-Reported visiting friends cars to the police twice.
-Reported our weeds to the HOA before we even moved in.
-Reported our pool to the county the one time it turned green.
-Uses poison to kill rats in the yard, endangering owls.
-Let his pool go green for months on end.
-Stacks boxes between our homes because he can’t remember to put out recycling.
-Allows weeds to grow between our homes, as the HOA wouldn’t see them.
-Runs to the mailbox to get his bills before wife sees them.
-Has random people stopping by his house at all hours.
-Was arrested twice last winter, involving half a dozen squad cars each time.
-Wife told us he had a stash of guns and drugs in the house when she recently left.
-Left a hose running and flooded the area between our homes.
-Was behind on mortgage payments all through covid, but couldn’t get evicted.
-Blackmailed Father-in-Law to make back payments on house.
-Lost the house a second time in June, but refused to move out.
He is finally out of the home and I have never been so relieved.
Lol. My neighbors have told me they love to hear them bray. I replied “thanks for being a good sport about it” and they insisted they weren’t being polite, that they really loved them.
Which is good, because the largest one heehaws hello whenever he sees someone.
(Caveat, its very rural, so Jasper the donkey only sees me, or them).
Due to one neighbor annoying another, we have had steady work in a litigation matter for almost four years. It looks like the case will actually go to trial. I think the two parties have spent close to a million dollars so far.
Oh I can believe issues involving development and construction can be costly. There was a lengthy lawsuit between neighbors in our neck of the woods long prior to us moving here. It made it to the appellate court… I found the case by googling one of the people I met. The issue? Someone started a city-permitted project without a “neighborhood review” which was written into CC&Rs by one developer. It snowballed! You bet it was expensive! Thank dogs we don’t live in that area.
Someone on the cul-de-sac behind us has a post-retirement job hauling cars up and down the east coast after being sold to a new owner. He can’t get the huge pickup truck and long enclosed trailer around the loop and into his driveway (and blocked off neighbors’ driveways instead), so he started parking on our grass along the side of our corner lot. A neighbor told me who it was and that others had told him to knock it off. One night, it poured for several hours while he was parked there. Next morning, he pulled the truck and trailer out and left ginormous ruts in the grass. I went out and got reflective posts and popped them along the side of the road. Problem solved.
Ruts were repaired when a leak sprang up in the middle of the road and the water company came to repair it. The crew leader noted that their trucks had put a couple ruts along that side of the house, and said he’d have a sod crew come out. Dear reader, the water company replaced all the grass along that side of the road, including what the neighbor had damaged. Grass! Without weeds! Win-win!
How we annoy our neighbors: 1) we start trying to landscape the yard and I don’t have the ability to maintain it. H won’t. 2) At one point S2 set up a composting bin in the backyard. He didn’t tend to it terribly well. I saw outdoor rodent traps in neighboring yards. Oops. 3) We’ve kept our backyard wild. It’s lovely and green, and a habitat for many woodland creatures. We’re not the only ones who have done this, though.
We have no HOA, neighborhood is older and zoned for half-acre lots. Builders kept the original trees. We ALL have deer, foxes, groundhogs, hawks, turkey vultures, etc. in our yards.
The only neighbor(hood) annoyance I currently have is there is a lovely, stately house on a big corner lot, that one can see when first turning into my neighborhood (I live in a new section of an older neighborhood with lovely older brick homes, mature trees, etc.) One of my favorite things is turning into my neighborhood and seeing this house - it always set the standard for how lovely the neighborhood is.
Well, the family sold it to another family that has let it go into disrepair. The yard is a nightmare - they hardly mow it, and when they do it’s their 12 y.o. son who only mows parts of it and abandons the mower mid-way. They recently took down a big tree in the front yard and all the wood mulch from it is still in a pile with a green tarp over it. They planted scraggily bushes along the perimeter of the backyard, half of which have died, and have put out dozens of plastic whirligig-type things in the backyard. I know I sound like a “Karen” but it was such a beautiful house/yard. I wish it was not the first thing people see when entering the neighborhood. I also don’t understand spending big money on a house and not caring for it.
Things I do that may or may not bug my neighbors: our neighborhood puts out luminaries on Christmas eve - we’re supposed to buy the bags & candles from the neighbor that organizes it and line the streets in front of our homes. Some years I don’t feel like doing it (in my defense, my house is at the back of the neighborhood, so I’m not ruining the effect). Also, now that my kids are grown, I really try to be gone for Halloween night
We’ve lived in our house for 33 years. Our neighbors are pretty darn good. They’re not perfect homeowners, but neither are we. H & I sometimes talk about downsizing, but I’m hesitant to break in new neighbors.
This is my new favorite CC thread! I don’t know if any of you have seen any episodes of Fear Thy Neighbor on ID, but you should. It would shock you how neighbor annoyances can escalate.
We are fortunate to get along well with our neighbors especially since we live close. Next door neighbor has a beagle that barks occasionally, but doesn’t bother us. We had our 2 kids running around making lots of noise for years and our neighbor never complained. Living close to others we all try to be respectful and we are understanding if a weekend party goes a bit later and is noisy.
I have a friend that calls the city on neighbors who leave their cars parked in the same place on their street past the 72 hours allowed. She tells new people that move into the neighborhood that she will do that if they don’t move their cars. At least she warns them!
Ours are just odd. One year, they went away during the winter and we got a big snowfall, so my husband cleared their driveway. When they came back, they said, “Please don’t ever do that again.” And when we were only an informal road association, the owners of the other 12 homes thought it would be a good idea to collect more than $100/year (which was the amount specified in our deeds) to save up for eventual road paving. These folks sent us a letter from their attorney stating they would sue us if we tried to do that. So we didn’t, and guess what? Each home is on the hook for $13,800 this year for road paving. No joke. These people had no problem paying it, so I’m not sure what their issue was. And whenever we have neighborhood meetings, they just annoy me in general. They’re very prickly.
We have been really lucky with neighbors. We’ve lived here 19 years.
One duplex across the street always seems to have too many cars no matter who moves in there. Full driveway and cars always on the street. Makes it tricky for us backing out, esp in the winter when street parking it not actually allowed. But not that big of deal.
The worse has been a pair of neighbors in a different duplex across the street. They both have flag poles and fly very polarizing political flags. The worse one was F$@% BIDEN. And yes, it spelled out the actual word. It was so offensive and we have so many kids in our neighborhood.
I forgot about what happened to us when we first moved into our current house because the problem neighbor has since moved.
The very first day in the house, we got a citation for having a landscaper use a gas blower in May (they were only allowed to use gas blowers in the Fall and early spring). Turns out one of the neighbors called the city. Except it wasn’t our landscapers as the previous owners forgot to cancel their contract.
The same person stalked me on a walk the following week and proudly told me she had reported us. When I told her that we had just moved in and that wasn’t even our landscaper, oh and a knock on the door would have been preferable than a call to the city, she proceeded to lecture me on which landscape companies we should use, what colors we needed to paint our house, and that we really should get a new roof color. She then proceeded to tell me that she watched me in the yard every morning with the dog and that I needed to do something with the backyard.
We also had a neighbor pretend to be someone’s interior designer so she could get into the house while it was being renovated! The owners of the house found her in there one day and she was telling the contractor to make changes! Police were called and she was cited for trespassing. In retrospect we think she was in the early stages of ALZ but she caused all kinds of headaches on the block. They have since moved too.
One neighbor across the street put out ginormous Trump flags and other paraphernalia back in the summer of 2020. As soon as that went up, the neighbors across the street filled their yards with peace signs, rainbow flags, and Biden signs. It looked like a small war could erupt any minute. Nope. Neighbors waved at each other and joked about the situation.
My dad had the best neighbors ever and they are all still there. My sister is contemplating on moving to his house and probably would not because of the work involved but instant friends is very inviting.
Back in 2002, I think, someone at work discovered a webpage devoted to a Redneck Neighbor. Everyone would check that page during lunch and discuss the latest posts. Every day the guy running the page would post updates on the neighbor’s yard beautification projects. It was hilarious because the writing was so great! Alas, the page was short lived because the redneck next door did not last long.
Just to irritate my Nosy Neighbor, I put up a blow-up rainbow Christmas tree yard decoration last Christmas in the front yard. She totally avoids talking to me now. The irony of it, though, is I do tend to vote conservative/libertarian (but I lean middle-left on social topics). She’s extreme right. And not very bright…one time after another neighbor’s Pampered Chef party, we were all headed out and walking home and the neighbor on the other side of Nosy Neighbor was out decorating for Diwali (Hindu festival of lights). I commented about their Diwali lights…Nosy Neighbor had no idea what I was talking about.
…explained, “You know, it’s part of the Hindu religion.” Nosy Neighbor said, “What’s Hindu?”
Oh my goodness, what? Have you been living under a rock?
So I said, “It’s this whole other religion. About a billion people practice it.”
She said, “But they celebrate Christmas, right?” NO, THEY DON’T!
She thought that everybody celebrates Christmas. Including Jews and Muslims and Buddhists.
