From peeping Toms who have no sense of privacy to no-chill Karens who blow up non-issues just because they feel like it, here are some of the most unbearable neighbors ever.
1. Photographic Evidence
We had a party for all of our neighbors when we moved in. I like to barbecue, and my wife is vegetarian, so we have two grills. We invited everyone on the street, but one of our neighbors declined to attend because they're vegetarian. "Not to worry", I said, "So's my wife. We have two barbecues going, one for meat and one for veggies".
I could see them trying to find another reason. They looked down at the invite. "Oh, the 6th? We're out of town then. Sorry". At that point, I got the drift. They didn't want to come for whatever reason; they just weren't going to tell us what it was. We're British, after all. Then the day of the party arrived. Our garden is quite big, so everyone could fit in happily.
We had the barbecues going on the opposite side of the garden by the aforementioned neighbors' house. It was only around 5 in the evening when we noticed the upstairs windows of their house were open. I said, "Weird, I thought they were out of town"? As I was looking at the windows with some of the other neighbors, we saw the most unexpected sight ever—the wife with a camera, taking photos of us!
We went to their house, rang the bell, and tried to tell them that they were still welcome to join us. They gave us no answer, yet their curtains were twitching upstairs. We just shrugged and went back to the party, ignoring them. Later into the evening, the parents and kids had gone home and just a mix of older and younger neighbors was left.
I started mixing cocktails at the outside bar. Suddenly, we were met with a rather annoying surprise—a few officers walked in through the open back gate. "Someone" had lodged a complaint. It was only about nine, and noise complaints in the UK are typically not followed up until past 11. Apparently, they made an exception for us because not only were we having the biggest party known to man, but we were "setting things on fire" and "forcing drinks onto children".
Of course, the officers could see we were having a fairly civilized adult get-together, and they went on their merry way. We thought that would be the end of it, but we were so, so wrong. The following Monday, while we were unpacking, we had a knock on the door. The officers returned with a bunch of photographs of the alleged "forcing drinks on a minor" and "setting fire to things".
One of the photos showed one of the neighborhood kids bringing two bottles from the fridge to me and his dad at the barbecue. They weren't even open. And the "setting fire to things"? Yeah. We were using a blowtorch to light my barbecue. Apparently, that was endangering their property, which was a bunch of feet away from the contained fire within my oil drum barbecue.
The officers could see how the situation was blown out of proportion, thankfully. They just needed me to make a statement explaining my side of the story, so I did. For the whole two years that we lived there, they avoided us. It was so weird and so unnecessary.
2. An Extended Favor
When I was a teenager, we lived next door to this one family that seemed off. One day, the father knocked on our door and told my parents they hadn't had power for a long time. They begged us to let them run an extension cord to one of our outside outlets for the day so that their young kids could have cold milk with their cereal in the morning.
My parents agreed to let them use our outside outlets for that day only. They ended up keeping their part of the arrangement and they disconnected the cable in the evening. But then, a week later, they caught us completely off-guard—they hooked it back up again without us noticing. A month went by, and our electricity bill was basically double what it normally was.
My parents headed to the backyard and found their cable still plugged in. They yanked it out and confronted the father. At first, he only peered through a crack in the door, but my stepdad eventually got him to open up after pointing out that he was concealing a firearm. My stepdad demanded an explanation as to why the cable was plugged into our outlet, and the father just mumbled incoherently. He then shut the door and locked it.
The family was living in a duplex, and their neighbor, who shared the building, came around and asked us what was up. My parents explained the whole story and how they were planning to call the authorities. Turns out, the guy they were speaking to was a former chief and he had friends in the force. He offered to make the call, and several cop cars arrived.
The father and mother were both incarcerated. But the most surprising part? It turns out that they were running a lab inside the house. The kids—a boy and a girl—were also malnourished. They were immediately put into foster care. No other bad neighbor has beat this high score yet.
3. High Expectations
Our neighbor used to stand on the footpath intoxicated every afternoon and yell to my husband about what a horrible person I was. It all started one day when he called us to check why my husband's car was home on a workday. I politely thanked him for his call and let him know my husband was sleeping and had a cold. There was nothing to worry about, but that didn't stop him from making things worse.
Apparently, I was meant to praise him profusely for being such a caring neighbor, and my husband was meant to follow up with a call once he was awake and also lavish him with praise for caring. Because we didn't, we got to hear about it loudly every afternoon until we moved several months later.
4. A Proposed Renovation
My neighbor Jerry was horrible. When I moved in, he seemed eccentric but harmless...until he started to stalk me. Apparently, my landlord had a conversation with him and told him to leave me alone. This upset Jerry greatly. He cornered me one day while I was unlocking my door and asked me to sit with him in his apartment. I don’t think the place had ever been cleaned and he had a hoarder mentality.
He drank a bottle in about 30 minutes and started commenting on all the sad things in his life. Luckily, he passed out, so I could leave. A couple of weeks later, he got into an early morning fight with his boyfriend, which resulted in his boyfriend trying to get into my apartment for safety. He eventually broke into an empty unit down the hall.
Officers were called and Jerry was taken to lockup. About a week after that, the same boyfriend was over at his place and another fight between them ensued. This time, it ended in a very loud moment of passion. Clearly, their relationship was not healthy, and everyone in the building had to put up with their annoying problems.
And that's not even the worst part—Jerry had a bunch of other tendencies that were just plain inconsiderate. He would flush things down the toilet that weren't supposed to be flushed and the sewage would back up into my bathtubs and sinks. One time, he clogged his toilet so badly that he just ripped it from the wall and left it there.
But the most inconsiderate thing he's done is break into my apartment while I was at work to measure my walls for the “renovation” he was going to do. He wanted to combine his unit and my unit into one. I told him I didn't want to do that, but he said I could just live with him when it was all finished. Eventually, Jerry got evicted, but he would still convince people to let him into the building.
For months, his mugshot was posted on all entrances saying to not let him in.
5. At A Crossroads
My neighbor had two access roads to his property. He insisted on using the lane road that cut through our property, despite the fact that it was the longer, less-developed route. He didn’t have an easement or anything; he just assumed that since he had to drive through our property to get to that lane road, he was allowed to do so.
He was totally rude to us for no reason. He never said hi, and he'd get upset if we were too close to his property despite the fact that he literally drove through our property every day. Revenge came when lightning struck a tree in the woods and it fell right across the access to the lane road...on OUR property. He hired a service to chop the tree up and told them they could have the wood as part of the payment.
He thought he could get away with it, but my dad wasn’t having any of that. He walked down there with a copy of the sale documents, pointed out the marker that clearly separated our land from our neighbor’s land, got the neighbor to admit that the tree in question was on our land, not his, and then he sent the crew packing.
He told them if they took so much as a branch from that tree, it was theft, and he, a lawyer, would see them in court for it. It’s been over 15 years and that tree is still laying across the access to the lane road. He can still access his property via the other road, so he didn’t have a leg to stand on to force an easement.
6. Parking Privileges
My neighbor got his cop buddies to come over and put stickers on our cars, claiming they were unlawfully parked. We had to move them so he would have room for his guests to park. I bought a corner lot in a newer subdivision, so I have a curb and sidewalk on two sides of my property. The side of my house has plenty of room for parking which my stepson and I sometimes use.
This neighbor bought a house on the other side of the street and he doesn't have a lot of street parking for his lot. He claims that the parking on my side of the road is his because it is across the street from his house. When confronted about the fact that it is just parking and that it, in no way, belongs to him, me, or anybody, he offered a threatening response—he told us he knows "people" who could take care of this.
He also picked this time to scream pretty specific mean things about all his new neighbors and how each one was like he is, watching us.
7. False Emergency
My neighbor rang my doorbell at 4 in the morning, over and over, and asked me to go with him because there was an emergency and it was important. When I went with him, I realized it was all a big lie. He took me over to his car and started asking what I thought of it. He looked very proud. In other words, this dude rang every apartment in the building at 4 in the morning to get people to look at his new car. That was the emergency.
8. Invasion Of Privacy
First, my neighbors have four mini-Dachshunds that never shut up. I cannot even open my backdoor without these little dogs going off, and they just leave their dogs outside all day long. I enjoy sitting outside on a nice day and reading, but nope, I can't concentrate over the ear-splitting constant yapping. Now, I am a dog person—I own dogs and love dogs—but this complete lack of consideration is mind-boggling.
Second, they rent and I own, but the crazy wife told me she owns a three-inch strip of my property and that they'd be moving the fence over. I don't have a huge yard, so three inches is a lot of space. Did I mention THEY RENT? I brought out my survey papers to say, "No, you don't own it and no, you aren't going to be moving the fence", and she responded that they had their own survey (but refused to show it to me).
Third, and perhaps worst of all so far, they seem to think it's not a big deal if they come into my yard. I came home from work one day to find they'd moved their water drainage into my backyard. They complained about my tree and asked me to cut it down. I said no. They put their garbage cans in my driveway. I've witnessed the wife empty her vacuum cleaner in my driveway.
She has blown piles of leaves that haven't even come from my tree into my driveway. Even after I put locks on my gate, she climbed up on a ladder, LEANED OVER THE FENCE, and blew all the leaves IN MY YARD THAT WERE ALREADY IN PILES. After that, I put up cameras and had future plans to press charges for trespassing the next time this crazy lady pulled another stunt.
She accused me of calling the authorities about her daughter's car, but I didn't. She also accused me of putting up a note complaining about her garbage, but I didn't. She has called the health department multiple times on me for my grass being too long. It wasn't, and the health department did not cite me. Listen, all I want to do when I come home after a day at work is hang out with my dogs and not talk to anyone or deal with anything.
I don't know what to do about her.
9. Problem After Problem
I hate my neighbors. They were busted by SWAT last summer. I had to call into work because of the barricades. No arrests were made and I never got the story on that. While we live in houses, we do not have fences around the backyard. They have a dog and they used to sit on their porch while the dog roamed the neighborhood.
It seemed harmless, but it was far from that. They'd just let him out to roam the neighborhood while in their house. In the winter, they'd put on a coat and leave him out for hours. Then, they'd stand on their porch screaming, "PETE! PETE"! forever at 11 in the evening. Pete eventually disappeared...I think someone else in the neighborhood took him in.
We can also hear them yelling at each other. So can people across the street. The authorities are out at least once a week arresting one of them. They always bail each other out. They also borrowed jumper cables and never returned them. Then, they came over last week asking for another set of jumper cables. My boyfriend told them that we already loaned them to him and they weren't returned.
The neighbors told us they were going to sue us for accusing them of thievery.
10. No More Songbirds
One of the neighbors was a cowboy builder who conned his elderly next-door neighbors into getting their roof done for $10,000 even though their tiles were almost brand new. He then took all their tiles to retile his roof for free and put about 10% of his old tiles on their roof. He then abandoned the project completely.
Don't worry though, he got what was coming to him—we got him locked up and he had to sell his house to pay back his victims. However, the cost of his house didn't even come close to covering the full costs. Also, another neighbor would stand in his back garden really early in the morning and then start aiming at local birds with a crossbow when they woke up.
He put the bodies in regular bin bags and left them in the street where foxes ripped them open and dragged birds all over the place. Now, we have no songbirds in the area.
11. Theoretically An Overall Bad Guy
I have a schizophrenic neighbor that has believed for years that I've been hacking his electronic devices, scanning his phone, and terrorizing him. But that's not even the scariest part—over the years, he has claimed I've held an old man in my condo and allowed blood to drip from my patio to his. He leaves notes on the inside of his car accusing me of these things.
12. Purposeful Potholes
I moved onto a dirt road with several houses on it. My friend has lived down the road his whole life. The people next to my house only come up for the summer and are never there in the winter. When summer comes, however, there are multiple potholes on the road. Curious, I asked my friend.
His explanation blew my mind—he said the neighbors come up in the summer and dig the holes themselves in order to “slow down” traffic.
13. The Monster Next Door
On a near-daily basis, our neighbor throws temper tantrums, but not just the regular kind. He turns into an absolute monster, yelling, stomping, throwing tools, slamming doors, and screaming at his family over some petty nonsense. I feel bad for his family and I'm genuinely annoyed each time I hear his voice.
14. Off To A Better Home
My next-door neighbor would leave her Pitbulls out in the garden, all day, every day, with no food or water regardless of the weather. There could be a storm and she’d leave them both outside in the rain, crying. There could be a heatwave and she’d leave them outside with no shade. Once I picked up on it, I knocked on her door and asked her to bring the dogs in because leaving them outside was obviously neglect.
She would tell me to mind my own business, but she’d yell at her kids to bring the dogs inside. Once I noticed that she didn’t learn her lesson, I contacted the Royal Society for the Prevention of Harm to Animals over and over until they sent out a letter to her. She had the nerve to act like she had no idea why they were contacting her.
She came up to me in the street and said, “Can you believe I got this letter, saying I hurt my dogs”? I kept contacting them because, despite knowing that the Royal Society was watching her, she still didn’t change her behavior. She honestly didn’t care about those poor dogs. They would jump at my fence whenever I was in the garden, practically begging.
My sisters would give them bowls of water and feed them dog biscuits whenever she wasn’t home. One day, she was yelling and her kids were crying, so I went to see what was going on. Justice was served that day—it turns out that the Society was removing the dogs from her because of the neglect. It took a few months, but I was so happy to see them going to a better home.
15. The Lesser Evil
I grew up in a rural area on a fairly big property. It had been a large farm that got parceled out as the owner aged. So, there were acres of land and my parents had 10 acres behind the neighbors. The house was relatively far away from them, too. One neighbor was an absolute piece of garbage. When I was eight, I remember seeing the cop lights at his door.
I found out the shocking truth when I was a little older—he had gotten into a pretty bad fight with his father over his oxy prescription. The father owned the house, and the 30-year-old kid lived there rent-free. He did a few years in lockup, then moved back in with his father who he had practically tried to end. He grew illicit plants on our land, then threatened to hurt my mother when my father and I tore it down.
But, we didn't call for the authorities. This type of thing actually happened really frequently. I can remember multiple times when I was younger when he'd bang on our door, screaming threats at my mom. Other times, I can remember thinking about how to protect ourselves, in case our neighbor actually got inside the house.
This occurred maybe eight to 10 times a year. He has calmed down a little after a second arrest and some anger management classes. Nowadays, he just has massive bonfires with tons of loud music and leaves empty cans on our property, which is still extremely rude of him It's still better than physical intimidation and threats though.
16. No More Water
It started with my neighbor letting her kids and animals run wild in my backyard. So, I dropped $5k on a privacy fence that my father-in-law and I built. Then, she had her water turned off for lack of payment and her next move was appalling—she began pooping in plastic bags and throwing them over my fence. When confronted about it, she kindly denied it and then took to social media.
I called the landlord and had an eviction notice served the next day. It's been four years and I kept the screencaps from her profile.
17. An Absolute Disgrace
My neighbor ripped up and threw away my mom's sweet pea plant that she got from her friend who passed from cancer. When she complained, he immediately made things worse. He began ranting about how our garden is a disgrace and an embarrassment to the neighborhood and that we need to replace all the grass and plants with concrete. What a prick.
18. Door To Door Sales
I just moved into my new apartment in Chicago and was woken up at three in the morning to some loud knocking on my door. Given it's Chicago, I thought the worst and assumed someone ready to harm me was on the other side of that door. A moment passed by and I sat silently in my bed running through self-defense scenarios in my head.
A woman then yelled something through my door, and it had me on tilt...This lady said, "This is your neighbor. I was just wondering if you'd like to buy some Girl Scout cookies". Naturally, I ignored her offer and proceeded to go back to sleep angry and confused. Either my neighbor was confused or trying to rob me.
19. Loud And Louder
My neighbor would chant rude comments over and over every time I would do basic things like close the door or take a shower. He would yell loud enough for me to hear through the wall of my apartment. I was FAR from being loud. That guy just has so many issues. I got sick of it and called over the landlord. The landlord tried closing one door and the creep started chanting. That's when my landlord had enough.
He went over to put an end to his antics once and for all, threatening to kick him out if he didn’t stop. Luckily, it worked. I don't live there anymore but still remember it vividly.
20. Caught In The Act
My neighbor was really nosey and for some reason, he hated me. I was a 14-year-old girl and I don't remember doing anything to this man, but he would always rat me out to my parents if he saw me outside. He told them I was lighting up, getting freaky with boys in the tree on the front lawn, selling substances, and hurting animals.
He just made things up! If I were in my backyard, he would watch me through our privacy fence. Once, I was out back drinking a soda, one of those in a glass bottle, and he popped up from behind the fence with this huge smirk on his face. He said, "CAUGHT YOU"! and tattled on me. My dad found out and was absolutely livid. He brought him out back and showed him it was a soda.
He also told him that if he ever caught him looking through our fence, he would call the authorities. Years later, we caught him in our backyard picking up pecans. We thought he would help himself to the wagon he had back there because it "had been sitting a while and so clearly we didn't need it". The man was a total nut job. He ended up moving away and we never saw him around again.
21. Couldn’t Be Billed
The neighbor's dog went through our trash and got sick. The dog ended up needing to go to the vet and my neighbor told me when he bumped into me at my old job. He said, "Yeah, it was like $5,000 to get her back to health. You're lucky I don't bill you guys". But here's the frustrating truth—this guy let his dog go through everyone's yard and poop wherever it wanted. It's not like the dog escaped, he just willingly didn't care.
The last time I saw him, corrections officers were in his driveway with an apparent domestic incident.
22. The Intentional Leaf Leaver
My neighbor owned six cars and kept them all parked on the street in a very congested block of apartments. He spent hours tending to them, and they somehow always looked rustier when he was done. If a leaf landed on one of his cars, he would accuse the neighborhood of intentionally placing leaves on his car to annoy him.
23. To-ma-to, To-mah-to
My significant other and I rented the middle unit of a one-story, three-unit triplex. A sidewalk led directly up to our front door, and on either side of the sidewalk, slightly to the left and right of our front door, were two very small garden areas fashioned out of landscape timbers. For the first six months of living there, nothing was planted in them, so we decided to buy and plant some flowers to brighten it up.
The next day, we found a shocking handwritten letter on our door. Our left-side neighbor informed us that he was deeply offended that we had taken the liberty to plant flowers in HIS garden. As he explained, it was the 2 x 2 garden on his side of the sidewalk. He intended to plant a tomato plant there and he planned to follow through with his plans whether there were flowers or not.
In a letter of our own, we explained that a tomato plant was not the intended use of a flower garden and that planting a tomato directly in front of our door would be inappropriate. The next day, we came home to find our flowers dug up and placed in front of our door, and a tomato plant complete with a metal cage planted in its place.
24. Bright And Early
My neighbors used to honk their horns in their driveway at seven in the morning literally every single day, multiple times a day, causing me and my family to wake up. The worst part is that they didn't care if they were disturbing the peace. The dad and mom would sit in their car and just honk the horn until their kids came outside ready for school. I hate my neighbors.
25. Cut Off Communication
I remember my neighbor asking the rest of us younger kids to collect snails so he could have a snail pet farm. We collected them and gave them to him in a cardboard box. Then, he said, "Watch this", and his next move left us horrified. He showed us a can of hairspray and a lighter, which he then used to torch the snails. I didn't talk to that neighbor after that.
26. Taking His Sweet Time
My neighbor tore down part of my fence under the guise of fixing two posts...but hasn’t gotten around to actually FIXING it for almost two months. The last conversation I had with him was about getting estimates to have a fence company come in for the repair and him agreeing. I thought it was all settled, but I was wrong. Two months later, he hasn’t done anything.
27. The Loud Olympics
I was living with my brother and a new family had just moved in downstairs. It was a mother and two boys in their teens, and the mom had just been divorced. From what we could tell, it was a bummer time. These two teenage boys fought constantly...they were incredibly loud, but I tried really hard to be empathetic and not complain.
We would mention it to their mom every now and then and she was very apologetic, but it kept going. One Sunday, they woke us up at 6 in the morning, slamming doors, throwing things, and just being ridiculous. My brother and I then decided to teach them a lesson. We set up every piece of audio equipment we had in the house, including a bass amp, two PAs, and a full drum set.
We blasted "Hypnotize" by Biggie for about 10 minutes and played along on bass and drums with the PAs at full volume. We never heard those kids make noise again. I’m not sure if we shocked them or they finally got it or what, but we did prove who could make more noise, I guess.
28. Not A Good Friend
We had just moved to our new house in the summer and it had a fenced-in pool in the backyard. My siblings and I took advantage of it in on one hot summer day and being the oldest, I just kept an eye out for everything. I then looked over, outside of the pool fence, and I saw our neighbor walking around in our yard to the fire pit further back in the backyard.
I became a little uneasy because I had only seen this guy once when we first moved in. He smiled, then waved to us and I told my siblings to get out of the pool. I told my mom and she was absolutely livid. That week, my dad and mom put a lock on our side of that gate so our neighbor couldn't get into our backyard.
He noticed a bit later that he couldn't get into our backyard and he was upset for some reason. Apparently, the previous owners used to let him into the backyard all the time, and he'd come over to burn branches and leaves in their fire pit. Okay, good for them, but this was our house now—you don't go walking into our property without asking us first.
Especially since we didn't know him at all! So while God forbid he may not have had malicious intentions, it was still really creepy and kind of really strange when he got upset that we put a lock on our side of the fence to keep him off of our property. We didn't talk to him much after that.
29. Time For Revenge
Our neighbor plugged his sink pipes with toilet paper and flooded his bathroom, flooding our apartment below him. We told him to stop and he refused to, saying he was trying to destroy our apartment to get back at the landlords. The corrections department said it was a landlord issue and the landlord said it was a corrections issue.
After a few officers asked him to stop that night, the neighbor ran his sink for two more minutes, stomping his feet and shouting at us, causing the most flooding yet. We called the officers back and their response took us aback—they just laughed at us, telling us to deal with it ourselves. A few days later, the corrections department, landlord, and plumber had to force his door open to fix the sink because he wouldn't let them in without a warrant, which they came back with.
He was kicked out a month later. I think he disliked us because on four occasions, he passed out while intoxicated and cooking food in the middle of the night. He set off everybody's smoke detectors, filling our place with smoke too, so we had to knock and wake him up, or get the fire department involved when he was unconscious in a burning room and wouldn't answer.
That’s not even to mention the harassment of the women or the attempts to break into our apartment when we weren't home.
30. Longer Than Life
Our neighbor has called the authorities on us multiple times. His reasons were absolutely bonkers: 1) our pool not being clean and running by the beginning of May, 2) having children's hockey sticks and Wiffle Ball bats on our front lawn, 3) our fence not being of the best quality, and 4) our pool gate for being too short. He also has a demon spawn grandson living with him that pulls up my flowers on a regular basis.
He once called the authorities because we had a storage container in our driveway. Meanwhile, the guy's got a car that's been parked at the end of his driveway for longer than I have been living there.
31. Slamming And Screaming
Our neighbor just screams and goes on these long rants, then slams doors while continuing to make a scene. It happens any hour of the day and can last between five minutes to an hour continuing on and off throughout the day. We can hear her with all the doors closed despite our house being double bricked.
We've tried talking to her which has led to nowhere. The authorities can't do anything as it's not consistent, nor can the local government as it’s just an anti-social behavior. So, the officers told us a harsh reality—we just have to deal with it. We can't get in contact with the homeowner, so our next bet is to figure out which real estate agent is managing the property and put through a formal complaint.
It sounds like a lot of work and might not even fix anything.
32. A Terrible Allergy
My upstairs neighbor got super angry because I didn't say hi to him in the hallway once. He then blamed his outburst on the fact that laundry makes him cranky. He also tried to get into my apartment last Wednesday afternoon while intoxicated. He then asked if I had a problem with him. When I explained that his behavior makes me uneasy, his response made me roll my eyes.
He called me a little passive-aggressive drama queen. He said he had forgotten where his apartment was because he was humming as he walked up the stairs...It must be so paralyzing to be that allergic to admitting fault.
33. The Free Concert
The neighbor that lives above me was trying to force me to move out, so she put her speakers on her floor pointing straight down, and blared them at full volume. The instant it started, I leaped up in outrage at her audacity. But after a few seconds, I just smirked. I realized...I really, really like this song. So, I gave it one more playthrough and as it was winding down, I prepared to confront her once again.
I was happily surprised when the next song was also a perennial favorite of mine. I didn't even bother getting upset before realizing that I liked the third song, too. She stopped at midnight when she was required to by the authorities, and apparently, she realized she wasn't able to irritate me that way, so she didn't try it anymore.
34. The Unwanted Gift
A fellow tenant in a shared house at university started puffing up. I had no particular issue with him partaking in this pastime, but I was studying law and I frequently met with officers as part of a module for school. I requested that he keep it in his room rather than the communal areas of the house. He obliged initially. Then, I went home for winter break.
Upon returning, I found a blood-boiling surprise in the kitchen. Some of his goodies were just laying around on the counter along with rolled-up notes and a semi-empty bag. I stayed clear and later that night, around two in the morning, I heard a knock at the door. A guy with blood dripping from his head was standing there shouting, "ROB, get out here. You ripped me off".
It turns out his habit had progressed to dealing, and his supplier to whom he owed a cut was the blood-soaked man on my doorstep barging his way in.
35. A Last Resort
Our neighbor refused to clean their own flat. A family of three lived there, including a woman and her two adult kids. They lived there for 10 years and never cleaned anything in the place, not even once. The son had to bathe himself in aftershave even after a shower, the daughter had a weird phobia and outright refused to shower. So, whenever she was nearby, you'd know it.
They had a cat and the poor thing reached the point where it would just give up on cleaning itself. Whenever the door to that place opened, the entire stairwell would reek for hours. They even had the gall to get offended when neighbors resorted to lighting incense in order to help with the stench. People's shoes would get stuck to the floor there because of the half-inch thick layer of sticky grime.
They eventually got evicted and the landlord was left with a totally ridiculous bill—he had to spend almost $20,000 to completely remove the smell and renovate the place.
36. Do Not Contact
My neighbor called the authorities on my three-year-old daughter because she was WALKING too loudly at two in the afternoon on a Saturday. Another time, he tried kicking our door down because my husband flushed the toilet too late at night. A number of other things happened that resulted in a judge granting us a "Do not contact" order against him, which he ignored twice within a month.
Thankfully, things eventually worked out in our favor—0ur landlord let us out of our lease early without any fee and he actually went with me to court to testify against him.
37. Messing With The Senses
A very long time ago, I was still living with my serially-intoxicated, religious dad. After he divorced my mom, we moved to a little road on the eastern edge of my island. Let's call our new neighbors Kex and Bev. Kex and Bev seemed pretty okay, and we got along for a few months. One day, Kex knocked on our door and asked my dad to move his car outside his house, as it was, at the time, parked in front of theirs.
They had two cars. My dad had one. There were absolutely zero reasons to move the car because it did not block them in any way. Nevertheless, my dad was in a pretty neutral mood, so he obliged. A couple of weeks later, my dad was in one of his intoxicated stupors, and Kex asked him to move his car forward a few inches. This really upset my dad, and he suddenly felt vengeful.
He stormed outside, walked up to their front door, and slur-shouted a demand at Kex that he move his car instead. Kex started beefing, and an argument riled up. Kex mock-headbutted my dad, stopping an inch before contact. Then my dad, being Welsh, did the same thing back but followed through and he ended up busting Kex’s nose.
He started bleeding and Bev came out screaming something about calling the authorities and all that jazz. It was just pure drama. Now, my dad sounds like the worst of all of them so far, and that's pretty true; he's a total piece of garbage. Actually, he’s just completely terrible with no redeeming qualities.
But the neighbors actually took things to another level. The whole situation had turned into a stalemate. Kex never called the authorities on my dad. In fact, there was no communication between us at all anymore. If I left for school at the same time as Kex left for work in the morning, it was crazy awkward. Everything seemed to have settled though, until one day, my dad, who was sober for a few hours, decided to do some gardening.
He was tending to some weeds, yanking them out of the ground by their roots, when he suddenly tasted a slight metallic pang on his palette. He, being Welsh, spat onto his hand. Blood. Then, he started coughing and a spatter of blood escaped. He ran to the bathroom and started spitting it all into the basin. Then, he started itching the roof of his mouth with his finger and moaning in pain, and his fingers came out with some of the blood.
He started gurgling water to wash his mouth out and eventually recovered. He pulled himself together. He called the emergency services, intending to get medical attention. Instead, a fire engine turned up. It turned out that they were the folks who dealt with dangerous chemicals. They took samples from my dad’s mouth using a swab and then popped out to the garden to investigate.
When they pulled back the bush my dad was working on, they came across a shocking scene—a load of white powder strewn everywhere. They found it on my dad's gloves, too. He'd not even noticed it through because of his visual impairment and because he was generally super ignorant. As I said, he didn’t have one redeeming quality. They sealed some up and went off to identify it.
A couple of days later, some vans turned up and the officers came in to inform us that the powder was a chemical agent for burning and weakening tree roots. The officers then went into the garden to inspect the fence which was beside the bush, and of course, there was a little visible trail of the powder caught up in the wood’s rough surface.
They went next door to speak to Kex and Bev and sure enough, they found a crate of the very same chemical agent. One of them had sprinkled some over the fence with the intention of ruining our garden. As a result, my dad inhaled it and messed up his sinuses.
38. The Indoor Skatepark
My neighbor would practice his skateboard ollies in his living room. I lived next door and would hear this constant THUNK sound. We lived two blocks from a nice park that had tons of space he could practice in. But, no, that would require him to make an effort. I told him multiple times to stop, and it took getting the property manager involved to make him stop.
A few months later, karma got to him—he got evicted for failure to pay rent. I can't say I was sad to see him go.
39. A Very Bad Influence
My neighbor attempted to sue me for letting all the neighborhood kids carve pumpkins with my kids. When they took their pumpkins home, my neighbors decided to ruin everyone's night—they called the authorities and filed a report saying we were trying to influence their kids with demonic teachings. It was lovely living next to them for a few years.
40. The Missing Oven
When we were moving from one house to the next and had our door unlocked, our neighbors somehow managed to take the oven out of the kitchen of our old house. But that's not all—they also sold our oven without asking and kept the money. We thought that we’d been robbed, but they admitted to it after we were settled in our new home.
41. It’s Raining Inside
At college, we basically had a living room, a bathroom, a separate room with a sink, and two bedrooms. I was two days away from moving out when I noticed that our A/C vent in the sink room was leaking water. Within five minutes, the dripping turned to a stream. Another 10 minutes later, I heard more dripping coming from the bathroom. Before I knew it, water was literally pouring from the top of the window in my living room.
It was literally raining inside. It took about an hour of continual rain before school officials turned off the water. My room was completely flooded with about two inches of water everywhere. When the school officials investigated the situation, they found out a disturbing truth. As it turns out, the people above us, who hated my roommate and me, packed up all their things and moved out earlier than they were supposed to.
Ok, whatever; they broke the rules and didn't follow the move-out procedure, but how did the flooding start you may ask? THEY STUFFED THE SHOWER DRAIN WITH TOWELS AND PURPOSELY FLOODED THEIR DORM SO WE WOULD GET FLOODED TOO! Needless to say, we were told that they would be paying for all damages to their floor, our ceiling, our floor, and the ceiling and floor of the person below us.
I heard they also got expelled from school, but I’m not sure on that one.
42. The Good Place
My neighbors were religious nutcases. They tried to convert my parents over and over again. Eventually, they waited until my parents left and they came for me. They told me that my parents would go into a horrible, scary place after they passed. But, if I helped them, I'd go to a wonderful place where I could hug wild animals. I told my dad about it and his face turned red. He went to have a word with the neighbor and I could hear them fighting from our house.
43. How Times Have Changed
My current neighbor grew up in the neighborhood but moved out when she got married. About 10 years later, she bought her parents’ house when they decided to retire someplace else and she moved back to the neighborhood. Immediately, she had a problem with how everything wasn't the same as when she was a kid.
My youngest son and her oldest son were the same age, they didn't like each other. So, she told everyone in the neighborhood…at least, those who would listen…that my kids were bad and that the other kids should stay away from them. The bus stop by our house has been in the same place since before we moved onto the street, BUT it's not where it was when she was young, and she said it had to be moved back!
She complained that she had to walk an extra few feet to the stop and apparently, she couldn't see her kid at the stop from her front windows. She called the school and the bus company for TWO years to get it moved. But here's the crazy part—she actually managed to get the bus stop moved back. Her kid then rode that bus for about 12 DAYS before she put him in a private Christian school. Two years later, the stop moved back to where it was.
44. Straight To Lockup
My neighbor spied on me through my bedroom window and took pictures and videos. I should add that my parents' house is on two and a half acres and he had to consciously find a spot to spy on me, as it’s not like I was just across the way. Luckily, I was under 18 at the time, and that worked in my favor big time.
Years later, when he sent his work laptop in to be serviced by his company's IT, they found underage pictures of me changing through my window. He went straight to lockup.
45. A Whole New Level Of Stress
The old lady in the condo below us called CPS because in her words: “I’m a retired nurse and I KNOW a baby shouldn’t cry that much”. First of all, I had newborn twins, so she wasn’t hearing one baby cry, she was hearing two babies cry. Second of all, one of my twins was colicky, so from around 5 to 8 in the evenings, there was basically nothing I could do to get him to stop crying.
Third of all, how about knocking on the door and seeing if everything is okay or offering to help before calling CPS? My husband and I were furious, but the universe was on our side. The investigation was open and shut because it was obvious our kids weren’t being neglected in any way, but it added a whole new level of stress to an already crazy-stressful situation. We moved shortly after.
46. A Very Nasty Shower
I live in an apartment building. The upstairs neighbors’ dog peed on their patio and it dripped down onto me while I was sitting outside reading. I yelled and ran to shower. When I texted them to ask them to take their dog downstairs to pee in the future, their response gave me shivers. They said it wasn’t their dog and it must have blown over from somewhere else. What?
47. Ours, Not Yours
I had one neighbor that would basically take our mail and other stuff from our porch and yard. I caught her once to try and confront her, and she started yelling at me to stop attacking her. She even tried to say I was looting her stuff. That's when I had enough. I ended up calling the authorities and filing a restraining order against her.
48. A Momma’s Boy
Not a single one of our neighbors can stand this girl on our street. She's angered everyone on all sides of her. Her son's a cop so she'll send him over to yell at you if you do any of her pet peeves. She did that about one of our dogs as she hates animals. My wife answered the door, and the son thought he could manipulate her, but he had no idea who he was messing with.
The poor kid got an earful from my wife, who then called his captain to complain about the "momma's boy" who lived next door and was harassing people. It was hilarious. She regularly gets into it with her neighbor on the other side, which is a mistake, since that woman is taking care of a dementia-suffering husband and puts up with zero nonsense. I can hear her regularly telling her to get bent.
Her college-aged other son comes home now and they get into shouting matches in the backyard, calling each other names and such. It must be tiring to be so horrible all the time.
49. The Diaper War
Just recently, my new neighbors have decided to throw dirty diapers in my driveway. We know it's them since they have the only diaper-wearing child on the block. My wife tossed them back into their driveway and two hours later, the same diapers reappeared in my driveway, followed by a third that was only a few feet from my door.
I told my wife to leave them for me when I got home from work. I planned my revenge, and it was oh so sweet. Upon arriving home, I tossed all three diapers onto their roof, likely never to be seen again…until the humid Midwest summer baked those diapers into a glorious, colonic blasting poop storm of a smell for the neighbors.
50. Lack Of Fear
I was like 12 or 13 at the time when this happened, and I was living in a suburb of Orlando, Florida. It was the typical American suburbia. We had this really ornery dude who lived next door. He never smiled or looked happy. When we moved in, my parents went over to introduce themselves. He shouted, "Go away"! through the door.
We never saw lights on. He mowed his grass religiously at seven in the morning on Saturdays. For three or four years, I never spoke to the man and neither did my parents...until 2003, in the middle of summer. It was hot, humid, and a bunch of us were playing outside with hoses and basketballs, just being normal kids.
All of the sudden, I saw him walking out of the garage and heading toward me. His next move had everyone's jaws on the floor. He walked right up to me, grabbed me by the throat, picked me up in the air one-handed, and said, "If you kids don't calm down, I'm going to get my shovel and put each and every one of you in the ground". Keep in mind, that we were all just kids at the time.
He was an extremely tall and muscular guy. He grabbed me by the throat so hard I busted a blood vessel in my neck. When I went inside, my throat was basically black and blue from the force with which he grabbed me. My mom was running errands at the time, so I called her on her cell, and she promptly called my dad while he was at work.
When my dad came home and I told him what happened, he was eerily calm. My dad was normally very energetic, personality-wise, and he had this cold calm demeanor that honestly scared me to my bones. He went into his room and I followed him. What he did next made my blood run cold—I saw him pull his .45 out of his safe, load it, and head towards the front door.
My mom was in hysterics saying, "Don't hurt him, don't do it", and all my dad was saying is "Come with me, let's go talk to the neighbor". We walked up to the neighbor's front door. My dad knocked and asks the guy to step outside and tell him what happened. When the guy went outside his door, my dad promptly slammed him across the face with the butt of his .45.
The guy fell down and my dad said, "If you ever threaten another child, mine or otherwise, especially when they're just playing outside, you don’t even want to guess what’s going to happen to you”. My dad promptly stood up, and told me, "Let's go inside". The authorities then showed up and incarcerated my dad for assault.
However, it only really ended up being 100 hours of community service and misdemeanor trespass after the evidence of my assault and all the witness testimony corroborated my story. The guy moved out maybe six weeks later. We found out several years later, and randomly, that the guy actually passed when he tried to fight some younger thugs over their football playing in his new neighborhood in a bad part of town, and he got shot.
The family said on the news that he was manic-depressive, with bipolar and schizophrenic tendencies. My dad is probably where I get my complete lack of fear from.
51. 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.
