[Source can be found at the end of the article]
1. Radio wars.
I had a terrible neighbor above me when I was living in an apartment. He would listen to the radio at an overly obnoxious volume late into the night. It was so loud I could hear the call letters for the radio during station identification.
I tried to work it out with him and once left a note asking him to keep it down. He replied with his own note that stated “If I didn’t play my stuff, you wouldn’t hear my stuff.” I’m still not sure how to argue with that.
I decided to take things into my own hands. I bought an FM transmitter for my iPod and made a MP3 of silence that lasted 60 seconds. I then set the iPod to loop that song. The FM transmitter was not strong enough so I built a stand for it out of an old camera tripod and raised it to my ceiling just below where he kept his radio. I slept fine from that night on.
lou2ser
2. The annoying electrical issue
My dad had a neighbor when he was young that played his radio loudly all day, even when he wasn’t home or was gone on vacation. Every time he left the house and his radio was still on, my dad would go and trip the circuit breaker to his condo.
One day he sees my dad, who was an electrical engineer, and asked him why his breaker kept tripping – was it faulty wiring? No, my dad explained, the loud radio was probably just putting too much strain on the circuit when left on all the time. My dad suggested he should try turning it down or off when he wasn’t home, and see if that fixed it.
So the man tried it, and surprise surprise, the circuit breaker stopped tripping! He was very thankful to my dad for helping him with that annoying electrical issue.
TheFreshy
3. Time to stop helping the ‘falling lady’
My neighbor is an overweight middle aged woman that seems to have a bad knee only when my kids are outside in the summer. If they are playing in my fenced-in back yard, she’ll pretend to fall down so they can help her up. I went from “Kids, you should help her, that’s what neighbors do!” to “She fell AGAIN? It seems like she only falls when you guys are playing. She doesn’t fall when I’m working in the garden.” to “If she falls again, come get me.” When I started saying that, she seemed to be able to get up pretty quickly. I had to go over there in August and tell her that I can’t have my kids helping her get up anymore, they are 7 and 8 years old and they can’t give her medical aid.
I get that she is probably lonely, but 3 or 4 times a week, I’d hear her yell “Kids, Kids! help me up, I fell AGAIN.
Bmac1977
4. Neighbor got busted!
I had a problem with a neighbor who drove over my lawn with his ATVs and damaged the grass/shrubs. He said he’d pay for damage but that never happened and he kept doing it.
So I put my huge trailer across their tracks to block their path.
They went around it.
I put up two other barriers that they also drove around.
So I found this huge branch that had fallen in the woods between our properties and dragged it across to cover the third path they were making across my yard.
But the branch got caught on a cable.
What is a cable doing over the lawn instead of properly buried?
So I called the cable company to have it buried. They said I was the only registered client on that box and to disconnect it.
So I did.
After the weekend, my neighbor came by, angry at me for disconnecting his cable. He yelled he was going to call the cops on me.
So I left. I got a call from the cops. Cops asked if I disconnected cable because of the ATV issue.
Interesting, I wasn’t even going to mention the ATV issue, but my neighbor already did.
So long story short, the neighbor got a warning ticket for trespassing and admitted to stealing cable.
I took an offer on my house that very day and moved.
Stabfacenotback
5. The entertaining neighbours
Couple that lives across the hall from me fights often and loudly. One night, the girl found something on the guy’s phone that she found objectionable (either porn or evidence of cheating, either way she was yelling a lot) so she throws his phone off the (2nd floor) balcony onto the concrete walkway below where it shatters. Guy then goes back inside grabs her phone and does the same.
Moral of the story is: an iPhone for an iPhone makes the whole world entertaining for the neighbors.
napalm_anal_emission
6. Living next door to a genius
My constantly drunk neighbor came up with the brilliant idea that he could collect the leaves in the stone parking lot with his snowblower!!! He duct taped a plastic garbage bag over the discharge chute, and off he goes. It actually inflated the bag for a few moments until the stones started flying. He broke three windows on his garage door and splattered a bunch of cars in the lot. I couldnt stop laughing. I could write a book on all the stupid things I have seen him do.
popesnutsack
7. Not the building managements fault
We lived next to this big guy in an apartment building (front doors inside a hallway). Now, he was a nice enough guy, but he was always cleaning a puddle up in front of his apartment every other day. We’d always ask him, if everything was alright, and he’d talk some incoherent crap about how he hates management.
So, out of curiosity, I asked management when I happened to be in the rental office, and the lady rolls her eyes and says, “This idiot fills up his tub to the brim, and sits in the tub. The water, of course floods his entire apartment, and comes out into the hallway, and he has the nerves to blame us somehow!” I pretty much said, “geez, sounds rough” and scurried on back to my place. If the tub story is really the truth, this guy must be dumb as rocks
TurboVeggie
8. Dont be mad at me. I own this!
I own about 8 acres. The house next to me has a right of way drive that goes through it. A couple bought the house about 10 years ago. One day they were down near the mailboxes planting some plants. I went down and very nicely told them that what they had done was fine but in the future before they do anything on my property they need to ask me first. He argued with me that they had rights to all of the property on 35′ of each side of the right of way. I explained to him that this just wasn’t true. They haven’t spoken to me since and won’t even return my wave when I wave at them. If they want to be mad at someone it is the agent who sold them the house, not me.
lespaulstrat2
9. The teenage scammers
We have a grandma next door who is raising her 3 grandchildren. They are complete teenage idiots.
They got in trouble for stealing from our neighbors. The kids would offer to cut their grass and ask to use their bathroom when they were done. Then they would steal medication from the bathroom.
It was extremely obvious who stole medication. They pulled this scam up and down the block. Wasn’t too hard to put it together.
MrsOmarLittle
10. The loud exchange
I live on a 50+ acre New England farm. About 2/3 of it is wooded.
After I’d been here for about a year I was walking the boundary stone wall, about 10′ on my side of the land.
From a neighbor’s yard I hear a bellowing voice. “YOU’D BETTER NOT BE ON MY LAND.”
I replied “I’m not. I’m on my own land.”
He yells back, from somewhere in the trees on his side “JUST SO YOU KNOW, NEVER STOP FOOT ON MY LAND.”
Me: “OK, we’ve got a deal. And you stay off mine, OK?”
I hear a grunt.
Then I ask “By the way, is this your deer hunting tree stand on my side of the wall?”
At which point he exploded “THAT STAND HAS BEEN THERE FOR TEN YEARS!
TJIC1
11. A terrible liar
Neighbor has a teenage son, 2 years my junior who’s an idiot. Got a used car for his birthday and decided to paint it neon green. Okay…
One night he comes home, drunk, and proceeds to crash into my dad’s car parked outside. Decides to hide it (poorly) and the next morning, claims it wasn’t him. We probably would have believed him had the damage on my dad’s car not had a neon green paint swap to it.
Anonymous
12. Lets make it easier for the thief
Neighbour after someone had attempted to steal his bike and being advised by me to get a better lock, proceeds to save his time by not locking his bike up at all but balancing the lock so that it looked like his bike was locked up unless you actually looked at it for a few seconds. I warned him that someone had already tried to steal his bike and that it wasn’t really clever leaving it unlocked like that he says “I promise you, I’ll lock it up, why he’s promising me anything I have no idea I was just being neighbourly. He then leaves his bike unlocked like that for about a week until someone finally stole it. I guess it did save the thief some time.
slashystabby
13. The book smart neighbours
Our neighbour home-schooled his kids and would always brag about how his children were geniuses with perfect scores on all the standarized tests. Sure, they got a 1600/1600 on the SAT but he would never let them play with us unwashed masses.
Twenty years later, his kids are still living at home and all of them lack the social skills to make connections and get a job. Book smarts will only get you so far.
laterdude
14. The strange lady and her sons
Back in high school, one of our neighbors moved away and their house sold to this older woman and her mostly grown sons. She was a strange one, she cut down every tree on her property because of the “bad spirits” in them. The sons seemed to be popular, having people drop by at all hours.
All was relatively quiet until one day, while I was home alone, there was a knock on the door. Two gentlemen in very nice black suits and dark ties then identified themselves as FBI and asked me if we were ever approached by neighbor lady or her sons to buy anything. I basically replied with We don’t talk to them, they don’t talk to us. They handed me their business card then proceeded on to the next house.
I looked out the window and I saw 5 blue Ford Tauruses, 3 red GM Astro Vans, and one VIACOM truck that was being loaded with box after box from the neighbor’s garage. Turns out the sons were making those special cable boxes that got you all of the channels for free. After this it was only the strange lady left in that house.
largecozz
15. Discipline your kids or jokes on you!
This happened a couple of days ago, so I am still rather annoyed. We live in a small block of flats, 6 floors (+parking garage), 39 flats. We had just returned from a big shopping trip and were waiting in the garage for the lift. Waited a few minutes, hear it move, hear lots of giggling and banging. 5 minutes more, still no lift. My partner went to see what was going on. The awful kids had jammed the lift open, using a screwdriver and were running around like crazy. No parents in sight. Now the lift isn’t working, I said on the buildings Facebook page that we caught the kids messing with it, but do the parents take any responsibility? No… They just keep saying that there must’ve been an automatic problem with the lift. Even though we caught them! The joke is on them, I’m on the ground floor, the annoying families now have to drag prams, etc, up 6 floors.
forever_gaijin
16. Karma at its finest
A neighbor messed up when building a home and put his entire home well within my property (large piece of land with two huge clearings connected to two roads but separated by a large isthmus of trees). I didn’t notice because I had taken an 8th month vacation right after he started building (huge property, I didn’t go around and inspect it often).
So I got a real estate lawyer and surveyors to confirm it was in my property. I was going to sell him that clearing for a good price until I went to talk to him and he was the biggest jerk I had ever met. He essentially told me that he is going to sue me for “leading him on” despite the fact that I did not know him nor have did I meet him before that day. His wife flipped my girlfriend and I as we were pulling out of their driveway.
4 months later, I file a lawsuit saying he must destroy the property or turn it over to me immediately. It would’ve cost him more to demolish it and return the site to original condition so he signed the house over to me. He was still out for construction costs. I was living in a single wide with my girlfriend, then I had brand new, 2600 square ft house with all the hookups for water, electric, and cable for free.
Got the land for next to nothing, sold it for almost 50 times the value.
Soggy-Potatoes
17. Wow, that got dark fast…
Up outside of Fairbanks Alaska I lived down a small dirt road that eventually turned into a trail, depending on the time of year you could drive a ways down the trail, to about a mile away from my cabin. Near the trailhead was this ornery old mans land. I had been out rabbit hunting one day and made the mistake of wandering onto his property as he was out felling some birch trees.
I became alarmed by the large man running at me with a chainsaw so I booked it back the way I had come in short order. From that point on I harbored some suspicions as to his mental health. He had the wonderful habit of running heavy equipment on his land at 3 AM, basically cocaine fueled backhoe sessions. I later came to find out he was burying shipping containers to grow pot and god knows what else.
After studiously avoiding him, and not seeing any sign of him for over a year, one fine spring day I was driving my old Landcruiser out the trail when I passed his yard. This was spring in fairbanks, and there was still snow on the ground so it took me by surprise when I saw the old fucker shirtless with his belt in his hand. He was wailing away on some poor creature behind a snow bank. I slowed down to see what was happening, I knew he had two of the saddest looking huskies I had ever seen, and I was debating if I should intervene.
Imagine my surprise when a young girl, stark naked, jumps from behind the snowbank and runs into the road. Quick as I can think I pop the door and shout GET IN! She hops into the passenger seat and starts yelling “Drive Drive!” but I’m already putting up a plume of ice and mud as we leave the trail and hit the main road. I only stopped on the way to the police station to give her my jacket. The sicko had held her there in one of his trailers for two weeks after having an impromptu “wedding” She figured the only reason he let her out was to beat her to death in the snow.
Helcionelloida
18. The knights who say nyet.
The Russian lady next to me loved outdoor plants, trees, bushes. She planted every square foot of her yard. Then I noticed she was planting right over the property line. “No big deal” I thought, “Let it go.” Then it was 5 ft into my property. 10 ft. I said something, she feigned not understanding english. (I’d spoken with her dozens of times, she always understood me.) 20 ft onto my property. The one day, she had not only planted further, she TOOK OUT some of my bushes and CUT DOWN a much loved red rasberry patch of mine to plant it over. I went over there again and she now understood but said it was her property. She swore it was hers and there was nothing I could do.
I cried BS, hired a crew to find the property pins. Neighbor went on vacation the week later, ran a rope between the pins, got 4x cases of beer and invited my friends over, pulled and bagged all her plants and left them stacked in her driveway. They occupied the entire driveway and a bit of the street. (Couldn’t stack in the yard because it was already fully packed with plants.) Put up a quick fence 6 inches into my property pin to pin.
Getting my mail the next week I saw her back from vacation, giving me the look of death, but re-planting IN THE OTHER NEIGHBOR’S YARD!
[deleted]
19. Showdown at high-noon.
I had a neighbor blow the leaves from his driveway into mine with a big gas powered leaf blower. I waited until he was done and blew them all back. He repeated the leaf blowing and me blowing them back 3-4 more times until we were both out there blowing the leaves at each other, eye to eye. I just smiled. He shut off his leaf blower and went inside. He didn’t speak to me ever again.
niqdanger
20. Moving across the tracks.
When I was 23, I bought a cheap little condo downtown. It wasn’t anything glorious, but it was mine, and I could paint and do what I wanted with it. I was so excited. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to do any research on the area, which was stupid, because it was right by the downtown bus station, and the area attracted some pretty sketchy folks. The park up the street from us was frequented by hookers, johns, and druggies. Go for a nice walk, find some needles on the ground. The neighbors who moved in directly across from me were pieces of work. I don’t know what was wrong with them, but they had no knowledge of personal hygiene or cleaning skills. Whenever they opened the door to some outside, there would be this horrible stench that hung around in the breezeway for a long time, kind of like BO and urine. They often came knocking on our door to bum smokes, even though I made it clear that that was not cool. They let their weird friends hang out all over the common properties, which would have been alright except that they left trash everywhere, and never cleaned it up. I once caught the woman going through my laundry…
When they moved out, the cleaning people came. There was blood in the bathroom, mostly in the tub. There were dead mice in the closet. There was so much dirt the owners of the condo had to rip out the carpet and replace it.
After them, some meth addicts moved in. They talked loudly about stealing stuff, ran out of the condo with a coleman stove on fire, the two brothers often fought violently either inside with the door open, or outside in front of my door.
We sold our place and moved to a place where it’s mostly retirees and young families. We are so much happier.
weiner_pennies
21. Dog day afternoon.
Monday morning, 6:00 AM: WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF
Monday afternoon, 12:00 PM: WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF
Monday evening, 6:00 PM: WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF
Monday night, 9:00 PM: WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF
rickdanger
22. High as a kite.
My neighbor isn’t a douche at all, she’s 93 and senile. However, she did call the cops on us last year. A police officer knocked on my door at 10:30 pm. I thought for sure he had the wrong house (my other neighbor’s kid is always in trouble) and told him as much. He said that my neighbor thought it was “suspicious that I was flying a kite in her yard” My wife and I laughed out loud. I explained that a) I don’t own a kite b) it’s 10:30pm c) there’s no wind and d) look at her yard, the abundant trees mean there’s zero clear air; it’s the worst possible place to fly a kite. He said, “look, you don’t have anything to worry about, there’s nothing illegal about flying a kite, just come clean” I laughed again and assured him that I wasn’t flying my nonexistent kite at 10:30 on a windless night in the trees. I then expressed to him my concern for her mental stability and we both went over to check on her. I spoke to her daughter a month or so afterwards and she said her mom swears to this day that we were flying a kite.
I guess I should consider myself fortunate to live in a place where police can respond to these types of calls.
JackMontana
23. Condo kingpin.
There’s a block of twelve condos next door to me. A guy that lives there was sick of dealing with all the condo rules. He does pretty well — has his own business, frugal, etc. Over time, he bought a second unit and rented it out. He took the money from that and bought a third unit.
Now he owns seven units and can basically do whatever he wants. With seven of twelve votes, he can pass whatever assessment fees he wants, as long as he can pay them himself, for whatever improvements he wants to do. Everybody else has to pay too.
My mom used to be a property manager; she worked for several residential condo associations. In my experience, people who live in condos either didn’t know what they were getting into when they bought them, or are complete jerks. Sometimes I meet people who were lucky — they bought a condo, and the condo board turns out not to be populated with cretinous jerks — but mostly it’s a horrific pain in the rear.
Zafner
24. No puppy-love.
25. The lady of the lake.
I used to live in these condos by a lake. I rented but the majority of people there were folks who’d purchased their unit.
The first week I moved in, I mistakenly placed my garbage out for pickup on a Tuesday instead of a Wednesday. It was an honest mistake. When I got back home from work, I’d found that my garbage had been thrown on my doorstep and there was a really nasty letter left for me on official HOA letterhead. I sheepishly gathered it up and took it back inside, learning my lesson for next time.
I asked a neighbor a few days later about the stern notice– if he’d ever gotten one, who I’d call to explain, etc. He informed me that: a.) The person who undoubtedly left the note was this retired woman at the front of the complex and b.) She’s not a representative of the HOA board in any capacity whatsoever
I saw the lady a couple weeks later. A tiny, white-haired hunchback of a woman walking a small dog. I decided to avoid saying anything to her and save myself the headache.
Months pass. Then one day, a friend comes over to hang out. As he’s getting in his car to leave, it refuses to start. So we pop the hood to see if there’s any shadetree problem we can fix– a loose battery terminal, for instance. As I’m looking at the battery, I hear this shriek behind me:
“This is not a mechanics shop! You can’t work on that car here! Hello?! HEEEEELLLLOOOO?! Can you hear me?! Do you speak English?! SPEAKY ENGLISH?!”
beefwich
26. Hulk call animal control.
My Girlfriend’s neighbour used to abuse his two dogs something fierce, often in the wee hours of the morning. It was upsetting to say the least, hearing the dogs cry as he took the boot to them.
I’m 6ft 5″ and have a semi-ugly face – so I waited until midnight put about 11 sweaters on (creating an authentic “hulk-smash” silhouette) and knocked on his door. The second he opened it, one of the dogs bolted out, which kind of caught me off guard a bit so I just jumped into the house with him, closed the door and proceeded to make all kinds of ridiculous threats involving the consumption of his skin and general murder.
To be fair to the guy, he didn’t poo himself and I never heard him beat those dogs again.
[deleted]
27. Laying siege.
Back when I was a kid then my brother and I built a fort in our backyard out of sticks and wood and other junk we found lying around. We loved this fort and had a lot of fun with out. After it had been up for about 2 weeks, our neighbor goes to our parents and informs them that his kid was “done” with the fort and wanted to know if we could take it down now. Bear in mind that his kid had nothing to do with this fort and it was in our yard. My parents, not wanting to bug the neighbors asked us to take it down.
Fast forward a year. Our esteemed neighbor decides that his kid is a sports prodigy. In order for his son to get the practice he needs, the neighbor decides to build a massive green wall (we’re talking maybe 8 ft tall by 15 or 20 ft wide) right between our houses so that his kid can bounce soccer balls off it.
Wabledoodle
28. The snowblower and a bad injury
I recently moved into my first house.
We had 2-3 blizzards in row last month. After it all settled down, I went to dig out my car. I start stacking snow on either side, so that I don’t have to carry snow around the car too much. About halfway though, I hear a woman yelling at me. I see my elderly next door neighbor standing in her doorway in her pyjamas. I assume that she must be in some kind of trouble, so I head over to her. She starts cursing at me and telling me that where I’m placing the snow (on my lawn and on the side of my drive way facing her property) is actually her property. I look at the snow, look back at her, then at the snow again, and tell her that I respectfully disagree and to have a nice day.
The next day I’m at work and get a call from one of my neighbors across the street. Turns out that my next door neighbor bought a brand new snowblower and is now filling in all the shoveling I did with the snow from her driveway. Great.
I get home and the driveway is halfway full of snow, no big deal. I also notice that the snow blower looks like it was just abandoned in the middle of my neighbor’s driveway. So I talk to my other neighbors and it turns out that my neighbor attempted to use the snow blower, but was too physically weak to push it, so she ended up injuring herself and had to take an ambulance to the hospital.
ModelMakerPro
29. Not much room for error.
I moved into a small apartment complex (6 units) We have two dogs. We spent the day Moving in furniture. The Dogs were pretty good considering they were in a strange new environment that was empty aside from a bunch of boxes and we were constantly in and out all day. The next morning There was a note from our upstairs neighbor (that also had a dog.)
The note stated that were were too loud our first day (the day we were moving heavy furniture for hours) and that our dogs barked too much.
Didn’t even wait 24 hours to see what our routine behavior was like before they complained.
brazilliandanny
30. That’s not how a sousvide works.
My apartment building has a pretty sweet rooftop pool and hot tub. It’s picturesque — it sits 15 floors up on the edge of the Los Angeles skyline.
All the other buildings have pools/hot tubs that are open 24 hours a day. Ours closes at about 9PM.
Why? Because somebody thought it was a good idea to attempt to defrost their Thanksgiving turkey in the hot tub.
goodreverend
31. Its time for new neighbours
When I was a kid we had this guy living next door who seemed like a nice guy. This is the mid 90s and he had a neon business, so he was doing pretty well for himself. Then he got together with a crack head and his house slowly started turning bad.
At one point his septic system went up and since they were smoking every dime he made he decided that he was just going to make a cesspit. We live on the East Coast in the mid-Atlantic, it gets hot and humid come July. Thanks to this guy, our entire neighborhood smelled like a spot-a-pot at mid-summer festival for about 3 months.
Fast forward to January, nice and snowy, we come home to our house being broken into. Computer is gone, tv is gone, bunch of movies and meds are gone.
Cops show up and they start dusting and looking around. They go outside and low and behold there are tracks going from our side door back to the neighbors house. Of course, they deny everything and are at least smart enough not to keep the stuff around after we got home. They were not smart enough to use different names they pawned everything though. Needless to say, we had new neighbors within a few months of this incident.
konfuzedmonkee
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