Nobody loves a nagging neighbor! From noise complaints to lousy lies, these folks share the times they had the cops called on them by an annoying neighbor. Yikes! If I were them, I would pack my bags and move out immediately! Content has been edited for clarity.
Crazy Neighbor Karen Part One
“My neighbor called the police on me three times in under two weeks. In today’s world, she would be known as a ‘Karen’ from the homeowner’s association. Except, I lived in Australia, and we didn’t have HOAs.
The neighbor had divorced her husband and had four children. She got to keep the house, and her husband was still on the hook for child support payments. As far as I knew, she used the payments to fund her lifestyle. After my neighbor’s divorce was finalized, she put the house on the market. However, the house was in total disrepair.
The street appeal of the house wasn’t terrible, but those who took an interest in the house knew they’d be up for thousands in repairs. Plus, the neighbor asked for over 100k more than what the best houses on the same street sold for only months earlier.
When interested buyers failed to materialize, the neighbor went looking for people to blame. Unfortunately, I became her target.
My neighbor called the city council one Saturday morning, claiming I had too many cars at my house. A council ranger visited my house and looked at the cars. All of the cars were parked in my driveway except for two on my front lawn, but they were within the boundary line of the street. Of the cars, four were mine, all registered and driving. Two of the cars were owned by friends who would come over each weekend while we worked on the cars. The last car was my dad’s, which I was helping him fix.
The council ranger assessed it all and said, ‘These cars aren’t a problem. It’s your driveway, I don’t see what the issue is.’
I replied, ‘I’m not sure. I’m nice to my neighbors and stay off of the street whenever possible.’
The council ranger then visited the neighbor to update her with the ‘bad news.’ True to form, like any good Karen, she began screaming at him. The ranger left, only to return a few short hours later.
When the ranger returned, he explained, ‘Your neighbor submitted a complaint about how you are illegally running a mechanical workshop from home.’
The ranger and I laughed, and once again, the ranger gave my neighbor the bad news about how I wouldn’t be getting in trouble.
The next visit, late on the same Saturday, wasn’t from the council ranger. This time, it was from the police. The officers wanted to know why I had so many cars, and they asked me to look in my garage.
I told the officers, ‘You’re not looking in the garage unless you have a warrant. If you run the plates, you will see I own four of the six cars here. The other two cars are visitors staying for a barbecue.’
As always, all six cars were parked on my driveway, within my property line, where they couldn’t do anything to them. The officers knew I was right, too.
One of the officers asked, ‘What did you do to annoy your neighbor who made this claim?’
The officer didn’t have to wait for me to answer. Instead, the neighbor came over and began to yell at the officers. I took delight in telling the neighbor to get off my private property, and the police backed me up, too.
However, this wasn’t the end. The following week, I arrived home from work to find a Sydney Water car parked in front of my house. The worker was poking a device in my stormwater pipe and my sewer line.
I asked the worker, ‘What are you doing? What is the device for?’
He replied, ‘This is a hydrocarbon detector. Your neighbor called claiming she watched you pour gas and oil down the drain.’
Again, I simply laughed.
All was quiet for a couple of weeks, so I thought everything was over. But no, some teenager decided to drop a decent burnout on the road just down from my neighbor’s house one night.
Within ten minutes, the police were at my doorstep. The officers were different this time, and they weren’t caught up with the history between my neighbor and me.
One of the officers asked, ‘Why are you doing burnouts and scaring the neighbors?’
Quick as a flash, I asked, ‘What is the description of the car?’
The officer replied, ‘Your plate number was reported, and the description matched the car parked in your driveway.’
‘How are you so confident you have the right car? It’s late at night, and it’s very dark,’ I asserted, ‘I believe I am being targeted by my neighbor.’
I had the officer open my car to feel the radiator and engine block, only to find them stone cold.
I then asked the officer what I could do about my neighbor’s constant harassment and false reports.
The officer shook his head and replied, ‘We’ll leave a note on your file for any future calls about your residence.’
As the officers and I were talking, I could see my neighbor peeking out of her blinds watching the situation unfold. She was disappointed when I wasn’t arrested and the officers left on good terms.
In the back of my mind, I knew my neighbor wasn’t done just yet.”
Crazy Neighbor Karen Part Two
“One evening, the council ranger came back to my house and asked, ‘May I see the tree you cut down illegally?’
Confused, I responded, ‘What tree are you talking about? Search my yard if you’d like, but I’m not sure what you’re talking about.’
‘A search won’t be necessary,’ the ranger replied, ‘Assuming your neighbor is up to her old tricks again.’
I then filled the ranger in on how my neighbor’s house was for sale, how she was asking for a crazy amount of money for it, and how she was blaming me for buyers not wanting to look at her house.
Our discussion circled back around to my neighbor’s first call about my cars. The ranger mentioned if I wanted to park cars in front of my neighbor’s house, it was one hundred percent legal as long as the vehicle was fully registered. I just needed to ensure I moved the car once per week.
Luckily, I had just purchased two junk cars to use for parts. Both of the cars were in my backyard, and both had a couple of months of registration left on them. The cars weren’t in the best shape. One had been hit in the back and was dented, and the other had multi-colored panels, rust, and a peeling clear coat.
Gleefully, I parked each car in front of my neighbor’s house.
The neighbor called the police again, and they told her there was nothing they could do. The council ranger told the neighbor my cars being parked in front of her house was legal, and there was nothing he could do, either.
My neighbor even tried to have a local tow truck company take the cars away, but they couldn’t touch the vehicles without my permission. I made sure I drove one car around the block each weekend while my wife rolled the other one forward. This way, the cars were swapped around each week to prove to the council I was moving them.
Unfortunately, the cars both ran out of registration before my neighbor sold her house, so I parked another car there with my trailer hooked up to it. After churning through three or four different real estate companies, my neighbor finally sold the house and left.
The people who eventually bought my neighbor’s house were lovely. The husband who moved into the house, ‘John,’ came over to my place on the day of settlement to ask about my car trailer. He offered me cash to pick up his project car from his other place and bring it over. John and I quickly became friends, and it didn’t take long for the truth to come out about my neighbor’s house.
John and his wife purchased my neighbor’s house for true market value, as the bank was about to foreclose because she couldn’t afford the mortgage. The neighbor was trying to get much more than the house was worth so she could buy another home with no mortgage, but it simply wasn’t possible with what she still owed.
The new neighbors and I were great friends for years. Of course, I helped them with the house repairs as much as I could.
Why my neighbor decided to push her issues onto someone else never made sense. However, I was thrilled when she was finally gone for good.”
The Nuisance Neighbor Part One
“At my old apartment, I lived next to an absolute shrew of a woman who just needed to mind her own business occasionally.
One day, the woman walked out of her apartment holding an iced cake. I was in the garden picking up trash in the communal area, and the woman began shouting at me for picking up the empty drink cans, claiming I was stealing her recycling.
‘Whatever,’ I thought, ‘I’ll pick them back up when she leaves.’
Then, the neighbor turned around and caught her foot on her doorstep. And you guessed it, she fell flat on her backside, cake smashed atop her. It was like a scene out of a television show. I laughed out loud, I couldn’t help it. Of course, I asked the neighbor if she was okay or needed help, too. However, she became defensive, so I left her to herself.
About one hour later, I heard a knock on my apartment door.
When I opened the door, a police officer stood outside.
The officer asserted, ‘I received a complaint of theft and assault from this residence. Are you the attacker?’
The neighbor claimed I was stealing her recycling, and when she questioned me about it, I pushed her to the ground and smashed her cake onto her.
Thankfully, the other neighbor across the way witnessed the entire situation and told the officer the truth. The neighbor was charged with wasting the police officer’s time.
Two weeks later, I heard another knock at my door. I had a feeling I already knew who it was standing on the other side.”
The Nuisance Neighbor Part Two
“I opened the door, and the officer was standing outside again. The officer claimed I was being a nuisance to my neighbor by using my remote control to change her television channels while she was watching it.
I showed the officer my remote, which was a completely different brand from her television. I allowed him to try and operate her television, and of course, it didn’t work. As it turned out, her cat was sitting on her remote, causing the channels to change and the volume to turn up and down.
One week later, I heard another knock at my door. Allegedly, I was shining a bright torch into my neighbor’s bedroom window. The police officer took one look at the way the properties were set up, and they knew right away my neighbor’s claim was a load of nonsense. My neighbor’s window faced into a wooded area, and it was on the opposite side of the apartment block to mine. It turned out the floodlights from the football field on the other side of the woods.
Fast forward another four months and various nonsensical complaints of a similar nature, late night ‘suspicious’ visitors (my parents leaving after dinner), bonfires (a small barbecue), and the like, I found out my neighbor eventually received a warning about facing criminal charges if she continued to waste police officer’s time.
I complained to the housing association about how my neighbor was harassing me and wasting police resources to do so. The neighbor moved about one month later.
I never figured out what prompted my neighbor to resent me so much.”
“I Had No Idea What Was Going On”
“When my neighbors called the cops on my family, my husband and I had just come home from my birthday dinner.
My husband went outside to get rid of some spiders in our garden so our kids wouldn’t get bit, and I was heading up to bed when I heard banging on the front door.
I opened the door to see six police officers in front of me, with four more in their cars. I was scared, and I had no idea what was going on.
One of the officers asked me, ‘Miss, are you in your house alone?’
I said no.
The officer then pressed, ‘Who else is in the house with you?’
I nervously replied, ‘My in-laws and my husband.’
‘Where is your husband, miss?’ the officer asked.
Confused, I replied, ‘Outside in the garden killing spiders. May I ask why?’
The police officer looked at me and said he needed to speak to my husband immediately, so I showed him the way back to our garden. Only a few minutes later, the police officers came back inside.
One of the police officers half-smiled and said, ‘We’re sorry to disturb you this evening. However, someone called and said they saw a flashlight in the back and heard someone shouting.’
‘What did they say they heard the person shouting?’ I asked.
The officer laughed and said, ‘Die, die, die!’
I laughed. Of course, my husband would say that as he is exterminating spiders.
They looked around the garden and the house then went outside and stayed for about thirty minutes. It was still the best birthday I’ve ever had to this day.”
The Not-So-Sweet Neighbor
“I used to bake brownies and bring them to new neighbors when they moved in. I was raised this way, and I always thought it was a nice gesture. Most of my neighbors were pleasantly surprised when I brought them a treat, and we all got along afterward.
This was all until a crazy woman, ‘Marge,’ moved in three doors down from me.
I introduced myself to Marge and offered her the brownies.
Marge screeched at me and pushed the plate out of my hands screaming, ‘Are you trying to kill me? I’m allergic to chocolate!’
I not-so-sincerely apologized, and Marge slammed the door in my face. How was I supposed to know about her allergies?
This was only the beginning of a two-year reign of insanity from Marge. She started battles with everyone on the block and called the cops constantly for every little thing. From kids ‘laughing too loud,’ to someone parked in front of her house, she would instantly call the cops.
Marge even once called the cops on me because I frowned when I looked at her, and she claimed she, ‘feared for her life.’
She got away with making false police reports because my town had an equally as insane city councilman who treated the police like his own personal army. The police had to be at Marge’s disposal for whatever phony and annoying complaint she had.
One day, my nieces were over and we were sitting on the porch drinking iced tea and lemonade. Marge came walking by the porch and began complaining about how we were being ‘too loud,’ and how we were ‘obviously wasted.’
Marge screamed, ‘I’m calling the cops!’
I handed her my phone and replied, ‘Go right ahead. There’s no law about drinking lemonade on a hot day.’
We all started laughing at her, and Marge got so mad she began sputtering. She handed my phone back to me and started walking away.
All of a sudden, Marge turned back and said, ‘Don’t think I didn’t notice all of the marks on your arm!’
‘You didn’t notice my shirt. I donated blood today at the drive, see?’ I replied as I pointed at my shirt.
Marge turned a deep shade of purple, and I was honestly a little worried she was about to have a heart attack. Luckily, we were all CPR certified so one of us would have saved her life. Probably.”
“It Must Have Enraged Her”
“Years ago, I had a ‘Karen,’ in my neighborhood. Karen’s favorite pastime seemed to be walking past my house when I was doing yard work and telling me about how whatever I was doing was wrong. She was a real pain to deal with.
One day, I was weeding along the curb and Karen came walking up. She said something obnoxious, and out of nowhere, my 100-pound German Shepherd sprang from the front of the porch and raced down the front yard.
My dog barked menacingly at Karen, but she stopped once she got to the edge of the property. My dog was well-trained and respected the boundaries I set for her.
Even though my dog wasn’t close to Karen, she screamed and backed away. Karen flailed her arms and made such a ridiculous commotion that even my dog tilted her head in confusion.
‘You need to have your dog on a leash!’ Karen wailed as she scurried away.
Ten minutes later, I was still out front when a police car rolled up.
‘Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,’ I thought as the cop got out of his car and I walked over to him.
‘Hi,’ I stated with defeat, ‘I’m pretty sure I know why you’re here.’
‘Yeah,’ the cop replied, ‘We got a call about a dog attack? Or near attack?’
The officer looked over at my dog who was lounging on the grass nearby.
I relayed what happened and told the officer, ‘She gave the woman a scare, but at no time was she off the property. My dog has never left the property.’
The cop chuckled and turned to my dog, who then rose and walked toward us. My dog approached the officer tentatively, but when he extended his hand, she melted. He petted her with both hands as she lay down on her back, offering him a belly rub if he was so inclined.
The cop told me about his own German Shepherd his family had years ago, and how they were excellent watchdogs. We chatted for a good ten minutes, and he even tossed her a few of our tennis balls. The cop was a great guy.
The best part was how, two houses away, Karen must have been looking out of her window the entire time. She probably figured the cop was going to issue me a summons and impound the dog or something, and here he was chucking tennis balls. I knew Karen was enraged.”
“My Neighbor Should Have Been Careful About What He Wished For”
“Our neighbor called the cops on my family over our cat. Yep, over the cat.
One day, as my ex walked to his car around six thirty in the morning, the neighbor stopped him and said, ‘If I see your cat near my car again, I’m going to call the police. I don’t like animals, and you need to control your pet.’
My ex simply thought, ‘Whatever, dude,’ and walked away.
The next day, I was giving our ten-month-old a bath when I heard a knock on the front door. Just the screen door was shut, but the main door was open.
After the knock, I heard someone say, ‘Hello there, this is this police.’
I chuckled and replied, ‘Yes, sorry, we’re here. I’m bathing my baby right now so I can’t come to the door right away. I’m assuming you’re here about the cat.’
The officer replied, ‘Yes, I’m here because your neighbor complained about the cat. Is that the same menace staring at me through the door right now?’
‘Yeah, it’s the same cat,’ I replied as a tried to fight off laughter.
I continued to explain to the officer how my family had just moved in about a month ago. Even though the house on the other side of the complaining neighbor had fifteen to twenty cats, the neighbor zeroed in on ours as the ‘bad cat’ in the neighborhood because it walked in his driveway.
I finished by telling the officer, ‘You know, I’m sorry you had to waste your time speaking to someone about a cat.’
I finished up with the baby and went to the front door.
The officer explained, ‘I would probably keep the cat inside from now on. Your neighbor seems unhinged, and I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen.’
I didn’t want anything to happen to the cat, as it was a pet we had taken in for a friend who was very ill. Our friend recovered, and we ended up giving the cat back to him, allowing my family to get dogs.
My family ended up getting and keeping two pit bulls as pets. My neighbor should have been careful about what he wished for!”
Noise Complaint Nonsense
“I had a neighbor call the cops on me for a noise complaint.
When the cops arrived, I answered the door in my boxers with my three-year-old slung over my shoulder on one side, and a long-handled fishing net containing a bat on the other.
I sighed and questioned, ‘What can I help you with, officer?’
The officer nervously replied, ‘Is that a bat?’
I chucked and said, ‘Yes it is, now excuse me for a moment.’
I handed off my kid to the rather confused officer, went about the necessaries of releasing the terrified bat from the net, set it down, and retrieved my kid.
I came back and asked, ‘Perfect. Now, what can I do for you?’
The officer reluctantly replied, ‘We received a noise complaint, but I’m guessing you just took care of the issue. I understand. Have a good night, sir.’
And then he left. Chuckling back to his car.”
Crybaby Craig
“I have had the neighbors call the police on my family before.
My now ex-husband and I bought a house in a sleepy, but a prissy, neighborhood. As we were moving in, our neighbors came and greeted us. At the time, I had my SUV, and my husband had his pickup truck.
A week or so later when my husband and I went back to work, everything hit the fan. Our next-door neighbor, ‘Craig,’ had an issue with a police car parked in our driveway.
At the time, I was busy and getting ready to leave for work, so I told Craig, ‘Whatever, dude. Get used to it.’
So, Craig called the other neighbors and the police department and demanded to know why a police car was on the property. Spoiler alert, Craig. My husband was a police officer!
Word quickly spread about Craig, and I threw a housewarming party. The entire block was covered by police and sheriff’s cars. Craig sold his house shortly thereafter.”
