These Freaky Neighbors Are Straight Out Of A Nightmare
If there's one place you don't want to deal with an annoying—or even creepy—person, it's when you're at home. Unfortunately, we can pick our friends, but we can't pick our neighbors...and these stories are proof that when you end up with a dud, it can quickly turn into an absolute nightmare.
1. 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. My landlord gave permission too. 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.
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 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.
After, 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.
2. Slipper Sniffer
My across-the-hall apartment neighbor is so weird. Like, just overall off-putting. Anyway, I leave my sandals out next to my door every night since I don't wear shoes in the house. It so happens that one night, I had to meet my best friend, who came over in the dark of night at the front since she doesn’t know my place very well. As I opened the door, I caught my neighbor doing the most deranged thing imaginable.
He was caressing and smelling my sandals. I froze and mildly freaked out. He saw me staring, did a weird giggle, said something about his kids calling him back inside, and then yanked me into this weird side hug. Now I leave my shoes in a box inside my house. Ugh.
3. This Guy Blows Me Away
Growing up, I had a neighbor who would leaf-blow his yard EVERY SINGLE DAY. Without fail around 3 PM that annoying wail of the blower would start up and go for at least a half-hour. On weekends he would start at 9 in the morning. He would begin on his roof, then do his whole yard. One day he couldn't get it started.
He threw it in the garage, got into his car, and bought a new one an hour later. My neighbor's kids glued leaves on his driveway to mess with him. Rain would only postpone the annoyance. Once it had stopped raining for a few minutes, he would be out there. In the summer, when I would get home after a long day at work, I would just want to take a nap.
Without fail, as soon as my head hit the pillow, I would hear that dreaded whir.
4. Here's Your Proof
When I first moved into my house, I didn’t know my exact property line yet, so I put a marker by a tree I thought was mine. My neighbor came over and said I had to remove the marker since the tree was on his property. So I went ahead and got a survey done to settle any troubles. His face when I showed him the surveyor's findings was priceless—turns out, I actually owned the tree, plus the 10 feet beyond it. Problem solved!
5. Neat Freak
One of the neighbors down the street vacuumed his driveway every single day. Not only that, but he liked to show off how clean his vacuum attachments were. He disliked one of his neighbors on the one side, so when it snowed, he would build a wall of snow between their houses. He just kept shoveling all of it into a giant pile so he wouldn’t have to see them. That's not all.
He didn’t like snow in his yard—and his solution for that was truly deranged. He would shovel his side into garbage bags then put it in his backyard.
6. Kooky? More Like Spooky
It started out that we just thought she was a free spirit; just your average hippie-dippie Scandinavian lady with alternative parenting ideas. But we gradually learned that she was just a horrible person. The first red flag was when she picked up my four-year-old son, claiming she wanted him over for a short visit. She said he was playing with her younger daughter and she said they were playing without clothes most of the time.
I told her he wasn't allowed to be undressed anymore but I wasn't mad because I knew things were less uptight in Norway where she was from. I later talked to my son about it. Her older daughter, on the other hand, was always misbehaving. Her first time over to our house, she smeared chapstick all over an entire wall. She was like six years old. Plenty old enough to know better.
Another time, she sneaked into our house while I was outside playing with my kids and started eating some brownies I had just made. I mean, she tore a hole right smack in the middle of the plastic wrap over the dish and scooped out handfuls of brownies. She would also "pole dance" on the tree out front, singing "Shake yo money maker." Six years old.
She had birthday parties for her children, to which we were invited and brought gifts. But then, we found out their REAL birthdays were later in the year. When we were invited again, we declined. The lady tried to explain that she celebrated half birthdays. I explained to her that we didn't. Soon, my children were not allowed to play at their house anymore.
Though, we still all ran into each other walking to school. She would tell me how she saw real demons walking around disguised as people, and how God told her that I was really close to seeing the light and becoming Christian. It was during this time that someone called CPS on her and she accused me of it. It wasn't me, but maybe it should have been.
We finally moved, but she caught up with me one day to give me a bag of used clothes for my daughter. But her intentions were utterly twisted: I sliced my finger on the razor blade that she put in the bag, luckily not very badly. That was the last I saw of her.
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7. Peacock Problems
I lived in a suburban neighborhood growing up and one family had a nice sized lot and a few peacocks. Maybe chickens too, but mainly peacocks. No one else in that neighborhood had livestock. I'm not sure if wild peacocks are a thing somewhere, but they weren't here. I saw a peacock walking in front of my house, so I called the kid and said, "Dude, tell your dad one of his peacocks is out." His reaction blew my mind.
He called me back 10 minutes later and said, "Dad says it's not one of his." Who's peacock was it?
8. Sketchy Dealings
One year in university, I ended up finding a room in an apartment building. It was one of those apartments with five bedrooms on one floor with a shared kitchen and two bathrooms. The landlady ended up renting out each room individually, so I was living with four complete strangers. They were mostly decent guys and we got along okay, outside or normal roommate quarrels.
This was fine until it was time for the roomies to move out before the lease was up. They didn't want to get charged for the month of rent, so they found subletters. My one roommate gave his room to another total stranger. The new total stranger wasn't really vetted all that well. I bumped into him once when he moved in and he gave me a weird vibe.
He kind of seemed like a sketchy dude, but whatever; we were all poor university students, so I thought maybe I was reading him wrong. I didn't even really meet him long enough to really catch his name. Anyway, one night, a few days after he moved in, I was sitting in my room with my girlfriend and we were watching a movie. During the movie, I could have sworn that I was hearing radios going off.
I shrugged it off and figured it was a part of the movie. About twenty minutes later, however, there was a knock on our apartment door. None of my other four roommates was home, so I answered it and was greeted with not one, not two, but five officers. At least one of them was armed with an SMG. Officers: "Does this man live here?" Me: "Uh...Yeah, I think that's the new roommate..."
Officers: "Is he home?" Me: "Uh...I don't think so..." They came in and knocked on his bedroom door. No answer. Curious, I asked them what was happening. The officers all shared a meaningful look and one of them answered that he may have been involved in an incident and may be injured. About five minutes later, the apartment door opened and the sketchy roommate was standing there in the entrance hall to the apartment.
Our conversation went something like this—Me: "Are you okay? The authorities were here looking for you and said you were injured." His response was horrifying: "Oh, I was involved in a drive-by earlier today. It's okay though, I ran away." He then went into his room as if he didn't just drop a shocker on us. Five minutes later my girlfriend and I were still sharing looks of astonishment.
Then, a knock on the door again! Surprise, surprise, it was the authorities. Now they had some reinforcements and even a few dogs with them. I just pointed to the guy's door. An officer unbuttoned his holster and I locked myself in my room. I emailed my landlady that night informing her of what had happened, saying that I would be moving out of my apartment early, and that I was expecting not to be billed for my last month of rent. She did not argue.
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9. Speed Demon
We had a woman down the street from us that everyone just called "the crazy lady." The speed limit was 30 mph and if you went over 23 mph, she would come running into the street yelling at you to slow down. At all times of the day, she would be watching and waiting. She went to my friends’ parents to tell them how awful their child was at driving, even when they didn’t go against any laws, and how they should have their driving privileges taken away.
She would even follow you home, just to yell at you. She would often call law enforcement and ask them to have radar in the neighborhood or set up one of those speed signs. It became a game of how fast can you drive by her house? I would set the alarm off on the speed sign with my remote control cars, my bike, anything other than a car just to aggravate her. Other people just honked their horn as they drove by, and would give her the one-finger salute.
10. Noise Complaint
I lived above a guy in a really old fourplex and I guess the wood floors squeaked really loudly whenever I walked around. It wasn't like I was stomping around or anything, but the dude would constantly come upstairs and bang on my door to yell at me about the noise. I felt bad for him in the beginning because he seemed genuinely frustrated, but he didn't seem to understand or believe that I wasn't intentionally causing a ruckus.
I called my landlord several times asking him for a solution. I couldn't move out because I was locked into my lease, but my landlord was just like, "Buy a lot of rugs." It got to the point that I couldn't take the constant yelling and I was literally either tiptoeing around or hopping from my couch to my chair in order to get out of my living room.
Finally, I went downstairs one day and asked if we could talk about the situation. I felt that maybe if I looked him in the eye when he was calm and explained that I wasn't doing it on purpose, he would maybe understand. After I gave him my spiel, he had a chilling response: "I'm about at the point where if it happens again, I'm going to show up at your door with a really big knife." And then he just stared at me.
I basically ran out of there, called my landlord, and said that I had just been threatened by my downstairs neighbor. A month later the guy moved out, and then as soon as I could, I did too.
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11. Double Eviction
My first apartment had a creepy old man who lived on the basement floor and this equally creepy kid in his early thirties on the top floor. Both of them regularly sat out on the porch entrance at varying times of the day and would catch me whenever I came home. I lied to the old man, (we’ll call him George) about my name in a moment of panic.
When he found out that wasn’t my name, he started getting more aggressive in greeting me with my real name to show me how I’d done him wrong. He would circle the building when he realized I started using the back exit, and he'd even sit on the back steps to wait for me to pass by. I told my landlord twice about it and all he did was tell him not to talk to me, which made matters worse because just continued to harass me but with more of a vengeance.
He ended up stealing the wreath that was on my door because nobody else had one on their door and threw it in the trash. At that point, I no longer cared about causing my landlord grief and asked him to pull up video footage. Turns out, he’d been coming upstairs several times to see when I left for work and would stand in front of my door. He ended up getting evicted. But the nightmare didn't end there.
This was all happening while the kid on the top floor was still there. He was weird, but I didn't pay him much mind. After the whole George thing, I wanted to be on good terms with the other tenants, so I started saying hello when I came through the entrance or in the hallways. Bad call. Such a bad call. He started going around telling the other dudes that lived upstairs that he was sleeping with me and how I wouldn’t waste time jumping his bones.
Whatever, I stopped saying hi to him. About two days later, however, I went to take my trash out and I passed my window that was facing the alleyway. This dude was pressed up against it, sliding his face around the glass trying to see me. He saw me and tried to play it off, but the situation was already screwed for him. I called the authorities and it turns out he’d been pegged for"peeing" before on two other charges. He was also evicted.
12. A Near Fatal Mistake
My neighbor came home from the bar with his friend and they were both tipsy. At some point, they started screwing around with a pistol and accidentally shot through their floor—down into my apartment. The worst part? I actually got hit in the stomach. I called 9-1-1 and when the ambulance was taking me away, my panicked fiancé was getting ready to leave because the EMTs told her to follow.
My neighbor came down and was like "What happened? We heard a commotion!" The authorities were called and he got taken into custody.
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13. What A Conehead!
My old neighborhood had a guy who lived right on the corner of my street. He was a construction worker but seemed to be laid off 11 months out of the year. So, he would set up huge orange cones in the middle of the street so his daughter could ride her bike. Then he would stand at the bottom of the driveway and mean mug anyone who drove past.
Not only that, but he would always have this smug look when he saw you driving slowly to intimidate you. You had to, but not because it was right along a sharp corner, there was a six-year-old on a bike nearby, and it was tough navigating around those giant cones he had in the street. That guy totally sucked.
14. The Good Prevails
I'm a surveyor. This woman called us with a complaint about her neighbor's garden growing into her property. She was upset at her neighbor and told us all about how nasty she was. We eventually met the neighbor and she ended up being the nicest person ever. She told us she would be willing to move her garden, but only once the survey was completed.
We staked out the line and it went right through the other woman's shed. That's when the horror was unleashed: She screamed at us, pulled our stakes out, and tried to hit us with them. Her neighbor, the one with the garden, was so happy that she was right, she was almost in tears. She made the woman move her shed and then installed a large fence. I love it when the good guy wins.
15. Time To Bury The Shovel
There's a guy that lived directly behind my parents’ house that was very alienating to all of his immediate neighbors and hated dogs. For some reason, he singled out my mom and dad because they walked their little pooches around the block and inevitably by his house. When he would see them, he would run out of his house and begin cursing at them.
He would yell at them not to let their dogs step on his lawn. My dad tried to reason with him, saying that if they pee it's just the tree lawn and he picks up their poop. It didn’t matter to this guy. He would regularly go ballistic over nothing. It boiled over a few years ago when my dad was walking our old dog, a puffy white Shih Tzu, and our other puppy, who was very friendly.
The puppy stopped and peed in the yard next to this guy’s, and he somehow heard or noticed this grievous action from his garage. He came storming down with a shovel in hand and threatened to "beat the dogs to oblivion if they came near his house again." It really shook up my dad. My mom called law enforcement to talk about how this guy systematically terrorized them for reasons unknown.
My dad is so nice, he talked the officer out of going over to this guy's house because he didn't want there to be more friction. Well, I wasn’t about to let him get away with his awful treatment of my parents. Whenever I would house sit for them and take the dogs around the block, I made sure I linger on this guy’s lawn, spit on his driveway, and let the dogs go wherever. One time he was out watching me walk my hounds by his yard.
I looked up at him and asked if he'd like to bring his shovel down to talk with me. I'm significantly bigger than my dad. I also used to box and power lift six days a week. I have zero problems intimidating people, especially spineless twits that threaten a pair of 13-pound dogs and an almost 70-year-old man. Oddly he didn't oblige and went inside without saying a word to me.
16. White Flag
I moved into a brand new house. I noticed an old toilet, garbage, and a broken-down hot tub in the neighbors front yard. Nothing special about that. I made cookies and we went over to introduce ourselves. He laughed and slammed the door in our faces. Little did we know, this was the beginning of our worst nightmare. A few days later, I was out landscaping our new yard with my husband, and we just laid some bricks.
He was on his knees, making sure they were level, while I stood beside him and handed over the bricks. Our neighbor then walked by and yelled, “Well, I can see who wears the pants!” My husband and I looked at each other, totally perplexed. Then, a few months later, we got a puppy. Our other neighbor let us know she witnessed the guy's son throwing lit-up matches over the fence at our puppy when he was in the backyard.
We found about 50 matches in our yard. Then she also had to call the authorities because his other son broke the lights on her garage and defecated on her welcome mat (all captured on her home video system). About six months later, I got a complaint about our dog's barking and ended up with a $500 fine. It was ridiculous. Our dog never barked, unless someone walked by or came to the door.
We had letters from all 16 surrounding neighbors attesting that our dog never barked, but the letters were not admissible. We sold the house and moved shortly afterward.
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17. This Situation Is Not Coming Up Roses
We lived in a rather quiet neighborhood for almost 25 years. Most people were in their late 50s and up, and nobody had moved out except for the elderly couple in the house next to us. They were upside down in debt and the bank foreclosed on it. The house was sold to a seemingly nice older couple who decided to move to the burbs from the country after their floral business went under.
After months of them working on the house at odd hours, they finally moved in and we noticed some weird things. First, my mom walked into our backyard and saw that all the plants in the garden that backed up to the property line between our houses had those little wire twist ties around their stalks. We just chalked it up to him being a nice neighbor and helping our plants since he was a florist.
Next, he kept traipsing through our gate from our back yard after using his side door and then leaving the gate open. My parents were mad because it's a security risk, and it was unnecessary for him to even be back there. My parents asked him to close our gate if he used it, hoping that he'd take the hint that he was on our property. They thought that would fix it—but they were so wrong.
Instead, he got nasty and told them that six inches of the fence connected to the gate was his and we couldn't tell him what to do with something connected to his property. He then spray-painted "his part" of the chain link fence orange. Lastly, we looked out from our kitchen window into the backyard and saw a new lock with a bright red band around it on our shed.
This thing was ten feet from his property line, and full of our old junk, extra swings from the swing set, toy sprinklers, an old Weber grill, etc. We never really used it for anything more than storage anymore, but there's no way anyone would think this wasn't ours. My dad went out there with bolt cutters and opened it—and was so weirded out by what he found.
He found ten boxes full of old mail this guy had been keeping. It wasn't even in envelopes. It was all just ads, phone books, and newspapers still in the little plastic bags. We dumped it on the guy's porch with a note that said to stay off our property or law enforcement would be called and put a heavy-duty lock on the shed.
Officers showed up at our door two hours later. He had called them saying we were tampering with his mail. We told them what happened and showed them the pictures we had taken, and they told him to stay off the questionable property until we could get a surveyor out. The surveyor came out, confirmed our property line is where we said it was. His reaction was chilling. He said he didn't believe them. He accused us of paying off the city and the surveyor. He started egging our house and dumping trash in our yard. He now has a restraining order.
18. Karmic Justice
This happened to my parents before they had me and my siblings. When buying their first house, which is our current family home, they arrived on their motorbikes to view the house. After deciding on wanting to buy it, they greeted the neighbors. The neighbors expressed how thankful they were that the "biker couple" didn't buy the house, then proceeded to rant about their dislike towards bikers...not knowing my parents were the biker couple.
As you can imagine, it didn't go down too well when the pricks noticed the bikes. But it gets even more interesting—a few months after their initial chat with the neighbors, my parents were sitting in the living room minding their own business when they heard an explosion. They ran outside to find both of their bikes engulfed with flames.
They called the fire brigade who put out the fire. One of the firefighters approached my mom and pointed out that there were matches laying around and that it was more than likely an arson attack. My mom didn't pursue it with the authorities for God knows what reason, but while in her fit of rage, she told my dad: "Whoever did this is going to break their right leg."
Coincidence or not, a week later, one of the neighbors came home with his right leg in a cast.
19. It’s All A Ruse
I lived on a quiet suburban street and the neighborhood was pretty good. There was not much wrongdoing, a lot of young families, with a local council that actually took care of things. Then there was this one guy. He was an older retiree probably in his late sixties. His children had all moved out and he and his wife lived on the corner of the block.
Our street was a cul-de-sac so you would have to pass his house to leave the street. At first, he would lure you in with friendly conversation as you walked by saying things like, “Grass is looking pretty green today,” or something along those lines. Once you made eye contact and entered into a conversation you would never be allowed to leave.
He would continue to talk even after you said your goodbyes or mentioned you were running a little late. You would have to physically walk away while talking until you were out of earshot. A curt nod of acknowledgment with a smile was the safest greeting, and even that could be risky if you have somewhere to be in the next hour.
His vice grip conversations, however, weren’t the worst of it. For a long while, I took pity on him and thought 'he must just be lonely' or 'he's mostly harmless'. This was unwise. After becoming comfortable with you he would attempt to 'help' you. This would involve anything from taking your garbage bins out before you've filled them with garbage, to tapping on your window at 5 AM because the newspaper delivery man didn't put your paper in the letterbox.
We even had instances where we found him in our back yard because he was 'checking on the condition of our fencing,’ which was not so great, and once we found him adding chlorine to our pool. We asked him politely to not enter the property when we weren’t present, but he definitely didn’t listen or would forget at his convenience.
After you had reached this stage of neighborly relations, the real fun would begin. Because you hadn’t had the courage to stand up to his meddling, he saw you as an ally in his retiree turf wars. You were asked to sign a petition asking that the other retiree down the street be charged for driving too quickly on a quiet suburban street.
The gentleman in question was lovely and never exceeded 40 km/h, let alone the speed limit. He would ask you to report on neighbors’ whereabouts and if you refused, he would get confrontational and accuse you of taking sides. I could go on for hours listing his shenanigans. I even suspected that he poisoned one family's trees because they were blocking the view from his window.
20. Mr. De Vil
I was 13 at the time. My neighbor tried to take my dog and her puppies. He literally broke into our house one day to do it. Luckily, my mom and I were there at the time—when he realized we had caught him in the act, he dropped the dogs, but also told us that he could break our necks whenever he wanted. Quite a nice guy. We obviously called the authorities after that.
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21. Chair-man Of The Block
We had a relatively young neighbor move in a few months ago. He lived alone and wasn’t very actively social. He kept to himself, but he was a nice enough guy. Our neighborhood has a slight gang problem where these two groups of guys walk around screaming at each other and getting into fights. One day, they ended up fighting in front of his house at around 2 AM. I’ll never forget what happened next.
The ruckus woke up the whole street. I looked out my window just in time to see the new neighbor come out in his pajamas, screaming his head off in Japanese. The guys who were fighting yelled at him to mind his own business and they went back to pushing each other around. The young guy went back into his house and came back out with a plastic chair.
He literally and indiscriminately started beating the smack out of these guys with the chair. There had to be at least nine of them, and they were big. The young neighbor was about 5'6", 5'7" tops. They never managed to touch him. By the end of it, two of the bigger guys managed to run away, but the rest of them were out cold and bleeding on the sidewalk. It was like WWE in real life.
22. 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.
23. 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 working girls 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 lady for hire. 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.
24. 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.
25. 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.
26. 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.
27. 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 pot 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 scene cleaners did their thing.
28. 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.
29. 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.
30. 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.
31. 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 without clothes 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.
32. 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!
33. 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.
34. 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.
35. 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.
36. 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?"
37. 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.
38. 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!”
39. 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.
40. 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.
41. 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.
42. 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.
43. 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.
44. 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.
45. 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.
46. 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.
47 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 bare 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 sloshed 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.
48. 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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49. 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.
50. 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.
51. 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.
52. 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.
53. 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.
54. 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.
55. 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.
56. 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.
57. 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.
58. 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.
59. 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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60. 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.
61. 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.
62. Open Fire
Just three days ago, the neighbor's dog went after 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.
63. 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.
64. 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.
65. 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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66. 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.
67. 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.
68. 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.
69. 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.
70. 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 an inflatable 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.
71. 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.
72. 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.
73. 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.
74. 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.
75. 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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76. 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.
77. 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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78. 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.
79. 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.
80. 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.
81. 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.
82. 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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83. 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.
84. 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.
85. 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.
86. 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.
87. 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 inebriated driving that night in an unrelated incident.
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88. 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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89. 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.
90. 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.
91. 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.
92. 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.
93. 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, popping 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.
94. 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.
95. 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.
96. 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.
97. 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.
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 unclothed 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.
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