The world is filled with obnoxious and entitled people and thanks to the internet, we have a name for them - Karen. Some of us have never encountered one, aside from watching a viral video of a Karen Freakout, but that’s not the case for everyone. These people who lived in close proximity to a Karen share their unfortunate encounters with them. Content has been edited for clarity purposes.
Dog Park
“I had moved to the Pacific Northwest last year and while I was finding the best spot to live, I stayed at my mom’s house. I had a German Shepherd and was eager to get him out of the house and to explore the dog parks in the area. I soon found a dog park not too far from the house.
After running around the dog park for a while, my dog started to squat to use the restroom. I don’t normally carry bags on me because dog parks already have them for free so when I went to walk over to grab a bag, a lady started yelling from across the dog park at me. She said I needed to pick up my dog’s mess or we would get in trouble and she would report me.
I was confused since the poop wasn’t even done coming out of his butt by the time she was yelling and I was clearly walking towards the bags. The lady stood there with her hand on her hips tapping her foot, giving me a dirty look. So out of sheer spite, I stopped and decided I wasn’t going to pick it up now, but just do it later when she wasn’t there and let her whine. My boyfriend at the time said he didn’t want to cause a scene so he went to grab a bag and the lady had the nerve to say, ‘That’s what I thought. I knew you weren’t going to pick it up.’
She continued putting her hands on her hips while watching him the entire time grab the bag (which was across the field) and wait till he picked up the mess to move. So, I told my boyfriend at the time I was going to throw the poop at her, but he insisted I didn’t so I decided I was going to confront the lady.
As loud as I could possibly be I said, ‘I was going to pick it up you stupid prick. Mind your freakin business next time.’
She ended up walking away and it was the most frustrating Karen interaction I have ever had but so satisfying to yell back at her.”
The Roommate
“My ex-roommate and I shared a place for two years. She was filthy rich, entitled, and selfish. We bought common kitchen utensils, an IKEA side table, and a Black and Decker blender. Eventually, she wanted to move out to her own place and was packing all her stuff, while I decided to stay at the same apartment. On the day of the move-out, I wasn’t at the apartment, but when I came back the entire unit was so dirty with trash all over. I had noticed she hadn’t returned the mailbox key and so I messaged her asking for it.
She replied, ‘Pay me my share of the used items and take the mailbox key.’
I read it twice and replied, ‘You can take whatever you want but I am not paying you back your share. You have used the items for two years. I hope you understand how depreciation works.’
She was adamant and said she had contributed to the items and wanted her 50 percent back.
I was patient and said, ‘You paid 50 percent and used it for two years. How do you think you will get back the money from IKEA if you return it now?’
She sent me a hate message in all caps saying how narcissistic I was and how God would take care of me. I informed my building management about the key and they were understanding of the situation as her name was also on the lease.
Finally, Karen returned the mailbox key to the management and sent me a long text which I didn’t bother to read, and ended up blocking her.”
Lemonade Stand
“We had our very own neighborhood Karen who often thrilled us with her unwanted interferences. From putting notes on everyone’s doors telling us that we needed to seek her approval before having a garage or yard sale at our own homes because she didn’t like a lot of cars parked on ‘her street’ as they upset her dog and scared her children to telling everyone to not allow their children to ride their bikes past her house. It has been never-ending entertainment. Usually, I laughed and ignored her, but last spent, she forced me to engage.
The family directly across from me were Hispanic and were some of the nicest most thoughtful people I had ever met. They had a son who was 10 years old and for the last few years, he had helped many of us and our elderly neighbors with chores around our houses, and he never asked for any money. Of course, many of us gave him money anyway, but if you knew him, you knew he didn’t do these things for money. He did it because it made him feel good to help people.
His family lived in the neighborhood for many years, even before our dear Karen moved in and tried to take over. It seemed like she had always had something against this boy.
Anyway, he and a couple of other neighborhood kids set up a lemonade stand in his front yard with the goal of raising money to donate to the local children’s hospital in the next town over that had recently treated one of their friends from school for injuries from a farm accident. They had a nice stand set up that his father helped them build, and a large painted sign saying they were collecting money for the children’s hospital. Our neighborhood was in a rural area, so we had no sidewalks, but the road was wide enough to pull off and stop. Many people rode by on their way to town and back. So they were doing a good amount of business at their lemonade stand.
Well, Karen decided he and his friends were intending to keep the money and not donate it at all. So she called the Sheriff’s office and accused these children of defrauding a charity. Not to be outdone by a regular Karen, our Karen also called the local newspaper to announce this major fraud going on in our neighborhood. As I said we lived in a small town so the newspaper actually sent someone out to see what was going on, but not before the police showed up.
When the deputies arrived, a few of us noticed them right away as we did not see them much in our neighborhood. Karen also saw them arrive and marched down her driveway holding her dog. She started yelling about how the kids were using the children’s hospital name to collect money to spend on themselves, and how they should all be arrested. Also, people were stopping in cars and parking ‘on her street’ and scaring her dog, who at the time looked like he wanted to get down and play with the kids.
After her tirade, the deputy turned and asked the kids for their side of the story, and that was when Karen made her first fatal error.
She screamed at the deputy, ‘I am the one who pays your salary. It’s your job to do as I say, not take the word of some delinquents.’
The deputy started talking to my young neighbor in Spanish, the look on Karen’s face was priceless. After talking with the young man, his friends, and his father, he was satisfied that they did indeed intend to donate the money. But Karen was not to be denied her justice against these children who had committed this vile offense on ‘her street’. She insisted they didn’t have a permit to operate a business, and should be written a ticket and forced to close down; besides no one had asked her if it was okay to open a lemonade stand in ‘her neighborhood.’
At that point, the deputies had had enough of Karen and so was I. The deputy told her outside of the city limits, there was no law against having a roadside stand, no permit was needed. As long as their stand was on their property and far enough back from the road, it was legal.
It had been about 45 minutes to an hour since we had all been out in the street, and I asked Karen loud enough for everyone to hear, ‘Where are your children while you are out here in the street?’
She snidely replied, ‘It’s really none of your business, but if you must know. My children are playing in my swimming pool in my backyard.’
I said, ‘So, while you are out here throwing a hissy fit about someone else’s kids, you left two children under the age of six all alone in a swimming pool? Your little girl is around three years old and you left her and her brother who is around five alone in a swimming pool?’
That made both of the deputies take an immediate interest in Karen and she visibly shrank.
The lemonade stand was completely forgotten about and things shifted to Karen. One deputy told Karen they needed to go to her house and make sure her children were safe. After making sure her children were indeed okay, the deputies came back and asked several of us if she often left her children alone like that. I wanted to say she did, but I told the truth and said I didn’t know and the others said the same thing. The deputy said they had no choice but to refer the case to child protective services. I don’t know what happened with that, but a ‘For Sale’ sign went up in Karen’s front yard about three weeks later.
Because Karen had called the newspaper about this to make sure everyone knew about her stopping this major criminal activity, there was a story about it in our local paper several days later making sure her fame as an ultimate Karen was well known. Maybe that’s the reason for the ‘For Sale’ sign in her yard.”
City Bus
“I was sitting on the city bus, going into town. A young woman with a double pushchair and twins came on the bus and put the pushchair on the side. She looked tired. A few stops later, another woman came on the bus and started yelling at the young mum. Just starts screaming at her.
She screamed, ‘These seats are only for disabled people. I’m disabled! You need to move so I can sit down!’
The young mum was trying to tell her she couldn’t go anywhere else with the pushchair. Nope, the other woman wouldn’t listen.
The bus driver turned in his seat and said to the woman, ‘There are plenty of disabled seats on that side,’ He pointed to them and then continued, ‘These spots are also designated for pushchairs as well.’
Nope, the woman wasn’t having it.
She yelled, ‘She needs to move. This is ridiculous!’
Eventually, she sat down so we could leave.
When we finally got to town, the woman started screaming at the bus driver, ‘YOU MISSED MY STOP!’
Mind you, she didn’t even ring the bell.
She continued, ‘I’M GOING TO TELL YOUR MANAGER HOW YOU’VE BEEN TREATING ME!’
The bus driver smiled and said, ‘Go ahead.’
The woman replied, ‘I’M THE QUEEN AND I NEED TO BE TREATED BETTER! YOU’LL BE HEARING FROM YOUR MANAGER.”
She got off the bus and headed right to the bus quarters in town. We still see her every now and then and my husband and I always call her ‘the queen’.”
“Karen Had Her Own Cop”
“For three years, I lived next door to a Karen. Back in 2017, my family got tired of living in an apartment building, especially since my siblings and I were growing, so we moved into a big house nearby. Unfortunately, that house stood just left to an infamous middle-aged couple: Robert and Karen.
When we first moved in, they were great neighbors. Since they were unfortunately deaf, they had to hand letters to us instead of having one on one conversations. The first few letters we received were rather nice. Robert and Karen agreed to let us use their cellar in case anything awful happened, and they even took down the ‘No Trespassing’ signs they had put up along their fence for the previous owners. But our friendly ways fell into obscurity after the police showed up at our house one day. We had no idea what was going on until Karen came by and wrote down the issue she had. Our grass was too long.
Yes, apparently you could contact the police for an offense like that. Or, at least, they could. You see, in that little village we lived in, our own police unit was so small that they combined with a unit from the next town over. Because they worked together, they assigned a certain officer to every complaint Robert and Karen had. To put it simply, Karen had her own cop. And whenever she didn’t get her way, Karen would hastily claim anything and everything she deemed an offense to be a crime. A crime here, a crime there, maybe a little one right in the middle. It never ended with her.
Robert would back her up too, and before long, we woke up to see Karen putting up those ‘No Trespassing’ signs again.
Now, to make the situation even worse, after official measurements were done, it was confirmed our grass was within guidelines. For the moment, we had won. And then it went away.
About a week later, the cops had been called on us again. Now, what could Karen have called the police on us for this time?
She believed we were growing weed. Seriously, where does it end with this woman? The truth is, due to the fact that we then had a good-sized backyard, my mom had begun a garden in the back. We had to walk the cop through the garden to show we were growing tomatoes, not weed. And when Karen found her mistake, she stopped bothering us for a while. But, as in life, it didn’t last for long.
One day, while playing outside with my siblings, the soccer ball went over the fence. My brother climbed over the fence and darted for the ball, where Karen found him and scared him off. I couldn’t say anything to her to get him to stop, but I did help my brother get back over the fence. That’s about when tensions truly began to rise. Up until then, it was just random police calls. But after the ball went into Karen’s yard, everything changed.
Another time while I was playing soccer outside, the ball flew over again. Karen and Robert had been outside mowing the place, so I assumed they would hand it back. Wrong. Karen came in with the lawnmower and ran over the ball right in front of my eyes. After running it over, shredding the ball in half, she threw it back onto our side and continued mowing her lawn.
In fact, to this day, there are at least three soccer balls still in her garage, waiting to be released.
For anyone wondering what it’s like living next to a Karen, it’s a nightmare.”
Noise Complaint
“A few years ago, I was living with my friends as a tenant in a row house in Maharashtra, India. We were five girls, all working IT jobs with different shift timings. It had been smooth sailing for years till we moved into this particular society.
Our neighbor was the biggest ‘Karen’ we have ever encountered. She would scream at us regularly in the parking lot for stupid random things but the scariest was her coming to our door at three am with her husband.
They thumped on the door loudly, saying by us going to the bathroom at night disturbed her sleep. She lived in another house altogether, but according to her, when we went to the bathroom, she would get disturbed because of the door noise. We couldn’t hear anything if we were in different rooms but apparently, she could from another house.
She ordered us to stop going to the bathroom at night because as according to her, our parents hadn’t taught us how to close bathroom doors properly. I would also like to point out, those of us who returned home after the evening shift were super careful to be silent to not wake up the other girls as they had morning shifts. All of us had our own set of keys precisely for this reason, but no, apparently we were so loud that a lady sleeping in another house all together woke up every night.
Another time she came banging on our doors and ordered us to stop washing our clothes as she didn’t approve of the second-hand washing machine we used. She tracked down our landlady and complained to her multiple times. Fed up with her continuous complaints, our landlady verified with other neighbors to make sure we were not creating any troubles. After that, she straight away told Karen not to bother her with any more childish complaints.
The worst thing about her was the constant screaming from the get-go. She could never convey her issues like a normal human but would straight away start shouting.”
“She Was Adamant That I Was Dumping The Dog”
“When I was 20, my husband, our daughter, and I rented the house I grew up in from my stepfather. I had lived in that house since I was 11, all of our close neighbors knew and thought of me as part of their family. We were very close.
At this time, I was in the Army and my husband was in the oilfield (still is 15 years later). I had just gotten off, had changed into civilian clothes, and picked up my daughter from my mom. I was tired after spending a hot day in the back of 18-wheelers unloading and loading shipments.
When I was nearly home, I saw a small dog running down the busy highway and decided to save it from being hit. I called it over to my truck where he jumped right in. I then pulled forward into an area that was safe so I could call the vet’s office that was on the rabies tag. The dog jumped on my 18-month-old daughter scratching her face pretty bad, so I opened the door to place him into the back while I got contact information for his owners. He bolted just as a car pulled up behind me. As I was trying to catch this dog again, the lady driving the car jumped out and began screaming that I was dumping the dog. I pointed out that it had a collar with tags. That didn’t matter. She was adamant that I was dumping the dog and she was going to make me regret that mistake.
I finally got the dog while the harpy continued to screech at me. I pointed at the tag again telling her that it was not my dog, I saved it from being run over, and was attempting to call the vet’s office to find its owner.
‘Yeah right. I’m so sure that’s what you are! You’re such an upstanding citizen! Call the freakin vet’s office so I have proof you dumped that dog!’
I told her she was a complete idiot, why would I dump a dog with tags linking it to me?
I called the vet, no answer. I said this and said I was taking him home with me so he didn’t get hit while I got a hold of the vet’s office. I put the dog in the back while I went home. She followed me the whole way driving on my bumper. She pulled into my driveway and continued to berate me, calling me names, accusing me of dumping dogs all over the neighborhood, and saying that since I had moved in, the neighborhood had gone downhill and that I was trash. I had enough. Losing my temper, I started towards her, screaming at the top of my lungs for her to leave my property or I was going to remove her myself. She jumped into her car, backed up to the street, and then began to scream at me from the street which drew the attention of my neighbors.
I got my daughter out of the truck and had tied the dog to the fire hydrant when I heard her say to my neighbor, ‘Oh look, I bet she neglects that baby too.’
Nope, she really did not just say that. She and my neighbor both realized she had gone too far as I was charging at her ready to beat the snot out of her. He told her she needed to get in her car and leave. She got in but refused to leave. I got my phone to call my dad so he could tell her it was not my dog.
He calmed me down and said, ‘Let me talk to her.’
As I approached her window, I heard her crying on the phone.
She said, ‘Please officer, hurry! I’m afraid for my life! I think she’s going to kill me! She may have a weapon on her! She’s coming to my window to try to get me! HELP ME!’
I repeated what she said to my dad, who was now angry too.
I knocked on her window and told her, ‘My dad wants to speak to you.’
She refused, so I told my dad. He said he was on his way and to not do anything stupid. Meanwhile, I got my daughter who had been playing in her playpen but was getting fussy. Talking to my neighbor, I told him what was going on and he said to just stay calm and it would all be settled when the officer got there. My dad and the sheriff’s deputy got there at the same time. The lady jumped out and began to scream that I was attempting to dump that dog and that I had threatened her life. She wanted me arrested and my daughter taken into CPS (Child Protective Services).
We told both our sides and he called the vet’s office to confirm that it wasn’t my dog. The vet confirmed the owners and their addresses, which wasn’t me. But that wasn’t good enough for that woman. She began to demand me to be arrested for threatening her life, being a terrible mother, and probably being a substance addict.
My dad started laughing and said, ‘Well, Specialist Morris, how did you pass our mandatory toxicology screening the whole unit had to take?’
I responded, ‘Well, Sergeant Hembree, I just stay away from the crack pipe.’
The police officer told the lady to go home and they would get the dog taken care of. The dog ended up back home and I was not arrested that day. However, she continued for a while trying to make my life miserable until she made the mistake of calling the FBI on my dad for testing an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) simulator he was designing in the backyard.
It was literally a PVC (polyvinyl chloride) pipe, cable, a plastic cup, and hairspray. She was soon selling her house and the neighborhood went back to being the close-knit community it had been before she moved in and caused so many problems.”
Driveway
“I had recently purchased a home and was in the process of repairing it. It was a steamy hot day, and I was waiting for the HVAC repairman hoping he could resurrect the air conditioner without breaking the bank.
The front driveway was shaded with a huge pecan tree that was like a canopy of shade. There weren’t many trees on the block, so there were frequently cars parked in the shade. I didn’t blame them. As long as they weren’t blocking my driveway, I had no concerns with who parked there.
I was on a ladder on the side of the house and heard a car stop and park. I was hoping it was the HVAC guy, but it was a sedan with two ladies. She parked so that her car completely blocked my driveway. I waved and tried to get her attention before she exited her car. She looked directly at me and chose to ignore me. So, I began walking toward her car. I was not even annoyed at this point. She could have some shade, she just can’t block the driveway. So, I waved again, but she was hurrying to exit her car.
I asked her to move forward about six feet to leave my driveway clear. She ignored me again. The other lady with her clearly heard me as she turned and looked at me.
Louder now, I said, ‘Excuse me. You need to move your car out of my driveway.’
She continued down the street with an armload of paperwork. No response whatsoever. So I continued to follow the ladies. I was now getting annoyed with her obvious decision to ignore me completely. Then I saw my HVAC guy approaching, so I flagged him down and told him I would have the driveway open for him in a minute. I was gaining on ‘Karen’.
I saw her stop, so I jogged the 20 steps to her and again asked her to move her car ahead a bit. She acted as though I was not even there, so I repeated my request, and she repeated her performance.
Okay, so now I was ticked off. I stepped into her personal space and loudly repeated my request. She looked directly at me and stated that it was a state-funded street and she would park wherever she wanted. I agreed, but I also informed her that she was impeding my access, and that wasn’t within her rights. She repeated that she would park wherever she wanted. I asked whom she was visiting and she said she had several friends who were on her roster to visit today. I looked and the papers were of a religious nature.
I said, ‘You will move away from my driveway or you can explain your rights to security.’
Then I headed for home.
She decided to further state her rights, and I decided to make that call.
When I called, the security officer said they’ve had problems with her in the past and he would gladly refresh her with the rules again. He was there in minutes. I explained she was welcome to park in the shade, just not to block access to my driveway. I pointed to where she had gone and left to get the repairman started.
We were in the backyard when I heard a shriek. Apparently, Karen felt it was okay to push the security dude. It was not. By the time I got to the front yard, the police were arriving. They arrested her at the request of the security dude, and her car was towed.
Karma got Karen that day.”
Pool Day
“I walked to a shaded area to set up my chair at the pool. I was conscientious about not taking up any more space so others could use the shade, too. People brought their own chairs or towels to sit on since the pool kept the lounges stored. I noticed there were five towels on the ground, taking up nearly all the shade, but no one was using them. After about an hour of the towels being vacant, a Karen walked up to me.
At the moment, I took a break to lay with my son in the sun, but I was still close by my chair. As I was listening to a podcast, she started talking to me.
Karen: (in a snarky tone) ‘Is this your chair?’
Me: ‘Yes. Do you need me to move it?’
She started to get loud and said something snarky.
Me: ‘Is there a problem?’
Karen: ‘Your chair is not six feet away from us. What is WRONG with you? What if I have a sick child?’
Me: ‘Ok, KAREN, then maybe you shouldn’t be at the pool in the first place. And maybe you should think about not laying five towels down to hog all the shade and then not using the space for at least an hour.’
Then Karen said something nasty to which I couldn’t make out since I was trying to peacefully listen to my podcast. So in response, I flipped her the bird.
Karen: ‘Oh, that’s a real nice gesture to use in front of your son.’
Me: ‘I’m showing my son how to stand up to bullies. YOU are a bully.’
And that was when she kept quiet.”
Karen On Wheels
“In the mid-1980s, my parents rented a holiday cottage up in the Welsh Hills and invited me to come and stay a few days. Also, for some reason, my mother had invited one of her private English language students, an Italian guy named ‘Federico’. I think she wanted him to experience something more beautiful in Britain than a suburban housing estate.
Anyway, Federico and I decided we would go for a long walk from the cottage, up over the hillside behind, then down to a small lane. There was a framed map hung on the wall of the cottage, and we carefully planned the walk to use all public rights of way. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take the map with us, but it was easy enough to remember and follow the signs.
It was a breathtakingly beautiful area, though extremely remote. Wending our way down through woods, alongside a crystal clear stream, we crossed a stile and were on a very narrow lane. We passed several very crude whitewashed cottages and saw a few old Welsh men sitting outside, who gave us a friendly but taciturn nod as we walked by. I think one even briefly raised a finger and puffed his pipe at us. This is considered a warm welcome in those parts.
Then along came Karen in a lemon yellow MGB (British Motor Corporation) sports car, driving far too fast in the narrow lane. We only just had time to leap to the side as she came barrelling around the blind corner.
Screeching to a halt next to us, she furiously wound down the window and screeched, ‘What in the BLOODY do you think you are doing here!?’
She was in her late 50s but dressed up to the nines in a style that would only have suited someone much younger. Her face was plastered with half an inch thick foundation, blue eyeshadow, heavy mascara, and thick pasty lipstick in a hideous shade of pink. In her mind, she probably thought she looked like a hot model.
‘I’m sorry, are you talking to us?’ I asked, mystified, looking around since obviously we weren’t doing anything wrong.
I then thought her problem was that we’d had the audacity to walk in ‘her’ road forcing her to slow down to something under 80. It wasn’t quite that.
In an accent that could shatter glass, she screeched, ‘How DARE you walk here! This is PRIVATE property! You have NO RIGHT! This is MY LANE!’
Well, she was wrong. I knew from the map we’d looked at less than half an hour before that this was a public right of way. So I gave her an emphatic but calm little tirade about rights of way, the fact that the actual local people living there were quite happy to see us, and that driving dangerously along a narrow Welsh lane was unlikely to endear her to those self-same locals.
Without saying a word, she screeched off in a puff of blue smoke and tire squeals. I had to profusely apologize for the incident to Federico, who got an ‘English’ lesson he was unlikely to forget.”