Sometimes neighbors are like siblings. You can get along with them one minute, and hate them the next. Unfortunately, living next to them is inevitable until one of you takes taps out and moves away. Far away. But for some people, waiting for the best opportunity to strike back works out better for them. Here, residents share the petty victories they had over their entitled neighbors.
All stories have been edited for clarity.
Do I Know You?
“We live in an apartment block. One day we encountered a new resident. She was a short, red hair lady that had a resting “you know what” face.
As we were walking past her, my boyfriend greeted her with a simple ‘Hello’. The lady stopped and looked him up and down. Not catching onto her attitude quick enough, he also tried to say, ‘Welcome to the neighborhood,’ but she cut him off.
‘Shut up! Why are you even talking to me? I don’t know you.’ My boyfriend was stunned but shrugged and walked away. We quickly learned she wasn’t the sociable type.
A few days later, we were returning from grocery shopping when we found her trying to pick the lock to her place with what looked like a paperclip. She apparently had been at it a while because before we could open the door with our key, a patrol car pulled up and an officer called out to her.
We stopped to watch what was happening. The officer rushed over and asked her why she was breaking in. She responded with a suddenly friendly tone. ‘Oh, I live here. I’m just locked out.’ She turned to us and said, ‘They know me.’
My boyfriend suddenly flashed an evil smile and said, ‘ No, I don’t know you.’
We entered our unit, stifling laughter. The officer called out to us and asked, ‘You don’t know this woman?’
‘We don’t know her,’ my boyfriend said again and closed the door.
We can’t wait to get to know her!”
Peeping Surprise
“Years ago I moved into an apartment. At the time, I was a twenty-one-year-old guy.
I was courteous to all my neighbors and would chat here and there with most of the neighbor ladies who were all nice. All except for this nosy neighbor. She thought she was the queen of the street and she felt like she just HAD to know what everyone was doing all the time.
My nosy neighbor would constantly try to look through my windows to see what was going on in my apartment. If I had to guess, she was about sixty-five years old. I would always see her craning her neck and heading around to see into my apartment. I tried to confront her by knocking on her door and asking her to stop, but she would never answer her door. It was a hopeless, weird situation.
After about six months of this, I decided to give her something to look at.
One morning, I took a shower, put on a robe, and went out to the sunroom. I looked around the street to make sure no one was out. I mainly wanted to make sure the woman was making her rounds so I could catch her in the act.
There she was craning her neck trying to look through my CLOSED curtains. With my robe still on, I quickly opened the curtains. Seeing her there, I opened my robe in full view, in the middle of that window.
I thought she had a heart attack. Her face contorted and she grabbed her chest.
Of course, my neighbor called the cops.
Well, the cops showed up at her place and then came over to mine. I had gotten dressed at this point, so I went downstairs to open the door and talked to them because I already knew what it was about.
The cop had a blank face on his face. ‘Yea, we got a report of you standing naked in front of your window.’
‘Yea, wanna know why?’ I said. ‘I’ll tell ya. Ever since I moved into my apt, that old hag has been damn near breaking her neck to try to look into my apartment every day. I’ve tried to ask her to stop but she never answers her door. I finally got tired of her being a peeping tom and gave her something to look at!’
Both cops burst out laughing. I think one had tears in his eyes.
‘Ok. I’ll go talk to her and tell her that she can actually be arrested for peeping and making a false report. Do you wanna press charges?’ the cop said in between breaths.
‘Nah, I think she learned her lesson.’ I said with a grin.
‘Just make sure no one’s around if you have to do that again,’ the cop warned while still laughing.
The cops left while still laughing. That old woman never tried to look into my house again.”
Special Delivery
“Many years ago, my grandpa lived in this neighborhood made of old houses. One of his neighbors would intentionally walk his dog on my grandpa’s lawn. The dog would poop on the lawn, but this neighbor never it up. It pissed my grandpa off every single time.
My grandpa started coming out to yell at his neighbor when he caught him in the act. The neighbor ignored my grandpa and made it a habit just because he knew it made my grandfather upset.
Eventually, my grandpa stopped going out to yell at the guy.
As weeks, went by of the same morning shenanigans, I noticed my grandpa going out after his neighbor left after his dog did his business.
About a month later, I went to my grandpa’s house. He was walking out of the house carrying a five-gallon paint bucket. Across the street, his neighbor was standing outside about to take his dog on a walk.
My grandpa made full eye contact with his neighbor while my he dumped the contents of the five-gallon bucket in the middle of the neighbor’s lawn. It was completely full of dog poop.
Ever since then, he didn’t walk his dog on my grandpa’s lawn anymore.”
And The Oscar Goes To…
“My neighbors wouldn’t stop smoking on the balcony. The smoke swept into my apartment at all hours of the night. There was a designated smoking area but apparently, that was inconvenient for them.
One afternoon, I bought a massive water gun and waited until it was good and dark outside. When the smoking began, I stepped silently onto my balcony and sprayed as much ice-cold water as I could in their direction.
I heard them yelp in shock as I quickly retreated back into my apartment. My heart was racing but it was a huge thrill.
My neighbors had no way of knowing it was me, but they did know I often complained about them. The next day, I acted as if nothing had happened and said hi to them, flashing the best smile I could muster.
I held my breath when they immediately began to accuse me. I acted like I was appalled before they admitted they didn’t know for sure what had happened. I deserved an Oscar for my stunt.
I said things like, ‘Are you sure it wasn’t raining? Maybe another neighbor smelled smoke and thought there was a fire?’
After I was done talking with them, I went back home and laughed my ass off.”
Bad Neighbor
“Our upstairs neighbor let her boyfriend move in with her.
Every single night after he moved in, he either had the cops called on him or had noise complaints hurled in his direction. Amazingly, our neighbor’s boyfriend complained to the landlord that we were the ones making too much noise.
Most of the time these complaints were during times we were all asleep. At some point we got fed up, so we decided to start filing noise complaints back because they were MUCH louder and constantly waking our toddler up.
We tried our best to keep the noise down, but we had never been that loud and the prior tenants never had an issue with us. Our upstairs neighbor didn’t even have an issue with us until her boyfriend moved in.
We were at our breaking point and complained for what felt like the hundred time to our landlord. Seeing how frustrated we were, our landlord told us to let him know if their dogs were making too much noise so he could have a consecutive log of proof for him actually being the troublemaker.
After listening to their dog yip for three hours straight, I decided to say something. Lo and behold about twenty minutes later the cops showed up at MY door. Luckily the cops were very polite and just wanted to squash things. Supposedly there was a complaint that my child had been crying for hours. However, you my child hadn’t cried all day.
They ask to see my daughter, so I showed them how she was content and clearly hadn’t been crying at all. The cops apologized and went on their way.
Moments later, my neighbor’s boyfriend stomped down as loud as he could and shouted, ‘You wanna say that I make too much noise!?’
He started yelling and swearing at us through the floor. We made countless attempts to get him to come downstairs but he refused and started blasting music as loud as he could.
We recorded his dramatic outburst and sent it to our landlord. We knew we did the right thing, but couldn’t resist being a little petty.
My boyfriend is very into music and audio production, so we have a really high-quality sound system. We proceed to play music as loud as we could once our baby was equipped with ear muffs.
After we stopped, my neighbor’s boyfriend was silent. His girlfriend arrived shortly after and started screaming at him for his behavior. We later found out how he was very abusive toward her. The dude was a piece of garbage.
The icing on the cake was the landlord coming over to tell him he had to move out as soon as possible.
He is no longer allowed on the property. It was a huge win for us.”
Greenthumb
“My husband and I bought a house in an awesome neighborhood five years ago. I landed a much better job so we were fortunate to be able to move somewhere better suited for our oldest son and set of twins. We also have a small Bichon and a large white Golden Doodle.
When we moved in, almost every neighbor of mine worked at the same place I worked. We all got along great with the exception of our entitled neighbor who was one of my supervisors at our place of employment.
My supervisor-neighbor hybrid decided that because she outranked me at work she could also boss me around at home.
Big…. Fat…. NO.
We had some disagreements within weeks of me settling in, but mostly avoided each other unless she yelled from her backyard to ours about whatever it was she was pissed about that day.
My neighbor had three monstrous dogs that barked and snarled at us through the privacy fence separating our yards. They sometimes climbed the fence, forcing me to snatch up my kids and run into the house before they could get over to us. It was a nightmare living with those demons nearby.
Another disagreement my neighbor and I had involved how our properties were connected to one another with a 6ft x 220ft city leeway between.
NEITHER of us was supposed to use this area because it was for city workers to access gas lines.
My neighbor grew rhubarb here. It was her pride and joy because of how huge and beautiful they were. Every now and then, my golden doodle would also launch herself over the chain link and run along their privacy fence barking back with their dogs.
One morning, my neighbor’s dogs were out around five in the morning. The neighbor next to them got home from his shift at six prepared to sleep. The dogs would NOT shut up, and my neighbor would NOT bring them in.
Finally, our other neighbor had enough of it and called the police to complain. This was not the first time they left their dogs out to terrorize the neighborhood.
An officer that lived across the block happened to be on shift in the area, so he stopped by to ask my neighbor to bring her dogs in because they were disturbing neighbors during quiet hours.
Instead of complying, my neighbor immediately started recording him and said he was harassing her in her home. This didn’t faze the officer. He had to explain the situation through the locked door before he left.
All our neighbor had to do was bring in her dogs and not let them out during quiet hours if she knew they were going to bark. But instead, she called the police station and told them OUR dogs were the ones making all the noise.
That same morning, the same officer stopped by our house a few hours later to let us know what she said and to ask us to keep the dogs in the fence. We tried explaining our dogs had been inside all morning but we couldn’t deny how our big dog could clear the back fence from time to time to play with the other dogs.
Not wanting to cause any more trouble, we added height to the fence right then and there so our dog wouldn’t be able to jump over it anymore. Soon after, my dog tried to hop the fence again but failed. The officer was satisfied and thanked us for cooperating before he left. Problem solved.
My neighbor watched us the entire time. After the officer left, she yelled at me from her back porch, ‘You really think that’s going to make a difference?!’ She was pointing to the fence topper we added.
‘When it does, you won’t be able to blame our dogs anymore and I’d like to see you lie to the police then!’ I snapped back. My neighbor scowled and cursed at me before she went back inside.
A few days later, justice was finally served.
Another noise complaint prompted the police to pay us another visit. This time, the police found out my neighbor lied to them after looking at our fence and determining there was no way our dogs could jump over their 6.5 ft privacy fence to be barking in her backyard.
They also noticed the rhubarb and asked me whose it was. I held my head high and told them my neighbor has had it that for years.
They gave her a two-thousand and five hundred dollar ticket for blocking a city leeway. My neighbor was then ordered to remove every plant in that designated area including her precious rhubarb.
This was all because she couldn’t take responsibility for her barking monsters.
We sat in our lawn chairs around our fire pit and watched as she removed each plant by hand.”
In Living Color
“About ten years ago in a medium-sized city in Indiana, I moved into a house and had it painted to a new color scheme. It looked nice but it turned out a little different from the surrounding homes.
It wasn’t pink, yellow, or anything stupid. Despite this, some wackadoodle across the street came over and said it looked horrible and demanded I change it.
At first, I tried to humor him. I went around and asked four other neighbors what they thought about the new paint job. None of them had an issue at all. In fact, one of my neighbors thought it was a rather nice improvement.
When I ran into the neighbor that complained, I told him no one else had an issue with my house, so he could kick rocks.
Of course, that only made him even more upset. He got red in the face and shouted,’I’ve got deep pockets! If you don’t change it, I’m getting a lawyer!’
I shrugged and told him to go ahead. I then added in a cheery, ‘Have a nice day!’ and went on about my day.
As weeks went by, the few lawyers he reached out to told him he had no case. My bitter neighbor then tried to form an HOA. He held meeting after meeting and paid someone to draw up the proposed rules. He really tried, but not a single neighbor jumped up and down at the idea of an HOA. His investments were all a ginormous waste.
He had failed and just wouldn’t stop bitching about it.
Seeing his failure, I decided to kick him while he was down.
I already owned several rental properties and was always on the hunt for more. When the houses next door to him were selling, I ended up buying them but never told my neighbor. I picked up the first one in early fall and the other in the winter, so when summer rolled around I had both of my new properties painted the exact same as mine.
He was sooooo pissed!
The real kicker was I bought them in 2009 and 2010. I sold them last year for a very, VERY nice profit.
Thanks irrationally angry man!”
My Spot!
“I live in a small complex with a communal parking lot and no reserved spaces. On my wife’s birthday, she invited a friend over to go out to celebrate.
When her friend showed up, there happened to be a tree that had fallen in the lot that blocked half of the parking spaces off while it was being cleared. The only spot she could get to was one of the two disabled spots in the lot.
This wasn’t a problem, because my wife’s friend had a valid handicap tag, which was displayed. When my wife’s friend came inside, she asked if it was fine for her to park there, and I, completely unaware of the drama that would take place, said yes.
Once we were ready to go out, we went outside and noticed a car directly behind our friend, blocking her in.
The other disabled spot was empty.
I immediately recognized the car was our neighbor’s who usually parked in the spot my wife’s friend parked in. I genuinely didn’t think it would be an issue because there were two handicapped spots, and the second handicapped spot was even closer to the building.
I told the apartment manager to please have her move her car by morning. We went out for a nice night of clubbing and got home at 3 am. To our amazement, the car was still blocked in, and the other disabled spot was still empty.
Seeing that I had no choice, I called the police. Once they showed up, the cops looked at the way our neighbor was parked and started laughing.
‘Why didn’t she just park in the next spot?’ one of the cops asked.
I told them, I didn’t know. It certainly was an odd thing to do.
‘Well, let’s go wake her up and ask!’ The cop chimed. He and his partner approached her door cop-knocked to wake her up. Our neighbor showed up at the door in a gown. When the cops told her to move her car, she began yelling at them.
‘That’s MY spot,’ she screeched. ‘ I’m teaching someone a lesson!’
Frowning, the cop explained to her she did not have a personal spot, and there was ANOTHER ONE RIGHT NEXT TO IT, that was even closer to her door.
The woman went back and forth with the cop. I couldn’t believe how bitter our neighbor actually was.
Running out of patience, the cop told her to move the car immediately.
‘You may want to think about what your next move is going to be,’ the cop warned. ‘Because it could be your next move that sends you to jail tonight.’
The woman had a fit but retrieved her keys so she could move the car. My neighbor never spoke to me again. However, we found out she also yelled at the apartment manager when he asked her to move it.
It turned out she was behind on her rent, so they started eviction proceedings. The manager then paid me one hundred and fifty bucks just to take her boxed-up stuff and throw it in the building’s dirty basement.
Karma is awesome!”
