Always Watching
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“We have about 70m (200 ft) of bushes that separate our gardens. Our neighbor cuts the bushes excessively thin on his side so he can watch us through the bushes. He does this exclusively at stretches of bushes where we spend time – so next to our door and our backyard where we used to sit in the sun or play football with my 6 and 7-year-old brothers.
You can see his side of the bushes when you’re on the main road, and the bush everywhere is dense and about two feet thick aside for those spots. Anytime we open the door, we can hear him turning off his lawn mower and making his way to the same place we are, but on his side.
The landlord got really angry at him, so the guy bought fencing to put up where he had blatantly cut the bush too thin. This fence is purely a decorative one and can be seen through at head height. Whenever we leave the house, we can hear him finishing what he’s doing and he’ll be standing down at the front gate to watch us leave. My mom’s also caught him a few times staring through the bush into our kitchen where mom spends most of her time, so we keep the blinds down all the time.
He was reported to the police years ago for indecent exposure and some other weird crimes not related to us. We just don’t go in our yard anymore because he’s technically not doing anything wrong and we can’t stop him.”
Life On The Outback
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“Growing up, we had some really crazy neighbors that lived across the road from us. The parents were real nutters and abusive to their kids. They would regularly lock their children out the front of their house and lock the front gate so they couldn’t leave with anything but a glass of water. We lived in the Australian Outback where temperatures would regularly reach over 100 degrees, so the kids would be screaming and crying out the front. Police would get called and they’d come. The kids would go back inside then get put back out once they’d left.
The mother would also come out the front of the house when my mum would be waving goodbye or greeting people and she’d start yelling ‘WHY WON’T YOU BE MY FRIEND?!??! I KNOW YOU THINK IM CRAZY. PLEASE BE MY FRIEND!’
A few years ago I heard the mother had been committed to a psychiatric hospital, the husband remarried, and the kids have nothing to do with them now.”
Bunny Better Watch Its Back
“My old neighbor used to collect rabbit poo from her garden and put it on another’s neighbor’s backdoor step (she frequently went out without shoes on because it led to the garden). Thing is, she pretended to be super nice to the other neighbor, didn’t seem deranged in any way and was in her mid to late twenties.
I saw this all happen from my garden. Another time she had her young daughter with her and she cackled about how she was going to kill the rabbit one day… In front of her kid.
It was weird.”
Mulberry Mayhem
“My grandmother got married in 1962 to a young man in the military. For a wedding present, their parents bought them a house in a nice suburb. White picket fence, whole 9 yards. Not long after they moved in, the next door neighbor planted a mulberry tree on the side of his property, near my grandparent’s driveway. Nothing seemed amiss, but if you know mulberry Trees, you know that this is about to get real.
About 15 years later, the mulberry tree was OBNOXIOUS. The birds would come and eat the berries, and any car parked in the driveway would get pooped on, and it would stain the cars and ruin paint jobs. My grandmother, upon realizing the culprit, baked a nice apple pie, walked next door, and asked the neighbor if he’d mind trimming back the branches of the tree that hung over her driveway. He told her not to worry, he’d get to it soon. Three days later, my grandmother opened her door to find a half-eaten pie in the plate, crawling with ants, and a note that said: ‘I changed my mind.’
My grandmother threw out the pie, cursing up a storm, and swearing up and down she’d get him to trim that tree or get him back. The city ordinance said she could not trim the tree, as the roots were on his property, so the whole tree was his property.
As the years went by, my grandmother repeatedly asked him, ever so nicely, to trim it back. His responses were always along the lines of ‘No’ and ‘Buzz off.’
Finally, in the mid-90s, my grandmother retired and received a large bonus from her employer for her 35 years of work. She took the money and bought the empty lot on the other side of the neighbor. She then went to a nursery and bought 16 mulberry trees, planting them along her property line, on both sides of his property. About three years ago, he became angry at the damage they were doing to his cars and cut them all back without permission. My grandmother took him to court, and he was forced to reimburse her for the trees at a markup because they’d had 10 years to grow.”
Copycat
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“My parents have a neighbor that is obsessed with my mom. It was innocent enough at first. He was just nice and they would have small conversations. They became friends and we would invite him over for BBQs and other social gatherings.
Before too long, he started to get creepy. Every single time my mom would take the dog out, he would appear outside and want to talk with her. He would find an excuse to come knock on our door every single day. He got the same haircut and grew the same goatee as my dad and started to dress like my dad.
He then went and bought the exact same type of motorcycle as my dad. He started showing up at my mom’s work bringing her lunch and flowers. That’s when my dad had to confront him and it almost became physical. He has mostly stayed away since then.”
Avoid Eds At All Costs
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“At my old house, we had a neighbor who was extremely crazy. His name was Ed, and he lived on a hill right above from us. He would always invite me over when I was a little kid to play with his chickens and rabbits, but my grandmother always said no. I never understood why.
Ed built a shed with one window only; it was facing our house. This was weird because there’s no view on the side my house is on. The view would’ve been to the left; there was no logical reason for him to face the only window towards our house. Ed also didn’t work with tools, so we could never pinpoint what the shed was for, as they had a basement in their house where they stored stuff. My grandpa built a literal 20 FOOT FENCE on the side of our house that faced his house. I didn’t know why it was so tall, and it was a common joke among my friends when we were younger.
One day, my grandmother and I were in the pool, and my grandpa caught Ed peeping through a hole in the fence. He would also walk by the yard when my grandma was mowing and tell her he enjoyed watching her mow in her shorts. When I got to high school, he would stand at the top of our yard, wait for me to come home when no one else was there, and come on the porch when I was trying to unlock the door making random conversation, and always asking me if he could come in.
When I was a freshman in college, my grandpa found a stepping stool underneath my closet window, like someone had been trying to peep in. Ed was an idiot; his initials were painted on the underneath.
Ed and his wife have a daughter, who was pregnant with twins. Unfortunately, she ended up miscarrying them both later in the pregnancy. They had a funeral for them, and my grandmother was asked by Ed’s wife if while they were at the funeral, my granny could take their dog out. I would like to add here that Ed’s wife was a very kind woman, who worked with my grandma, but had no idea how creepy her husband was. My grandma accepted. Ed’s wife was supposed to bring the keys, but Ed showed up instead. My grandma was alone. Ed apparently told my grandma how he’d love to get her naked and tried to kiss her. My grandma slammed the door in his face, locked it, and called my grandpa. Ed stood and paced around our porch for 15 minutes before he finally left. Remember, he did this 30 minutes before his grandbabies funeral! My grandpa showed up, went on his property, and told him if he ever saw him come close to me or my grandmother ever again, he would end his life.
I’ve since moved out, but my grandparents say they don’t get much trouble from Ed. He has an in-home nurse now due to Parkinson’s and threw a fit when he found out he had a male nurse because he wanted a female nurse instead. Ed’s known in my old neighborhood for creeping on women, but luckily all our neighbors knew how weird he was and were always on the lookout.
Moral of the story: make sure you don’t have an Ed next door.”
Just Need Your “Vitamins”
“My sister/bro-in-law hated their neighbor. He was a weird pedo-type. They had some contractors build a fence in their backyard. He came out into his backyard mid-build and injected one of the guys building the fence in the butt cheek with, what he called ‘vitamins.’ Everyone freaked out. He ran away. When they cleared out his house they found a crapload of naked pictures of children. Like, Polaroids. It was very bad.
Luckily the guy he injected was fine. Granted, this was found out after a lot of blood tests and such. Sadly he was never ever prosecuted for that but there is quite the case built around him.”
Just Wandering Around
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“My creepy neighbor walks backward up the street at 10:00 pm most nights. He stumbles around the street sometimes later than that. The first I started noticing it, I saw him walking around all deranged like in the center of the street. When he saw my car approaching, he sort of stumbled off to the side and just stood there staring as I approached the stop sign. I rolled my window down and asked if he needed help – he didn’t respond. I then asked if he needed emergency services and he approached my car and leaned over inside it with his full upper body inside the car and started asking me questions, ‘Who are you?’ ‘Where do you live?’ ‘What are you doing?’
I can’t explain it, but I immediately got a vibe like I was suddenly about to be murdered, so I just said, ‘Yeah I’m gonna drive off now,’ and dude just kept staring, leaning into my car. I started driving with him hanging out my window and he looked taken back and just very oddly said, ‘Okay.’
I immediately called the police on him.
I still see him wandering the streets at night. Sometimes, he stands outside of a house down the street and just stares at it for awhile while stumbling around.”
Buzzard Off
“I have these neighbors that live way behind me, down a long and secluded driveway. They aren’t really weird per se, but they’re a nice, country, elderly couple in their late 80’s/early 90’s. Save for one odd habit of his. He kills buzzards and wires their decomposing bodies to his fence.
I discovered this when I took my toddler son back there to trick or treat his first time. We’re walking down that long driveway of theirs and hey, lookie there! Big dead buzzards, wings outstretched to the fullest, decomposing on the fence. I thought, ‘well that’s not something you see every day’ and went right on to their door, dearly wanting to ask about them. I couldn’t be like ‘Trick or treat! What’s up with the buzzards?’
His house is chock full of his various taxidermied trophies. I think there’s a purpose for the buzzards. Maybe it’s some old-school country thing. Like they keep the deer out of your garden.
I think about trying it myself. The local deer ate nearly my entire garden this year, the brazen things.”
Every. Single. Day.
“So he has a truck and a car, both kind of old and beat up. Every day he switches their parking places, and “everyday he leaves the car running, opens the hood and just stares at the engine for about an hour. He’ll step back for a smoke break, eyes still hard on the running engine from afar. Sometimes he’ll sit in the driver’s seat and listen to the one tape he has left apparently, and it’s Sheryl Crow. Every. Single. Day.
False Christians
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“We had some neighbors that pretended to be upstanding religious people. Well, the son was a big-time narcotics dealer, the dad lost his security clearance because of it, and the mother was a mean-spirited and rude woman.
We’d hear her screaming in the front yard on Sunday mornings ‘get your dang bibles and get in the car right now, we’re going to be late. I’m not sitting in the back of the god dang church,’ on and on. They also let their dogs crap in the front yard instead of the backyard like normal people.
The mother came to our door once and screamed at my mother about my sister, ‘for being a harlot and coming in all hours if the night!’ Funny considering she worked in a bar and she had the substance-dealing son! She kept trying to push the door open, so my sister called the cops. That was the start to the dad losing his security clearance. He should have divorced her because he wasn’t a terrible guy.
We’d sit at the front window and just watch her screaming from the car, waving her bible and cussing up a storm. My mother would say, ‘well, she doesn’t have a very Christian attitude.’ My dad said when they moved that the neighbors drove past the house and just flipped us the bird.”
Branch Disaster
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“Our neighbor’s massive tree that hangs over our fence (and half our house) dropped a branch NARROWLY missing my partner who was stacking wood under the veranda. It squashed the heck out of our veranda – it was completely destroyed. It pummelled through concrete, damaged our pool, and took out our pool fence, BBQ, everything. It was $35,000 worth of damage; thank god for insurance.
Anyway, we had the State Emergency Service out and they made it safe. My partner goes to tell the neighbor and he’s ‘busy’ playing football and doesn’t ‘have time’ to come and see the damage. He says it’s not his problem because even though it’s his tree, it’s our property damage. We’ve tried to get him to hire an arborist for 18 months to deal with the tree, but he hadn’t done anything.
We paid for a private arborist and he said the tree is dead and needs immediate removal because, at any moment, the other 8-ton limb could fall, which hangs over our bedroom. We pass this information over to our neighbor who says that he’s selling his house and it’s the next owner’s problem and not only that, but he’s getting divorced and can’t afford it.
I spent the best part of two weeks compiling information about local council tree laws, court case notes of similar incidents in which people were injured or killed, and after those people were found to be negligent. I itemized incidents of previous conversations where we begged him to have the tree seen to and him refusing. I cited tree law and council law acts and how he was negligent and responsible. It included photos of the tree limb that fell and damage it caused in addition to the one remaining and how it was 56% rotted through, I also spoke to neighbors on either side of him who were more than happy to write a letter supporting our cause and also citing times they’d asked the same thing of him. All in all the document was about 40+ pages thick.
I cc’d the above document to him, his real estate agent, the council, the insurance company, courts, and neighbors.
After receiving my little gift and a promise of what would happen if he didn’t have it removed immediately, he agreed to have it removed but was peeved about my ‘nasty letter’ and me having included the neighbors – and his estate agent who now know he’s a prick who could care less.
The tree is now gone and we got to keep the firewood. I now won’t pay a heating bill for four or more years.”
Strange Revenge
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“Our neighbors videotape us 24/7. Whenever we come home, they stand on their front porch and watch us. They put a big wire fence up between our houses a few years ago. If we’re backing out of the driveway, they come and watch to make sure nobody hits the fence.
Also, their entire house is covered in plants. I can’t see in any of the windows. It’s very weird. If it’s snowing and we accidentally shovel a tiny bit of snow through the wire fence, they will come out and shovel all their snow onto our side. They will cut down trees on our property that are too close to them and throw all the branches in our driveway too. Also, they have paintballed our house. All because we didn’t lend them money a few years ago.
It used to really bother me but I’ve learned to just let it go. They want a reaction from us and the more we all ignore it, the less they do stuff. I am just happy I’ll be moving soon.”
Late Night Staring
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“The people who live next to me like to invite all the other neighbors over for a BBQ and what not. When I first moved in, it was the only time they had come over to invite me. I’m not super sociable, so I politely declined. Once I’m home I enjoy my solitude. Probably my own fault though for choosing an apartment complex that tries to promote ‘community.’ Apparently, the fact I wasn’t in the mood to socialize must have deeply offended them, considering they spread a rumor around the neighborhood that I’m a substance-addicted ex-convict.
That’s not what’s creepy though. What’s creepy is how every time I take my dog for a walk, my neighbors will come outside and just glare at me with crossed arms. It’s the consistency with how they do it too. It could be 3:00 am and here comes the husband in his underwear to give me dirty looks.”
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