Ever had to deal with horrible neighbors? These people had the same issue and decided to do something about it. Content has been edited for clarity purposes.
Laundry Revenge
“There were five or six guys, international university students, living below me in a condo complex. They took all the parking including mine with new Porches, Lambos, etc. These cars would last maybe two weeks. First you’d see a dent, then a bigger dent, then the car would disappear and be replaced by another new one in a different color.
I didn’t really care, but they hung out on the stairs every day and would not let me pass to get to and from my vehicle. They’d pinch my arms and grab at me, saying stuff I can only assume wasn’t nice. The landlord didn’t care, since he was getting well paid. These guys had diplomatic immunity, so normal or official reactions were a moot point. The final straw was over laundry.
There were maybe eight washers in the laundry room. One Saturday morning, I took my stuff and put it in two of them, then returned to my place. I waited 30 minutes then returned to put everything in the dryer.
When I got there, I saw all of my clothes strewn all over the floor, wet, and they’d been walked on. I opened the washers I’d used to see that my neighbors below had put their stuff in there instead; it was all light colored. All the washers were now taken.
They were laughing and joking on the stoop when I returned with my armload of soaking wet and soiled clothes. One of them pinched my arm, and another pulled my hair. That was it, I was done. So, off to the store. I bought ten bottles of neon pink Rit dye.
The next Saturday, I left my condo before they got up with my neon pink dye in hand and hid my vehicle on the other side of the complex. I checked the laundry room, (nobody was using it), and then I waited in ambush, reading in the recreation center where I had full view. Sure enough, here they all came with their laundry. After they left the laundry room, I put two to three bottles of the dye in each of their washers.
The display that followed was pretty epic. One was screaming and ripping / rending the pink garments, another was insanely throwing them in the pool. Another ran to the manager’s office. I could hear him screaming in a foreign language. Someone called the police. I’m not sure at all what followed that day, but they moved out before noon.”
He Was Watched 24/7 For Months
“Many years ago, we were living in Florida and had a neighbor that was paranoid and extremely aggressive. It started with our pets being poisoned and escalated from there.
We had the main electric feed to the property cut, the water turned off and padlocked, and had damage to plants and landscaping on the property line, etc. I installed an extensive security system (45 cameras with night vision and sound) after which things calmed down for a while.
The next thing was a handicapped parking zone installed for him. He was allegedly handicapped, which I have nothing against that. It was the fact that it was not in front of his house but instead, in front of ours. That was the last straw.
I hired a private investigator and had him followed 24/7 for months. Yes, it was expensive but it was worth it. Finally, his next move was to take us to court for code violations and the use of his ‘personal’ parking space. During the court proceedings, we presented all the blueprints, permits, and sign-offs that showed everything we did was within the law. However, he made a huge pain of himself especially when it was clear he was losing. Finally, he claimed we blocked his view of the ocean, which while untrue required the entire courtroom to pay a visit to his home to see his alleged lack of a view. Unbeknownst to him, we had done a full investigation of the history of his property including permits, construction, and violations.
Once on his property, which was two stories high, he could not make his case for the lack of view since ours was three stories. However, he made it very clear he had built fully from lot line to lot line and installed windows overlooking his neighbors on both sides. That was a clear violation.
In the end, he managed to prove to the court that his entire renovation of 1/3 of his building was completely illegal and the original property was built four feet too close to the lot line. The court ruled he would have to apply for a variance and no matter what the result was, he had to eliminate all windows on the lot lines. If the variance was denied he would be required to demolish the addition done without permits. He would also have to apply for a hardship variance for the original property as he purchased it. In the end, he got his hardship variance but lost the battle for the new construction which he had to remove at great expense. We also got the handicapped parking removed since we had him on camera clearly not handicapped.
The moral of the story: People in glass houses (or illegal ones) should never throw stones (or lawsuits).”
Don’t Mess With His Cat
“A guy I used to work with told me about this in the ‘80s.
He had no children, just a cat he was extremely fond of. His neighbor also had no kids or pets but had a few expensive rosebushes that he spent all of his spare time nurturing and fawning over.
One day his cat was missing. He put up signs and scoured the neighborhood but was unable to find it.
A few weeks later, the neighbor said, ‘I reported your cat to animal control because I saw it in my yard and they picked it up a few weeks ago.’
The cat owner bought a few gallons of weed killer. The kind they used to sell back then, that’s supposed to be diluted. One night he went to the neighbor’s house and poured all of it, undiluted, under those precious roses.
When they started to die off, he would watch the frustrated neighbor fertilizing and watering the roses, trying to figure out why they were dying. Finally, he stopped by and asked about them.
After listening to the old man whine for a few minutes, he said, ‘You shouldn’t have gotten my cat killed.’
He watched realization appear on the man’s face before he walked away.”
Underage Drinking
“My parents scraped every little bit they had together to buy a two-family house on a small quiet dead-end road to have a safe place to raise their children. We had 14 houses of great neighbors, and one house of very nasty neighbors, the Dicksons. A whole family of dirtbags who rented an apartment in the house just before ours. Their 16-year-old son, Junior, was friends with the overgrown child of a tenant we had when we bought our house. The tenant was in his 40s and hung out with the teenagers next door. One of the first interactions we had with anyone in that family was when my mother caught Junior rummaging through our things in our private basement.
My father tried getting them to quiet down, but they got louder. He tried talking to the father to control his son, but his son was ‘a man now’, so the father had and desired no control in the house. They would have loud drinking parties with his son’s teenage friends clearly not old enough to drink.
The police came several times, but it seemed the Dicksons lived with a police scanner in every room, so things got eerily quiet when a call came over the radio with their address. The father would claim not to know anything about the problem and would talk to ‘the boys’. The police were bothered by this, but couldn’t force their way into the apartment without a warrant or probable cause and nothing incriminating was ever left out in the open.
A neighbor’s child once called 911 accidentally and the police had to check the house for possible victims. Apparently, a 911 call is a probable cause for entry even if you answer the door and say everyone is ok. The police also didn’t dispatch cars to 911 calls or domestic abuse calls over the radio. The dispatcher would contact the officer with their Nextel phones or you’d hear the dispatcher telling the officer to call into the station. The public would not hear the person’s address for privacy purposes or possibly to not alert an aggressor.
This gave me the perfect opportunity as a nerdy 14-year-old. I knew all about phone systems and with the tips about the ‘privacy’ policy the police had in place for 911 calls. So I got to work.
My mother and I took a bunch of pictures of the morons in the yard with kids drinking Natty Lites, and some glass pipes clearly not used for legal purposes, and got them developed.
The next Thursday night I went to work, like some super agent spy or something. I had it all planned out for a while beforehand. One night I connected two long thin wires to their phone box and left the ends in a bush where our yards met.
The wire ends were left in the bush until Friday night came along. I walked over, threw the envelope of pictures on the front stairs, twisted the wire connections to a cheap phone we had, and dialed 911. Now the 911 operator would see the call as coming from the Dicksons’ phone line. I remember making it sound like I was crying and saying something stupid about a little girl, to which there were no girls at any of these parties. Then I twisted the wires together which is the equivalent of leaving the phone off the hook.
Soon thereafter the police showed up. Not one or two cars, but six local cars (which might have been all of them), two cars from the next town over, two staties, a fire truck, an ambulance, and then a couple unmarked or off-duty showed up. Nothing happened on the scanner until after they were already all on the scene. Both parents were arrested, the house was ransacked trying to find the girl, but instead finding strung out kids hiding in closets, a larger amount of weed than any of us expected, and satisfaction.
Junior was arrested for resisting and assaulting police officers. The street was completely impassible for anyone including the police trying to leave while for the next hour or two as the parents of the other kids came to claim their little delinquents. A couple of them had warrants and were also arrested on sight. I was scared out of my mind for what felt like weeks afterward.
My uncle had helped me with some of the planning including the tip about twisting the wires together afterward so 911 wouldn’t be able to call back. My father realized what I did rather quickly and I confessed as soon as he gave me that ‘Holy mole what did you do look’.
He told me how horrible it was what I did, but that they deserved it and he hoped I would talk to him before trying anything like that again. When the police finally left around four hours later, he went and plucked out the phone wires. He was laughing like a mad scientist telling my mother what happened when she came home from work. After several criminal charges and a nice article in the newspaper, the landlord finally kicked out his ‘perfect’ tenants.
We had almost 20 years of peaceful neighbors after that.”
Parking Space War
“I moved across town having bought my own house. It was a small house halfway down a cul-de-sac with private parking at the back. For reasons I never understood my house came with four allocated parking spaces, it was only a 2-bed room house, but whatever.
I had only lived there a few days when a lady approached me and told me I couldn’t park my car where it was (in my own allocated spot) as it was her husband’s space and he would be annoyed. Not wanting to get off on the wrong foot with the new neighbors, I asked her to come around when her husband got home to discuss it.
Two hours later, an angry husband and wife batter down my front door. I stepped outside with a copy of the house plans provided by my solicitor when the search had been carried out and explained, politely that the space was mine, as were the three adjacent to it. So my parking there was legal and theirs wasn’t.
They exploded, ‘I’ll park where I darn well like and there’s nothing you can do about it. Try anything and I’ll kill you.’
So they both would make sure either his or her car was parked in my favorite spot.
Well, I was working in the photo industry then and mentioned this ‘parking space war’ to some colleagues. I was then advised that photo paper when well soaked in water, placed face down on a surface, and allowed to dry, sticks like poop to a blanket.
So I got a four feet long piece of 18-inch wide paper, soaked it for a couple of hours, and then placed it emulsion side down on his windshield. His car was parked at the foot of my garden, making access very easy.
The next morning I left early for work. When I came home, both of their cars were parked in their own allocated parking spots, and his car had a shiny brand new windshield.
You see when photo paper is stuck emulsion side down and allowed to dry, the paper comes away leaving the emulsion on the surface. Nothing known to man is getting that off. I explained all that to the nice police officer who visited me that evening. I also pointed out that it was probably meant for my car but the rascal who did it must have thought that as the car was parked in the space marked ’13’ it was mine.
The police officer arched one eyebrow very impressively and remarked, ‘Very likely’ and reported the incident as ‘Mistaken Identity’.
The neighbors were not happy, threatened violence and death (all reported to the authorities) but never parked in my space again.”
Slow Down Warning
“Years ago, I lived in Jacksonville, Florida in a trailer park. It was a standard-issue trailer park. Rows of tin rectangular cubes baking in the tropical sun. It was clean and generally quiet. As in all neighborhoods, there were all types of people living there, some good, some not so good.
One of the neighbors, Pam, was a friend of mine. Pam and her husband lived in the inexpensive trailer park for a number of years, trying to save money to build their own home. She was sweet and kind.
Pam told me how she’d had some trouble with some bad neighbors a few years before when her son was a toddler. The neighbors lived a couple of lots down and had a TransAm. Shiny, new, and fast. And they loved to drive the shiny, new TransAm fast down those narrow roads. But there were a lot of kids in the neighborhood.
So Pam complained to the park manager. The TransAm owners were warned but they continued to drive fast past Pam’s house.
One day, they shot past her house in that shiny, new TransAm and threw a Bud Light can out the window into her yard. Pam’s son, then a toddler, was sitting in the grass. They missed hitting the child, fortunately, because it was half full, and it might have done some injury. But the can, by some twist of divine providence, landed bottom side down right in front of the little boy. The Bud Light splashed out onto the baby.
Pam picked up the baby, and the can with its vile contents and walked down the street to where the TransAm was now parked. She knocked on the door, but nobody answered the door. She knew they were in there because the window was open and she could hear them moving around and whispering inside.
Pam said kindly, sweetly, and loudly, ‘I’m returning your can.’
Then she stuck the can through the open window of that shiny, new TransAm and dumped it all over the front bucket seat.
After that, the neighbor would drive the long way around to avoid passing her house. They moved soon after that.”
“My Land”
“In a small West Texas town, my dad owned 2/3 of the block and an old single wall wooden house that had an additional stone wall added. The other 1/3 belonged to a man who regularly plowed for his garden and treated my dad’s side lot as if it were his. My dad tasked me with putting in a four-inch schedule 80 pipe fence post. He had welded legs on the bottom of the post.
One nice winter day, I when over to my dad’s house and dug the holes as best I could. I hit flint and ruined a heavy pinch bar. The tops were not even, but I had filled the deep holes to three inches from the top with concrete and filled the posts also guessing on the tall posts. My dad cut the tops in four triangles and welded then closed and even tops on the fence.
Once spring came, my dad’s neighbor came to plow his garden. Dad had angle iron welded between the post and barbed wire five rows. His neighbor attempted to run over the posts. He dinged his tractor on these are not wooden posts he used to run over.
He hooked up a chain and could not move the posts. The neighbor was mad and now had bent the angle iron. The town has only one sleepy policeman so my dad called the sheriff.
A deputy came and the neighbor said, ‘He put up a fence on my land.’
My dad showed both of them the property stakes. Then said he wanted a report written for damages to his fence. The neighbor said he had been using the property for years. Dad had his receipts from the letters he had sent telling the neighbor to stay off his land.
The complaint was written and the neighbor was billed for the damage.”
Car Damages
“After I moved to a new town in the United Kingdom and was living in a decent enough suburb of a large town in West Sussex. At the time I owned a VW Passat estate (station wagon), it was pewter or metallic grey color; a very nice car.
One morning I came out to find it had been scratched from one end to the other, in some places down to the metal. I was livid. A neighbor saw me examining the damage and told me it was done by the two kids who lived at the end of the close. Their mother couldn’t bear anyone having a better car than them, since they owned a ten-year-old red Ford Sierra. She would tell her boys to scratch the car. I couldn’t believe my ears but some other neighbors came out and confirmed the story.
Well, every Sunday at 10:00 AM sharp, this family would all wash and polish the family car, have lunch, and then go for a drive, dressed up as if they were going to a wedding. So the following week, I bought two bottles of clutch fluid.
On one very early Sunday morning, I poured it all over the bonnet, roof, and boot. For those who have never seen the effects of clutch fluid on car paint, it’s very effective. The paint very quickly swelled up, blistered, and then burst, revealing the bare metalwork. Believe me, I’ve seen the results.
At around 9:45 am, I started to ‘work’ on my car when the family started to come out with buckets of foaming water, ready to clean their car. Within minutes, the shrieks and screams could be heard a mile off. The sleepy Sunday morning was rent with the noise.
Being ‘concerned’, I approached the distraught family and enquired what had happened. I was shown the damage, it was impressive. The blister on the bonnet had already burst and the one on the boot was due any minute.
I looked the woman in the eye and exclaimed, ‘Little pricks, I wonder if it’s the same ones who scratched my car?’
She looked back at me and knew it was me who had vandalized her car but there was nothing she could say or do. Several of the neighbors bought me pints in the local bar that Sunday lunchtime.”
The New Girlfriend Liked To Party Too Much
“In the early eighties, we lived in a trailer park in Cocoa, Florida. We just had our first child and had him home for two weeks. Our neighbor was a single man who traveled a lot for his job. We hardly ever saw him. Right after we brought the baby home, he got a new girlfriend. He moved her in and left to go on the road for two weeks. Every night she had people over and blasted loud music for hours often until two or three am. We tried talking to her, but she just laughed it off. The trailer park management company did not respond to calls.
What she did not know was how the electricity for the park worked. A pole was set up at the middle trailer for every five railers. That was the trailer we were in. The pole had a fuse box with a 60 amp fuse for each trailer clearly marked with the lot number. Electric service was included in the lot rent so each pole had one meter servicing all five boxes. This was five feet from my back door on the opposite side of my trailer from this neighbor.
After the first four nights of no sleep for us or the baby, I decided on what to do. There were no locks on any of the fuse boxes. So when the party hit full swing, I would step out my back door, pull the fuse holder from the neighbor’s box, and lay it on top. The power would go out and the party would be over.
The new girlfriend had no more luck with the management company than I did. Calling the power company resulted in a no problem found report. I always stuck the fuse back in when her guests left.
When our neighbor returned, he came over to ask us if we had any electrical issues. I told him what had been going on and what I did. The new girlfriend was moved out the same day. His next girlfriend was brought to meet us before he left town. She was a delightful person we got along well with. He never told the first girlfriend what I had done. I guess she always thought that trailer parks had lousy electrical service.”
‘Abandoned’ Car
“We lived on a cul-de-sac and apparently my neighbor’s brother in law lost his job so he, his wife, and their two kids moved in to live with my neighbor until he could find work.
The only problem was, they left their old beat up car parked sitting two feet from the curb and right at the end of our driveway. So every time we backed out of our driveway, it took several attempts to get our car out without hitting his beater. I even asked a few times if they could at least move the car down a little or closer to the curb, but nothing ever happened.
Then one day, I came home and the car, still sitting in the same spot had a flat tire. After the car continued to sit in the same place with the flat tire for two weeks, I called the sheriff and said that someone had apparently abandoned a car on our street.
We got home from dinner that night and surprisingly a sheriff deputy had shown up that very night with a tow truck and was hauling off the car. It was a pretty quiet street and everyone including my neighbor was standing in the cul-de-sac watching the show. The brother in law was trying to convince the deputy to leave the car, but mine was apparently not the only complaint and the deputy was not having any of it. The car was getting towed and he was going to have to pay to get it out of impound.
The only problem as soon as we got out of our car, my five year old announced to the neighbor, ‘My dad called the sheriff about that car.’
I just looked at him and said, ‘Sorry, I tried to get him to move it.’
He leaned in and said, ‘No problem. Thank you, I wanted to have it towed a month ago. I am just hoping they will move out now.’
Sure enough, the next week my neighbor’s house guests left.”
