No one would want to live next to these people!
People on Quora share the rudest thing a neighbor has done after they moved in. Content has been edited for clarity.
She Sounds Just Great
“My husband and I found a beautiful house in the process of being built in a town closer to friends and family. We immediately had the builders, who were finishing the basement for us and building our deck, also build us a fence to keep our dogs and very small children safely in our yard.
One day, while visiting another neighbor, we noticed a figure lurking in the bushes along the visiting neighbor’s property. We realized it was our newest neighbor from behind our properties. Her house was easily a hundred yards from our fence and property line, and yet here she was creeping along the property line. We called her over and had a brief chat.
A few days later we came outside, and the same weird neighbor was swinging on a swing, three feet from our fence looking into our backyard. We were approximately twenty-five feet from the fence. We were unnerved to say the least. She never spoke, just sat swinging, staring at us as we sat on our deck.
Later in the week, Jane, the neighbor, called me over to the fence we had built. She was concerned our dog, unfamiliar with herself and her dog, would bark when she would stalk the property line. She then asked if she could board up the back of our fence. This is someone we didn’t know, who had just moved in, and now she was expecting to modify the fence we had built and paid for. We immediately said no. The fence was on our side of the property. We later heard from our friend, she had attempted to hire him to go ahead and board up the rest of our fence, despite it being on our property. He said no.
Jane then built a huge shed as close to the property line as she was allowed and proceeded to sleep in it. Although completely within her right, this mid-thirty something woman lived in a large home alone, and yet decided to sleep meters from where we were hanging out as a family.
Jane then began planting vines on our fence. We had seen first hand what vines can do to a fence as it had ruined the fence at our old home. After asking her not to plant vines because of this, she planted them across the entire back of our fence. My husband ensured they came out. She nailed things to our fence, pushing nails through three to four inches through the boards and left them sticking dangerously out on our side of the fence.
Jane then crafted a farm-size compost box. Instead of keeping it on her property, she stuck it at the back of our neighbor’s house, a few trees down.
When Jane’s nephews and nieces came to visit, they would taunt our dog, running back and forth teasing him. They’d climb the tree and look over the fence, threatening our kids they were going to come in when we weren’t home.
The last straw came when I noticed what appeared to be new boards on our fence. Sure enough, Jane had boarded up the back of the fence. In an email, she had begun that months before, and when it went unnoticed, she decided to continue on with it. When we threatened civil action, she once again retaliated by building a nine-foot fence that hovers over our six-foot one. It is made with barn steel and wood. The bad side facing us. The kicker, there are no bylaws in this town preventing it from happening.
She is now threatening us with harassment because our children sat in their treehouse and could see into her yard, because our dog barked at her, although she admitted yelling at him through the fence. If this woman ever moves out, it can’t come too soon.”
Not A Welcoming Gift
“Following the unexpected death of my husband, I was forced to sell the house we had lived in for 20+ years and move to a new town. We were self-employed as auctioneers, and I could not continue our company without him. So, in addition to losing my house, I had also lost our business. My teenage children wanted to live in a modern house in a gated community, where many of their friends lived. I was fortunate to find a house within my price range on a dead-end street. The entire liquidation of my home and subsequent move were very traumatic. I knew once I was settled into my new place, I could breathe a sigh of relief and figure out how to move forward. We had two lovely dogs I kept in the fenced yard. I made sure not to let them run around loose. They were older dogs and well-mannered. Their names were Katie and Johnny, and they were a source of great comfort to me.
Three days after I moved in, there was a knock at my door. I saw it was the next-door neighbor, and she had something in her hands. I thought she was there to welcome me to the neighborhood and was bringing me a small gift. I knew she was part of the welcoming committee.
I eagerly answered the door, and to my dismay, she was holding a small shovel and a plastic bag. She told me one of my dogs had pooped in her front yard, and she wanted me to pick it up immediately. She also said she would file a complaint with the HOA if it happened again. She informed me she was going back into her house because she had no interest in watching me clean it up. I tried to tell her it was not my dog, but she would not listen. I was shocked beyond belief. I was terribly hurt. I fell apart, crying right there in the entryway, and realized I had made a mistake by purchasing this house.
Not knowing what else to do, I went to pick up the poop. I knew it was not one of my dogs, because they make big turds, and these were small ones. By then, she had already gone back into her house and closed the door. I left her shovel, along with a note, near her garage. I saw her come outside and pick it up as soon as I went into my house. She had obviously been watching me.
The next morning, I noticed a Boston Terrier roaming the neighborhood. I got out my camera and took several photos. A few days later, the same dog was pooping in her yard. I was able to get a photo of this activity, as well as the turds the dog left behind, which I did not pick up.
I sent her the photos, along with a note. She never responded and avoided me. I later found out the Boston terrier belonged to some visiting relatives in the neighborhood. I also discovered her husband had had an affair with the woman that had lived in the house I had just purchased. Apparently, she felt threatened by my widowhood and thought that I might try to steal her man.
I missed my husband and our life immensely that summer. The camaraderie of living in that community never came to fruition. People would open their garage doors to leave in the morning, and at night, they would close the doors behind them. I felt isolated. I was unable to sell the house for several years, due to the economy. I ended up moving away and renting the house out. The neighbor was never friendly to my tenant, either. I was quite relieved the day I sold that house.
Recently, I ran into that neighbor, and she was all smiles and friendly. Her questions felt like an interrogation. I mumbled something about being in a hurry and got away as quickly as I could. I had a lot of hindsight about things I could have said to her. Mostly, I wanted her to know the pain I felt that day, when I thought I was being welcomed by her to the neighborhood.”
It’s A Shocker They Said No
“Years ago, my wife and I downsized from a four-bedroom three-bath house to a one-bedroom one-bath apartment that was closer to both of our workplaces. The apartment complex we moved into was very nice and everything was well-kept up. We worked for a couple of weeks moving things after work and on weekends to get moved in. We had to sell some things and put a lot of things we wanted to keep in storage. We finally got everything moved in on a Friday night and started getting situated in our new home.
On Saturday, our neighbors from across the breezeway knocked and brought us a welcome to the complex fruit basket. We didn’t have everything put away yet and the apartment was kind of a mess with boxes and things sitting around, but we had put our outdoor furniture on the large patio that was one of the attractive draws of the apartment in the first place. So we invited our new neighbors, Mike and Bea, to sit with us on the patio and have cheese, crackers, and the fruit they had brought.
They told us their apartment was a three-bedroom, two and a half bath unit, as were all of the apartments in their building. They said they were going to have to move and find a bigger place eventually as they had three children, two boys, ages three and five, and a baby girl of 10 months. When we asked where the children were now, they said they were at home asleep. That was a big red flag that caused my wife to politely say the exhaustion from moving caught up with her, and she was ready for bed. After they left and we were cleaning up, we talked about them leaving their children alone for over three hours without checking on them. We couldn’t comprehend leaving children that young alone, and a 10-month-old baby? We left it alone and went to bed.
For the next couple of weeks, we didn’t see them much due to working every day and getting things settled in our apartment. Then on Thursday of the third week, Bea knocked on our door and asked if she could come in and talk with us for a minute. We invited her in and we sat down to talk. She said she had a favor to ask of us, so we waited for her to ask. She said she wanted to know if we would agree to take care of her children for four or five days while she and Mike went to a music festival 300 miles away. She wanted us to keep them in our one-bedroom apartment, not watch them in theirs. It was like they were more than willing to trust us with their children, just not their stuff.
I was kind of speechless, here was a woman who had only spent three hours of time with us talking, didn’t know what kind of people we were, or anything about us, and she was asking us, almost total strangers, to take responsibility for her small children and baby for a week while they went on a vacation. I could tell my wife was uncomfortable and hesitant to say anything, so I spoke up and said we were totally unprepared and unable to look after two young children and a baby. We had work and other obligations we couldn’t drop to grant her this favor. She said she really needed us to do this and they had assumed we would and they were packed and ready to leave early Friday morning, the next day.
So this couple had made plans to go away for a week to a music festival and the night before they left their plan was to, without asking in advance, drop their children off with us, and go party. I was trying to make a point about how wrong it was of her to make a request like that, but it never sunk in with her. She whined and acted like it was some kind of emergency. She went on saying she didn’t know what she was going to do, they had counted on the fact we would keep her kids. When I repeated there was no way we could do it, she got angry. She said she couldn’t believe we would refuse to take care of her kids. She said good neighbors would do it. Then she got up, stomped to the door, opened it and left without closing the door.
We didn’t talk with them after that, only occasionally passing from time to time. I would say hello or wave, but she would never respond. He would unless she was with him. About three or four months later, they moved out. I guess they found a bigger place.”
What Kind Of Person Does This?
“When I bought my home, we were unloading the truck: six very tired people, who were just trying to get the job done. The front door was standing open as we carried in boxes.
I looked up as a woman walked in, with two little boys in tow, and said, ‘Hi, I am your new neighbor.’
I had a house full of tired, cranky people, and she thought I had time for a social call? Really?
She followed me around for about an hour, telling me she had heard a disabled person (me) had bought the house, and how her friend used to own it.
I finally turned to her and said, ‘Please, we have work to get done and I will be glad to sit down over coffee, and get to know you, but today is not the day.’
She gathered her two little boys, and as she walked out my from door, she said over her shoulder, she and her husband would be by tomorrow ‘to discuss the rent.’
I looked at her and said stupidly, ‘Huh?’
She then proceeded to tell me although I bought my manufactured home through the bank, she and her husband owned the land it was on, and they would come down and discuss rental amount. I looked her straight in the eye and told her I did not buy the house through a bank; I bought it straight out right for cash, for the house, buildings and the land they are on! There was no bank involved. She gave me a dirty look, and said, ‘My husband will have something to say about that!’
The following day, I saw her husband coming home from work, so I stepped outside and asked him if he wanted to speak to me, as his wife said.
He looked at me, kind of embarrassed, put his head down, and said ‘Yeah, I am sorry about that, but when she heard a disabled lady bought the house, she figured she could scam you for some cash. I am really sorry, but she just does these things.’
She figured she could rip off a disabled person and get away with it? Nope! Needless to say I rejected all offers of friendship until she sold her house and moved.”
Following The Rules
” I’d purchased a condo in a three-story building with 75 suites. There were rules about moving in, such as you had to notify the management company of the day and approximate time you’d be moving in, where the moving truck could park, and where and how to pick up the elevator pads and where to return them. Assorted rules, a bit fussy, but none was unreasonable.
I hired a moving company to move me in. I followed and ensured they followed every single rule laid out in the three-page document the management company had provided.
Halfway into the move, the chairperson of the Strata Council showed up and buttonholed me in front of the elevator. She actually put herself in front of the open elevator doors, blocking my and the movers’ access. She introduced herself and I introduced myself. She then proceeded to recite the move-in rules to me.
I said thanks, but I was aware of the rules and it was nice to meet her, but I’d like to continue with the move-in unless there was something urgent she needed to discuss with me that simply couldn’t wait.
She looked taken aback and then started talking about the importance of the elevator pads and how I really should have made sure I got the elevator pads.
‘If you look behind you,’ I said. ‘You can see the elevator door is open, and the elevator pads are right there, hanging correctly.’
‘Well then,’ She said brightly. ‘You’re doing everything perfectly!’
She continued to stand in the way.
‘Yes, I am!’ I said. ‘Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for you. I’m paying these movers by the hour, so how about getting out of their way and letting me get on with the move in I’m already doing perfectly. Unless you’d like to pay them instead.’
For the next three years I lived there, she gave me filthy looks every time she encountered me in the hallway or foyer.
Strata Councils, like HOAs seem to attract petty tyrants.”
People Were Feed Up With Her
“Many, many, many years ago, when my daughters were young, we had moved into our new home on a military base. I walk for exercise. Each evening, I would walk. One evening, as I walked, there was a group of ladies gathered at one house on our street. They were obviously friends and were just visiting. As I walked by, I responded as they all spoke to me. They then invited me to join them so I could get to know my neighbors.
We sat and visited for about an hour and had a great time.
Then, one of the ladies turned to me and said, ‘Let me tell you. Avoid the woman that lives down there,’ and pointed toward the end of the street.
I asked why, and she said, ‘She is a snooty woman. She’s really hateful and just glares at everyone. I went down when she first moved in and tried to visit with her, but, she is just rude, rude, rude.’
I asked which house specifically she lived in, and the woman said, ‘That yellow house with the yellow storage shed on the end.’
As I stood to leave and said my good-nights to everyone, she turned to me and said, ‘You never said where you live. Which unit is yours?’
I pointed down the street and replied, ‘The yellow house with the yellow storage shed on the end,’ and turned and walked away.
Never had to deal with her again. And, none of the other ladies in the neighborhood would either. Obviously, it wasn’t the first time she’d done something like that.”
Too Many Red Flags Here
“Hadn’t even moved in yet, we were painting and doing some work on the place. Got there fairly early one weekend morning to find the next door neighbor had parked in our driveway. We asked him to move it and he said sure, and moved his car to the street because he had too many cars to fit in his driveway. We left to go get some lunch and came back, and he had moved to our driveway again and chained his Pitbull up in our yard. Of course, he had left in one of his other cars and wasn’t even around.
When he did come back, I just happened to be painting or plastering under a window that faced his driveway.
When he got out of the car, I said, ‘Would you please move your car and your dog and keep your stuff off our property.’
Well, the lunatic lost his mind and told me we weren’t living in the house so he could put his stuff in our yard or in our driveway any freaking time he wanted.
I told him it didn’t matter whether we lived there or not, it was our place, not his, and he wasn’t the one making the payments.
He told me he was going to walk over to the window and make me shut up. I told him to try it, I had a .44 just waiting for him.
He got his dog and moved his car, but apparently he went around telling the whole neighborhood I was a crazy person that was threatening to shoot everybody in the neighborhood for no reason. It wasn’t more than a week or two later he got evicted.
So eventually we moved in, and a few days later we still had a bunch of boxes stacked up in the living room. So the neighbor on the other side had the nerve to tell me I needed to get my boxes unpacked so she can see into my window. Yeah, mini blinds went up immediately and were never pulled up on that side of the house.”
He Played A Very Important Card
“Back in 2016, I bought a house in my old neighborhood. My parents live just up the street from me and I know the area well and I like the location.
The owner before me did not have cable TV/Internet, they instead had a dish up on the garden shed. I am very big in to gaming and have multiple devices on the network at once, and satellite internet will not work for me. To slow and lags a lot.
I called up the cable company to have cable put in and everything hooked up. When the technician got there and started investigating, he noticed the line from the cable pole to my house was cut. We did not know who did it, we could only assume the satellite guys probably told the old lady that owned it they needed to cut it for some weird reason.
The technician noticed there were two locations to pull the cable wire in from. Both were in our neighbors yards. He said he would get the cable run to the house and would let me know when he was done. I got back in the house and waited until further notice, when the technician finally came back. He was visibly a little disgruntled. He went to the first neighbor’s house and asked for access to his backyard to run cable. This neighbor told him no, he will not give him access. Most of the surrounding houses are all fenced in preventing access.
He said, ‘Ya know what, no problem. I will go check the other neighbor, maybe he will be more friendly.’
He goes to the next neighbor and low and behold, that neighbor told him no as well. But in not so nice terms. At this point he decided to invoke his power of service provider and told the neighbor, instead of asking, ‘I am going in your backyard and connecting the cable. You cannot tell me no since we are part of services.’
Needless to say, the neighbor was not happy and to this day, three years later, they still do not talk to me. The last time the first neighbor knocked on my door, it was to tell me I had cut his grass too short. Once I do not cut our grass, we have someone cut it. I do not even have a lawn mower. Apparently they had gone about a foot into his yard while cutting mine.
Not the best neighbors in the world.”
Her Attitude Turned Around
“Many years ago, when I was still living with my parents, we bought a house in an established neighborhood. One evening, we were finally done bringing boxes in and were getting ready for bed when my father decided to park his car on the side yard because the garage was full of moving stuff.
All of a sudden, the neighbor woman comes out in a rage, saying he could not do that because the previous owner had stolen three inches from her side yard and the car was technically on her property. When my mother came out to see what the problem was, she flung insults at her, telling her my father was cheating on her because she was an old hag. She threatened to call the police on us because of trespassing.
For the next few weeks, she would wait for my mother to come out of the house to insult her and threaten with the police because she wanted her three inches back.
One day, my mother was watering the front garden when she came at her threateningly because she was going to trespass on her three inches. When the neighbor came a little too close for comfort, my mother turned the watering hose on her. Of course, she called the police. There was nothing to be charged for, and they left.
This went on for a few months and it died down, but everyone in our family tried to avoid her.
Thirty years go by.
The house on that neighbor’s other side, whose owner was a widow with five daughters and a friend to everyone on the street, left to go shopping while the girls were in school. My mother was at home and she noticed a burning smell in the air. She walked out of the house and noticed smoke in the air. As she looks around, she found the house where the mother of five daughters’ lived was on fire. She called the fire department because the flames were coming out of the windows.
Luckily, there was no one home at the time. Then my mother noticed her next door neighbor (three inches) was probably home and had not noticed there is a fire next door to her, so she banged on her door and windows until the woman walked out. She had been taking a nap and did not see that the flames were spreading and had the potential of jumping into her house while she had been sleeping.
She quickly got out and hugged my mother for ‘saving her life.’ From then on, she showered my mother with gifts, home cooked meals, and acts of kindness. She even had an event at her house in which her daughter and granddaughter, plus her two sisters, honored my mother with a cake and presents.”
Such A Party Animal
“One week after my husband, I moved into our very first home, a condo. I received a knock on the door. It was a girl from below us. She mentioned she worked nights and slept days and heard lots of noise from here. My husband and I were both gone before 10 AM.
I looked at her and then looked at the cat and said well if the cat is having parties during the day my apologies as I cannot control him. From that point forward, anytime we were home, she started taking a broom and banging on the ceiling. Even if we were quiet and she knew we were home. I had to call the cops to shut her down. Finally, she and her roommate were asked to leave. They were only renting.”