Every time you see the keyword ‘neighbors’ in the title, you know the post is gonna be akin to an action movie.
I mean, what about that time when neighbors poured poison over a couple's tomatoes, so the couple unleashed an ant army on them? And what about this collection of the most passive aggressive neighbor notes that really deserve a Pulitzer prize in fiction? And then you have the neighbors who do no harm to anyone but make the neighborhood way more interesting, if that’s the right word to use?
So this time, we are taking a deep dive into the real-life stories from the survivors who lived with neighbors from hell. And have a hell of a story to tell…
Shared in response to someone asking “Redditors who have had 'neighbors from hell,' what happened?” on r/AskReddit, some stories are plain cruel, others pretty silly, and the rest kinda hilarious. At least we now know that blasting music at 3 in the morning is far from the worst thing that happens in the old world itself, the annoying neighbors saga.
#1
I have SUPER religious neighbors. They hang signs for the local church camp on their property ect. They kept putting our garbage cans in our driveway. While it was stupid and annoying it became more and more aggressive, they would trespass on my property and do damage to my house. But I could never catch them in the act.
So I did the only thing a sane person would do, I put on my velvet ritual cloak and made a show of putting a salt circle around my property, chanting and carrying on.
Never bothered me again.
803points
#2
I used to be good friends with a girl next door from when we were ten till HS started, even though she treated me like sh*t. Her parents were obviously alcoholics so I felt sorry for her more than anything. My little brother came along with me over to her backyard one day and he accidentally tripped and fell into their back-porch door. Her mom, who had daily naps from all of her drinking, was woken up and stormed outside to scream at my little autistic brother that could barely speak. When he didn't respond (duh), she burned him with a cigarette on his arm. Not as crazy as some of these other stories, but she still knowingly burnt a 6 year old autistic kid.
404points
#3
This is a bad neighbor story that was fixed by a good neighbor.
My grandma who passed away recently lived in not the best part of town. She worked at my dad's laundromat there (refused to leave and loved working there for 30+ years). 10 years ago some new neighbors came in and decided to pick on my grandma (the entire family, young to old). They would steal carts, throw sh*t at her, steal money when she wasnt looking, etc. I had no idea what was going on and my gramdma was too prideful to tell anyone.
However, one day another neighbor that's been washing his clothes there for 20+ years saw this. I am pretty sure he is a drug dealer but I don't judge, I played baseball with his kids. He legit told my gramdma to wait inside, picked the littlest one up, hung him on a fence post and exchanged words with the father before picking him up by his neck. The entire street watched. They moved out the next day after he smashed all their car windows. Till this day not a soul has bother my grandma. I didn't hear this story until her funeral last week. It's amazing how terrible and great people can be.
TLDR: New neighbors picked on grandma so old neighbors picked on them and made them leave.
340points
If you do get along with your neighbor, consider yourself lucky, like almost blessed. But it’s also good to ask yourself, are you a good neighbor? Do you consider yourself someone who helps to create a sense of well-being in your community? Have you done something about it?
Well, a growing number of polls and surveys show that fewer Americans are taking time to engage with their neighbors. The Zebra survey found that only 33% of Americans consider their neighbors friends or close friends. Meanwhile, 66% consider their neighbors strangers or acquaintances.
#4
In an apartment. This lady lived on the third floor. She must have let her cat piss everywhere bc the entire building reeked like cat piss. The smell entered my apartment frequently. When I passed her in the hallway I would have to hold my breath bc she smelled so bad. I dealt with this for 2 years with multiple complaints to the office until I eventually called animal control. Turns out she had 30 cats in her apartment.
282points
#5
When my daughter was five we rented the top floor of a two family house. The owner gave the bottom floor to her sister (recovering substance abuse problems, trouble holding down a job, two kids, absentee father).
One day my daughter's tricycle went missing. Found her kids on it an hour later. Confronted her about it and she said my daughter was spoiled and my family didn't deserve to have anything her family didn't have. (My husband was on disability recovering from a life threatening injury, and I was a school teacher. So... Not exactly the Kardashians!)
When the thirty year old woman began to taunt my daughter and take her belongings, that's when we terminated our lease.
277points
#6
They tried to kill my dog because it was a "death dog." She was a white lab and very sweet.
We had a large fenced in back yard. My dog wasn't terribly loud. She wasn't aggressive at all. She was just the size of a lab and my neighbors, specifically the wife, thought that made her evil. They called the cops more than once saying my dog was terrorizing the neighborhood. The cops came, met the dog, and we explained that she was always in her yard. They left saying just make sure she stays in the yard. Well neighbor called two more times to complain and eventually they went and spoke with her about her ludicrous complaints.
Here is when she started taking matters into her own hands. We noticed our dog was getting sick a lot. Like really sick. We took her to the vet and the vet said we needed to stop feeding her human food that could be bad for dogs. We had NO CLUE what she was talking about. We went back home and decided to keep a closer eye on her. Turns out our neighbor had been dumping all manner of vile things over our fence. Food scraps, mop water, and god knows what else. We went and spoke with her about this and she denied it. Finally we caught the b***h on video and made sure she saw us recording her.
Later that night the husband comes over and apologizes for his wife and begs us not to call the cops. He promises he'll ensure our dog is left alone. We agreed but said if anything happened to our dog again, we would press charges.
Thankfully she stopped coming after our dog. She moved on to our landscaping. She climbed over the fence more than once to trim (read hack and destroy) our hedges and a few saplings. She even went and pulled all the flowers out of our flower bed that we had just planted. We went and spoke with her husband as he was the more sane of the two. Same conversation as with our dog.
There were more random things that we could never prove. Eventually she fell very ill and passed. Her husband was like a different person. Invited us over for barbecues and all. Eventually even got himself a little dog.
TL;DR- called cops and then fed my pup food scrapes and cleaning supplies over a fence. Proceeded to destroy plants and her husbands life until she passed on.
267points
No wonder we have disputes with the people living closest to us so often. We don’t really know them in the first place! Now, think of the pandemic era where people have grown distant from each other, yet are spending the most time at their homes. This makes a perfect storm for a quarrel with a neighbor.
“Considering we’re all probably way closer to our neighbors than before, I’m sure you see these stories all the time,” Kristina Carrodeguas, the representative of Safehome.org told us, referring to the growing number of stories about neighbors from hell. Safehome has recently run an illuminating survey about the relationships people have with neighbors, as well as the illegal activities they’ve committed and witnessed, and how they handled each scenario.
#7
We have a beautiful pit bull/boxer mix that was stolen out of our back yard by our neighbors and given to a shelter for pit bulls. We looked for our dog for WEEKS, all day and night. Just as we were about to give up, my mom checked local adoption ads and found our dog. The shelter she was given to was literally a block away from our house and they informed us of the people who brought her there, who turned out to be our neighbors. So we got our dog back and the neighbors continued to try to get our dog taken away from us by calling the police for animal abuse multiple times, even when we were playing with her in our own backyard and very obviously loved her.
229points
#8
This isn't even everything that went down with that neighbour, just some (not so) brief highlights.
My mom had this neighbour who pretended to be weak from cancer/chemo so her landlord couldn't get mad at her for when trash bins were full and lawn was filthy. She even went as far as shaving her head and faking a limp, cane and everything. Mom baked her some cookies and offered to take care of her bins and lawn, neighbour spills about her scam. My mom, now enlightened about my neighbour's The Fault in our Stars bullsh*t and tired of the trash blowing into our yard, called the landlord. Neighbour wasn't happy and would blast music at ungodly hours of the night/wee morning to get back at my mom. Mom would get frustrated because she worked late and left early, filed noise complaint to police. Police arrive, neighbour claims my mom (old little Asian lady) punched her in the chest. Neighbour wants her arrested, mom shows cops our security cam footage, no mom punching, instead finds crazy neighbour kicking her 9 year old daughter out in the middle of the night. 9yo is banging on her door, my mom comes out to check on noise, tries to bring hysterical girl inside (it's like 2am), neighbour comes out and sprays her with the hose. Neighbour taken away, daughter sent to live with dad.
TL;DR neighbour faked cancer, got arrested.
213points
#9
Every time I stepped into my backyard my neighbor would hide his chin behind his fence and give me life advice that suspiciously fit any tough situation I was in.
186points
They found that “1 in 5 people admitted to committing illegal activities in or near their homes,” said Kristina, meaning that some residents of the community are indeed to blame for the illegal actions. Moreover, “18% of people won’t rat out their neighbors because they’re friendly with them and 12% of people won’t because they’re afraid to.”
The findings are particularly alarming since they suggest that a person witnessing a crime in their neighborhood will not necessarily alert the authorities. They may decide to ignore the wrongdoing, or even confront the issue themselves, which may put them at risk.
#10
My first apartment was a real dump in a seedy complex, and I had two people who I'd consider "neighbors from hell". The first was the lady who lived above me, who let her small dog piss and sh*t all over the balcony, meaning we basically couldn't open our back door in the summer because of the stench. She also smoked weed constantly, and asked to borrow money several times. When they moved out they had to tear up all the carpet and deep clean the whole place. She had no teeth, too, which was weird.
Another was a guy who lived a few spots down from us. One night I could hear him fighting with his girlfriend through my window, so naturally my girlfriend and I were content eavesdropping on it until we heard a loud smack. Immediately I called the police and off he went to jail. When he returned for his stuff it's my understanding that he got a Grade A a*s-whooping from several of her friends who were there to welcome him home.
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166points
#11
My neighbor in my apartment complex always tries to stop and talk to me (usually when I'm running late for work) which isn't awful. The awful thing is I'm pretty sure he looks out the window and waits. He always manages to open the door and come outside as I happen to be walking by, and goes in promptly after I tell him I'm running late for work. Same neighbor came outside at 11:40 one night as I was putting a new window decal on my car, practically climbed in, and insisted on helping me. Then proceeded to try to talk to me afterwards. Another time I was backing out of my parking spot, and he was pulling out of his in my blind spot. He honked his horn so obviously I stopped before I hit him. Instead of him pulling forward and leaving like a normal person, he put his car in park and came over and knocked on my driver side window and asked me if I even looked back before I started backing out. It was really aggressive. He's also jokingly said to me that he's seen me bring a lot of men into my apartment. I really don't like that guy. He's very creepy.
157points
#12
One of my friend's neighbors are absolutely bat-sh*t crazy and are racist, white supremacist. My friends are Muslim and Pakistani so their neighbors are always looking for excuses for calling the police on them. One of the most memorable stories was when their eldest son, who was fourteen at the time, broke his leg at school and could not walk. His dad was on a business trip so only his mother had to bring him home from the ER and help him in. Given that he was over 6 feet tall and weighed over 200 pounds, this was much harder than it seemed for his barely 5'5" mother. To make it easier to help him in, she parked the car on the lawn right in front of the door so she wouldn't have to drag him across the sidewalk. All of this seemed too shady for the neighbors and instead of using their eyes or just asking, they called the police for suspicious activity. So now the poor mom had to deal with her broken son and the police showing up at her door to investigate. Along with this instance, the neighbors call the police on them whenever they have a party, even though their parties have no music, no drinking, or anything to warrant the police. But every weekend they blast music themselves and rowdy backyard parties. Because of them, my friends are looking to move.
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152points
The wrongdoings people witnessed their neighbors doing vary from insignificant to pretty serious. Kristina said that “23% of people observed neighbors failing to clean up after their pet with the same percent of people observing neighbors smoking cannabis.” In fact, residents are more likely to report the selling of cannabis than if they were smoking and/or growing it.
This also suggests that people feel more uncomfortable with the drug being sold in their neighborhood than with the fact that some neighbor is consuming it. It can be explained by the simple fact that selling it may attract unwanted visitors and put the community in some amount of possible danger.
#13
They called the police on me because I was watching television muted with closed captioning with the windows closed and the blinds shut in my own home at 7:00 on a Friday night.
When we had moved in, my roommate brought the neighbor a plate of cookies and all of our phone numbers and names, and said to always feel free to call us any time of day and we'd do what she needed. Our neighbor said, "no, we'll call the police instead." And boy, did she ever. We actually started throwing parties because the cops were going to come anyways.
148points
#14
Every time they threw a party a tv would get thrown out a window or balcony. Not a flat screen, a tube TV. It would just fall from the heavens and explode, sounding like a car crash. It would just rain a 150lv 36" tube tv from the sky. Happened 4 times in one semester.
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147points
#15
Pet hoarder next door. Unkept yard. MONSTROUS amount of feces kept in a garden shed on the edge of their property, amazingly right beside our deck. We always wondered what was going on over there, then a flyer shows up in our mailbox: lost male iguana. Aggressive and will bite. Do not approach. Please yaddayadda number.
Thef*ck.com
A few days later, animal control arrives with tucks and vans. They get into this house and pull out hundreds of animals. Exotic birds, lizards, cats, dogs, it was insane. All were sick or injured. She had specific rooms for them. Like a blind animal room or pregnant animal room.
No word on that aggressive male iguana. Might still be creeping around that neighbourhood. Aggressively biting children perhaps.
139points
#16
My neighbor has 3 dogs, which they let outside twice a day to poop. The dogs are friendly and not very loud... except they always sh*t on our lawn. My husband and I have actually seen our neighbors encourage their dogs to use our lawn... they physically lead the dogs to our lawn or discourage them from going on their lawn, etc.
I finally had enough so I got my garden trowel and flicked all their dogs' sh*t onto their lawn. Today my husband went outside to mow the lawn and caught the neighbor encouraging their dogs to go onto our lawn. The neighbor acted like nothing was wrong, but quickly called the dogs back.
126points
#17
My neighbors in the sh*tty apartment I moved to after I moved out of my parent's place were hoarders to the extreme, as well as alcoholics.
We started getting roaches in our apartment about 2 months after they moved in. Then came mice. Then came RATS.
About once a month we'd call 911 on them because we'd find one of them passed out in the parking lot, or on the doorstep, or on the stairs. They came over and asked if it was us who kept calling 911. Then they cussed us out because they didn't have insurance and had to take out numerous payday loans to cover the ambulance costs.
We broke our lease and moved out after "someone" took a sh*t on our welcome mat.
121points
#18
In this apartment my uncles lived in, was connected to the neighbors by the bathroom so they shared the bathroom. The neighbor lady was crazy and some mornings they would wake up and she would be in their apartment doing some creepy, weird cr*p. One morning they recall they woke up and she was standing over them, over their bed, watching them sleep. That was the breaking point. They got the hell out.
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117points
#19
I live on a farm and we had one guy who was a real prick. He was known to have definitely stolen sheep from us, in some cases he had shorn the wool off them, sold it and returned the sheep and sometimes eating the sheep we suspect. He demanded that we front the bill to fix the fence despite it being between our two properties and refusing to split the costs. He also had someone else's bull jump into his property, used it to service his cattle for two years and when the owner tracked it down the bastard demanded to be paid the agistment costs or he wouldn't return it. He had a house on the property that he rented to his farmhand and the farmhand found him in there one day going through his things and telling him he wasn't allowed to leave the property under any circumstances while under his employ. The guy quit straight after that and wanted to work for us.
115points
#20
We lived in what seemed to be a mansion-type of house, rented out to three different families. My family lived on the bottom floor, and a family of 6 lived above us; a mother, father, and 4 daughters aging from 4 to 13. Every morning they would stomp around the house like little elephants and make as much noise as possible to wake each other up so they could prepare for school. After they were ready, more often than not they would refuse to actually go out the door to go to school, screeching as loud as they can until the parents decided to let them stay home. Since we were on the bottom floor of the place, we had free reign of the backyard whereas the other two families barely bothered to use it. They would frequently dump garbage and other random stuff off of a balcony into the yard and never bother cleaning it up, which we'd have to tend to daily since we had two dogs and an outdoor cat at the time. It was all a nightmare. When they were eventually kicked out by the landlord, she asked my Mother to clean out the rooms/floor they were living in. She told me there was over a hundred two litre soda bottles scattered throughout their place as well as mold growing in multiple rooms with foul odors everywhere. Though the oldest daughter was the same age as me and I had a huge crush on her (she was a very polite and clean girl, which is saying a lot considering what her family was like), we talked with her family about letting her move in with us while the rest of them left, I feel like it would've been better for everyone if she had stayed with us but it never happened. I really hope she doesn't live with her disgusting family anymore, I truly felt horrible for her.
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101points