Sometimes, our neighbors really push our buttons. It can get so bad, we're pushed to our breaking point. When that happens, sometimes we need to call in reinforcements.
People who have called the cops on their neighbors share the reason why. Content has been edited for clarity.
That Turned Into A Huge Scandal
“I caught my neighbor’s boyfriend using his truck to pull out fence posts I had just installed on a lot just acquired. I called the police and went up to take pictures of the mess, the ground was rutted up, empty holes where the fence posts had been put in, footprints, etc. The neighbor woman came flying out of her house in her bathrobe, screaming at me. She came walking over to my side of the property line, and I told her she was trespassing and to get off my property and never step on it again.
I used a stapler to put a ‘No Trespassing’ sign on a post that was still there. While I was doing so, a state trooper showed up and she yelled to the state trooper I tried to hit her with the stapler. The boyfriend then came back and then he came right up to me, stood with his nose about two inches from mine, and challenged me to ‘settle it like men.’ I simply told him to get off MY property. I showed the state troopers the deed, survey and where the stakes had just been put in the ground by the surveyor. Instead of arresting the boyfriend, they tell me it was a civil matter and I would have to sue in court.
That night, the survey stakes were pulled out. I filed suit against the two and during pre-trial discovery, found out the boyfriend was a cop in a nearby city. I won the case, and the neighbor woman had to pay for a resurvey by my surveyor and to have new stakes placed again. So instead of the livestock fence, I was going to put in, I had a contractor with a post driver come in and drive eight-inch round fence posts every ten feet all along the property line. Then I cut each of her trees back to the property line.
Any over-hanging branches were slashed back to the property line. Then I found soap suds in my pasture, I went looking and it seemed a drain had been run 50 feet out into my pasture and laundry soap water was draining from her basement out into my property. So I mixed a bucket of concrete and plugged the drain pipe. A week later, her basement flooded. She put in a storage shed and had it placed along the property line. I called the township and reported her for not keeping the ten-foot set back open. She had to move the shed.
I found out from another neighbor, her 24-year-old son would sit on the front porch and shoot a pellet at my cattle. I set up a camera and caught him. His cruelty to animal charge was all over the local news. Then he was involved in a fatal hit-and-run with the boyfriend’s car. It was all over the news the officer’s car was involved in the hit-and-run. He was interviewed and said the car had been used without permission. The mangled car was in the neighbor woman’s garage. I tipped off a reporter where to look for the car, and the reporter got pictures through the garage window. She finally moved away.”
Good Riddance
“We used to live next to an idiot who liked to fire his weapons fifty yards from our house.
Loaded weapons laws are pretty loose around here, but you cannot fire one right next to a residence. You especially cannot do so when you are hammered and shooting at lizards, real or imagined, in the direction of your neighbor’s home.
This idiot wasn’t a good shot anyway. He’d wait until late in the evening, when he was sufficiently trashed, at which point he’d empty his seven-round magazine into the bushes behind his house. On the other side of those bushes was a wooden fence, and roughly fifty yards from that was the exterior wall of my bedroom. Needless to say that it scared the heck out of me when it first happened, so I called 911 while my husband – assuming that the neighbors were in trouble – grabbed a weapon and headed over to check on them.
Imagine his surprise when he found not a single murderer or home invader, only a redneck shooting at lizards. He was freaking furious when he explained to the moron he had to account for what was behind his target. Since the dude was too weapon to notice the weapon in Tony’s hand, he tore into him about being a weapon-hating idiot. He raved about his rights and (for some reason) the Declaration Of Independence, but he did agree to put the weapon down when my husband explained the deputies were on their way.
When they arrived, our former neighbor began to complain Tony was trespassing on his property. One of the deputies knew him, and I would have enjoyed watching the dude when the deputy responded by thanking Tony for his service and asking if he was home for good or if he’d be going back to Afghanistan. I didn’t see it, because I was hiding in the bathtub (I’d seen this in a movie), still thinking someone was murdering my neighbors.
You know that weird, unexpected clarity hammered people sometimes get? Well, Idiot Cowboy got that, and he became lucid enough to deny having fired the weapon. The deputies apparently did not feel like digging around for evidence in the bushes or calling in the CSI people, so they left after telling Idiot Cowboy’s wife to lock up the weapon. I was happy to get Tony back alive, but furious the neighbor had been shooting a weapon in our direction, and a bit irritated Tony’s response to finding me and the cat curled up in the fiberglass tub was to laugh at us.
Mr. Idiot Cowboy had several more incidents of trashed weapons play, and the sheriff’s department kept saying they needed evidence. Once, I was on the phone with them when he reloaded and fired seven more shots in quick succession, but he had locked himself in the house when they arrived. The fourth time they came out was when one of the deputies had the brilliant idea of running his name through the system. That was when they discovered Idiot Cowboy hit the trifecta: He was a convicted felon, had an unlicensed weapon, and unfortunately for him he also had a bit of pot in his truck.
That solved our problem. He was released on bail in a matter of weeks, but since he rented, he was also evicted.”
Leave Gemma Alone
“It was past midnight and I was just settling into my nice warm bed when the deafening howl of a man’s voice rang out through the night.
I wriggled further down under the covers and froze, mentally debating whether I should get out of bed to peek out of the window at where the noise had come from. At this point in my life, I was living in a slightly sketchy part of town that turned from a little hole in the wall hangout in the morning, to a place that required brisk walking and keys clutched tightly between your knuckles the moment the sun began to set.
Getting out from under the covers meant stepping into the frigid chill of winter, and potentially getting involved in something I wanted nothing to do with, so I huddled in bed, awaiting further developments. After all, it was quite common for hammered people to come staggering through my alleyway, and the man could have just stubbed his toe on a stray cinder block.
It didn’t take long before the next sound crashed through the night, however. Desperate thudding against a door, followed by the same voice, hoarse and wailing,
‘GEMMA, PLEEEAAASEEEE! LET ME IN!’ he yelled.
Phone in hand, I crept out of bed and scurried to the window to peek out from under the blind. There in the street stood a young man, fists raised above his head, slamming them into a door over and over again.
‘PLEEEEEEAASSEEEEEE!’ He howled again.
A light clicked on in the window above the door, and a young woman appeared, dragging the window open. She stood there, silent and impassive for a moment, before lifting something above her head and flinging it out of the window.
Beneath her, something shattered, and the man shrieked and leapt away. Before he had time to say anything, more objects began raining down out of the window and crashing about him. A string of expletives exploded out of the man as he ducked under a balcony to escape the torrent of falling objects.
Finally, the seemingly never ending cacophony and cascade of what appeared to be the young man’s belongings ended. The window across the street shut, the light went off, and the young woman disappeared from view as silence filled the night and the young man began to slouch off, hurling angry words into the air as he went.
I backed away from the window and turned around to climb back into my nice warm bed, when suddenly, I heard,
‘GEMMAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’
The thudding began anew, and right on cue, the light across the street flicked back on again and the young woman reappeared, holding something new above her head.
Oh, for heaven’s sake. I already had 99 dialed into my phone anyway, it didn’t take long to hit the final 9 and press call.”
He Can’t Steal What He Owns
“After living in the same house for 10 years and having the same motorcycle for five, I came home from work one Friday night. I went inside to change my clothes and came back out with tools to adjust the clutch cable. I was parked in the same spot, at the bottom of my steps, under a corner streetlight, where I had parked every day for the previous five years.
Within a few minutes, a police car pulled up with lights and siren. They had received a phone call from a neighbor, saying I was attempting to ‘hot wire’ a motorcycle. I explained the situation, how I had license and registration inside the house we were in front of that showed this is my address and my bike. I couldn’t possibly be stealing it.
Granted, it was 10PM, but it was well lit by the streetlight, and I would frequently sit on these same steps at this same time unwinding following my shift.
Police said I was in possession of ‘burglary tools’ (screwdriver, open end wrench, vise grip). They would not allow me to enter my own house ‘for our protection.’
So they cuffed me and put me in the back of the car in view of all my neighbors for a very long time while they put my name over the loud police radio announcing to my nosy neighbors I was an auto theft suspect. When I asked them to turn it down a little, they complied. This meant the neighbors never heard I was off the hook for auto theft.
They just saw the police drive away with me cuffed in the back because eight years prior while on a road trip out of state, I received a speeding ticket which I forgot to pay. I never received any mail about the old ticket, but apparently $65 overdue for eight years earns you a bench warrant attached to your name. Being late on Friday, I had to spend the entire weekend in jail (missing a shift at work ) before I could get someone to send a wire transfer to pay the fine so I could be released. I had enough cash in my wallet to pay, but that wallet was still inside my house, which they never let me enter. This also meant I had no money or phone on me for transportation the 15 miles back home. After walking 3 miles, I found a cab driver that trusted me and let me run inside for 10 seconds to pay him.
When I tell this story, I call it ‘The time I was arrested for stealing my own motorcycle.’ While that may not be technically accurate, it sure is what it looked like to my neighbors, who never even bothered to wave.”
What Was The Point Of That?
“Years ago, my ex-husband and I were taking an afternoon nap, when we awoke to the neighbors screaming fire! We ran to the door and opened it up, and saw the woman who lived there screaming the stove was on fire. When she saw my ex-husband, she screamed at him to get the heck out of there, so we did. We went downstairs and made sure the elderly landlady got out safely, and waited for the firefighters to arrive.
The neighbors were able to put it out before the firemen got there, thank goodness! We were sitting back in our apartment a couple of hours later when a knock came on the door. My ex-husband opened it, and there were two cops standing there. Seems, when they came to investigate the fire, the neighbors told them my ex-husband had started it. One of the officers took him outside to talk to him, and the other asked me what went on. I told him we were sleeping when it happened, and the ex’s story matched mine, so he wasn’t charged. The neighbor, however, got charged with making a false report.
We moved soon after.”
That’s Just Immature
“Just after my family and I moved into a somewhat snooty subdivision, we received a hand-delivered letter in our mailbox. It was from a crotchety old man complaining about how my grandmother’s dog, Frankie, peed on his yard. Frankie only peed, not pooped, on the edge of his yard. Which actually isn’t even his property because the frontage is owned and maintained by the subdivision, so there was no trespassing involved. But Mr. Crotchety felt the need to type out an entire page explaining why not even his dogs are allowed to urinate on his front yard because of the territorial nature of pac. Blah, blah, blah. So, we steered clear of his house.
Over time, my grandmother became friends with Mr. Crotchety’s next-door neighbor. She would walk to her friend’s house and then they would walk their dogs around the neighborhood, together. My grandmother, obliviously self-centered, didn’t know Mr. Crotchety’s relentless shouting had been directed at her, until one day he shot at her and Frankie with BB pellets. He had been shouting obscenities at them every time they walked near his house, never trespassing, but I guess that didn’t matter to him.
We called the police and filed a report. The sheriff went to Mr. Crotchety’s house and talked to him. Mr. Crotchety claimed to have video proof of my grandmother trespassing and leaving Frankie’s excrement behind. He wouldn’t hand over the alleged evidence because it would also show him shooting at an unarmed elderly woman in the street. A far worse crime than trespassing. The sheriff wasn’t able to press charges because there was no proof, so Mr. Crotchety promised not to do it again.
The next day, there was ‘dog’ poop perfectly lined up in front of our property, blocking our driveway. We called the sheriff, but the sheriff already knew. Mr. Crotchety had called the sheriff to ask him to apologize on his behalf for his childish retaliation.”
The Dog Never Left The Property
“We had a ‘Karen’ in our neighborhood years ago, whose favorite pastime seemed to be walking past my house when I was doing yard work and telling me that whatever I was doing was wrong. A real pain in the butt.
One day I was weeding along the curb and here comes Karen. She said something obnoxious and out of nowhere, Grafin, my 100-lb. German Shepherd, sprang from the front porch and raced down the front yard, barking menacingly at Karen. She got to the edge of the property and stopped — she was a well-trained dog who respected the boundaries I’d set for her — and stood there growling.
Karen screamed and backed away, flailing her arms and making such a ridiculous commotion that even Grafin twisted her head in confusion.
‘You need to have that dog on a leash!’ She wailed as she scampered away.
Ten minutes later, I was still out front when the police car rolled up. ‘Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,’ I thought. The cop got out of the car and I walked over to him.
‘Hi. I’m pretty sure I know why you’re here,’ I said.
‘Yeah,” he said. “We got a call about a dog attack? Or near attack?’
He looked over at Grafin, who lounged on the grass nearby.
I relayed what had happened, ‘She gave the woman a scare, but at no time was she off the property. She never leaves the property.’
The cop chuckled and turned to Grafin, who rose and walked toward us. She approached him tentatively, but when he extended his hand, she melted. He pet her vigorously with both hands as she lay down on her back, offering him a belly rub if he was so inclined.
He told me about his own German Shepherd his family had years ago, and what good watchdogs they are.
We chatted for a good ten minutes, and he even tossed her a few of our tennis balls. Really great guy that cop.
The best part was that I knew, two houses away, Karen must have been looking out her window the whole 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. That must have enraged her.”
She Can’t Park On Her Own Property?
“A number of years ago, while sitting down to dinner with my children, there was a knock at my door. When I answered, I saw it was the police. Lucky, I knew one of the officers. The older officer whom I did not know said my next-door neighbor had called saying I was trying to kill her. Knowing I hadn’t done anything wrong, and knowing how crazy my next-door neighbor was, I simply responded with OK. The officer proceeded to tell me how hysterical the next-door neighbor was.
When he was done with his tirade, I asked how exactly I was trying to kill her. He looked at me perplexed, and said he wasn’t quite sure because she was so distraught he couldn’t understand what she was saying. I suggested he find out exactly how I was trying to kill her so I could also know. He went back, spoke to her for a bit, and then came to my door again. He said by parking on my driveway, she couldn’t see onto the street when she was trying to take her car out. I asked him to show me exactly what the problem was, and we went outside.
My car sat in my driveway, about a car’s length from the road. He then told me she drives in forward, and when she tried to reverse out the back she can’t see, and suggested I park in my garage. Since I knew this crazy neighbor, I knew that wouldn’t be a solution and she would find something else to harass me about. I stood my ground. I told the police officer the driveway belong to me as part of the property I own. I told him my name was on the deed and on the mortgage. Therefore, I could use my driveway and my garage as I saw fit as long as it was within the law.
I recommended, since she couldn’t see backing out of her driveway, she back into her driveway next time so she could see the road as she exited her own driveway. The police officer, at this point frustrated by both of us, tried to reason with me, saying this woman was crying and he wanted her to be happy. I explained her happiness was not attainable and I had tried on many occasions to fulfill others of her wishes but to no avail. I explained he was welcome to come back and let me know. If by parking in my driveway I was somehow breaking the law then I would gladly do something about it, but until then it was my driveway and my car and I was not going to park it elsewhere.
Fast-forward about three years. My mother passed away, and after the funeral, friends and family came to our home for a light meal. In the midst of this, the same police officers knocked at my door. I asked what the problem was. This neighbor called saying I was having a wild party with lots of music and noise.
Let’s start by saying it was about two, and we were just returned from a funeral. There was no music and only hushed voices and lots of tears. I invited the police officers to come in and check for themselves. But the officers were mortified and went back to this neighbor and told her she was going to be charged with a nuisance call. I’ve since moved and have never had a problem with the neighbors prior to this woman or since.”
Put In His Place
“Our elderly neighbor was the neighborhood snitch, constantly calling to see if permits had been pulled for work they were having done, all kinds of things. His kids were the ones all the neighborhood parents told their kids not to play with. He tried bullying me a few times and got it back in spades. You don’t mess with me. Need help? Ask away, I’m happy to help.
Anyway, we were having our wood shake roof cleaned of years of pollution and moss, so there was dirty water in the gutter and down our driveway. He called the cops to complain about having to drive his nice car (a piece of junk) through ‘dirty, chemical-laden water.’ and was complaining about the chemicals the cleaners were using damaging his property. They were only using water at pressure, nothing else. I happened to catch him complaining on my driveway and entered the conversation, and told the officer it was only water. He told me to butt out, it had nothing to do with me. I told him it did as he was standing on my driveway complaining about something being done to my house.
The cop told him she couldn’t do anything since nothing dangerous was happening. He was really annoyed. A few minutes later he called the guy down off the roof, complaining the water in his side yard, from my roof cleaning, had stopped his drainage pipe and his yard was flooding (it wasn’t), so they hopped the fence and use the pressure washer to try and clear the pipe. The clog was hard as cement and had obviously been like that for years, and they told him so. He slunk back into the house and didn’t appear again for hours.”
A Shame Indeed
“I had a neighbor call the police because my hedges ‘were too high,’ and when looking out of their bedroom window they could not see beyond them. Meaning they could not spy on us in our own backyard. The police officer refereed it to code enforcement. And they in turn had the property line marked, showing the hedges were well within my property line.
And in fact, the neighbors had a fence installed on my property. Because if that call, I forced them to move the fence two feet over onto their property. Now making their driveway too narrow to drive on. Such a shame.”
