We live in a condominium complex that is built like an apartment building. There are front stairs, back stairs, and an elevator. The condos all have different layouts, but unfortunately still share things like plumbing and walls. I say unfortunately because we are on the bottom, and for the first few years I lived here, the junk our two upstairs neighbors threw into their kitchen sink often ended up in MY kitchen sink. And let’s not forget when my neighbor flooded my house.
Speaking of said neighbor, I am not her biggest fan. Besides the fact that she likes to hang things from her sprinklers, which caused me to have to move out of my home for a month when I was pregnant, she is also the queen of the busy bodies. We’ve dealt with it for a while…mostly because Mike is much more patient than I am and he told me to be nice, so I am. But she has started leaving notes up around the complex, as if she is the house mom of our sorority house.
She’s also the kind of neighbor that will tell you your aura is dark, and that your dog is clearly depressed. I mean, obviously my dog leads a very hard life:
But I digress.
Here is her latest:
I’m going to break this one down for you.
First, five exclamation points for the lead sentence, but none for the actual crime. I mean, a BICYCLE was STOLEN. Where is the outrage? Second, I am very aware of my belongings, which is why I bring them into my house, and do not leave them in the garage that is open to all residents and guests, and interestingly does not have a bike rack.
I have to say, I really appreciated when she wouldn’t let UPS or FedEx people into the building during the month of December. I mean, who knows, those strange men could have been masquerading as delivery people in order to run wild in our building’s hallways! They CERTAINLY weren’t trying to deliver important Christmas presents that some of us paid exorbitant delivery fees for! If only we had a camera and intercom system that let us visually identify and speak with anyone that wants to get into the building…oh wait. We do.
This letter was taped up all over the building, but on the door to the back ally, she broke out the big guns – the orange marker. The door to the back alley sticks, and if you don’t pull it closed behind you, it doesn’t latch. It’s just a shame that we live in a world where writing a passive aggressive note doesn’t automatically make a door repairman appear. If only someone on the Home Owners Association Board was aware of the broken door! Of course, she is on the HOA Board, but clearly her job description only covers letter writing.
One day we’re gonna move and I’m gonna miss her so much.
On the neighbor spectrum, I know she is mild. Let’s have a neighbor-off! Tell me your neighbor stories!
Kate @ UpsideBackwards says:
We used to have young neighbours (a group of 18-20 year-olds) who would START their parties at 2am, and shout obscenities at each other right outside our bedroom window at 4am. They were apologetic and contrite – and always turned their music down – when I went out in my nightgown to remind them it was the middle of the night, but then the next weekend they’d do it again. I was so glad when they moved out!
Can’t wait to read some of the other stories this post will generate!
Petunia says:
My neighbor stalked me. He used to (or maybe still does but I don’t think so…) look through my fence to watch me, look in in my kitchen window.. If that wasn’t enough he then wrote a 10 page diatribe because he was in love with me and thought I should be in love with him and because I wasn’t I was a whore.. He bought a house in a different city a year ago and still hasn’t moved.
Nelly says:
At least she cares about where she lives, in a twisted busy-body way.
I have two student couples living below me, one of the couples hates each other and has loud rows followed by loud make-up sex all through the night. The other couple are the party couple who like to have people over at 3am for xbox karaoke. *sigh*
Moving in September.
carrieB says:
In London I lived next door to a couple of girls aged 19-20-ish who made extra money on the side by selling dope. And liked to fall asleep with the TV on loud at 4 am. And dumped anything they didn’t want in the front yard. And when they parked up outside cleared the fast food wrappers from their car onto the pavement outside my house.
But they were basically nice kids and we did our best to rub along. Then the couple across the road sold their house to someone who rented it out to a local pimp. Who in turn rented out the rooms to crack dealers and prostitutes, one of whom used to go out and leave her four year old kid alone day and night. After a while we felt obliged to report this to the police, and she then threatened to kill me. Meanwhile a disgruntled crack customer went round there looking for a fight and ended up stabbing someone.
At that point we moved.
Alice says:
We had a neighbour who had a driveway in front of ours. Sometimes, when he didn’t have his three (! amazing since, there were only two of them living there and he was the only one that could drive) cars parked in there, we would use his driveway to turn the car around (to go frontways down the driveway). He obviously noticed this, and decided he needed to put a big ugly chain up in front of his driveway. Not to keep burglars out, but to stop other cars from turning around (it didn’t even have a lock… it just latched on!).
He’s done worse things, but people visiting us always comment about this one… it’s amusing when you tell it because it’s just so ridiculous!
Neighbours are wonderful, aren’t they?
QoB says:
I smell a submission to Passiveaggressivenotes.com!
jennifer pletcher says:
I love that blog!
Lynn from For Love or Funny says:
My former neighbor had a parolee son who blasted his music so loudly that the walls of my house would shake. We couldn’t even hear the TV let alone to speak to one another, so I have a special place in my heart for neighbors…
Momcat says:
We have indigenous African neighbours who, some years ago conducted several religious ceremonies which included the slaughtering of animals. Prior to the animal which included a cow at one time and two goats at another time, the animals would be tethered to our shared fence causing my dogs to bark incessantly and upsetting my teenage daughter whose teenpad bedroom door faced this scene. We are animal lovers and the thought of the fate of these poor animals was too much for her to bear. More recently, the big dogs of the same neighbour dug through under the fence. The dogs that dug through were not too much of a problem but their killer Boerbul dog followed and killed my cat as it lay on a chair in the passage between my house and my garage. My cat was killed on its own turf by an intruder. Anyone want my neighbours. I’m giving them away for free!
AngieM. says:
umm..i..i..don’t even know what to say killing animals in their BACKYARD!!!!!!
i’m SO sorry you had to witness that
Christina says:
OMG. I try to respect other people’s cultures but this would be SO HARD for me. I don’t even like smacking my dog on the butt when she drags trash out of the can over for the 3rd (or 10th) time in a week. I cannot imagine living next door to animal slaughters. I would go crazy. I’d be sobbing every day. I think you are the winner of the worst neighbors ever contest. At least in my book.
Susan says:
Ouch. I have a sort of understanding about animals like cows and goats being killed, because of the whole “where-do-you-think-some-of-the-meat-you-consume-comes from” thing. I wouldn’t want to watch it happen,but I’d understand.
Your cat being killed though…wow. My utmost sympathies. My family, long before I was born, lost several cats in horrifying ways. I own three right now, and we live around a bunch of people who are into killing cats. The idea of someone doing so much as injuring one of my cats sends me into an internal rage.
I’m very sorry that you have to have neighbors that make you so uncomfortable, to put it mildly.
The Other Dawn says:
I have the creepiest neighbor ever– he lives across the street. The day we moved in, he just stood in his front yard, open mouthed, and watched us. I thought it was strange that day but have since come to realize that this is normal for him. He spends a good portion of the day standing like that, in his yard, openly staring at anyone doing anything on note on our street. Often, he is also holding his police scanner, so that he can hear everything that is going on everywhere in town, too.
He waits until we pull away from our house and then RUNS out so he can park his car in front of our house– he doesn’t like to use his driveway. He’s hit our mailbox twice in his zeal.
And let’s not forget the day my 100 yr old next door neighbor DIED and he went over and started wandering the house, asking my dead neighbor’s daughter if he could have things. Keep in mind, he wasn’t even friends with this guy. He just knew “he was old and he probably had some cool stuff.”
No. I will not shut up.
Amber says:
wow! lol enough said
Kendra says:
My neighbors are in their mid thirties, but they defentley don’t act like it! They have parties where they drink and get really loud! I can’t wait until they move, and they Always always leave their huge dog out to bark night & day!
Aunt to Another Maddy says:
1. The neighbor across the street who cooked in the nude — yes, in the nude — and somehow never realized her kitchen, with the picture window, was visible from the entrance to my apartment.
2. The woman next door who crawled home drunk around 1:00 a.m., banged around her house for an hour or so, and set her alarm to do off FOUR DIFFERENT TIMES between 600 a.m. and 630. Alas, by the time my job schedule switched so I had to get up at 530 am, I was no longer living next to her.
3. The people in the house next door who had screaming, drag down fights in the middle of the night. I’d hear their daughter yelling, “Stop it! stop it!” and sounds of blows. I nearly called the police on them.
One of my favorites, though, has to be the friend whose upstairs neighbors had frequent, noisy sex. And long. He said he used to want to shout up to them, “Just hurry up and COME.”
Jennifer says:
Ok. That would suck. On a very serious note, and I’m not trying to be a jerk. Next time you hear something like that, don’t NEARLY call the police.. CALL THEM!!! As a victim of domestic violence, I can attest to the fact, that if you even SUSPECT abuse, call it in. You might not make any difference and you might be wrong, but then again you might be right and save a life or a little girl’s mental health.
mary c says:
We live next to his step-family. Three houses of them. Need I say more?!
Jen says:
OHHH do I have a neighbor story for you!!! My husband and I have lived in the same apartment since 06! We have had now three different people live next door to us. The first guy was a single dad with a daughter who was about 3 I would say. NIce guy kept to him self. THEN he moved out and two younger guys moved in. This was just before we had our daughter. Not too long after we brought her home we realized that my daughter and one of the guys shared a wall in their rooms.
We started hearing loud music early in the morning and sometimes late into the evening. Now I know that when you live in an apartment and some condos like you guys that you have to come to expect noise! IT’s just the way apartment living is! But to me loud music is rude and I feel that you have to be respectful. And what can we do about a crying baby?? more than what we can do!? I mean she doesn’t have a volume right? LOL
Ok so long long story short. We soon realized after some time (and we did complain about the music to get some results) we realized that my daughters sometimes crying was waking him. Not sure how often this happened but I am imagining since he would bang on the wall and turn his music up on purpose it happened quiet a bit! So flash forward several months and we are excited to learn that he’s moving out! They had only signed a lease to live here a year they were from Germany working in the office park near our apartment. So one night just before he moved out my daughter had woken up a bit earlier than usual and I think it had taken some time for us to hear her.
That night we get a knock on our door and I am not even joking he has the nerve to ask me “Hello, we (meaning him and his gf who had been visiting) are on vacation, do you think that you could keep her (meaning my child) quiet in the morning? Me: No! We do the best we can to make to be quiet. Him: “Well can’t you bring her out into the living room”? Me: No I can’t! We do the best we can and there isn’t anything that we can do to keep her more quiet! He didn’t have much to say after that! I was SOO mad! My husband had to force him self to stay on the couch so that he didn’t punch the guy! I mean who does that??? Who asks people to keep a child quiet????
Thankfully though he moved out that week! Our neighbors now are a nice couple, no children but are clearly more understanding!
Christina says:
Ummm…I can kindof see his “side” in this…sorry!
Kim says:
Umm, yeah i can definitely see his side. I would prefer to play music a little on the loud side rather than to listen to a screaming infant. YOUR baby shouldn’t inconvenience anyone else outside of YOUR household. I think you need to think of a new bad neighbor story because, in this case, YOU seem to be the bad neighbor. LOL
Kelly says:
Really?? It doesn’t sound like she was neglecting her baby OR being a bad neighbor to me- sometimes babies are going to cry! (especially infants!) My son’s first few weeks of life he cried (what felt like) constantly at night, despite me walking the house with him, feeding him, changing him, etc. I was SO worried that the people in the condo next to us would be bothered (they said they didn’t hear it), but what more could I have done if they had heard him?!?
Dudge OH says:
I can sympathize, with you. At least your neighbor approached you in a sane manner…
Kate says:
We moved with our 3 children to PA, we found a great townhouse, rent with option to buy,we moved in and had 2 months of the best weather,time etc…then theneighbors came home from vacation and it all went to *&^%. Music at all times of the night, shaking my walls so bad, they didn’t listen to reason or anything and started stealing things off our deck, they even took our garbage cans and used them! They had 3 kids and they were left to run around and allowed to play in our driveway and yard, kicking a football at our cars, when my husband corrected them it was a problem. They also had a dog that went after my 1 year old, my husband stepped between the dog and our son and later the neighbor came out in his underwear screaming that we should not go near his dog. We left as as soon as our lease was up and it took me a year to be able to listen to music, or to go through the town again without an anxiety attack, even now loud music gets me having some anxiety. We vowed never again would we be in an apt,townhome etc..
Alexandra :) says:
We have TONS (bearing in mind that I live in CELEBRATION, the DISNEY comminity, and we have a ton of kids):
1. the one who kept trying to get my mom fined for not putting the garbage can in the garage except on trash day because it wasn’t “pretty” and is always on our case about not decorating enough
2. the one who I’ve never seen sober and once I found jumping on a piece of bubble wrap going, “Alexandra! Come here! This is SOOOO fun!”
3. her husband, who has gotten into numerous fights with us and then wrote us to say, “we are no longer neighbors” and I was like, “ahem, I’m still looking at your house”.
4. the guy who had all the voodoo dolls on his porch
5. the teenagers who are always banging on their drums
6. Oh, apparently the people who lived in my house before I did would stand outside make rude remarks about everyone to their small children, e.g. “Look, Johnny! There’s big butt! Ooh, her butt’s getting bigger every day!”
Courtney from FL says:
I used to live in Celebration…I now remember why we moved!
Kate says:
My upstairs neighbors “enjoy each others’ company” so much and so loudly that they wake me up out of a dead sleep at least once a week.
And while that is not CRAZY PASSIVE AGRESSIVE like yours, once a week. With the screaming. And the banging of the headboard into the wall.
I CAN ONLY TAKE SO MUCH.
Tracey says:
I had neighbors like that too. It didn’t matter what time of day or what room you were in you could always hear them (they were VERY fond of each other)
I started listening to my walkman to sleep (I just dated myself, didn’t I). Well one night I woke up with the headphone cords wrapped around my neck and I though to heck with this.
I put a note in their mailbox. They moved out the next month.
Becca_Masters says:
Once stayed at a friends house who had neighbours who were VERY fond of each other on a very regular basis. During their fondness time, I banged on their wall and shouted out “have you come yet”. Wasn’t sure if they heard, so when the banging had stopped, I banged on the walk and shouted very loudly “was he good”.
They were a lot quieter after that! My friend was very grateful!!
Susan says:
Bad neighbors? Oh yeah, I’ve had them:
1. Landscaper/drug dealer who’s girlfriend tried to run over him in the parking lot. She tried to assault him prior to this incident.
2. Same complex: I was walking my dog by the peaceful creek when several police officers arrived with guns drawn, running towards the building telling me to get in my apartment. Gang banger neighbor.
3. Same complex (see the pattern?): 3rd floor neighbors set the building on fire and the fire department flooded my unit trying to extinguish the fire.
4. New complex: neighbor’s drunk boyfriend tried to break into my apartment. When he couldn’t get in, he slashed tires on 6 cars.
5. Moved to a new house! Think it was better? Neighbor’s grown son threatened to kill his girlfriend. Grown daughter was, ummm, selling services from the house and selling meth.
6. Same neighborhood: our neighbors were Irish Travelers. Google them; you’ll be entertained (or swindled)!
We moved. Our new neighborhood is soooo much better!
kristine says:
We in a pretty urban setting but have an over sized lot. Therefore we have more neighbors bordering our backyard than usual. We’re surrounded by neighbors with dogs. I love animals but I swear if another dog wakes up my daughter 2 hours early I’m going to kidnap it and bring it to the country. It messes with her whole day and ruins her time with therapists (that we pay a small fortune for) in our home because she’s so tired. I HATE these dogs and I’m starting to hate all of the owners too. I’ve talked to them, called the “authorities”…nothing seems to work.
Does ANYONE have any ideas? Has anyone tried a dog whistle to get them to stop barking? I’m desperate. This morning our whole house was up at 5:30 because of them.
Britt says:
I cannot remember what it is called but google “stop dog barking” ….there is a product that is disguised in a bird house. You set the audible noise (that only dogs here) for 2 barks, 3 barks, 4 barks etc. and the noise goes off after X number of barks.
We had this SAME problem that would start each day at 5:30am as our elderly neighbor with FIVE large dogs would let them out and they would be out all day.
The product worked very very well. Doesn’t hurt the dogs at all just stops them from barking.
kristine says:
Awesome, thanks!!! I found it and I’m ordering it today!
Marsha says:
We’ve got the all American super dad living next door…and he reminds us of that all the time. Plus, his son is the very brightest and best athlete around. Yipppee.
karen says:
Well, in the last house…
the neighbours we took to court for noise, and won;
the drug dealers;
the drug users and alcoholics;
the house that was fire bombed.
So we moved….
the neighbour who allows his dog to foul where ever, usually my front garden;
the neighbour who wanted me to move my boundary line as his wife couldnt get into their drive cos she’s useless;
the ones who have have parties through the night and keep us awake, they are 6 doors away;
the ones who adjoin us who have suggested that we put our disabled son into care, refused us permission to carry out improvments on our home but when we had a conservatory built hoad one built themselves – a little bit bigger, and higher and fancier (looks stupid), have complained about our duaghter rollerblading in the house but play their music loud. Oh and she refuses to talk to me cos she doesnt like me but when she HAS to speak to me she shouts.
Huh, neighbours!
Nina says:
We have some pretty wild neighbors right below us and next to us! Lets just say our lease ends at the end of the summer and we will not be renewing it! Both neighbors have no concept of time and do things such as vacuum at 2am! They also play loud music at all hours and unfortunately fight loudly everyday! To add on, the bottom neighbors have people constantly banging on their glass door demanding money that is owed (we have our speculations, but try to not think about what they are actually up to!). We have come up with clever names for each of the many members that occupy these apartments and often try to make the best of it by just making fun and sometimes holding dance parties in our own apartment when all you can do is join in on the music. And when it gets to loud at bedtime I put in ear plugs to fall a sleep especially since the guy below me snores so loud it sounds like he is sleeping right next to me!
MS says:
Ugh, neighbors are difficult in the best of circumstances. Our old house was a tiny cape, in a sea of tiny capes. And our houses were maybe 8′ apart at most. I guess to offer each house a front porch “view” all the houses were off set just a bit. So our neighbor to the left’s house was a little farther forward than ours. Neighbor to the right, a little bit back. So the way our dining room at the front of our house was positioned, it was right next to their front porch. Where they smoked. Every half hour. I would open the windows in nice weather when they weren’t home and then be forced to run around shutting everything on that side of the house before we ended up smoking a pack second hand. UGH. People are so inconsiderate sometimes.
I especially liked picking up their butts from the strip of lawn between the houses.
Good luck with your building lady.
AJ says:
Our first apartment was “interesting.” It was tiny, and our bed would only fit along the back wall of the only bedroom. One night someone was parking their car up against aforementioned wall and drove a little too far forward. BIG bump. The girl next door had a horrible man in her life, and one night we were lying in bed listening to him threaten to leave and come back with his gun!
We had other neighbors once with 3 kids. They let their youngest, who was 4 or 5 years old, run around unsupervised ALL THE TIME. I had planted a few tulip bulbs in the fall and I was eagerly awaiting the few tulips that would bloom in the spring. These parents thought nothing of the fact that their daughter would come into my yard, rip out my tulips and make me insane. It really ticked me off.
In that same house, a dalmatian down on the next street thought my front yard was his personal poop pad. I would chase down that dumb dog (Rocky, I still remember!) and his owner could have given a rat’s behind that her dog was loose, let alone that I had piles to clean up. I scoop my own dog’s piles, thankyouverymuch.
Dana says:
I lived in France for a year, in a really shady apartment building. (I was just out of college and poor.) The downstairs neighbor was in his 40s, but spent too many years traveling around Asia getting the flavor of the local drugs in each country. He liked to shave his head when he was high and then walk around common areas. Somehow his bloody head always ended up against the wall. He also left his neighbors presents: like moldy pastries and books on Zen sex. But the topper is the evening he was blasting music “cooking” something odd. The smell was nauseating and then I passed out. I don’t remember anything until I woke up about 14 hours later and realized I was late for work.
I think I would have preferred passive aggressive notes. And trust me, the French have passive aggressive down to a fine art!
kirida says:
My neighbors on my side of the block are pretty awesome, but the ones across the street are just awful. In the summer months, they fight loudly outside their house. They have had the cops called (sometimes by us) numerous times. They smoke. all. the. time. Their house is just run-down. There’s a motorized wheelchair on their porch but it’s been there all through the seasons.
Another terrible neighbor story! When we lived in an apartment complex, the neighbor below us complained to the management because she said that we were singing too loudly to our baby. The nerve we had to bring music into his life!
Anna Marie says:
Oh man. I bought a condo a few years back in a complex with several buildings, and 4 condos to a building. I was – thankfully – upstairs but my neighbor who shared the stairs and a front porch was a total froot loop. Shortly after she moved in I noticed that her car was ALWAYS there, always, but I never saw or heard her. Until…she left me a note asking me to please turn off my deck lights at night so she could enjoy her “imagined solitude”. Hmm. Ok. I felt kind of bad about it so I knocked on her door to talk about it. She didn’t answer, but the next day I got ANOTHER note saying she had been home when I knocked but she doesn’t answer her door… That apparently broke the ice though, because one day I came home to a note saying I had left my stereo on so she had picked the lock, gone inside and turned it off for me. After that I let her know that any further breaking and enterings would result in a call to the police.
I moved in with my boyfriend after that and rented the condo. I had to tell each new tenant to be nice, but distant, to the neighbor lady. Thank heavens I sold it a couple of years ago.
Joanna says:
condo living is so hard! we’ve had a couple doozies, and this is why we now own a home!!! (but have some crazy neighbors in our new neighborhood, too! go figure!)
our next door neighbor in our condo complex was a snow bird (she only lived there –we’re in FL– for 3 months of the year.) she left her alarm clock on. at 5:45 EVERY FLIPPIN MORNING her alarm would go off for an hour. the association wouldn’t go in because they said it was tresspassing, nor did they have an updated phone number for her in chicago. UGH. i was ready to start a fire outside her place just sothe fire dept would come and open the door! finally we had pest control come and the association unlocked her door for that. sheesh.
in our current neighborhood our across-the-street neighbors have a bounce house and water slide business. after a party or event they blow up the bounce houses and slides all over their yard to was them off, etc. it looks like we live in the middle of a carnival. niiiiiiice.
Lisa_in_WI says:
That would drive me insane! I live in a similar condo complex (though without a camera at the lobby — well, there is a camera but we aren’t set up to see it), and my busybody neighbor lives upstairs from us.
The first time I met her she was rambling for about five minutes about the condo fees being too high; she didn’t understand why there had to be a TV and workout equipment in the community room; why there had to be a community room in general; and then after about five minutes explained that her blood sugar was low, and showed me the candy bar she was eating to prove it.
The next time I saw her she told me to make sure my roommate (the owner of the condo) applied for some lottery credit (why she couldn’t tell him herself, I don’t know), and again explained her blood sugar was low after blathering on for quite awhile.
So, not only is she nosy, she can’t control her diabetes very well.
Melissa says:
We live in a community much the same – except we do not have anyone above us – our homes are in a strip. Neighbors to my left are awesome, neighbors to my right are OK for the most part, except for the fact that they are in their late 50’s and enjoy each other loudly, often, and with their windows open. I mean like always right next to an open window. I’m no prude, but I cannot tell you how weird it is when I’m like, “What the heck is that sound?” And am like Ohhhh…… Or when we try to entertain on the back patio and I am able to offer my friend a beer AND some free naughty audio. Classy, I tell you. Sigh. How ever do you approach that?
Celina says:
We lived in condos, too. Everyone kept to themselves until one day I found a giant yellow sticker on my car threatning to tow it. My son was born very sick tha winter and we were in the NICU for 3 weeks, and then instructed to stay home so we wouldn’t compromise his immune system. So I obviously didn’t drive and snow accumulated around my car. Instead of posting somethign polite on the main bulletin board of the condos, they just went all out with the sticker. So I had to track down the HOA president and explain, but he ended up calling me low class for not mving my car often enough. Yeah. Then he said all the rules would be out soon for us to go through.
A YEAR LATER, we got the new condo rules and it was just full of stuff aimed at controlling children. We were the only ones with a child.
The fanastic HOA president lived above us and was just a raging little man. He came home from work late at night and would proceed to move furniture around and vacuum his hardwood floors at midnight. Then he followed up with doing laundry. We share pipes, dude. It was insane the amount of anger and commotion he created. Thankfully, we left and I will not do condos ever again. I’ll invest in property, but not in the niceties of neighbors.
Oop, let’s not forget that the basement/garage began leaking water conveniently into our storage space and parking spot. Everytime we complained, they just said they were in a legal battle with the builder to fix it. My MIL, who bought the condo from us for rental property, said she just recieved a letter saying that leaky wall is now about to collapse and every unit in the building must contribute $2k for repairs. ha!
L says:
Awful neighbor stories are the best! So sorry you have so many to share. It boils down to this: people just don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves. Sad, but true.
My best story is about the devil woman and her husband. No joke, she had the voice of satan and fought with her hubs at all hours. Door slamming, screaming, throwing glass ojects, the works. Cops came often. But the best was the day I came home to find him in custody wearing only boxers. Did I mention they were raging alcoholics? He had decided he was going to fight the french dudes, except he came down buck naked. In front of kids. Yeah. Best day of my life was when they finally left.
Rachel says:
We have neighbors across the street that have been selling drugs out of their house for years. People come and go at all hours of the day and night. I guess the police had started staking the house out and finally decided to barge in using a flash grenade, which by the way is VERY loud. People came scurrying out of the house and running around the neighborhood while the cops ran around and tried to catch them, shots firing. I, in the meantime, am home alone crouched in the bedroom, peaking out of the window watching it all, scared to death!
I thought that would be the end of them, but they are back in all of their glory. How does that work? Yay justice system!
Lisa says:
Ugh, condo living, I don’t miss it.
I had a very similar neighbor. Very passive-aggressive. Always had these ideas about how things should be done and would guilt people into siding with her, or just not let it go until the rest of us were like “fine, whatever, just stop talking about it!”. She wasn’t even on the board but acted like she was running the show. When we moved earlier this year I wanted to knock on her door and do a little happy dance and tell her just how much I WASN’T going to miss her.
Maybe you should take a bright red marker and write “FIX THE DOOR AND MAYBE IT WILL STAY LOCKED” across her note
DefendUSA says:
When I moved to The suburbs of Chicago, I was treated to the nicest of neighbors. Not. First, I was black marked just because I moved into the house next door that was rebuilt it and they had issues with that. They put up a chain link fence on the shared driveway because of the hatred of the owner of the house. It made it impossible for me to park my cars in the two car garage.
Well, it snowed for 26 days straight. The nice neighbors had a plow guy come. I would get out and shovel the drive which was about 150 feet. Then her plow dude would come and eff up what I had shoveled because of the fence and I had to shovel again! There was only 8 feet horizontally from the house on each side of the cars to the fence. 8 feet by law.
Well, the old saying if you can’t beat ’em, join em played in. I would get up and shovel the neighbor’s drive and mine to avoid the plow issue. I never complained, I just did it. I used my rock salt on their stoop because Betty was 80 and her 55YO daughter never took care of that even though her daughter, 27, uses a walker. If Betty were my Gramma that is what I would have done. I just figured that I could catch the bees with the honey.
As I could not park in the garage and shoveling and scraping was tedious, I covered the car with a tarp. They called the village and complained!! Never mind that their plow effed up my drive and the neighbor’s where the snow got plowed to…because even though I shoveled, the plow still came. I never got a thank you, nor was I looking for one. But Holy Cow!!
We had 19 kids on the street. They called the police in the village because they were sure that someone was running an illegal day care business! What they were really angry about was that they had to slow down while one of the kids moved a skateboard…it was not a through street, either.
And then, the icing on the cake. My daughter turned 16. We have two cars but sometimes they had to be jockeyed. She figured out that she could back the first car around, out and down on the shared part of neighbor’s driveway not blocked by fence.. No biggie, right? Wrong.
They never came to us and said they didn’t like us using the common space not separated by the fence. We went away for a weekend. When we came back, there were 6 ft landscaping timbers painted black as the driveway all the way down!! I called the village, already knowing that where the wood was, it was against the code and the public domain of the village. They had to remove all but 2 which still impeded our back out ability onto their driveway. So, I parked one car on the bottom of the drive in the street. They called the village again saying *I* was blocking their ability to get into their drive. UFB!!
People like this have no life and don’t know where they went wrong, either. It was frustrating to try and do the right thing and always get shit on. We don’t live there anymore, it was a temporary thing. But I pity who bought the house after we were there.
Rachel says:
I have an unbelievable neighbor story. We lived upstairs from an older woman who complained to the rental office that we had dogs running around (we had none) and then complained that we were watching her get dressed THROUGH THE CEILING AND WALLS. Luckily the rental office knew she was unstable and ignored her rants. She would also bang her broom handle on her ceiling (our floor) to say we were being too loud when all we were doing was walking in our socks.
Leslie says:
The people who live in the house next door to us are the type that talk very loudly, no matter what time of the day or night. Their patio is right outside of our bedroom window, about 15 feet away. So is their garage. The guy is a contractor and he has all of his equipment in the garage — table saw, grinder, jack hammer, etc. He seems to come alive at night, right about the time that we go to bed. He’ll be out there at 11 p.m., midnight, 1 a.m., whatever time he wants (and quite frequently), working on some project with the machines turned on at high pitch. It’s insane.
He also turns his garage TV up to full volume, and when there’s a ball game on he’ll be yelling the whole time, either in celebration of a good play by his team, or in disgust over the opposing team’s good score.
The most horrific thing though, was the time that he was out there at 8 a.m. cutting wood on his table saw, and suddenly he started screaming these blood-curdling screams, horrific, stomach-turning screams, and yelling, “Help! Help!”
My husband grabbed our phone and ran outside and over to the guy’s garage, where he was sitting on the floor with his hand wrapped in a bloody rag. He had cut his hand darn near off, using the table saw without the protective shield.
The paramedics soon came, and he was hauled off to the hospital where they sewed his thumb and three of his fingers back on, but one of his fingers was a total loss.
He came home from the hospital a day later, with a morphine pump. Two days later, he went back to work, and I wondered how that went, working (I prayed that he wasn’t driving — hopefully his buddy was doing the driving) with one hand and hopped up on morphine.
The table saw, with the bloody piece of wood stuck in it, sat out there in plain view of our bedroom window for ages. I stopped opening our window blinds. I was so freaked out, I had my husband install a tall fence the very next weekend (there was previously just a short chain link fence with vines growing on it). My husband was only too happy to put up a solid fence, as he was fed up with the whole thing himself.
The noise has continued, and the weird thing is that this whole household of people (and there are a slew of them who live there) seem to come alive the later and the colder it gets. They’ll be out there on the patio at midnight, laughing and squealing and having a good old time and it’s about 35 degrees out.
I could go on forever about them, this is just the tip of the iceberg. They have a pitbull that they regularly let out to roam the neighborhood. We had to put up a gate on the other side of our house, to keep the dog out of our backyard. So now she just poops in our front yard constantly. They also “remodeled” their garage so that it’s now divided and has a small room walled off on one side, where the nephew lives with his girlfriend, and the two of them have since produced TWO babies in the past two years. What???? I was absolutely shocked when I found out that they had had a second baby shortly before Christmas. I can’t imagine living in tiny room in a garage, and getting myself preggers twice. I have no idea how they even fit four people in that room, much less why in the world they aren’t doing everything in their power to get out of there and GET A LIFE.
Well, there’s my long, long story on neighbors. I’ve got some others, but I won’t bore you with those.
Life is an adventure, no?
Angie says:
I never comment (nothing to say really!), but I have to tell the tale of my awful neighbors that lived below us when my hubs & I lived in a 2nd floor apartment. We adopted 2 kittens and did all the required paperwork, etc. to have them in our apartment. Our downstairs neighbor kept complaining to us that they were too loud at night. We tried everything to appease her – locking them in our bedroom, locking them OUT of the bedroom, everything but putting them in a crate overnight (because that’s just cruel), and she still complained. She asked if we had Great Danes, a mountain Lion and some other absurd critter. She even went as far as to bitch my husband out about it in the parking lot while he checked our oil level! She called him every name under the sun, and then said she was going to MAKE SURE we paid the pet fees (because that’s her business how?). She stormed off to the management office (which we could see from our apartment & the parking lot) and they were LOCKED UP & CLOSED! LMAO!!! Later her husband (who was at least sensible) came up to us in the parking lot and said he didn’t appreciate my husband calling his wife a B*tch (which hubs never did!) and hubs said he didn’t appreciate being called a pr*ck! Crazy-lady’s husband explained that he’s the only one working and he sleeps on the couch and the cats woke him up a time or two… why couldn’t she have said that!! We laugh about it now because it’s pretty bad that her own husband would rather sleep on the couch than with her! LOL
Also, shortly after moving in, we had to have maintanece do some work on our washing machine. The guy said it was safe to use, but it wasn’t and FLOODED our kitchen which caused water to run into Crazy Lady’s house (this was before the cats thing). She wasn’t mad about that (she said she knew it wasn’t my fault) BUT she chewed hubs out about that while she was yelling at him about the cats! What did a leaking washer caused by improper repair have to do with cats running around?!
Neighbors suck!
Crystal says:
I’m going to win this one ….
I have Jersey Shore rejects living next door. They have a beautiful (well it was) above ground pool that they never covered. It filled with debris and crap. They put the pump on to clear it out. (idiots) It blew out the pump and now for FOUR YEARS the pool has just sat there. Its now the neighborhood mosquito breeding ground. We CANNOT use our back yard b/c we get eaten alive. When I asked them to fix it, they claimed they didnt have the money. They do, however, have the money for a new Mercedes and Infinity. Grrrr….
They wont let anybody park in front of their house, which is a public street. If somebody does park there, they go door to door knocking trying to figure out who it is, and then demands that the car be moved. ITS A PUBLIC STREET.
And most recently … Its snowed, here. ALOT. We spent 4 hours shoveling out our van. As did the rest of the neighbors. These Jersey Shore rejects, just spent the day indoors. When they had to leave they just drove the Benz and the Infinity out of the snow pile, and then parked in spots the neighbors cleared!! Can you believe that??? They never cleared the snow from in front of their house.
I finally had enough. I knocked on THEIR door and asked them to please move THEIR cars, out of my spot that I shovel for our van. He said he cant park in front of his house, because all that snow makes it too slippery. THEN EFFIN SHOVEL YOU MORON!
See, I win.
B says:
In many counties you can report pools that have been taken over by mosquitoes, it’s a public health issue and the owner is required to clean up.
Crystal says:
Reported it numerous times, nothing ever happened.
The Suburban Housewife says:
I have four daughters that range from 4-11, and we live in a townhouse. When my next door neighbors moved in a couple years ago, her son was about four. She would let him out by himself, and he always had a movie sized box of candy in one hand, and a can of pop in the other. He would also hit, kick, shove and spit on my girls. We caught him peeing on our sliding glass door.
The mother didn’t care when we expressed our many concerns, and blamed his behavior on mental illness. But, why is a four year old, mental illness or not allowed out for several hours at a time with no supervision.
Then my then 6 year old daughter accidentally broke one of the boy’s toys, and his mother came out screaming and swearing at her. My daughter had no idea what was going on, and I sent her inside. But this mom has gone off on me like that a few times, and each time is for something small. She also likes to slip in snide comments to my girls when I am not in hearing distance.
I cannot wait until we move away from her!
Melissa says:
My neighbor is the worst. I run into the house when I see her coming. Literally. Run. She’s just loud and always yelling. She’s not yelling in anger at me, that’s just her voice. And she has a nice South Side Chicago accent to go with it. She’s very harsh around the edges. Also, her 5 grandchildren come to visit her about once a month and always want to come over and play with my 2 kids. Her grandkids live in a rural area with alot of farm animals and they happen to have lice running wild in their house. I didn’t know this until one of the little girls came over with her head shaved. After I noticed the other one was itching, I took a closer look and saw lice and eggs! I walked them back to the neighbors and told her and she admitted that she knew they had lice and sent them over to play with my kids anyways. The next day I spend the whole hot summer day gardening and cleaning up and all I wanted to do was have a little dinner with the family. She wanted to come over and talk to me about the “lice thing” so while we are eating dinner, I hear her coming across the lawn and talking to me through my kitchen window (we have a ranch home). It’s like, “I know you can see me through my window but can you pretend that you can’t?” I am in my home! I don’t want to be bothered by her. Her reason for sending the kids over even though she knew they had lice….. we have light colored hair and lice don’t like light colored hair. Nice.
Jessica V. says:
I’m itching just reading this…blech!
domestic extraordinaire says:
When we lived in Jacksonville about 12 years ago we had these really weird and quiet neighbors right next door. They weren’t very social and you never saw them outside. In fact, I couldn’t even tell what the people looked like that lived there because of the whole anti social thing. One day after I got the girls down for their naps I hear a pounding on the front door, I opened the door to see a strange man demanding that I come out and talk to the police. When I asked what it was about he said he had been robbed and that since I am home all day, surely I saw something. When I told him that I didn’t see anything, as there were no windows on that side of the house, he got very upset and demanded I turn over the criminals. I apologized again and shut the door. A few minutes later there was knocking again, this time it was the police officer. He wanted to inquire if I had seen anything that day. I told him I hadn’t and that I was really sorry. The whole time my neighbor was screaming in his yard that I must have been paid or in on it and that the police officer should bust down my door and get his stuff back. The police officer apologized and told me it was okay. But every time I saw those people they would always give me the stink eye. I was happy when we finally moved.
Michelle H says:
The 20 something guys that moved in above me with their LOUD surround sound system…. enough said. I heard EVERY word of the movies they were watching at 2am!
Ann says:
Oh boy… I’ve got one for ya!!! Our neighbor right next to us bought her house a month before us, which apparently, made her Queen-of-knowing-everything in our complex!!! She drove me crazy and was quickly dubbed “Crazy Neighbor Lady” or CNL for short (or when she was present in our company and we wanted to talk about her in code!) She is one of those “cat ladies,” and everyone KNOWS what I mean by that!
I tolerated her until her Husband went on a deployment to IRAQ, and she started have affairs with other Solider and leaving her windows open for all of us to hear their “afternoon activities!” Then she left her sprinkles running… all-night-long and flooded out our back yard. My Husband text her very politely to not get a response of “Sorry” or “Thanks for telling me I left my water in my back yard running for over 24 hours!”
She then disappeared for about a month and left her dog behind with no food or water, we fed the dog and call Animal Control which wouldn’t take the dog (I KNOW!!! Crazy!) and then the dog disappeared which I assumed she took the dog to her “boyfriends” house. Nope!!! Her Husband gets back from his yearlong deployment to find the dog locked up in the house, dog crap everywhere. Gas, Water and Electricity all had been shut off. What a way to come home from fighting a WAR!!!!
She is now back with him but she doesn’t look any of us in the eye when she pulls up into her driveway. She should be ashamed of herself!
April says:
I have a few odd neighbors. The one to the left of us (we live in a housing area) will walk in our house without knocking. One day when my youngest was about 4 days old he walked in our house from the back deck. Unannounced. Came in and sat down with my husband on our couch. We aren’t very friendly with him either. When he is in our house and he sees papers etc sitting somewhere he will pick it up and read them. I could go on and on.
Or the neighbor across the street whose kids (6, 10, 13) would call my kids and me horrible names every time we stepped out of the house if they were outside. We finally got it on tape when the mom came out and was freaking out on my kids as well (who were in their own yard!) so I ended up calling the police and they recommended we file a restraining order on her. Which we did and ended up going to court-the judge was so appauled by the tape and the mother and childrens behavior that he recommended her for counseling on how to be a decent mother (hehe) and upheld the restraining order. Her outbursts in court to the judge didn’t help her case at all either.
Funny thing is-we do live in a nice neighborhood!
Jenni Williams says:
We just moved, but our old next door neighbor my kids referred to as “the evil old lady”. She hated us the second we moved in. Our first week was Halloween, our first in an real neighborhood. We excitedly knocked on her door and said, “trick or treat!” He response? “Tell everyone that visits you to stay on your side of the fence on the curb”. Happy kill. After that day anyone who parked on the curb 1in into her yard line got a note on their car.
At first we thought it was because Neil is black, but they she was nice to our other neighbors, who are as well. She would trash any toys that accidentally flew on her side of the fence. She would also scream at the kids for playing in OUR fenced yard. Finally she made my son with autism cry and I HAD IT. I knocked on her door to calmly explain, yet again that he had special needs and if she had something to say to say it to me and leave him alone. She slammed the door in my face and called me a bitch.
It took everything I had not to leave a flaming pile of shit on her door when we moved.
jennifer pletcher says:
I could never top your story, but I can tell you two! We had one little old lady who didn’t like the bushes on our property (which was next to her house) and asked us to cut them down because they were “not her type”. Really? Too bad!
And we had a neighbor across the street (same neighborhood unfortunately) where two men in suits came knocking on our door one day looking for said neighbors. I guess the family was in some kind of witness protection…… fun times! And this was a gated community!
Jasmin says:
My neighbors are typically ok but they are extremely paranoid. They called the police after noticing that a “strange” vehicle was parked on our block for two weeks. It was a car that my husband and I were looking into buying and the seller had allowed us to inspect it. We had to go to court to fight the ticket and spent half the day there. To top it off the car was registered under the seller’s father’s name, needless to say he wasn’t happy to be there either.
Jana from Germany says:
Ha, my parents have also neighbours that are just horrible. It is a cul de sac and we moved there when I was 12. All in all there are 6 houses that share this street and nobody else is coming there. In two other houses lived classmates of mine and in an other house lived children that went to an other school but we did some sport activity with them. In one house lived people nobody saw a lot because they were working all day. But the last house was (in fact still is) where the fun neighbours lived. It is directly opposite my parents and in autum the tree that shades the parking space i front of my parents house loses his leaves (what else do trees in autum do?). So every september the police is coming to my parents because the neighbour calls and says that my parents do not rake the leaves so they get carried on the street (the middle of the cull de sac) and this makes it dirty in her door. And the best part? Her husband was my teacher and the third year he teached all three of his neighbours in the same class his wife went arround in the neighbourhood and tried to make the neighbours sign a petition for us to remove the tree.
Michelle s says:
When we moved to Calgary we looked at our home twice and made an offer..it was July. We took possession in October and most of the neighbors seemed nice, quiet and normal. I was relieved because you never know what kind of nutters might be lurking.
Well fast forward to first of December. One Saturday we had been out all day and when we arrived home we couldn’t believe our eyes. Our next door neighbor had put up his Christmas display. I’m a minimalist with a string of white lights and wreath on my door but to get an idea what we had to look at think Chevy Chase in National Lampoon Christmas Vacation but ramped even higher.
I was pissed but now coming on 5 years next to these people they do everything to that level and I have put them in a special place in my heart and know it could be far worse. Although I think we need to talk to them about the liqueur candy they gave my kids for Halloween that may have to stop.
Gail says:
Now, I love dogs as much as anyone, but my neighbors has two small, untrained dogs who don’t believe I should be allowed to leave my house without barking at me. So if I am in my driveway or my back yard, they bark at me…even from inside their house. And, my poor Golden gets chased inside every morning because as soon as he goes out, they tell their owners THEY want to go out, and chase him all over HIS yard barking. His is 11 and his tolerance level astounds me.
But the worst part is the bathroom situation. You see, these dogs have invisible fence collars that they don’t care about. (hence the morning chase routine) So when there is snow on the ground, they come up my back stairs, onto my deck, into my screened in porch, and poop on my outdoor carpet. (I leave the screen door open so my Golden can be under roof when he is waiting for me to let him in. Two kids under two, sometimes he has to wait awhile.) When the weather was nice, I would leave the screen door open, as well as the door into the house while I was getting ready in the morning. That way, he can come and go as he pleases until I lock him in the house for the day. But, on a few occasions, I have come down to a little white or little brown dog scurrying out of my house. And on more than one occasion, said little dogs have peed and pooped IN MY HOUSE.
Why, do you ask, did I still leave the doors open? Because I told my neighbors and assumed they would do a better job of keeping their damn dogs out of my house, but I was wrong. The snow has started again, and there are already piles of dried up poop in my porch.
I love dogs, the name of my blog is Home is Where the Dog Is, for goodness sake. But these dogs need to live somewhere else:)
Elizabeth says:
My house has a attached apt to it and besides maybe 2 tenants we’ve always had problems with them. I can’t even begin to tell half the stories but the one I remember the most was when an elderly war vet with an amputated leg was living downstairs. Being a pre teen at the time I would always run back and forth from the kitchen to the living room (the apt was right below my kitchen). One day he decided he didn’t like that and started to use one of his crutches to bang on the ceiling. It scared me so much I ran up to my room and didn’t move until hours later.
Stacey says:
We had a neighbor who had a wood burning stove. Apparently he ran low on wood one weekend, because when we looked out the window in the morning, we were missing a tree. A whole huge tree. The trail of sawdust led right to his noticeably bigger wood pile.
Brandy says:
I lived in a 4 apartment building for 4 years. In those 4 years I had some just AWESOME neighbors (not).
1) The lady that lived across from me yelled at me when we moved in because we parked in her spot. (this was before we even knew there were assigned parking spots.) One night I came home and she was on the porch waiting for me. Apparently someone had parked in her spot and she swore it was my fault. (I still have no idea whos car it was). Also every halloween, she would steal my kids pumpkins!!
2) After them I had the first dental student move in. He was AWFUL. He would constantly bang on the walls for every little sound. My landlords always told new people that I had kids before they would have new people sign the lease. I did not allow kids to run in the house, or jump around (I knew we had people that lived below us so I tried to be curtious. ) It got so irratating to hear him bang on the wall FOR EVERYTHING. Also as the only person in my building that had kids, when it would snow my landlord would shovel us a path to the car and clear my car out for me. (yes he was awesome…reason I stayed 4 years!) The asshat would park in my spot everytime, also he hit my car twice and denied it even though I had his paint on my car…and he had mine on his! Once he called my landlord to tell her I was being to loud.. I WASNT HOME! I made them go check to make sure no one was there(there wasnt), he was just being an ass.
4) ANOTHER college student. Him and GF had people over ALL The time.. Once they let someone park their car (yes in my spot) and they left it there for a MONTH! The landlord threatened to have it towed. They a dog, which is no big deal, BUT they would let the dog pooh in the yard and would leave it. Even after the landlord repeatedly told them not to. (I was really not nice, I would pick up up and leave on their door step, got tired of cleaning my kids shoes!)
And these are only a fraction of the stories. Like I said before, I stayed because my landlord was AWESOME.
Lamb says:
I was hoping this post would result in a neighbor-off! I posted this when Sexy Nerd and I lived in our rental house: http://lambaround.blogspot.com/2006/12/love-thy-neighbor.html
I had a lot of material to use for the post. Here is a part that I think sums up our neighbor from across the street pretty well:
This was not the only time that my odd neighbor used my dumpster. Sexy Nerd took our trash to the curb a few weeks ago and ran into our new neighbors from across the street, who were also bringing their dumpster to the curb, along with several other bags from unpacking. The weird neighbor, Paula, came running out of her house to insist that the trash collectors wouldn’t pick up anything that wasn’t in a dumpster, but that the new neighbors could put their extra trash in OUR dumpster because ours always has room.
STAY OUT OF OUR DUMPSTER, CRAZY NEIGHBOR!!!
Whoops, there I go using 3 exclamation points :p
Elle says:
I will never get people like this woman but I know that’s a good thing. When I was 19, I lived in a triplex and was next to a woman and her teenage daughter. The walls were thin but not so much that you could hear everything.
The woman ended up being a mental case and would bang on the wall when I did things like close a kitchen cabinet, or blow dry my hair when it was past 7 pm. She would also bang on the walls like crazy whenever the heater or air contioning would kick on b/c of the rumbing it made right before.
She didn’t have a telephone but I could always tell when she was in a rush to call the cops at the phone down the street…. b/c I would do things like get a bowl out of the kitchen cabinet at 10 pm. I rarely had friends over but had a few over one night to watch Twin Peaks on video. I had 3 people over and I saw her peeking out of her window when I was outside greeting them. As soon as we walked into my place, she rushed to her car and screeched away.
I mentioned to my friends that she’s off to call the cops. None of them believed me. But she did and they came. You could tell the police had no idea why they were even there. Nothing happened but for the rest of the night she would bang on the wall for no reason.
Finally when I was able to move out of Crazyville, one of my friends put a speaker directed at her wall and we blared Nine Inch Nails while we packed up. We thought it was the perfect revenge “She thinks I’m loud, well she doesn’t know loud”. I felt bad though and turned it off not long after. She didn’t call the police but she did call the landlord who stayed until I left. I remember them being outside and the landlord had her arms around the crazy, comforting her.
I thought “If this landlord only knew”. I had told the landlord about this woman before but I was 19 and the woman was middle aged so of course it was thought that I was the problematic one.
Virginia says:
We bought and moved into our house in March of 2007, in April of 2007 our daughter was born and six days later was my husband’s birthday. We decided to throw a little party so everyone could see the baby and wish hubs a happy birthday. The party was indoors, it was quiet, no music just simple. About two days later I go check the mail and there is a small letter addressed to “the new neighbors” someone actually mailed this to us. It stated that they didn’t appreciate our loud music (again we didn’t have any music), our speeding down the road which they then said the speed limit was 20mph in our neighborhood, there is no sign (which by law if an area is unmarked by speed the speed limit is 35 by default) and they didn’t appreciate the loud engines reving at 2am (we did have one person who’s battery died so there was a tiny bit of that while charging the battery but our party ended promptly at 12am because we were going to bed.
Later we found out who sent the note, the same woman everyone on my street hates. She calls the cops on everyone. She also called the cops on us when my husband removed to gate to our pool to fix it (it didn’t close) it was only off for an HOUR. This same woman’s husky dog literally tried to eat my min pin (apparently it attacked another neighbor dog before we moved in too) and this same woman was arrested for soaking a sponge in antifreeze then throwing it in a neighbor’s dog pen and killing their dogs. (she paid a fine and was realeased. go justice system!) Also her son drives 60mph down our little dead end road.
EVERYONE wants this woman an her family gone.
TwinMomJulie says:
Hi Heather,
First, please retell the hanging stuff from sprinklers story one day…I’m intrigued!!
Second, when my neighbor was off his meds one summer, he called the police to our house three times in a span of a month and a half. Each time was slightly different complaint, but all with a common theme: People were running around our house, yard, even the roof…naked! The first time the police came, they made us come out of the house, show identification…even questioned my husband and I separately (as if one of us might break down and admit we were naked on the roof!).
Enjoy your Gladys Kravitz!!
Julie
Candi says:
I live in a community with 185 townhomes. I AM on the HOA board because NO ONE wants to be involved….until they have something to complain about. I feel I have to be on the board for other reasons, but I won’t get into all that here. What I will tell you is that there are some on the board who claim to care, but really don’t. We have a property manager and no one will make sure he does his J-O-B! Kind of hard when you are 2 against 3 on the board. Anyway, it is county code and in our HOA handbook that all trash must be placed into a trash can and only put out the night before trash runs. Since no one enforces this, people don’t follow it. I took pictures of my front yard as it was when I walked out of my door twice last month.
Here is a picture of the worst day:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1727701&l=e974470c96&id=1081327986
The trash is bad enough, but a Penthouse magazine with explicit pictures is part of what blew into my yard!! My 8 year old walked right past it on the way to the van. It was cold out, so I got my boys in the van and then got a bag to clean up the mess. I was livid. I don’t care what people do or look at, but for goodness sake dispose of it properly!!
AngieM. says:
my ex-neighbor used to get into horrible fights with his girlfriend I mean throwing things, knocking things over type of fights. I actually had to call the cops on them twice. However, after they’d get into these fights..and always at like 3am..they would have the LOUDEST make up sex ever!!! I mean i was scared they were gonna wake up my daughter in her room on the opposite side..that’s how loud they were
thankfully, after a few more times the cops were called on them..because of his baby mama drama. he was evicted. i was never so happier
Mary says:
Where I live now is a small working class neighborhood. Everyone knows one another and we all get along. Down the street from us, however, was a woman who has mental issues – particularly paranoia – and is heavily armed O_O. She is now in police custody for threatening her immediate neighbors. Prior to this, she would walk around with her handgun prominently displayed, looking in people’s mailboxes.
The only other bad neighbor I’ve dealt with was when my ex and I lived in the house I grew up in. The old man next door was a curmudgeon, to put it mildly. He hated our dogs and ended up shooting one of them. Keep in mind that we both lived on farms, with large fields between the houses. Yeah. I didn’t let my kids play outside unsupervised.
Sarah says:
I lived in an apartment complex on the ground floor. The people who lived above me got a puppy (without reporting it to the complex manager). They kept the puppy outside on their balcony and never took it for a walk. I guess they didn’t want to pay the extra $50 per month to actually keep the dog. Anyway, the dog would pee and poop on the balcony and they would take a bucket of water and wash it off……into my balcony. My balcony eventually got so bad that I had to report them to the complex manager and they got rid of the puppy, but not before I had about 3 inches of poop outside. It was the most horrible stench you could ever imagine. In fact, I just gagged from the memory.
karen says:
For the past 4 years our neighbor has removed the downspout off of his garage so everytime it rained the water poured right into our backyard. My husband would to out there and put it back without saying a word then the next time it rained we would find the neighbor had removed it. So DH had a talk with him. No more problems.
We thought.
This fall they re-graded their property and sloped the entire thing so it runs straight into our back yard!
Michy says:
You might want to check the city codes, because it could be illegal for them to deliberately re-grade in such a way as to cause the drainage to go on your property. I have a bit of experience with this because of our insane neighbors at our old place. You should be able to call a city code inspector and get more details on what you can do.
Nanette says:
You’d think that a condo with only 7 units would be relatively drama-free, but not ours. The oldest lady in our building could be best friends with the one you described. She also likes to start feuds with other units, which have included pouring BLEACH on the other’s laundry, taking it out of the washer before the spin cycle and leaving it on the counter, yelling and chasing occupants into their units, among other whackjob tendencies. Thankfully Brent and I haven’t been the targets in this madness ourselves.
Jessica V. says:
Oh man – I’m not going to get anything done today…these stories are awesome!
My husband and I lived in a great apartment when we first got married…but the neighbors quickly turned out to be “challenging.” One girl would regularly rearrange her furniture at 2 a.m. (she lived below us and had hardwood floors, so everything echoed). Then her boyfriend would come home drunk, start slamming doors and smacking her around, so we had to call the cops.. We also had a very tiny, shared laundry room w/just one washer and dryer, and she would wash random things like couch cushions, which would shred in the machines and leave bits of foam everywhere. Her new roommate had a housekeeper who came over to do his laundry a couple of times a week, but she would leave the laundry in the washer for days at a time (no baskets down there or anything) so that no one else could use the facilities. The other neighbors and I finally started just dumping the laundry on the ground outside the room so we could wash our own stuff. We had asked him to make sure his stuff wasn’t left down there for days on end, but he refused, so we just started moving it out when we needed to get in there. He also let his dog crap on the shared stairs b/c he was too lazy to walk him, so I don’t feel all that bad about dumping his underwear into the mud.
Oh – and I just remembered this one…once they had a party and someone left a pile of (human) crap and dirty boxers on the side of the building. Nice.
He was ultimately evicted and trashed his apartment before moving out. Awesome.
Coco says:
Our neighbors have a kid that screams constantly. I think he has Austism and we’re totally fine with that but not when it’s at 6:30am. For an hour at a time. Outside our front door.
Most of the time we can tune it out and don’t have an issue with it and I know it’s hard for them to keep him quiet. But 630am? Screaming about how his bus is late? Bring him back inside!
Sarah says:
When our old white trash neighbors moved out I was thankful. Thankful for the silence coming from their walls, thankful for the lack of screaming and yelling, thankful that my bathroom wouldn’t smell like whatever she happened to be cooking that never smelled appetizing, especially in the bathroom. Anyway…our landlord allowed us to pick the people that moved in next, so after we carefully selected said people they moved in. We never heard a peep from them all day, then at night it was like a zoo over there. There dogs ran up and down the hallway all night long, then they put the dogs out and they would bark and bark and bark. It was a nightmare.
Needless to say when we finally move, we will never live in a duplex again…
annettek says:
We have a neighbor who still has not taken down their outdoor decorations from a Halloween party they had in 2009. For instance, the skeleton hanging from their mailbox. They’re awesome.
Lesley says:
I need to drink after reading your blog post today…Really, I think I have PTSD after living in my condo in San Francisco for 6 years and being tortured by one of the other condo owners. Every day, I feared the notes that he would leave for me on the door. He was the most passive aggressive, woman hating, dick I have ever met. I won’t go into the specifics because I’ve spent the last few years trying to forget him…but, let’s just say he used to leave stickie notes all over the building saying how stupid our HOA President was (that would be me). And, every time he felt that we had violated some rule of the building, he would copy the page out of the HOA rules, highlight it and then dump copies all over the building.
But, the passive aggressive ass would not come to any meetings. I was scared to death of litigation constantly! Right after I moved, we found out that he got busted storing his bikes in the locked elevator control room. This was the same guy who busted us any time we left a stroller outside of our condo door. That would be the space that was ONLY on our floor and not even blocking any other walkways.
Blah, blah, blah…people are such freaks. When I moved back to Colorado, I insisted that I share NO walls with any other house.
Good luck with the annoying people…I feel for you!!!
Marnie * says:
Our last house was an HOA. The lady across the street was the president of it. She sent us letters all the time for the stupidest things. We kept our house really nice, but she still found things to complain about. Some of them were: the oil stains in our driveway (that were there BEFORE we moved in), about our lawn looking bad (it wasn’t), if the trash cans weren’t put in the back yard the instant the trash was collected (how dare we wait until we got home from work *gasp*).
We also received a letter once about the Christmas decorations. We had until the week after New Year’s to take it all down, which we always did. One year we forgot to take 1 strand of lights down, that were inside the house, hanging in the window. You couldn’t even see them from the street unless they were plugged in. A letter was sent to us, but my husband was fed up at this point, so he ignored it and left the lights up. She came to our house and asked us to take them down. My husband refused and told her they were inside the house, not outside, and she couldn’t tell us to take things we had inside our house down. So we left them up until we moved……2 years later.
DefendUSA says:
We lived in a N’hood that had an HOA. They were like Nazi’s coming around to nickel and dime you with “rule violation” notices!! It sucked. We went under the radar anytime we could. I got it because my newly planted grass was allowed to grow long, trash can, ac unit, paint colors(already there!). That kind of shit is just ridiculous. Glad we don’t have that anymore with an acre and a football field between me and the next neighbor!!
Sherri says:
We had new neighbors move in about 3 years ago with a big dog who they let out though they didn’t put him on a leash nor did they have a fenced yard. Dog came over and killed my cat. Same dog chased my diabetic and arthritic cat off my deck through a yard, and she got hung up on a fence by her hind leg while trying to escape. She has never left the house since. We do not make our cats go outside…they love to lay on the deck and watch the birds and squirrels.
Oh…and don’t even get me started on the survivalist neighbor across the street…
Jellis In Cleveland says:
I live next to my sister inlaw…need I say more.
She is one upper. If it happen to you it happen to her only 10 times worse. If you want something….she has it…the only thing is you have never seen it. She has two children….you could have raised 9 and she would tell you everything you did wrong. I also have to hear about her multi tasking abilities. Working, cooking, cleaning, homework, laundry…no other woman would know what that is like right? Grrrrrrrrrrrrr Sorry bad subject. I tell my husband all the time that is why I dont drink at his family gatherings. I am afraid of what would come out of my mouth…ahhh and I keep the peace.
Lori says:
I would ask to see her Peter Brady “condo monitor” arm band. If she is unable to produce the wearable indication of deserved authority then tell her she is voted out of the complex. Or you could put up a passive agressive note requesting the poster of previous notes please stop posting passive agressive notes – signed the sane tenants of the building who upon last checked were not her children. But that is just me and according to my husband I am the bigger bitch in our relationship.
kelly says:
Right now my neighbor is burning household items like the legs of chairs in a pit right next to my wood fence (which is precariously close to my house). We live in a very urban environment. Burning yard debris or other items is prohibited for obvious reasons. Most of us have central heating including this guy. In response to my 9am wtf? He remains mute. He enjoys the spontaneous fire pit I suppose. Oy.
sarah says:
My super crazy Christian neighbors informed my three year old that he was going to hell because we don’t go to church, they also told my very excited three year old that Easter was for Jesus not candy and if his Mama really loved him she would teach him at home not send him to preschool with strangers. Needless to say I am pretty excited to sell my house!
Kelly says:
I only know our male neighbors name because, “I HATE YOU MIKE!” has been screamed at 2 AM so many times.
We had to call the police on them for leaving all their windows open and leaving their big dog home alone for 36 hours. The dog was pacing their house and barking for about 12 hours straight. I had finally had it at about midnight when it was keeping me and the baby up. The police called her on her cell phone. (I didn’t even know they could look up your cell phone.) Told her that if someone didn’t get there within an hour to shut the windows, and/or let the dog out they were going to jail.
mrs case says:
when i was 21 i moved into a cozy beach town and lived in a duplex on the middle floor. In the duplex across the street lived two males, who on occasion would wave to me or say “hi.” one day they invited me over and after about 20 minutes we heard a rustling in the bushes below the stairs to their unit. suddenly a woman who was dating one of these guys comes raging into the room to let us know she’d been listening in to our conversation, that i was a whore, and that she was going to beat the living daylights out of me. she took out an entire bachelor pad’s worth of booze sitting on the counter with one swoop of her arm. i don’t run, ever, but i ran that night. man it sucked having to look out the window every time i wanted to leave the house to make sure she wasn’t out there. thankfully they broke up about a year later.
in my last neighborhood some crazy chick moved in and knocked on my door in the middle of the night to ask if i knew where she could buy drugs.
come to think of it, i have had a lot of terrible neighbors. how random!
Angela says:
Oh our neighbors…we’ve had several challenging neighbors. We once looked out our kitchen window to see our next door neighbor rolling around in our driveway fighting with his brother…over his wife!! Then, after they moved out, we found out the hard way that our new neighbors boyfriend was a mean drunk, he set her laptop on fire on top of her stove, after beating her up. The guy across the street has many cats…that I’m allergic too, and they roam the neighborhood. I keep waiting for the invitation to Pleasentville!!!
Meyli says:
Ooooooooh neighbors.
Being in college now, I *love* my neighbors. Ha. The people above us party loudly most nights, weekdays or weekends. Loud music, yelling, and horrendous stomping, its soooo loud. We think the people in the apartment across from my boyfriend smoke pot, and the smell seeps through most of the hallway…
Can’t wait to have my own house!!
Marianne says:
I SO feel your pain. I don’t care if it’s pot or cigarettes, it just stinks. But I really hate that people think you’re messed up if you don’t like the smoke wafting into your living space. Dude… I work for a police department and I don’t want to go to work smelling like weed.
Marianne says:
Oh, me! Me!! I’ve got two…
From summer of 2007 to 2009, we lived in this adorable coach house on the north side of Chicago. It was ridiculously expensive for 600 square feet, but you need to visit this neighborhood. Anyway, shortly after we moved in, this younger guy moved in. A month or so later, his girlfriend moved in. They used to fight ALL.THE.TIME. in Portugese. Then, they’d have very loud make-up sex, that we could hear in detail. When I was on maternity leave with my son, this dude worked from home. While he was working from home, he toked up 3-10 times a day. I am not exaggerating! Longest year EVER.
In 2009, we moved to a three flat in the same neighborhood. We live on the third story. We had pretty quiet neighbors for the first six months, but they they both moved out. These two wonderful single guys moved into the first and second story unit. They’re the best neighbors in the world, except that they’re both serious pot-heads! It’s just once a night during the week, but on weekends, it’s about 5 times a day. I’m convinced I’m the only person in the city who doesn’t smoke up. It stinks. I hate it. But other than that, they’re such great neighbors. I don’t want to make a fuss.
Teresa says:
Before my husband and I got married, he was living in this complex where there were 4-2 bedroom units in each building. The place was nice with great hardwood floors in each unit. Everyone pretty much kept to themselves but on the occasions people ran into each other, everything was cordial. Our only complaint was that his upstairs neighbor seemed to have a propensity for rearranging furniture at all hours. We didn’t think much of it since the floors were hardwood and we figured they had a rolling office chair or were loud walkers. However, shortly after that, my husband started noticing a huge influx of insects. Now the complex supposedly fumigated once a month, but we were appalled by the amount of bugs we were seeing in the unit. We couldn’t figure out why all of a sudden there was an infestation and we complained to the apartment manager. It turned out that the upstairs neighbor’s new boyfriend/live in felt it was his duty to rescue animals, and in an effort to do this, he had drilled cages into the hardwood floors and they were keeping something like a dozen cats, several dogs, and a great number of rabbits, rodents, and birds. Needless to say, the apartment manager was less than happy and the people were told they were allowed one pet and were responsible for all damages to the floor.
Carrie says:
When our neighbors first moved in, they would occasionally have summer parties and everyone would be outside until the wee hours of the early morning. Luckily that side of the house is on our kitchen side and not our bedroom side, so we didn’t hear much and we didn’t care. Until…..after a party on a Sunday into Monday morning came along, I was getting ready to go to school, my husband was home and we had our dog outside roaming around. I was getting ready to leave when our dog came around the corner with this smear of something awful smelling on him. He is a hunting dog, we assumed he rolled in something dead or some animal poop. As soon as he got closer, we could tell it was neither. Apparently the neighbors friends decided it was too much to walk to the bathroom to go and instead leaned up against his shed to take a crap. Our ‘hunting’ dog found the crap and proceeded to roll in it. I chuckled that day as I left that, seeing my husband hose off the dog from a very far away distance.
Rebecca says:
There is a house for sale on our street. Why don’t you guys move out here. I could totally babysit the baby and the pooch. AND, the cost of living is drastically cheaper.
Sue says:
Oh, awful neighbor stories. Got ’em! I live next to a guy who we’ve dubbed, “The Real Housewife of the Cul-de-sac.” He’s in everybody’s business and is very hateful. He took it upon himself to trim all the bushes next to my house (which he pruned to death), trim my trees that were hanging over on the lower half of his yard that is down a big hill and then threw all the clippings into my backyard so I could dispose of it. He told me I should trim the backyard and when I did it 3 months later (I had to wait until I had funds), he got upset with the guys doing the trimming because he told me to do it 3 months earlier. He also picked a fight with a 19 year old kid that I had to break up. Douche doesn’t even begin to discribe this toolbag. Tempted to sell the house short just to decrease his property value.
Lisa says:
So our upstairs neighbors were 8 people between the ages of 17 and 21. Their apartment was rented by the company that they “worked” for. There were dance parties at all hours of the day, bass blaring CONSTANTLY, but my patience finally broke when one of them tried to break into our apartment. Slamming his body against the door repeatedly until I opened the door with a baseball bat and about beat the sh*t out of him. I called the cops, and they refused not only to file a restraining order, but to allow me to file charges because the guy “thought it was his place”. Umm…hello? You still have another flight of stairs to go up dude, I’m a female, home alone, shouldn’t they be taking my word over his? And then there was the day they moved out. All I saw was furniture flying out of windows, off the balcony, etc. And they just left it there. No bothering to move it or whatever. Yeah…
Then there was the guy down the hall. He had a couple of beautiful Goldens, one was really old and crotchety looking, and was losing chunks of fur everywhere. I didn’t think anything of it until our cat got ringworm AND fleas. (and he’s an indoor cat, never allowed outside) I wasn’t happy.
And there was the guy down below who never slept with his chain smoking wife, sat around naked in his living room (which conveniently faced the parking lot, and his drapes were never shut) and gave everyone who drove up or parked a full frontal show. And he was about 200 lbs overweight. Oh my eyes….
I was so glad when we moved.
Rae says:
Our two lovely neighbors just moved out….but while they were living next door to us, they would hold gorup Cross Fit workouts. So every morning and night we would had strong man training going on in the middle of the street. Not to mention the blaring music and video recording that was going on. Once my husband had to crutch over to their driveway (mind you this was two days after an ankle surgery) to please ask them to not drop their weights and quit flipping a truck tire since it was 1:30 in the morning. That was such a rude awakening to be dead asleep and woken up to our dogs barking because they thought someone was trying to break in. But at last we are free…..
We also have a set of male neighbors in their mid 60s who stalk my husband. Since my husband is married you would think they would realize that he plays for a different team. I just sit in the house and giggle as my husband gets flirted with while trying to mow the yard or other manly chores.
Mama Fuss says:
My first apartment, both the downstairs neighbors were jewels. And by that I mean, fodder for writing about horrible neighbor stories.
The ones below us liked to smoke their cigarettes outside – while sitting on the stairs (the only way to get into my apartment on the floor above them) and they liked to smoke their weed in the kitchen where the vent would hotbox us on our way up the stairs. They also tended to have very loud fights occasionally and one night it ended w/ the girl getting thrown in jail for some reason.
The woman who lived to their left (we shared a common courtyard) moved in and brought what I can only imagine to be the contents of a very large, very full house. She then proceeded to set up all this JUNK (including a porch swing, a wooden pathway, and a toilet-turned-planter) in our front yard/the common area in front of the building that wasn’t hers to begin with. She was also about 5’2″ and weighed at least a couple hundred pounds and liked to walk around the complex in nothing but shorts and her bra. (Shudder) This same woman woke us up at 5am one morning screaming obscenities at the man and the police officer who were repossessing her motorcycle. Which she liked to rev the engine of over and over and over again at 11 o’clock at night.
We bought a house and moved as soon as we could. The man who owned the house next door to us moved in with his girlfriend and began renting his house out. The first renter turned his car port into an outdoor living room, complete with a bar and a TV and would party hard EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND and at least 2 nights out of the week late into the night. This is, of course, his business, but unfortunately, our houses are built very close to our respective property lines and this meant that all his noise (which was, in effect, OUTSIDE his house) was approximately 15 feet from my bedroom window and 15 feet from my brand-new baby’s window (he moved in when she was 2 weeks old). (When he’d wake her and she’d scream inconsolably, I’d open the window and let the sound of the baby annoy him)
Kristin (MamaKK922) says:
Wow she sounds like fun. I am not even sure you could handle my neighbor stories. Cause I at times can’t handle my neighbor stories. I must get into them on my blog but I don’t want my neighborhood to seem all ghetto when it is just those few people. Like the kid who broke up with his girlfriend and drug their mattress down the street. That happens everywhere right?? But that is just one of many. Wow I need to move.
AJ says:
We’ve lived in our house for 5 years. On our street is one other family with children, and the rest are retired elderly people. The elderlies are total busy bodies, and for the most part, they mean no harm and don’t bother me. The other family with kids is right next door, and their youngest comes over every day to play, which is fine. She’s 11, polite, and watches my 1.5 year old so I can make dinner and fold laundry.
But then there is the retired couple across the street who are probably only in their mid-50s. In september they stand in their front window, wait for a leaf to fall, and then run out to the yard and pick it up. Seriously. It’s insane. And if my hubs mows the grass on the weekend, they will immediately mow their grass because they CAN NOT have longer grass than the hooligans across the street.
So one time, the Dept. of Public Works shows up at my door. “Ma’am, we’re here about your wasp nest.” I’m all “what wasp nest.” And they’re all “the one your neighbors called the police about.” And I’m all “WTF?” They couldn’t ask me about it, they called the police on me for a wasp nest that I simply hadn’t noticed.
AYFKM?????
Then this year, my hubs took me out to dinner and a ball game where my family all met me to suprise me for my 30th birthday. And my dog, who was home alone in the back yard, apparently went a little nuts over the bonfire going on in the lot next to us, and the CARNIVAL that was going on one block over (annual church festival)…so once again, they called the police on our dog. When there was a carnival going on.
SERIOUSLY!!!!
Katy says:
We just rented our first house here in Hayward (Near San Francisco) and it sits on a “lot” with 3 other houses. Well my one neighbor is highly abusing drugs and decides he needs to clean everything at ya know 1 2 am when i am trying to sleep. It is highly aggrevating. His dog does the deed on my lawn so how do i retaliate, well I let my dogs go on his lawn. Neighbors can suck sometimes.
Lacie says:
When I first moved in with my fiance he lived in a townhouse with two other people. The girl was super awesome and I loved her and we are still good friends to this day. The guy was another story.
Nobody in the house was a couple, but the guy was basically a huge wannabe player. The issue was that he never really got any action but was totally arrogant about it. I would regularly come downstairs to get my breakfast and find him on the couch chatting completely naked except for the robe he was wearing that didn’t always cover everything up. Ugh. Sometimes I didn’t feel like eating anymore.
Near the end of us moving out we got frustrated with him because he would freak out on everybody for making messes but if anybody cleaned anything up he would freak out because he didn’t like it when anyone touched his stuff. He said, and I quote. “I feel like a tiger out of my den.” (Are tiger’s homes called dens?) One week he said that my fiance and I had made a huge mess because he had decided not to use any of the dishes to see if we were the ones leaving dishes in the sink. We all were supposed to take turns loading and unloading dishes. We held up our end of the bargain, but of course all the dishes in the sink were ours since he hadn’t used any! We ended up bringing our own dishes over and moving a few of his things around (that he never used) so our dishes would be obviously separate. While I was sleeping and my fiance was at work he moved everything back around and combined all our dishes. I went down after he went back to work and moved them and left him a note that we wanted to keep everything separate so that there was no confusion about whose dishes were in the sink. (Or in the liquor cabinet, as he loved to leave his half empty bowls of cereal up there too.) The next few weeks after that he basically made my life hell, implying that my cat made all the messes in the house even though he was a terrible pet owner who never cleaned his so called beloved cat’s litter box or took his dog outside. I cleaned up pretty much all of his pets messes until he “served us with an eviction notice” (that would not have held up in court because my fiance was never even on the lease) and gave us thirty days to move out. Little did he know we had already found an apartment and were in the process of moving.
He’s now engaged to be married and I regularly rack my brain trying to figure out how blind she is or how stupid she is to not see through his shiny fake exterior.
Annie says:
I live in Oklahoma and “way out in the country” as we say here. My neighbors do NOT like to mow, but in the spring and summer the grass gets really tall so they mow a PATH from their porch to their driveway. They have an abandoned school bus and and abandoned El Camino in their back yard. They also, have a BOX FAN on their front porch so they can stay cool when they sit in their front porch recliner drinking beer. They also got pissed when my other neighbor let the family pit bull roam free. So they shot it and dumped in in the middle of the road in front their house. I am in Redneck Hell. And my husband got laid off last week so it looks like this is Home Sweet Home for awhile.
Expat Mom says:
Ah, bad neighbors . . . I’ve had lots, but the worst are the ones I have here in Guatemala. First, we live on the same strip of land as my in-laws, all of them, from my husband’s parents to his siblings. His sister hates me and when we finally had water put in, they instantly installed a tap at their end (they live at the front of the property) and every day, she turned my water off .. . . when I was washing upwards of 15 dirty cloth diapers a day.
When I had my oldest son, my husband’s mother would come to our door at 4 in the morning and yell, “IS THE BABY OK? I thought I heard him crying!” Well, now you do, thanks for waking him up! His grandmother, who lives to one side of us, would just walk into our one room house at any time and since my son never slept more than 20 minutes at a time, I would lie down and sleep whenever he did during the day. She would come in and say, “Why are you asleep? You’re so lazy! You’re going to make yourself sick!” And she was there 7-10 times a day until finally one day I just screamed my head off at her and she told my husband I was a very unpleasant person and he never should have married a gringa.
I have plenty more stories like that, but I’ll stop here.
Margaret says:
ugh, these stories make me so sad. Where do these people come from? I try so hard not to say anything to these nasty, never got enough hugs when they were little, people. But then I just have to stand up for myself. Then it’s back to worrying if I’m going to run into this low life on the street, or at the store.
Why can’t they be nice?
Peace to all the nice people, I see you, and appreciate you.
Kate says:
We used to have a guy who would answer the door naked. He also called the cops one time when I screamed when I stubbed my toe. Pretty sure he thought that Jeff beats me (hint: when you hear a thump and one single anguished scream, followed by a female’s loud cursing and the righting of an upturned table, it’s probably just a stubbed toe).
::sigh::
Kathy says:
My horror story is from a few years ago. My daugther (12) was 3 or 4 at the time. There was a “family” (made up of a single mom, her “regulars”, her teenage gangster son and gangster/thug stepson, their various girlfriends, a few crack addicts and two un-neutered pitbulls) living in the basement of the house next door. Every night at dinner, we had a clear view of their pitbulls “doing it” in the backyard. Nobody in the family worked (but seemed to make money by selling drugs from their backdoor). Parties were an almost nightly event. Swearing, loud music and screaming came at all hours. I finally had enough one summer evening when I was trying to put my daughter to bed and her bedroom windows were vibrating because of the loud music.
I calmly walked next door and could see through the basement window, a couple of teenagers and one of the dogs sitting about 10 feet from a window. I banged on the window for them to turn the music down but of course, it was so loud, not even the dog could hear me. I kept banging and banging and I finally banged so hard I broke the window!! Still, nobody heard it. I walked back to my house, terrified that they would know it was me, but they never figured it out. Later that evening I heard, as one of them came home “what the f*&^ happened to our window?”
The day they moved was one of the happiest of my life.
Racj says:
OMG I am laughing so hard I am crying…thought I was the only one!
Kristen says:
Seriously, my greatest fear is neighbors who don’t mind their effing business. When my husband and I were first married we lived in this condo that had a community board. It was horrible. If Christmas lights weren’t down by the 2nd week of January, a neighbor walked through to let you know you were “not meeting the standards”, smallest patch of grass that was a tad higher than the rest – I’m talking smallest patch!! – same neighbor came to tell you it was out of line.
Goodness, get a life, lady! I’m telling you. I couldn’t wait to move.
Melissa says:
I thought I was the only one too! I had an upstairs neighbor with a 100 pound dog (in a 1bed/1bath apartment mind you) and would play fetch with him upstairs and blast his music. I was told by an older co-worker to knock my broom on the ceiling at him. I did that for a few weeks until the police showed up at my door. He called the cops on me! The cop was super mad and was yelling at me for having to show up for such a “ridiculious situation.” I told him to go upstairs and tell the guy to shut up. I finally moved and now I live an apartment…. on the top floor. I am praying I get a house this summer and have nice neighbors that I don’t share walls with!
Janelle says:
Our neighbors didn’t mow their grass for over 2 months last summer. The weeds in their backyard were taller than our 5 foot privacy fence.
Karen says:
Oh boy! Deja vu college apartment ;0)
My favorite neighbor was the girl I later found out had a local arrest record for petty theft.
She knew how to sneak up onto my fire escape and through my bedroom window. Thought I was losing it when oddities like new underwear and my favorite pj’s started to go missing. Then it was a Claddagh ring followed by seeing the first gold ring my parents gave me on her finger.
Boy was she pissed with me when I installed the AC unit in my window. Coincidentally nothing else went missing ever again.
amanda says:
I just wrote you a novelle and it got deleted. Sigh. I will maybe write it up and post it later, but the short version: drugs, BATSHIT CRAZY, stalker, more drugs, prostitution, domestic violence.
But GORGEOUS hardwood floors.
amanda says:
Ok, here it is. Almost a thousand words about my old apartment: http://alreadyclouds.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/neighbors/
Rebecca says:
Rigby is such a cutie!!
Your neighbor sounds really annoying. I had an annoying neighbor when we moved into our current townhouse. She was on our HOA Board, yet had no problem parking a mobile basketball hoop (against HOA rules) for her kids in the fire lane across from our row of homes (against fire codes!). I stewed over it for months, and finally decided that I didn’t want to confront her directly for fear that she would somehow turn the board against me, so I reported it to the city fire department – but they never followed up. Fortunately, she moved out about a year after we moved in, so it’s no longer an issue. But boy, it pissed me off that someone on the HOA board would be so cavalier as to break the board’s own rules (not to mention the fire code).
Liz says:
Where so I start?
How about I got a knock on my door asking me to please not put my “cheap” halloween decorations up this year? Oh yeah… IT WAS JULY.
They also request that we not park the car the in driveway, that we pay for. They prefer not to have to look at it.
bah. humbug. to them.
gugs says:
I have had my fair share of neighbours but my worst two would be the professional boxer who lived upstairs from us and used to hit his wife.
The other one was a man in his 50’s who was an alcoholic. He was estranged from his family and a pretty sad case all around. He would have benders and we were used to not seeing him for days at a go. He was pretty harmless but we would leave left over food for him etc. He died and no-one found his body for two weeks until it began to smell. My mother and another found him.
Grace says:
In my last apartment, the 60 year old neighbor to our right, was named Awilda but wanted to be called Cookie. Naturally my husband and I referred to her as “Awilda Beast” behind her back, of course. She spoke little english, smoked like a chimney, never wore a bra, and always had short shorts on.
Her husband regularly locked her out so she would bang on the door screaming his name.
And the woman above us used to invite strange, old men over. We called them her “gentlemen callers”. The bed would shake and the floor would creak as we tried to block out what was happening only a few feet above us.
Kelsey says:
Our neighbors hate our dog. When we first moved in they reported us twice to the city because he was barking in the back yard. Their report said “through the night” which is odd as we never left him out past 10. He is also never out when we’re not home. The neighbor also reported feeling threatened when our dog put his paws up on the fence. Our dog weighs 34 pounds. He is a wheaten terrier and looks like a stuffed animal. But clearly his is a wolf in sheep’s clothing…
The same neighbor refused to say hello to us, even if we are out in the yard and try to greet him – he just ignores it.
As a bonus, when their youngest daughter was in high school, she used to have parties and leave condom wrappers and beer bottles in our yard (thoughtfully hidden in the bushes for our toddler to potential discover) – classy!
All their kids are grown and I keep hoping they’ll MOVE but no luck yet. We’re thinking of a large privacy fence or maybe a giant play structure for their viewing pleasure. (Our back yard adjoins their side yard and deck…)
alicia says:
She sounds just CHARMING.
We used to live in an apartment below a couple who beat each other up. We could hear screaming and then skin punching skin. Awe. Some.
Right now, we live next to a guy who has crazy loud parties until late. Not super often, but enough to annoy people. He’s had the cops called on him multiple times, and one time, we happened to be reading books out on our front porch, which we NEVER do, so I just KNOW he thinks it’s us. He offered to put us (we are a family of six, including four small children) up at a hotel the last time he was having a party (we declined). One party, Halloween Eve 2009, some of his friends got into a fight in front of our house, and one person busted a bottle over the head of another. The guy was laying in the street in a POOL of blood, not moving. They started yelling, “Call 9-1-1,” and we DID, but by the time the cops came, they’d already taken the guy in their car to the hospital. I assume he lived because the guy still lives next door and not in a prison. True to his character, Neighbor left all the glass and POOL OF BLOOD in the street. Our next door neighbor on the other side ended up sweeping the glass up, and the blood was there for a few weeks until it rained. EW.
MORE annoying, though, are his dogs. He has these tiny, yippy dogs that bark ALL the time. He’ll go for a run and not take them. Instead, he leaves them in the garage all day and then lets them out for about five seconds next to the street to pee. And then yells at them when they don’t finish fast enough. One of them tried to get in my car with me once. They’re totally starved for attention. Anyway, they’re LOUD and NONSTOP. To the point that they wake my children. Which OH NO HE DI’N’T. People have left notes on his door (he responded by getting another dog), talked to our HOA (nothing)… He just refuses to deal with it.
Kelly says:
We lived in a house in a nice neighborhood and we got a dog and our dog chose to poop in the back corner of our yard near our neighbors bedroom window. We tried to pick up the poop daily but our neighbor accused us of piling the poop near his bedroom window and we explained to him that is where the dog chose to poop. after awhile I guess he got tired of it and he hung a sign up outside his back door that said in big letters “The Turner’s stink like dog shit” we were happy to move from that neighborhood!
Melanie says:
I totally win the creepy neighbor award. We caught our neighbors and their party goers in our spa … er … enjoying each others company A LOT. I might add that all of the spa participants were married to other people NOT in the spa.
The best part? I had their kids asleep in my living room. The living room with the big window looking out to the spa.
Ick Factor = 10
Sarah M. says:
Oh where do I begin my stories about my downstairs neighbor, Etta…
– She pounded on my door at 1am to tell me she had a water leak 7 HOURS before, but decided that 1am was a better time to tell me about it.
– Etta & her “boyfriend” are both at least 75 yrs old. I ran into him late one night, barely dressed, coming in from his car getting his “medicine”. Then I found Etta standing in her doorway waiting for him & she was BARELY DRESSED in a gurdle/slip thing. My 75 yr old neighbor was getting more action than me that night! I don’t know if I was more upset or just completely disgusted by this fact.
-And last but not least dear sweet 75 yr old Etta likes to pack heat. As in pistols, as in loaded pistols. And she has Alzheimer’s. Enough said.
neeroc says:
When we moved in our immediate neighbours were a couple. Wife soon left and 10ish year older single Italian man installed a hot tub and opened the door to his home for wayward men. I think his buddies used it as a crash pad after they separated from their wives (or in some cases mothers).
They used to hop in the hot tub, crank the tunes and then proceed to converse. Do you know how loud you have to talk in a hot tub? Then they’d get liquored up, stand on the hot tub cover and hit golf balls at their metal shed.
He got married 2 years ago, and while the single men disappeared, she brought 2 beagle/jack russells with her, and proceeded to ignore their hours spent howling in the back yard.
They moved out in October and sold to what appears to be 6 or so people that smoke pot. All. The. Time. Not so bad now, but I can’t wait for the contact high in the summer.
Angela says:
My LJ friends have heard all sorts of stories about Nosy Upstairs Neighbour Adrian, an elderly man with too much time on his hands.
He has forced me to borrow a book on cutting sugar out my diet. Because I’m “going to die soon”. He poked my belly fat once. When I stopped being Ms Nice Angela and told him he could no longer say anything negative about my weight, NUNA did respect that. That hasn’t stopped him from signing for my packages and coming into my apartment during a plumbing emergency to take photos for evidence (the plumber left the door open).
NUNA accused my mom of breaking into my apartment while I was in the hospital. His very worst was when I came home after having to put a cat to sleep. I told him my cat had slipped into a diabetic coma. He told me that he hopes he doesn’t go into a diabetes coma. BECAUSE IT HAD TO BE ALL ABOUT HIM. And yes, I know he’s diabetic. And has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. He tells me far more than I want to know.
Annalien says:
Wow, I live in South Africa and while reading the stories above, I was amazed at how often the police are called for neighbourly disputes and that they seem to respond to each of these calls. On the one hand, I am envious at how good the US police seems to be; on the other hand, it seems to be a terrible waste of their time in some instances. In South Africa I am afraid the police doesn’t even always respond when there is a real crime – unfortunately we must rank somewhere under the top 10 crime countries in the world!
DefendUSA says:
Annalien-
Hoe gaan dit? I have neighbors from Paarle, and Hermanus who have told me that the police can be very corrupt. It must be hard not feeling safe! Where in SA do you live?
Sarah P says:
Oh. You absolutely have to submit that to Passive AggressiveNotes.com.
http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/
(And if you’ve never visited, you’re welcome.)
Bria says:
Dear Sarah P,
Thank you very much for posting this link. I can’t get any work done now because I keep looking at this site. My day is ruined!
(Hee hee…just kidding. Honestly, thanks for the link. I really CAN’T stop reading it but it certainly hasn’t ruined my day.)
Gina says:
Our neighbor told us we can’t be friends with each other’s dogs.
Kimberly says:
While I don’t know if I “win” with my former neighbors (who still own the house next door to us but moved down the street to a bigger home when they “upgraded” as they so nicely told us) over all of the unbelievable stories told here, I wanted to share my tales:
1) Day we move in the neighbors (both advanced degreed professionals with 3 children) invited another set of neighbors to a BBQ right in front of us, with no apology or explanation to us.
2) Their children repeatedly cut through our yard and climbed our trees, after being asked nicely (and later, less nicely) not to do so.
3) Mother cut through our BACK yard (we’re on the corner and have a double lot) on her BICYCLE.
4) Children set fire to items in their backyard with accelerant, near their propane tank WHILE PARENTS WERE HOME. (We called the police for that one.) We saw Father tell kids to “be careful, because neighbors are complaining.” Apparently he saw nothing wrong with young children starting fires in a suburban yard – our homes are maybe 25 feet from each other.
5) Children shot real hunting arrows in their back yard and one went through a window into our house. When my husband confronted the father, he looked sheepish and said, “I guess we’re not always the most observant parents.”
The renters that live next door now are disliked by the neighborhood because they have dogs that bark and unfortunately, I believe, because they aren’t Caucasian. I don’t know them well but we exchange pleasantries and they are respectful of us and our property – I’ll take the barking anyday!
Hef says:
I have a neighbor that looks for any excuse to call the city on us. When I was renovating my house, I had my stove and dishwasher on the front porch for a couple of days waiting for someone to get them. They weren’t out there but a day or so and I had a note on my door saying I needed to move them or face a fine. My husband has left his trailer on the curb for a day and the next day there’s a notice to remove it. She’s told him that there are bylaws to our neighborhood and we should follow them. We’ve never seen any bylaws and don’t have a homeowner’s association. I’ve got a bench on the side of the yard that faces her house and my husband told her I wanted to paint it purple. I was going to do a deep purple. She told him if we did that then we needed to put it on the other side of the house so she didn’t have to see it. I’m painting it bright purple and leaving it!
Heather says:
I don’t know… orange marker looks pretty serious. You should likely be worried.
Next thing you know she’ll whip out post-it amendments to her awesome letters.
Megan says:
A bunch of these stories are just over-the-top ridiculous, but I still want to share my somewhat less-so one…
So, my roommate and I live in a four-unit apartment complex: two up, two down. We are on the second floor. When we first moved in, we stopped by to introduce ourselves to all three neighbors, say hi, and specifically ask them to let us know if we were too noisy (the walls were clearly thin). We also brought cookies, ’cause that’s the kind of girls we were. The neighbors right below us refused to answer the door, even though we could tell that they were watching us through the blinds. So, we left the cookies and the note (which were gone when we checked five minutes later).
Fast-forward about a week: neighbors under us have a RAGING fight — screaming, yelling, doors slamming, the sounds of things being thrown…it sounded like there were people being thrown, too. My roommate and I sat in the living room, horrified, and totally unsure about what to do. We had guests over, and they cut off our conversation to ask if I was SURE we shouldn’t call the cops, because “that woman is having the crap beaten out of her.”
We didn’t, because I was a wimp, but the occurrence repeated several times a month, and my roommate finally called the cops one night around 2am. The police told us they didn’t find anything downstairs. No sign of a disturbance, nothing. The fighting resumed about 45 minutes later.
The next night, I was staying up late to bake for a friend’s birthday, and there’s a knock on my door. It’s a cop. I’m being too loud. No matter that I wasn’t playing the radio, was barefoot, that my roommate was totally asleep in the next room, or, oh yeah, the only thing I was doing was MAKING A CAKE. Too loud. Just like they were too loud.
This pattern continued for a while — we’d call in a noise complaint, they’d call in a noise complaint. We went downstairs to talk to them once when it was quiet, because we didn’t want this to be a thing, and again, they watched us through the window. My favorite was when my roommate called the cops around 1:30am because we could hear screaming…and then *they* called the cops around 5am because she was taking a SHOWER.
Well, no, that’s not my favorite, actually. That was when the neighbors started pounding on their ceiling…specifically my roommate’s bedroom floor…every time she got out of bed to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Or, one special night, every time she rolled over in bed.
We finally sent the landlord a message to complain, and his response was that we were the last people in the building to do so, and our predecessors had actually moved out because of it. He served them an eviction notice.
Well, that changed things: suddenly, they were knocking on OUR door, wanting to be friends. They weren’t a couple at all — it was two sisters, college-aged. They both claimed to have no idea of what the problem was…except for the part when one of the girls admitted she was banging on the ceiling because she knew my roommate had her boyfriend over (untrue), and had wanted her to know that she was NASTY for what she was doing up there.
Also, that she’d eaten our cookies and thought they were pretty good.
The other sister went to school full time and worked nights at the local supermarket — she was completely unaware there’d been anything going on (or that her sister had eaten cookies we brought over, which almost spawned a fight between the two of them in our living room).
We had sympathy for the working sister, and recognized that the other one clearly had some mental problems, but we were tired of living with the tension of the suspected domestic violence and cop visits, so we told them there was nothing we could do about the landlord’s request. (They also both claimed to not know what we were hearing when we heard “arguments” late at night.) A month later, they were gone. The new couple under us has now been there for over a year, and it’s like you wouldn’t know they were there. Which is wonderful.
I still run into the less-crazy sister at the supermarket where she works; she always acts super-happy to see me, but asks really inappropriate questions about my new neighbors.
audra says:
i live in south carolina. our neighbors pull their lawn chairs out into the middle of the culdesac to sit and drink beer. they also watch cars and gossip about everyone. sometimes they block our driveway. in the summer, they wear a lot less clothing than should be allowed.
Kellee Pigeon says:
LOL. What a pain in the ass.
Hmmmm, let’s see:
1 – I took my dog and left one day because of the ruckus happening upstairs… it sounded like they were tearing the place apart. The police showed up because the girl was high on something or other. She was hauled off, kicking and screaming all kinds of interesting things.
2 – The (married) upstairs neighbor next to him used to leave me all kinds of creepy messages. Was totally icky.
3 – My last upstairs neighbor in this place flooded her apartment and didn’t think she should tell the person living below her. Surprised me, because she was actually really nice. So the flood was happening directly above my office – you know… the office that runs my entire company and holds all of the equipment, etc. – and I found out about it by stepping into water in that room and barely managed to move everything in time and hurt myself because I was rushing.
4 – My current next door apartment is two young hispanic men and I have to tell them to turn down their music all the time because it is rattling the OTHER side of my apartment it is so loud. I actually really love Spanish music, except the norteno stuff, sounds like circus music to me, and that is what they like to blast, of course. LOL
5 – My current upstairs neighbor pounds so hard up and down the stairs that it knocks pictures off of my wall sometimes, wakes me up in the middle of the night, and they like to have (literally) screaming conversations outside my door at 2 in the morning. I just love that, let me tell you. Nothing like startling awake in the middle of the night to a loud obnoxious woman screaming, “ANDRE! AAAANDREE!!!! WHACHOO DOIN’??????”
Yes, I’m surrounded by WINNERS!. LOL
LisaJ says:
We enjoyed living in our townhouse community up until crazy neighbor condo commando moved in.
First, she got herself appointed to the board. The she proceeded to type up minutes and warnings and used the HOA funds to ensure that EVERY single home received a typed up grip letter. As an English teacher, I bitched up a storm about her obnoxious, interfering ways while I utilized my passive aggression to correct every teensy mistake on the note before ripping it into a gazillion pieces.
She had something to say about everything! The letters called out individuals. which bothered me greatly. Not by name, of course, but descriptive enough that EVERYONE knew EXACTLY who she was talking about. For example: “There was dog poop in the pool area. A small white dog has been seen numerous times out by the pool, off leash.” Or “An individual painted their home without permission.” Or “a family in our community leaves their garage open all day.” It was truly ridiculous. She really made it her mission in life to bring misery and embarrassment to the lives of others.
I have never been so glad to move in my life.
LisaJ says:
LOL at my typos, considering I admitted to ripping her letter to shreds with my red pen.
Dudge OH says:
There’s a blog entry in my head for the horrendous parts of our life in an ground level apartment…!
As for neighbors, most were OK. The unit across the way seemed to keep being leased to students, but apart from a little noise and rare shows of drunkenness, they were never too bad.
The worst, however, was the last neighbor we had, with whom we shared a wall between the apartments. Thankfully we were already in the process of house-hunting when “The Incident” happened.
Whilst DS1 was having his daily meltdown, (he was 4 at the time and has since been diagnosed as having Asperger’s), just inside our front door, our delightful neighbor, opened his door and yelled something akin to “Shut him up! Kill him!”. The exact words, I don’t recall, except that the phrase was repeated and at least once contained the work “kill”. We should have got the cops, I suppose, but DW became kind of hysterical and took all evening to calm down. After that we spent as much time out of the apartment as possible…
Tamara says:
My next door neighbor is quiet (for the most part), keeps her house and yard clean and obviously pays her rent on time (been there 15+years) but we have had quite a few blow-ups over the years. The craziest one I can recall is when our kids were little and my daughter was playing in our driveway with her two little girlfriends from down the street. Our neighbor hollered out the window that she couldn’t believe we let our kids play with black kids! And get this….our neighbor is black! WTH??
carolyn bignell says:
My next door condominium neighbour is a journalist (well known) at Toronto’s largest paper. She felt I was being too loud in my bedroom (next to hers). Rather than write a note, she wrote…a column in the newspaper.
My parents read it.
I blogged about it, then called a local radio station to win a contest on worst neighbour.
Then I moved my bed to the opposite wall.
Good luck with your neighbour! Love your blog!
C
Funsize says:
I have 2 stories for you:
When my husband and I moved into our first place together, our neighbor next to us complained to us because we were playing the drums from Rock Band. At 5 PM on a Saturday. So on Memorial Day weekend we invited everyone we knew for a Rockband party. The party lasted all day until 11 PM.
We now currently live in a condo similar to how yours is set up. We are on the top floor, but the vents are all connected. The neighbor below us has a college aged son (We’re 24 so we’re college aged, but he’s younger). She rents one of the rooms out to her son’s friend; his room is directly above our nursery. He has recently decided to use aerosol spray paints to graffiti style paint the room he’s renting. The smell wafts up into our vents, particularly into our nursery. They leave their drapes open in the room and there are bongs everywhere. Did I mention she also grows and sells pot?
Kristy says:
I once lived in an apartment complex where my upstairs neighbors would get drunk and fight a lot. The female would kick the male out of the house and then play Inagodadavida on her keyboard until he came back. Then they would have really noisy adult time.
I could stand the screaming and yelling but Iron Butterfly on a keyboard at 1 am almost drove me to commit hari kari.
Shannon says:
If anything shady ever goes down, I’ll be the neighbor on tv saying I knew something was up. He’s just so strange. All of the guests I’ve ever had stay at our house have said “what’s with that guy”. When he leaves his house, he drives very slow past his house staring, then drives around the block to view his house from the other side & then backs up & pulls forward again, staring at his house. He also spends over 16 hours mowing his lawn. He sets up a tent over his mailbox & proceeds to spend several hours scrubbing it. Yes I said the mail box. He’s been my neighbor 5 years & I’ve seen his wife all of 3 times maybe. Never close up. And he has a van with no windows that he sometimes parks at the house, but not always. After he’s done parking he’ll get out several times to check his park job. Obviously he’s OCD & I don’t find fault with that b/c I’m OCD. He’s just really bizarro! When we lost our cat & the entire neighborhood was helping us look for him, he ignored us, didn’t say a word & continued with his yard work as though we weren’t screaming our cat’s name at the top of our lungs looking like fools. I’m going to feel SO guilty If anything ever happens & I have thought about asking the police if they have any unsolved crimes, but then I’d be the whack job! I’m still not sure I’d trade my creepy guy for your busy-body though.
amanda says:
sounds like your neighbor might also have autism or asperger’s in addition to the OCD.
Snickrsnack Katie says:
Wow, sounds like the condo complex that I used to live at. There was a lady who lived there who we all called “Crazy Ann” because, well, she was batshit crazy. She thought she was a princess and said that she was best friends with George and Laura Bush and she would walk around with a glass of wine in her hand and make rude comments to everyone. And there were tons of old ladies that lived there for the last half century and felt they were the keepers of the place. Ugh. So glad to not live in a condo complex anymore.
Trisha Vargas says:
So when we bought our house back in 2007 and met some of our neighbors, everyone would gasp when we told them which house we moved into. It wasn’t just the neighbors though, it was the paper delivery lady, the mailman, teachers at my kids schools. Everyone would look at us with pity and say “oh, you moved in next to Bob, huh?” No one would ever elaborate on what Bob’s deal was, they would just say we would figure it out over time. Ok, not reassuring.
We were moved in about 3 weeks and I got up early on a Saturday to take the dog out back and there was Bob in a robe, that was open with all his bidness hanging out, messing with his patio furniture in the back yard. All the people had failed to tell us that Bob the neighbor was a nudist in a previous life and sometimes in the wee hours of the morning you will catch him falling back to his old lifestyle.
The paper lady told me after I let her know I knew all about Bob’s early AM fun, that he once walked butt naked to the mailbox one morning during her delivery route.
So we have had to adjust a lot with the dog peeing schedule and since Bob knows we teenage girls and a toddler now, he wears either his speedos or super high cut cut off daisy duke jean shorts while mowing his lawn and tinkering in the back yard. Isn’t that sweet of him? Did I mention we are saving for a privacy fence?
(((HUGS))) from Florida
Hamlet's Mistress says:
A week or two after we moved into our house we were talking to our new neighbor and he volunteered the information of how much he hates cats. Particularly stray cats. Kills ’em every time he gets the chance. So I said to him, “We have 3 cats, a tabby, a black and white and a mostly white with a could little black dots. If you see them out, it’s an accident and we’re looking for them. Our cats aren’t outdoor cats. So if you see on of them, please don’t kill it. Just bring it to us.” To which he replied, “Oh, I’ll bring it to you. I’ll bring it over in a plastic bag.”
We don’t talk to him much. But he does plow our driveway when it snows…
Melissa says:
Mine isn’t anywhere near as bad as some of these stories, but we have a neighbor who likes to go outside to smoke…in his underpants. I am hoping that he has more than one pair, because they are always the same blue boxers.
His name happens to be Vance. We call him Underpants Vance.
mommymae says:
i have to go back and read all of the comments, but we had neighbors who lived in the house next door with 4 kids. they were nice as could be, but you could smell their house from the street. i should watch for them on hoarders.
Jolene says:
My husband and I used to live above this lady who would follow my husband upstairs when he would get home from work and come into our apartment and sit in his chair. She would try to discipline our dog and was really bizarre. We finally put a stop to it when we had to throw out my husbands chair because she POOPED HER PANTS IN HIS CHAIR!! Oh yes, sat right there and had a bowel movement in the barcalounger. How do you not laugh?!
Jill says:
I too live in a condo on the 3rd floor. When the new tenants moved in one floor below us I politely told them that I can hear them screaming and yelling at each other. They didnt believe me because of the ‘concrete walls’. Well a few weeks later and after a particularly bad screaming match I banged on there door. I knew they wouldnt answer so I just yelled ‘I know you can hear me, because I just heard your entire conversation’….and then recited it…They still yell,not as loud though and I make it up to them but making screaming passionate love to my S.O….Dont you just love payback!
Jill says:
OH and I almost forgot…theres Bates Motel Broccoli Lady! The only thing she ever brings back from the grocery store is broccoli, I’ve seen it (and smelled it). Bags upon bags of broccoli. AND you never ever see any family or friends visit, but I swear on my life I have heard this lady have FULL conversations with ‘someone’ else in the room…but I have never, ever seen anyone go in and out of that place but her! It reminds me of Anthony Perkins in Psycho when he talks in his mothers voice!
Katie says:
My next door neighbor is IT….a professional clown. A CLOWN! And she is not a nice person. I believe this information should have been disclosed before I made an offer on my house. This is her website: http://www.clownn4u.com/index.htm
rachael says:
We had neighbors (who thankfully just moved out) that were truly the neighbors from hell. Single mom who was never home, and her 16-year-old and tween son. One day when I came home from work, parking my new car right in front of our kitchen window, the two of them ran over…. and threw lunch meat on my car. Seriously. Lunch meat. Baloney, to be exact.
Carolyn says:
Hehe this belongs on passiveaggressivenotes.com
Marsha says:
My husband and I had our house built in a brand new subdivision six years ago. Since then, we have had a neighbor across the street who was part of a big drug selling ring and one day had the SWAT team outside his house at 7 a.m. who dragged him out of bed in his boxers and hauled him off. Now we know how he managed to have one of the biggest homes in the neighborhood with a pool and spa, a nice truck, a motorcycle and a $100k BMW all without appearing that he had a (legal) job. He was home all the time and was always talking on his cell phone. We would say hi, but he wasn’t very friendly and kept to himself. Oh, and after his arrest, we found out this wasn’t his first stint in the clink for selling drugs. I also found out that my co-worker knew this guy and confirmed he hasn’t had a non drug-selling job EVER. I just looked him up on the Department of Corrections web site, and it looks like he was released a few months ago.
Oh, and down the street from us we have a convicted sex offender who apparently was convicted in California for attempting to “kill a known prostitute.” I remember that is what the notice said that was left on our door about said sex offender. I notice that he has a bunch of video cameras installed outside his house.
Another house in the subdivision was used as a drop house by some coyotes.
Finally, the woman who is renting the house next door to us has had several domestic violence incidents with her boyfriend, which is actually rather sad considering she has a teenage son. The most recent episode was two weeks ago. My husband came home from the gym and said there were five police cars outside her house! We have seen the boyfriend and he is rather scary looking, like some sort of Hell’s Angels biker.
Other than the next door neighbor issues, our street is pretty quiet and the new neighbors who have moved in are all pretty nice.
Erica S. says:
All I’m going to say is I hope your neighbor read this! AHAHAHAHAHA!
Lisa says:
My parents old neighbor is a window peeker. He went to jail because my mom caught him peeking in our bathroom window.