In case you’re unfamiliar, a “Karen” is described as an angry and entitled woman who throws temper tantrums when she doesn’t get her way. Karens are closed-minded individuals who demand things beyond the scope of what is normal. Unfortunately for these folks, they lived next door to a couple of Karens. People share the stupid reasons Karens called 911 on them. This content has been edited for clarity.
Privacy Fence
“When I first bought my house in 1997, there was an older woman living next door. She had wanted the extra land to expand her yard but lost her chance when I purchased it. I was cleaning brush out of the yard one day as the house had sat empty for about 10 years when the cops showed up.
They were wanting to know what I was doing on private property. I told them I was the new property owner and was clearing my yard out. When I showed them my sales contract, they left with no problem. Next, I moved my old car into the yard and threw a tarp over it. When I stopped by later, there was a tow ticker on it saying ‘abandoned vehicle in empty lot.’
I took my title, deed, and ID to the police station and asked when they were called about the car. The woman next door had watched me leave and then called thinking they’d tow it immediately. The next few visits from the cops went as follows: ‘complaint of indecent exposure’ because I was working in my yard in a bathing suit top, the rain from my gutter got her sidewalk wet, the wind blew my leaves onto her laundry, and the dust from my yard got on her grass.
That was my last straw. I put up a seven-foot stockade fence in between our houses which finally got her to shut up for a while. I was laying out in the sun one day and heard the by-then familiar knock. They asked if I was walking around my yard nude.
‘Nope,’ I said.
‘Your neighbor said you are.’
‘How did she see me over a seven-foot tall privacy fence?’ I asked.
Apparently, she was up in her bedroom and looked down over the fence. Uncertain, she went downstairs and got a kitchen chair to stand on so she could see over the fence. The cops told her if she called them one more time about me minding my own business on my own property, they would charge her with a violation of my rights to peaceful enjoyment of my property. The old hateful bat finally moved away.”
Wrong Idea
“A few weeks after I moved into a two-bedroom flat with my daughters, I was in the kitchen making breakfast when I heard a knock on my door. I wasn’t expecting anyone, but I opened the door anyway, thinking it was one of my neighbors. It turned out to be two police officers.
The tallest one asked, ‘Are you Miss Bimi?’
‘Yes, how can I help?’ I asked in a confused voice.
‘Can we come in?’ he asked.
I had no reason to refuse the police access to my flat and I really wanted to know why they came, so I invited them in. After I took a seat in the living room, they explained they received a few calls from a concerned citizen for my daughters’ wellbeing. At that point, I was totally lost. Why would anyone be concerned about my kids? After I broke up with their dad, I quit my job to take care of them and thought I was doing a pretty good job.
They were well fed, clothed, and never missed school even though it was quite a journey from our new place, so what was there to be worried about? I told the officers I didn’t see why anyone would be concerned, we had just moved there, were getting used to living on our own, and didn’t know the neighbors that well. They said that they knew I just moved in and they wanted to clarify a few things with me.
‘What is your profession?’ the officer asked.
‘I’m currently unemployed,’ I replied.
‘How do you provide for yourself and the children?’ he asked.
‘I saved enough money to be off work for a year or so, can I ask what this is about?’ I said.
They looked at each other and the tallest one said, ‘People reported suspicious activity on your property.’
By suspicious activity, they meant prostitution. One of my neighbors called the police because they saw different men come and go from my flat and they thought they were my ‘customers.’
They called the cops and said, ‘It’s never the same guy and she always dresses sexy. What kind of daughters can a woman like that raise? You need to help those poor girls.’
It was so ridiculous I burst out laughing. I apologized to the officers and explained that the different men who came to see me were just tradesmen. I had an electrician, engineer, and plumber pay me a visit because there was a lot of work to be done on the property and they just happened to be men.
I understood the person’s concern for my daughters but I’m not a prostitute and there was nothing illegal going on. I told the police they were free to investigate if they had any concerns. I still don’t know who called the cops on me to this day, and I didn’t know wearing sexy clothes makes a woman a prostitute.”
Miss Helen
“When we moved in, we had six children who were 14 and under. Our neighbors on one side were generous, friendly people with similar values and four children who were all teenagers or adults. On the other side, was an older couple in their late 60s with one grown daughter.
The husband was a friendly, sweet man. The wife was a pompous shrew. They were both retired college professors, but she still did a bit of research on the side. They had one adult daughter who was, of course, perfect in comparison to my younger (by 30 years) hooligans. The husband died and the wife became even more obnoxious.
One day, my eight-year-old was playing with his buddies and had leaned his scooter against the curb near the opening of her driveway to keep it out of the road but still quickly accessible. While still on the side of a public street, it was apparently too close to her property because she came zipping around the corner and started to turn into her driveway when she saw his scooter.
She dipped the wheel a bit and crushed his scooter under her wheels. He was heartbroken because he thought he was doing the right thing by keeping it out of the road. She continued to do mean, petty things like that. For example, she allowed the pears on her tree that was right on our property line rot rather than allowing the kids to eat the ones that had fallen on the ground (after they knocked and asked politely).
The police were called because of the rudest, most horrendous, and vile act my four and eight-year-old sons could have possibly imagined. They were watching the fireflies on a summer night while sitting in the sideyard eating ice cream out of small glass bowls. When we called them in for bedtime, they inexplicably left those two bowls sitting in our side yard.
The bowls were out there from 8 pm until 10 am the next morning when a police officer knocked on our door, holding the two small bowls. He told us that Miss Helen (as my children called her) had called with a complaint that we were allowing our property to be overrun with garbage, broken toys, and weeds. Our yard was professionally maintained by a lawn care service and we would never keep broken items on our property, which was very clear when he pulled up.
He said he had to search to find anything wrong until she came out and pointed to the bowls. He let us know the complaint would not be recorded as an official ‘issue’ because there was no merit but warned us that she had called about other things with other neighbors, so it might escalate. It did.
A few weeks later, we were roasting marshmallows in our backyard fire pit. There was a light scent of woodsmoke in the air, nothing overwhelming and certainly did not constitute her reaction. When we were getting everyone into bed after baths, prayers, and stories, we heard sirens. We live near the fire station so that wasn’t unusual, but these seemed to be coming closer. My husband and I had just climbed into bed with the lights off when we knew the sirens were turning into our street.
When the flashing lights and the spotlight lit up our bedroom, we realized they were at our house! My husband ran downstairs to answer the pounding on the door and found out there had been a report of a house fire at our address. He showed them the long-cooled (and wet) fire pit and explained we had been roasting s’mores an hour before.
They all rolled their eyes and told us this was the second time that week they had been called to our street. The last time for a ‘house fire’ in the house on the other side of Miss Helen– a family with four kids who also enjoyed their fire pit on summer evenings.”
Suspicious Behavior
“My husband and I had just come home from my birthday dinner. He’d gone outside to get rid of some false widows (spiders) we had in our garden so the kids wouldn’t get bitten by them. I was heading up to bed when I heard a banging on the front door. I open up to see six police officers in front of me, with four more in their cars.
I was scared and had no idea what is going on.
One officer asked me, ‘Miss, are you in your house alone?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Who else is in this house with you?’ they asked.
‘My in-laws and my husband,’ I replied.
‘Where is your husband, miss?’ they asked.
‘Outside in the garden, killing spiders, may I ask why?’ I replied.
The police officer looked at me and said he needed to go outside to talk to him. I showed them the way and they went outside to investigate.
Then they came back and said, ‘We are sorry to disturb you this evening, but someone had phoned in saying they believed somebody was being murdered.’
Someone had called and said they saw a flashlight in the back and heard somebody shouting ‘die, die, die.’ They looked around the garden and the house then went outside and stayed for about 30 minutes. It was still the best birthday I’ve ever had to this day.”
Snow Storm
“During a very bad snowstorm, we had trees down and others that appeared to be about to fall on one of my father’s buildings. The logical thing to do would be to cut the trees down before they caused damage. However, according to a neighbor, the sound of the chainsaw was unacceptable, so they decided to call the police.
The police had their own agenda and did not care whether the trees fell on the property or not. They wanted to know if we had a permit to cut the trees down as they might be heritage trees. It got more interesting as the town only had one person who could issue a permit and they could not make it to the office because of the storm and a tree that had fallen on their own house.
I asked the police officer if I should just let the tree fall down and possibly hurt a tenant or if I should go ahead and let our maintenance man cut down the trees. The police officer could not make a decision and said it would have to wait. At that point, I was flabbergasted by the system and its wisdom. The snowstorm was going to continue and I hoped it would cover the roof with enough snow to at least cushion the fall of the trees.
About 12 hours later at 3:00 am, I was certain I heard at least one tree fall. I assumed it hit the roofline and since we felt nothing in the office, it must have been cushioned. In the morning, to my surprise, I heard the staff laughing and joking. I thought they were happy the trees had not caused damage. Instead, I learned the trees had fallen the other way onto the neighbor’s house.
I could not believe it, but it was true. They had caused some minor damage and then the neighbor tried to say we had not taken action. There was no point in arguing as the irrationality had taken another turn. Even years later, I still find this incident funny. If the neighbor had just let us cut the trees down, nothing at all would have happened. Thankfully, nobody was hurt and the damage was all repaired.”
Halloween Party
“We lived next door to a family we called The Dursleys. They were clearly muggles because they were as unmagical and as unfriendly as the fictional family that mistreated poor Harry Potter. This house was situated at the top of a hill with a long slope behind it and we were good friends with the family living in the house directly below. For the purpose of this anecdote, I’ll call them the “Lovegood” family.
The Lovegoods were a typical family. Peter, Theresa, and their three rambunctious and energetic boys. Their kids were great friends with mine. Peter Lovegood wasn’t just a cop, he was a DEA agent and although he looked harmless, he was actually pretty badass. Once a year around Halloween, the Lovegoods always threw a big Halloween party. Most of the people on their street were invited.
Oddly, most of their neighbors were also cops of some sort and pretty much the rest of the invited guests were also in law enforcement. Except for us. We were probably the only non-cop family at this event. Their Halloween parties usually went on until pretty late. They weren’t terribly loud as parties go, but there was music and laughter. We could hear it from our house at the top of the hill but it was nothing I would have complained about if I weren’t there.
Around 10 pm, there was a loud knock at the door. Someone answered it and there were two uniformed cops standing there. It turned out they were there on a noise complaint from a neighbor. However, as soon as the door was opened, they realized who lived there and that they knew most of the guests. They came inside, had something to eat and drink (SODAS! Don’t get excited!), chatted a bit, laughed about the ‘noise complaint,’ and left. The party continues until around 2 am.
As my husband was getting into his car the next morning, he was approached by an unusually happy Mr. Dursley. Dursley came up to him with a goofy smile on his face and said, ‘Hey! Did you hear that awful party last night?’
My husband didn’t miss a beat and said, ‘Yeah we were there, it was great! But can you believe it? Some asshole called the cops! It didn’t matter though because Peter is a cop and he knew them. They stopped to have something to eat and everyone had a laugh about some idiot complaining about a party at 10 o’clock.’
Poor Dursley lost his shit eating grin and skulked back into his cave, undoubtedly cursing us under his breath the whole way. We never became friendly with the Dursley’s. They are probably still there yelling at kids to get off their lawn. It was a weird neighborhood.”
The Last Laugh
“We own a home on the water in Washington state. It includes ownership of the tidelands in front of the property out to the low low tide mark. One day, my mother-in-law was out on the beach digging clams. She is a non-English speaking Asian woman.
She came back after half an hour and told my wife the neighbor guy (who has always been a grumpy old cuss) had been yelling at her saying she couldn’t dig clams there. My wife went down with her to resume digging. He came charging out onto my tidelands and demanded they stop and to see fishing licenses. He said he was a retired Fish and Game officer and that he was going to call and report them.
My wife was upset but just ignored him, so he stalked off to his house and they continued to collect the tasty bivalves. I got home a short while later and was there for a few minutes when I heard a knock on the door. I answered to find a Fish and Game warden standing on my porch. I asked what was up.
He said he had a report of illegal shell fishing on the beach. I called my wife and mother-in-law up and asked what was going on. They told of their encounter with Mr. Grumpy pants including his claim to have been a F&G warden. The F&G officer asked the key questions, ‘Is this your property? Do you own the tidelands?’ The answer was yes to both.
‘Thank you very much. Because you own the tidelands, all the shellfish in the tidelands belong to you and no license is required to harvest them. Sorry to bother you,’ he said.
He then walked next door and proceeded to read the riot act to my neighbor including threatening to haul him in for impersonating a State official. Never had another issue with the old cuss. The last laugh is the best laugh.”
Raging Party
“It was 1964 and I was a freshman in college in Chicago that fall. I was hanging out with a crowd who would now be called ‘nerds,’ although the term wasn’t invented till later. We were all STEM majors. Most of the kids were into playing chess and there were a couple of rated masters in the group. We used to have a party every Saturday evening.
One night, the party was at a big house in Evanston, an upscale suburb north of Chicago. There were a few beers, loud music on the stereo, and about 20 or so kids laying about all over the floors playing chess.
At some point, the neighbors called the cops about the wild, noisy party. A squad car pulled into the driveway and two cops came in through the wide-open door. They saw all these kids laying about the floor playing chess. They walked through the living room, the dining room, and the den– all filled with chess games. There was loud rock & roll on the stereo, and nobody was saying a word, just intent on chess.
None of the kids even noticed the officers walking through. Finally, the cops went upstairs. One bedroom had another three chess games. Still, nobody noticed them walking in or walking out. In the second bedroom, one of the guys who was a rated chess master, was playing four simultaneous chess games with four different opponents, sitting in the middle of four boards. He finally noticed the two cops.
He immediately picked up another chess board, held it out to them, and asked, ‘Game?’ Somebody in the living room looked up and saw them going out the door, shaking their heads.”
Backfired
“I cut down a tree in my yard because it was dying from ant damage. It wasn’t a crazy large tree, maybe 10-12 feet, but I didn’t want it hitting the car or house. My neighbor called the police saying I was vandalizing public property. The police showed up with me on a ladder hacking away smaller limbs with a folding saw.
They told me to come down and asked what I was doing. Me not realizing what was going on just burted out, ‘Cutting down a dead tree in my yard so it doesn’t hit the car.’ They then started to leave and my neighbor ran out of the house screaming. He said the cops should do their job and arrest me for cutting down the tree because it shaded their bedroom window from the morning sun and how the tree belonged to him even though it was on my side of the fence because part of it grew over to their side, bla bla bla.
Then the idiot grabbed the cop and got arrested for assaulting an officer. Over the two years we were neighbors before that, I don’t think I had said two words to the guy, so this whole thing caught me completely off guard.”
Public Indecency
“It was when I was in college. I lived at home with my mother. I was taking a shower when the phone started ringing. After the answering machine picked up, the caller immediately hung up and the phone started to ring again. I knew then that it was important so I hurried and finished my shower, threw on my undies and bra, and bathrobe, and went to see if the caller had finally left a message. It was my mom—she needed me to call her at work immediately. I called back right away.
My parents were divorced and my father had called her at work to tell her something he’d forgotten to let her know the day before— he had sent a check for a very large amount and he had sent it overnight. The delivery was guaranteed to arrive before 10:30 am and he wanted to make sure we got it from the mailbox as soon as possible.
I ran outside in a danged bathrobe over my bra and undies with warm socks and slippers on my feet. We had a long front walkway and a long driveway so it was a good distance to the mailbox. I got out there, found the envelope, and started back for the house. Part way up the driveway, I really began to wonder what was in it for me, so I took a moment to open the envelope.
Inside, there were two business-sized envelopes, one with my mom’s name, and one with mine. In my envelope, I found an extremely generous check, much larger than the usual amount of money he’d just randomly send me, and a sweet and loving letter telling me he was proud of me, proud of my grades, and that he loved and missed me.
I stood out there in the driveway in my robe and slippers for maybe five minutes looking at the mail and then I went back in the house. I started heading for the bathroom so I could brush my teeth when the doorbell rang. It was two police officers: one male and one female. They were responding to a complaint and asked for me by name.
I identified myself and invited them to come inside, since it was starting to rain, but they politely declined, and then asked if I’d been outside recently. I told them I had. They asked what I’d been wearing. I gestured to myself and just said, ‘This. I was just going to go get dressed when you rang the bell.’
They both burst out laughing and then they told me the nature of the complaint and that the caller said I was ‘unclothed.’ The woman was practically snorting with laughter as she told me if a bathrobe was unclothed, she was a nudist once she got home from her shift since the first thing she did was put on her pajamas and a robe. They were both laughing so hard I started laughing, too.
They had told me that the complaint involved five young boys, so I knew exactly which neighbor had called the police on me— he was a real weirdo. They said they were going to go talk to the person who complained and I pointed to his house. After a really nice apology for disturbing me, they left.”
