A neighbor - someone who lends a helping hand and shows compassion towards those who live close-by. At least that's the vision idols like Mr. Rogers had in mind.
Although most neighbors respect boundaries and keep a healthy relationship with their fellow neighbors, there are always more than a few who do not understand what it means to lead a neighborly life.
It's no surprise that people live their lives differently, and these differences are put on blast especially when people share a close living proximity. From mild annoyances to the downright crazy, here are a few people's most frustrating and insane encounters with their neighbors.
An Unexpected Visit From Child Services
“My neighbor called Child Services on me because I grounded my daughter for hitting the neighbor’s daughter.
My daughter had hit her daughter, not hard, but I needed her to know it was wrong to hit. She was about six or seven at the time. I told her she needed to come in, she didn’t want to, so I went out, took her hand and walked her in.
Next thing I know, my wife gets a call at work from the police asking if she is afraid to leave our kids alone with me, to which she said, ‘Absolutely not.’ I was a stay at home dad while I went to school. I took care of not only our two kids, but my nephew as well.
The lady apparently told Child Services that I dragged my daughter across the concrete, kicking and screaming. They sent out a couple reps who talked with my daughter, looked for any signs of abuse, found none, then determined there was nothing there.
They noted that I was able to take care of three kids under the age of seven, keep the house clean, and still managed to be on the dean’s list in College. Personally, I think she was jealous because I was taking better care of my kids then she was hers. Her kids were always dirty, and the youngest, probably one or two at the time, was always outside in nothing but a diaper and unsupervised. After a little while we ended up moving far away from that neighborhood.”
The One That Got Away…Somewhat
“My husband’s ex wife… It had been six years since their divorce, and out of the blue, she called him up at his work. You know, just to chat, catch up. Whatever, fine, fine, he isn’t going to be a jerk or anything, but he definitely doesn’t want to talk to his ex. Then, she started showing up at the store, repeatedly. Talked to everyone in his store, shared her ‘story about the two of them’ to all his employees. Claimed she was just showing up at the store to hang out with ‘her new friends.’ Asked his assistant manager out on a date. Moved into the same apartment complex as us. Started showing up at our door. Left little notes and letters on his car, or on our door. Sometimes the letters were just like, ‘Hi! I saw your car, I hope you’re having a nice day!’ (And then she would sign them with her full name, because she never dropped his last name). Other times, they were full blown updates on her day/life. Once, there was a letter asking him why he left her, and what made me ‘so much better.’ That one was stuck to our door with a note on top that said ‘For Brian’s eyes only’ and she drew a pair of eyes on it. The neighbors read it and were sitting on their front porch waiting for us to get home so they could kind of give us a hard time about it. He walked over to her apartment, pounded on the door, and threw the crumpled letter in her face and said ‘its because you do crap like this!!!’ We moved out maybe a week later. But for a few years, every time my doorbell was rung unexpectedly, I would have a half second panic attack that it was her. I still can’t believe the moron dated her. In his defense, he had not been laid in probably 4 years, so he was given a mild pass, and a gentle warning; ‘You will find out for yourself the mistake you have made.’ He did.”
You Don’t Have To Have An Illness To Be A Sick Person…
“My mom had this neighbor who pretended to be weak from cancer/chemo so her landlord couldn’t get mad at her for when trash bins were full and lawn was filthy. She even went as far as shaving her head and faking a limp, cane and everything. Mom baked her some cookies and offered to take care of her bins and lawn, neighbor spills about her scam. My mom, now enlightened about my neighbor’s ‘The Fault in our Stars’ facade and tired of the trash blowing into our yard, called the landlord. Neighbor wasn’t happy and would blast music at ungodly hours of the night/wee morning to get back at my mom. Mom would get frustrated because she worked late and left early, filed noise complaint to police. Police arrive, neighbor claims my mom (old little Asian lady) punched her in the chest. Neighbor wants her arrested, mom shows cops our security cam footage, no mom punching, instead finds crazy neighbor kicking her 9 year old daughter out in the middle of the night. 9yo is banging on her door, my mom comes out to check on noise, tries to bring hysterical girl inside (it’s like 2am), neighbor comes out and sprays her with the hose. My neighbor gets taken away by the cops and her daughter was sent to live with her dad.”
Mind Your Own Business
“Where to start…
-He’s the only one on the street to have plant pots at the outer corner his front yard making it unnecessarily hard for me to drive onto my own driveway. Got rid of them for a while after I complained, but now put even bigger ones there.
-Uses my trash bins so much that sometimes I can’t even put my own trash bags in them.
-Gave me his keys in case he shut himself out and now asks me for mine every few weeks saying it would be handy for me. I don’t want him having my keys. Told him that, won’t stop.
-Walks into my backyard for random talks without notice often. Even when I’m just sitting there with someone he’ll come and tries to become the center of attention telling stories that I’m 99% sure are false.
-Drops my name at the place I work to try to get discounts. Can’t even give my family that.
-Had to get rid of my pool and foosball tables after his complaints. Best part was the one time I warned him I’d have some friends over to play some foosball. We got distracted by finding my N64, played some Smash Brothers two floors down from the room the foosball table is in. Next day he complained about the noise the foosball table made that night.
-If he sees I bought something new he has to buy a better version of it and then show it to me. Get a 46” TV, days later he calls me over to show his same TV, but 50”. Get a new car, a week later shows me he bought the same car but one engine upgrade better.
-Complains about the noise I make while being the only 50 year old blasting EDM when he’s in his backyard.
-Planted some huge vine plant on the fence between our backyards and then complains because I put a solid wall behind it because it was growing over to my place and I intentionally kept my garden plant free because I hate gardening. Apparently the solid wall was bad for the growth and that was somehow bad for me. Have to add that before that he also planted some trees and put potted plants in my yard saying it’s make the neighborhood look better. He knows I hate gardening. I tell him that every time he asks why I have no plants. Told me he’d maintain them, told him I didn’t want him in my backyard doing that. So I removed them. Next day they were back.
-Makes awkward comments about girls he sees leaving my place or noises he heard when I forgot to close my window.
-Always in arguments with his wife loudly yelling at each other in front of everyone.
-Orders tons of stuff online. Never is home at delivery time so I get them. Always had to carry them in for them because his back always seemed to hurt when he gets a package. Did that for a while until he started calling me when I was out to come home to hand him his package. Judging from the stack of packages in front of his door now I’d say other neighbors are done with that crap as well.
-Lets visitors park on my driveway then just says I shouldn’t complain and just park in a general spot until they leave.
-Doesn’t seem to realize that I don’t like him even after telling him that a lot of times and keeps acting like we’re buddies.”
The Neighborhood Pack Rat
“It was a super weird situation. We lived next to a guy who would steal ANYTHING that we left out in our yard, or just generally not locked up. He would steal our bikes, toys that were laying around, garden hose, yard decorations, etc… We would find stuff missing ALL the time, and the worst part was when he stole my 5 year old brother’s rock collection that was sitting underneath a tree in our yard. It was literally a pile of worthless rubble that my brother would add to everyday, but he took it and it broke my brother’s heart. We had no idea who was stealing our things at first, until we had a pest problem. We hired an exterminator to get rid of a pesky raccoon who had taken shelter in our roof, and our neighbor stole the cage that the exterminators set out as a trap… Yes, he even took a cage that held feral animals. The exterminator was suspicious and demanded to see my neighbor’s shed. My parents have always had their suspicions, but they were really tame and shy people who hated confrontations. The exterminator pretty much pushed his way into my neighbor’s shed, and of course the cage was there. Along with it was everything that had been stolen from us. The weird part was it wasn’t like he sold them or put anything to use. They all just sat in his shed collecting dust with a number of other miscellaneous items. I suspect they were stolen as well, but I never confirmed it. We reclaimed the bike from his shed and some other more valuable items, but I still regret not looking more closely for my brother’s rock collection at the time. It was weird.”
The Menace Of The Apartment Complex
“There was a woman, probably in her 50’s or early 60’s, named Charlene that lived in the apartment next to mine in a gated community. Initially, while I was moving stuff in with my cousins, she greeted me, and seemed pleasant enough. A bit strange, but more just like a lonely older lady. She told me it would be nice to have such a nice looking young man moving in next to her, said something about looking like Tom Cruise, and I believe offered to make something sweet one day.
I thought nothing of it, and went about my business. She would always sit at her window at the front of her apartment, which looked into a courtyard our part of the complex would all pass through going to our cars, or back to our apartments.
It happened over the course of 4 months maybe, and began with her banging on her wall (which I believe was her living area) that connected to my bedroom. I thought that maybe at some point I had music too loud (though I always kept my bass off, and thought I was mindful enough of it) so I just shrugged it off.
When my mother came to visit a few times, and when I would come back from university, or head out in the mornings, Charlene began yelling obscene things from her window. A lot were at me or my mother, but sometimes she would yell at other people walking past, or a parent pushing a child in the stroller. She would call me explicatives, my mother a streetwalker, tell other people to ‘shove off,’ call some heathens, just random crazy behavior.
By this point I was rolling my eyes, thinking, ‘Great, I have to hear this crazy lady and feel her burning a hole through me every time I leave or come home.’
My girlfriend stayed at my place a lot, days at a time, and we would ‘spend time’ together. Charlene would bang on the wall and we would hear her yelling things through it. ‘Okay,’ I thought, ‘Just keep it quieter so we don’t have to deal with her nonsense.’
Only that didn’t help.
At this point, I had been there a few months, and Charlene began to get worse. She would bang on the wall with no provocation, any time of day or night. I would be studying quietly, sleeping, sometimes not even home – still, she would slam on it multiple times. I knew she would do it when I wasn’t home because if my mother spent the night in another room, or my girlfriend stayed while I was at class, they would hear it.
Eventually I called the police to file a complaint and let them know what was happening. It turned out they knew Charlene well, as did others in the apartment complex. She would frequently walk up and down the streets outside the gated community with a black trash bag, and do all random things in the neighborhood, mainly yelling at people, and loitering places until someone called to have her removed. The area I lived in was fairly shady to begin with, so she fit right in. The police couldn’t do much since she was elderly and she could get kicked out of the complex since her family payed a considerable amount to keep her living there.
Things culminated when I was exhausted from being awake for two days studying, working in a research lab on campus, and trying to finally get some rest one afternoon, maybe around 3 PM. She banged on the wall (it had been a semi-regular thing at this point, so I’d usually ignore it) but louder than usual, waited maybe five minutes, and then did it again, louder, and more frequently.
I snapped at this point, went to my computer, put the volume 3/4 the way up, bass to full (had a fairly large subwoofer at this point) and played the second half of a sine sweep file, and looped it. It shook the entire complex, sounded like a combination of a low-flying plane and a having a train track in your backyard. Along with this, I slammed on the wall for the better part of two minutes. I knew that if anything could push this crazy lady enough, this should be it. It did.
She came to the back door, which was a screen, and sliding glass, screaming, raving, and brandishing a broomstick. I yelled some things about her being a lunatic, and she started slamming the broomstick at the screen, eventually breaking it. My mother was visiting at this time, and she was yelling in the background too, telling me not to agitate her, because she was afraid of what the lady might do.
Other neighbors heard/saw this, and I called the police. The police ended up taking her away, and she later ended up in a mental institution.”
Don’t They Do This To Prisoners Of War?
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“I had one neighbor that every Sunday morning without fail he played ‘I am the walrus’ by the Beatles, the same one song over and over from 8:30 am to 12:00 pm, week after week, month after month, blasting it with his terrace door open (mine too as we lived on the beach). I asked him to maybe play a whole album or change songs. He said no. I closed the terrace and was trapped but could still hear it through the walls. One day I walked into his house and cracked the record. He bought another one next week and kept on playing. I moved.”
It Was War
“We had an awful neighbor that encouraged his dog to do his business in our yard. He had a giant lab that took dumps that had to be 3 lbs each time.
The dog would always come into our yard. I’d spoken to him and his wife about it several times. It’d stop for about 1 week and restart.
So, I started scooping it up and keeping it in a bucket as far from my house as I could and right next to the shared fence. It stunk to high heavens. After it was full, I dumped it in their driveway.
The guy asked me about it and I told him it would stop once his dog stopped.
Never happened again.”
Keeping More Than Just A Watchful Eye
“A pair of 80-somethings who were sister and brother.
They lived in the apartment below me in a duplex home and the landlords despaired of what they were going to do when they finally died, because their place was like a cave of old people stuff. The sister cooked in their dark kitchen with lots of oil that had been spattering everywhere for years, so it seemed like there was a fine, sticky, yellowish brown film of oil on everything, which then picked up all the dust, so basically if you had allergies, it was the last place you wanted to be invited into.
No matter what it was in their place, if it didn’t smell of oil, it smelled like old pipe smoke and other musty stuff.
They decided I was going to be their replacement daughter, which sounded nice when the brother said he would happily take out my garbage, but then I found out that they were also going through my garbage after I went to work, because they started commenting on what I was eating and drinking. Then they got wildly offended when I started taking my garbage to work with me and accused me of not trusting them.
This was also somewhere around when I told them I didn’t need them to make food and leave it outside my door … it wasn’t that they weren’t being nice, it was the way they would then make sure I told them for days how grateful I was and what a great cook she was.
After we crossed that rubicon, they started complaining about everything from how late I stayed up (they could hear me walking on the ceiling, hear water running, hear toilets flushing) to my company (too loud, they ‘looked like a bad crowd’ etc.).
They whispered about my private life to the neighbors (finding lots of empty bottles in my recycling) and generally made themselves a super PITA. I lasted 18 months there and realized why the landlords couldn’t stand them, apparently they did this to every normal tenant who moved into the other unit, but because of their age and because they paid their rent, etc. they couldn’t be evicted.
Really, worst neighbors ever. RIP, they probably died easily 20 years ago.”
More Than Just A Little Filth…
“I lived on an Air Force base many years ago. The houses were basically duplexes with 4 houses attached (quad-plex?). I was on the end, so I thought I was lucky to only have one neighbor.
Wrong.
The father was a screamer/yeller. He yelled at the top of his lungs about everything. His strung-out wife would wander around the neighborhood and let her 5 kids roam free. As you can imagine, the children were not well behaved. They also screamed at all hours of the day and night (easily heard through cheap housing walls). They would ride their bikes in my driveway, which I would normally have no problem with, but they would crash their bikes into our cars instead of using the brakes.
They smoked in their house so the smell naturally permeated through into my house. Nothing was ever done after several complaints.
When they moved because they got orders to another state, the housing office people came in and were appalled at the damage this family had done to the house. They had to get Serve-pro out to clean up the smoke, food, and human poop that had accumulated. The housing office told me in passing that it was upwards of $30K in damage, at least.
No idea what happened to that family.”
Service Dog Fraud
“A lady moved in and LIED that her dog was a ‘service dog’ because these apartments did not allow dogs or cats but can’t deny a service animal. This dog was no service dog, it didn’t even have basic obedience training and she would turn it loose all day long in the communal gated courtyard, never cleaned up after it and it was annoying because it would chase everyone and harass everyone because it was starved for attention. She got tons of complaints, but because she kept claiming it was a service animal, there was nothing to be done. She eventually got evicted after getting a second dog she let run feral and poop everywhere too (which she never cleaned) because obviously no one has 2 ‘service animals’ that are literally never inside with the person. Landlord found out when she left she was also one of those hoarder people and left her apartment packed full of all kinds filth including bags of clothes she had been stealing at night from those charity donation bins they set up in parking lots. She was just a vile individual.”
Keeping Up With The Crazies
“When I was 16 we had a middle aged couple living next door who had constant arguments with my brother. After a week and a half of these arguments they decided that they would start throwing rocks from their back garden at our house, aiming for the windows. This went on every night for two days but on the third night I recorded it happening while my mum called the police. When they realized they got recorded and we were on the phone to the police they decided to go inside their house, grab a knife and break my front door window with it in and attempt to get inside. While we waited for the police to come we kept them outside by holding the door shut. When the police did arrive the neighbors claimed I assaulted them beforehand which got me a night in a cell. The next day I gave my statement and the police decide that I clearly didn’t do any of it so I got to go home with a clean record. The neighbors tried a few other things such as throwing poisoned bread into our garden to poison the dog which led to us getting cctv stopping them from trying to do something to us while we waited for them to get charged for everything they had done. It was terrifying at the time but it made for one heck of a story to tell.”
His Crazy Obsession With His Lawn Wasn’t The Weird Part
“Guy from about 10 years back was extremely finicky about his yard. He would be out there for hours working on it every day. And his yard looked beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but he would not tolerate any potential threat to his yard. The day after we moved in, he planted shrubs along the property line. Fine, that’s standard. But he would yell at us for simply getting near that line on our bikes, even without crossing it. And the sidewalk in front of his house was practically forbidden as well. And every time we let the dog out, we could see him watching, daring our dog to sniff his shrubs. But honestly, none of that is THAT annoying. It’s standard overly-paranoid gardener behavior. What was annoying was that the guy randomly had a bunch of goats. Short little goats that he must’ve used as guard dogs, because they would scream at us every time they left the house. And those little guys could jump, they never stayed in their pen.”
An Impatient Launderer
“She’s still my neighbor, we live in an apartment building and all share a washer and dryer. She does her laundry almost daily and gets annoyed when she sees us doing ours because she just wants to do hers. She leaves her laundry there for hours sometimes and even leaves the building. God forbid we leave ours for over 20 minutes and she’ll take it and place it on top of the washer or dryer and put hers in. It stopped when I caught her a few months ago because I set up a timer and heard the dryer finish. As I was opening the door she was waiting there and starts move my laundry on top of dryer and I was really mean to her. She does other things too but this one really annoys me.”
The College Partiers
“My upstairs neighbors when I was in college were awful. Sound wouldn’t travel up, but it would come down through the ceiling clear as anything. They’d always dribble basketballs on the floor, throw parties, or play fetch with their dog and it’d sound like it was running around in our apartment. We’d ask them to stop, but it would always happen again. You really start getting annoyed when you have to get dressed at 2, 3, 4 am because they’re making so much noise you can’t sleep and you’ve got an 8 am class. Then the party happened. They invited three whole dormitories to the party. The entire upstairs was packed, shoulder to shoulder, all of them yelling and blasting music all night long. At least they had the decency to look ashamed when they passed us in the stairwell the next day.”
A Noisy Neighbor
“My neighbor cuts his grass literally 4-5 times a week. He has a smaller yard than mine and it takes him over an hour each time (mine takes me about 15min). Sometimes he cuts both days on the weekend. Hearing that lawn mower all the time drives me insane. Also I own the area between our houses but for some reason he’s constantly storing stuff there (winter tires, tools, tarps, planters, trash). And on several occasions he’s had his van parked in front of my driveway. Oh and he practices the electric piano while his daughter sings and plays trumpet a few times a week on their porch. Small things I know… but so annoying.”