he was also wanted for a number of federal offenses. The officers got to the wrong house and started banging on our house at 1 am in the morning until my very irritated father pointed them to the real home.
86. Case Of The Ex
I heard a really loud banging one evening and walked outside to see a fire extinguisher on the floor and a woman on her phone. I was puzzled, but I put the extinguisher back and went back inside. A few minutes later, I heard the banging again and opened up the door to see the woman trying to beat down the door across from mine with the fire extinguisher.
Apparently, she was the ex-girlfriend of one of my neighbor’s friends and she was trying to find him even though he was quite clearly not there. I called the authorities, and interestingly enough, my neighbor told me she got charged for driving while intoxicated that night in an unrelated incident.
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87. I've Got The Power
My upstairs neighbor was noisy late at night. At like 2 am, he'd blast music and walk around with heavy feet. We had repeated conversations about it, but he blew us off. He bought us earplugs and told us to simply "deal with it." Unfortunately for him, the breaker box for the building was in our unit. After conducting a few tests with his friendly roommates who hated him just as much as we did, we zeroed in on the breaker to his room and an unoccupied area.
Guess who had strange power issues at night while he was being disruptive? He wasn't the brightest bulb in the box and he never suspected us. The landlord was aware of his disruptiveness and he was already on thin ice, so we asked him not to follow up on the guy's complaints and he was on board. After he got aggressive toward one of his roommates over an unrelated incident, he was kicked to the street at the end of his lease.
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88. What Could Have Been
My next-door neighbor when I was growing up was bipolar-schizophrenic. He was always doing bizarre and invasive things, like repainting our front door with this awful purple color when we were on vacation. After his wife left him, he parked his car under our balcony, doused it in gasoline, and set it on fire. Luckily, the fire department was quick to respond. But here's the creepiest part...
We later found out he had installed a deadbolt lock on our fire escape beforehand.
89. Full Stop
My old boss had a problem with tipsy kids taking his mother's mailbox. He got tired of replacing them, so he told me to go out there and make sure whatever hits it doesn't keep going. I bought a six-foot-long steel post with under three feet sticking out of the ground, then poured concrete around it and installed the mailbox.
The next tipsy kid that hit it never got a chance to take out the rest of the mailboxes on the street.
90. A Horrible Trade-Off
I started mowing our lawn when I was 11 or 12. We only had a push mower and it sucked. Our next-door neighbor had a riding lawn mower and told me I could use it whenever I wanted; I just had to leave the gas tank full. I was ecstatic. Then my dad told me, in exchange for that favor, I should mow my neighbor's lawn too.
Well okay, I figured I could still do that in less time on a riding mower. But, then, my dad decided he didn't like it when the other next-door neighbor's yard wasn't even with ours, and he felt bad that I was mowing only one of our neighbors' lawns and not the others. Like, he didn't want to show partiality to one neighbor. Mighty big of him.
So at that point, I was mowing three lawns, over four acres, every Saturday. Luckily, a new neighbor moved into that third house within a couple of years and he wanted to mow his own lawn.
91. Boombox Boomer
There was a fit guy who was about 55, who rode around on his bike in a 90s wind suit kind of getup and played a boombox. He used to have a set up where the music played from small speakers bungee-corded to the back shelf area of his bike, but then he upgraded it to a fully installed, encapsulated system that would light up. He would just ride, sit, and listen to old school Motown and early hip hop for hours.
92. Feline Vendetta
My neighbor was absolutely fine for about seven years. He was a nice old man who recently remarried to a woman who had a 20-year-old student. She partied from time to time, though she was mostly tame. But then, one day, out of nowhere, we found our one-year-old cat lifeless in their garden. We weren't sure if we could be mad since the cat could have passed of a heart attack or something, so my family shrugged it off as a coincidence.
Fast forward two months later—we had a new cat that was younger and cuter. I came home one day and my cat came crawling to me whilst giving the loudest meow of his life. I couldn't believe my eyes. Turns out, my cat was shot. SHOT. WITH A BULLET. Our gardener told us that he clearly saw the neighbor with a pistol, shooting pigeons or something, minutes before my cat was shot.
So yeah, as you can imagine, we haven't been close to our neighbors since that day...P.S our cat survived with surgery and is perfectly fine, but he only has eight lives left.
93. Shut It Down
The rich brats next door were always throwing loud parties whenever my mom and dad went out of town for a few days, which was often. One Sunday morning, I did a quick inspection of the property and found a bunch of litter had been left in the street or thrown into the grass. The worst part is that there was a public bus stop at the corner of our street, so we started getting complaints.
That night around midnight I gloved up, collected a bunch of them, then snuck into the neighbors' yard and scattered them around the pool, the garage, and the back door where mom was sure to see them when she came home. There were no more parties.
94. Blood On Her Hands
Some 15 years ago, when my parents and I lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana, we ended up befriending one of the neighbors and her two kids. Well, one day, we were all hanging out together when I noticed her son had some pretty bad bruises and a nice size knot on his head. I just shrugged it off and we continued playing. Then, that night, the mother came over and made a shocking confession to my mom.
She said she ended the boy's life. She went into some pretty disturbing details, and she wasn't remorseful at all. When she left back to her house, my mom called the authorities immediately and she was taken to the station shortly after. The worst part is, she vowed that when she got out, she'd do the same thing to my mom. We noped the heck out of Indiana and moved to another state.
95. Your Term Is Up!
I had one neighbor who was the self-appointed mayor of the block. He would tell me all the time what I was doing wrong, from having my sprinklers on at the wrong time to not properly sorting my recyclables. I took his suggestions under advisement and even read the four-page typed note he wrote to me about the correct timing of the crabgrass preventer.
One evening, when I was cleaning off my deck, he walked up and began telling me about the latest landscaping issues. My niece, who was 13 at the time, was showering off after being in the pool. She walked out in a robe from the shower area and slung her suit over the fence to dry. I thanked him for his vast landscaping knowledge and told him we were off to dinner and shooed her inside.
I closed the slider and remembered I left the hose on, so I slipped the door back open and I saw her suit slid over the fence. I took two steps to the edge of the deck expecting to see her bathing suit on my grass. That’s when I spotted him—and it was the most disturbing sight of my entire life. The mayor was on his hands and knees in my grass, sniffing the suit crotch. We had a long talk about how he was going to come with me to the station.
96. Stay In Your Lane
I lived in an apartment complex with assigned spots, and every day this person in a white Civic encroached into my parking spot. So every day I was parking closer and closer to her car. I was getting good at parking close enough to her, without hitting her. One day I was walking to my car to head out to work, and I saw her climbing through her passenger side door to get into her car, cursing up a storm.
She saw me, we locked eyes as she was climbing over her middle console. She started her car and drove away. Since that incident, she has stayed in between the lines of her own parking spot.
97. No Parking Zone
I lived in a duplex that shared one large driveway with another duplex. Parking could be tight, but all of us cooperated and made the best of it, except for one woman. She left a note on my car two days after my husband and I moved in, telling me not to park there because she didn’t like that I was "in front of her door."
I was at least 15 feet away from her house and that was the only spot I could park in without blocking anyone else. I left her a note back explaining this. She banged on my door at 11 PM and screamed at us, calling me the c-word, and demanding that I get rid of my car. We eventually shut the door on her. The nasty notes persisted and were ignored.
I confirmed with my landlord that this is where I should be parking and he said yes, ignore her. Then, she started barricading that part of the driveway, so that every day when I got home, I would have to get out of my car and move her stuff before I could park. This became a real pain in the neck when I broke my elbow.
She used her trash can, a pedestal with a birdcage on it, and a bench to block the driveway and I had to move all of them to park. I started just picking them up and gently moving them towards her porch. Then she came up with something else. She started putting Vaseline on them. I grabbed her trash can and got a gloppy handful of Vaseline. Sure enough, everything else was coated in it as well.
I decided to use my foot to push everything up against her house. Mind you, nothing was damaged or knocked over, just moved. She called law enforcement and reported that she saw me vandalizing her things by picking them up and throwing them into her house, kicking stuff over, and smashing them into the ground. The officer was angry.
He thought that I was the teenage girlfriend of the guy who lived there, not the adult leaseholder. So he pounded on the door yelling, "Sheriff's department! Come outside!" We went outside. He pointed to me and asked, "Are you the girlfriend!?" I resisted the urge to say something snarky in response to what I found to be a misogynistic and demeaning statement.
He went off on me saying, "Your behavior needs to stop right now, I don't know where you're from, but in [town] we do not tolerate this kind of disrespect blah blah blah!" Well, he didn’t know what he was in for. 15 minutes later, once we'd gotten a word in edgewise, he changed his tune pretty quick. He realized he'd been misled by our neighbor. We told him we were sorry he got dragged into a petty parking dispute.
He told us he's been dragged into stupider stuff and told us that if she puts up the barricades again, to call them instead of moving it ourselves, to protect ourselves from false allegations. In fact, he wanted us to call any time she does anything to harass us. She also received a mean letter from the landlord telling her to knock it off.
We got a mean note from her saying, "The reason I don't want you parking by my door is because you are trash! Your druggie psychopath girlfriend runs amok vandalizing! I want nothing to do with you," among other things. We called law enforcement and she got spoken to by them, and the landlord sent her another mean letter. Hopefully, that'll be the end of it.
98. A Taste Of Her Own Medicine
When my boyfriend was 14, he was living with his mom and sister on a housing estate. It was summer and he liked a bit of light in his upstairs bedroom, so he left the curtains open at all times. That included when he was getting dressed and after having a shower, so if you purposefully stared at his window, you could see him from his waist up (and only his waist up).
Well, their neighbor did not like that one bit. She went pounding on their door, yelling at my mother-in-law that her son was a disgrace, hanging around always undressed and exposing himself to her daughter. My mother-in-law told her he had every right to do whatever he wanted in his bedroom, and that if they didn't want to see him all they needed to do was not to look.
A couple of days went by and lo and behold, the authorities showed up at the neighbor’s door. Turned out the neighbor had been filming and taking pictures of my boyfriend to show to the housing people as evidence of his wrongdoing to get them kicked out. Except that the housing office called the authorities on her for taking pictures and videos of an underage kid and kicked her and her family out.
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99. The Grass Is Greener
In our first house, my wife and I had a neighbor who disliked us from the start. Apparently, the people who lived in the property before we did were his family friends—they went through a divorce and ended up selling the house to us. He was petty and mean to my wife, who doesn’t like confrontation, and he'd do annoying things to mess with her.
He'd park across our driveway before she left for work, throw pieces of wood over the fence, let his dog go all over our lawn and not pick any of it up, etc. I tried talking to him a couple of times, but he promptly told me to screw off. That was the last straw—I had to fight back. I knew he loved his lawn because he'd always brag about how it looked to everyone, so the next time it rained, I went out back and threw an entire box of oxo cubes into their backyard and let the rain melt them into the grass.
His dog absolutely destroyed his yard looking for the smell and I would make sure to comment on it every chance I got. We moved shortly after.
100. The Golden Rule
A good friend of mine looked after an older lady. She was his neighbor and, as far as he knew, she had no family. So, he was at her place every day when he wasn't working. I met her a few times, she was a sweet old lady. She had three cats that were her babies, she spoiled them to no end. She even had a "cat room" for them.
Well, one day after my friend had been looking after her for a few years, she passed peacefully in her sleep. He found out that she named him in her will. He attended the reading and found three 20-something ladies there too. Turns out the lady had moved across the country unannounced a few years earlier, and had disappeared from the daughters’ lives.
The old woman left my buddy 19. Million. Dollars. She left the cats to a lifelong friend from her home state and donated all of her belongings to the Salvation Army. And her daughters? Each received, "A single litter box and all of its contents," along with one $20 bill each to "give them each a last taste of all she was to them." That sweet old lady is my hero.
101. They Say He’s A Real Blockhead
We grew up in one of the worst neighborhoods in my state. It was really rough. Anyway, 80s childhood being what it was, we used to ride our bikes everywhere, regardless of danger. Our home street was divided into three parts. The upper and middle parts were relatively okay in the daytime. The lower part was off limits no matter what, because that’s where the creeps and dealers lived.
We moved out finally and went somewhere a lot safer. Years pass. Our old neighborhood makes the news every so often for various outrages. One day, I saw in the newspaper that a woman had recently been found deceased in her house—she’d been sitting there for a month on her couch. It was already sad, but then things took a horrific turn.
When authorities showed up to deal with the situation, they discovered a big slab of cement in a strange place in the backyard. A neighbor told them that they’d frequently seen her at night sitting near and talking to the slab. If you knew how strange the people were in our neighborhood were, you’d have brushed this off as yet another weirdo.
Well, it turns out it was her husband. Only they weren’t officially married, so when he passed on—it was suspected to be natural causes, surprisingly—she couldn’t live without his Social Security check every month, so she buried him in the backyard and kept up the pretense that he was alive and living with his out-of-state relatives.
We used to ride by that house frequently when he was already buried in the yard. Oh, the 1980s.
102. One Foot Out The Door
When I was 14, I had some neighbors who had about 10 kids. I would ride snowmobiles with two of the younger kids during the winter. I went over one morning and had to wait for them to get ready. While I sat at the table waiting, I could hear some moans coming from upstairs.
I asked what was going on and no one said anything. A moment later, the youngest son said, "Show him, mommy". The mom went to the fridge and pulled out a piece of toilet paper. She set it on the table in front of me and unrolled it. To my surprise, it was a baby's leg with a toenail formed on the big toe.
She explained to me that one of their middle-aged daughters had an abortion earlier in the week and when she got home she was not feeling well. When she went to the bathroom, "this fell out of her". I got up, walked out, got on my sled, and went home. I told my parents about it a few days later.
Apparently, the rumor mill in our small town was running rampant with stories about how the girl was impregnated by her older brother, one of the kids I used to ride with. The image of that leg with the toenail is still in my memory. It's not like the mom saved the leg to go back at the doctor for malpractice. She kept it as a talking point.
Freepik, cookie_studio
103. Her Spot
My cousin parked her car on the street near my house. My neighbor came out and yelled about how that was her spot. My cousin simply moved her car rather than argue. A few hours later, one of the children who live on our street rode a bike into my neighbor’s car in that exact spot.
104. HOA Karen
This happened over a year ago. I'm 29-year-old man and am a homeowner. I bought a house in 2019 from my uncle because he was well set and wanted to retire to his second home by a lake. Before buying the house, my uncle warned me that the neighborhood has an HOA, but it only affects those who joined it and my uncle thankfully did not.
Besides that, the price my uncle was offering was half the home's value. I couldn't pass up the offer. So I bought a house in an HOA neighborhood that wasn't a part of the HOA. I thought I was okay. I was so, so wrong. Right after I moved in, I got a knock at the door. When I opened it, I was greeted by an older woman with short greying blonde hair and a face covered in thick makeup.
She was holding a welcome to the neighborhood gift basket. She introduced herself as the president of the HOA and asked to come in so she could help me fill out some forms. I knew what she was trying to do because my uncle warned me she did this to every new homeowner in the area who wasn't a part of the HOA. I quickly and bluntly stated I was not going to join her HOA. The change was frightening.
Her smile quickly disappeared and she started saying that I did not have a choice as all new homeowners are mandated to join. I told her I knew in advance that was a total lie, and that I will not be paying any dues or fines. I said will be ready to call a lawyer if I have to. She called me a thorn to the neighborhood at that point and said she'd be back.
We did not speak to each other for some time. I expected her to start sending me fines in the mail, but the most I usually got were letters stating that my grass was getting too tall, or my driveway needed sweeping. Those never bothered me because they are normal home chores and need to be done regularly anyway. But several neighbors that were on the HOA's side made it clear they didn't like me because I didn't join, just like my uncle.
I said that was fine. We're neighbors, but we don't have to be friends. They said that was fine too because I'm an outsider and they'll never accept me until I join the HOA. Later in early 2020, I got word from a friend that people were starting to buy a lot of disinfectant, toilet paper, and hand sanitizer in mass. I decided the best option was to order these things online.
I got eight big 12-packs of toilet paper, a case of 20 bottles of hand sanitizer, three boxes of disposable latex gloves, a couple of boxes of disposable face masks, and a case of 20 large cans of name-brand disinfectant spray. I set for the delivery to be signed for only me as I did not trust anyone not to take my packages if they were just left on my porch.
When the packages were delivered, several neighbors saw me getting lots of toilet paper and some other packages that contained the other stuff. And just because I'm a paranoid guy, I still bought more of the same stuff when I saw it in stores. Like those small cheap four-packs of toilet paper, or off-brand disinfectant sprays. I bought them because I had a feeling some friends or family might need some soon.
And I was right. As expected, toilet paper, disinfectant, and sanitizer pretty much disappeared from store shelves for miles around. And people were fighting over hoarding it. Meanwhile, I've got a very generous supply that I still haven't come close to using up. However, word of my supply got around fast when people started needing some.
A friend of mine ran out of toilet paper and had no hand sanitizer. So I gave him a couple of the generic four-packs of TP and a bottle of sanitizer at my door. A few family members ran out too, and I shared with them as well. They were all extremely grateful. But then came the downside. I ended up with several neighbors knocking on my door and asking to buy my supply or wanting handouts.
I refused and said I only gave some of what I had away to friends and family. They made it pretty clear to me before that we'd never be friends since I refused to join the HOA. Moreover, if I were to give some to one neighbor, they'd all want my supplies, and then I'd run out really fast. They didn't like this and harassed me several times from the sidewalk.
I just ignored them. Later the HOA Karen showed up at my door and told me several neighbors had run out of all the items that this post is about. It got ridiculous fast. She then said she wasn't asking, but demanding I share my stock with my neighbors to set a good example. I told her to buzz off because that had nothing to do with me. I may be a jerk, but I'm a well-prepared jerk.
Also, I've read her HOA bylaws online. So even if I was a member of her HOA, which I was not, I wouldn't have to give up my stock either way. She left while yelling at me that one day I'd regret not being a good neighbor or being a part of her HOA. Well, I did regret it. The next time I went to work I was notified around noon by the cameras I had at my house that there was a thief breaking into my home.
I could see video of them on my smartphone and it looked like a woman in a spandex suit with her face covered by a hockey mask. I called the authorities immediately and was allowed to clock out at work so I could rush home. Right around the time I got there, officers were walking HOA Karen out in handcuffs to a cruiser. She'd broken into my home by using a crowbar to force open the back door.
When they caught her, she was tossing all of my toilet paper and any other supplies she could grab out into my backyard, where her kids were picking it up and bagging it. I pressed charges and HOA Karen got six months in the slammer and probation. HOA Karen's husband called me to apologize for his wife and told me that he had been planning a divorce for a while because this isn't the first time she's been in trouble with the law.
CPS got involved too because she was using her kids to help pilfer me. So he was going to file for full custody in the divorce. HOA Karen didn't return and someone new was elected HOA president in her place. Her husband didn't move and I see him from time to time. There's no hard feelings between us. And yes, he did get full custody of his kids because his wife had a darker history with the law than I thought.
We're sort of friends now too as we've occasionally had a drink together and he helped me replace my back door that his ex broke. I'm making this post more than a year later because I just saw HOA Karen again. I was visiting some friends in another city and saw her working at the local supermarket there, bagging groceries. As soon as we saw each other she obviously recognized me because she scowled and refused to look at me again the entire time I was there. Karma is a real witch, isn’t it Karen!
105. Blood On Her Hands
Some 15 years ago, when my parents and I lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana, we ended up befriending one of the neighbors and her two kids. Well, one day, we were all hanging out together when I noticed her son had some pretty bad bruises and a nice size knot on his head. I just shrugged it off and we continued playing. Then, that night, the mother came over and made a shocking confession to my mom.
She said she ended the boy's life. She went into some pretty disturbing details, and she wasn't remorseful at all. When she left back to her house, my mom called the authorities immediately and she was taken to the station shortly after. The worst part is, she vowed that when she got out, she'd do the same thing to my mom. We noped the heck out of Indiana and moved to another state.
106. Excuses, Excuses
Long story short, my neighbor Greg was into me. We made small talk once in the elevator and a week later when he saw me walk outside, he chased me down the street and asked where I was going. When I told him I was going to get coffee he asked if he could come. But there was something huge he didn’t know. I’m not only in a relationship, I was also 15 weeks pregnant at the time but not showing at all.
I told him I was meeting a friend for coffee just so he would leave me alone. He then asked our doorman for my phone number, claiming I told him they could give it to him. I wish my door people would have asked me first, but they gave it to him. Ever since then, he has been non-stop texting me, asking me to do stuff. Well, enough was enough.
Finally today I replied and told him I’m moving into a house in October with my long-term partner, that I’m pregnant, and while I think he’s a nice person I’m not interested in spending time together. His reply stunned me. He said lol, you don’t have to make things up just to not hang out. I didn’t even want to sleep with you. I replied and said not making anything up, but ok.
You know, take care and best of luck to you, etc. Now I’ve had multiple people in my building tell me that Greg is running around telling everyone that I’m lying about being pregnant and being in a relationship because I don’t want to date him. I’m shocked that a 35-year-old man is acting this way. The good news is my other neighbors know he’s full of it.
Still, it’s going to be so uncomfortable now if I run into him in person. I feel like I’m in high school.
