'He tried to steal my dog': Top 10+ Worst Neighbor Stories

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Sep 3, 2023 2:00 PM EDT

What does being neighborly even mean anymore? Especially when most of your neighbors are just self-absorbed, noisy, and nosy weirdos. It doesn't matter if you live in a relatively quiet suburb or an overly stimulating big city. Chances are you've probably dealt with a difficult neighbor at some point in your life. 

 

When I was living in my first New York City apartment as an adult, I once woke up in the middle of the night to someone repeatedly banging on my front door. My roommate and I were, of course, frightened and thought about calling the police. However, it became very clear that this was our pathetic, recently heartbroken former neighbor from next door who thought that our apartment was his old one, where his now ex-girlfriend resided. We all know what he must have been doing earlier that night to make him forget where his apartment was. Anyway, after we corrected him through the front door (you can't be too careful!), we thought all was said and done. But he ended up doing the same thing the next night and the night after. Sometimes, he did manage to get his own former apartment right, but you could still hear him banging on the door. It got to the point where his ex got a restraining order and moved out. Now, as unfortunate as that must have been for her, it was great for us because it meant we wouldn't have to deal with him anymore. But the scars of a bad neighbor can live with you forever. Even now, I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night thinking he's at my front door, even though that's completely irrational considering he has no idea where I'm living now. But like I said, the scars of a bad neighbor can live with you forever.

 

Keep scrolling below for this collection of bad neighbor stories, which were compiled from this r/AskReddit thread. For more compilations like this, here are some top tinder moments for further enjoyment. 

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  • 01
    Building - H "Dude [...] cut down my lemon tree. I was livied!"
    via Zac Gudakov
  • 02
    Font - r/AskReddit Posted by u/HoboHones B What is the worst experience you have ever had with your neighbor(s)?
    via u/HoboHones
  • 03
    Font - icecreampopncereal. When I first moved in my house I didn't know my exact property line yet, so I put wood by a tree I thought was mine. Neighbor came over saying it was his tree. So I went ahead and got a survey to settle any troubles. He was when I got 10 feet beyond the tree. Problems solved though! ✩ 25.2k ↓ Share
    via u/HoboHones
  • 04
    Font - I had a similar problem when putting up a fence. The neighbor lost his on the installers. We had a survey done and he had to shut the up. He is who still a piece of still likes to claim his yard is bigger than it is. The whole thing is just Petty and stupid. He claims I only put the fence up to spite him. I said that "the fence was going up so my dogs could be let out and have room to run."the fact that he hates it is just an added bonus. 8.7k Share
    via u/HoboHones
  • 05
    Font - ericdavis1240214. She intentionally backed into my wife's car because, she claimed, my wife was parked in her spot. That spot was on a public street. In front of our house. The cops saw it differently than she did. 21.1k Share
    via u/HoboHones
  • 06
    Rectangle - pdxcranberry. Ohhhh boy. People who think street parking is assigned make me lol so hard. 9.3k Share
    via u/HoboHones
  • 07
    Font - lowbornTV My neighbor loves the song "Yeah" by Usher. Like, she really, really loves it. I relive the early 2000s club hit almost daily. 15.3k Share
    via u/HoboHones
  • 08
    Font - ElleTheFox Lived above a guy in a really old fourplex and I guess the wood floors squeaked really loudly when I walked around. It's not like I was stomping around either but the dude would constantly come upstairs and bang on my door and yell at me to stop moving around. I felt badly for him in the beginning because he seemed genuinely frustrated but he didn't seem to understand or believe that I wasn't slamming my feet on my floor/his ceiling.
    via u/HoboHones
  • 09
    Font - I called my landlord several times asking him if he had a solution. I couldn't move because I was locked in to my lease but my landlord was just like, "buy a lot of rugs". It got to the point that I couldn't take the constant yelling and I was literally either tip toeing around or hopping from my couch to my chair in order to get out of my living room so that he wouldn't be standing at my door yelling at me.
    via u/HoboHones
  • 10
    Font - Finally I went downstairs one day and asked if we could talk about the situation because I felt like maybe if I looked him in the eye when he was calm and explained that I wasn't doing it on purpose and that there was literally nothing more I could do (I had already bought areas rugs ffs!) he would maybe understand.
    via u/HoboHones
  • 11
    Font - So I went downstairs and very nicely explained and he seemed to be listening. And then he said "I'm about at the point that if it happens again I'm going to show up at your door with a really big knife." And then he just stared at me.
    via u/HoboHones
  • 12
    Font - I basically ran out of there, called my landlord and said that I was more or less being threatened and a month later the guy moved out. And then as soon as I could I did too. Super situation. 13.8k Share
    via u/HoboHones
  • 13
    Font - mugniftw When I was around 10 years old: my neighbor would occasionally watch me open my mail box to see if my GameStop magazine had arrived. She would threaten me each time saying she was calling the cops and that it was illegal for me to check my parents mail. I actually believed this until I was 15 years old. 13.5k ↓ Share
    via u/HoboHones
  • 14
    Font - BreakTheWalls Down95. I was in the process of selling my townhome, so I abandoned my house for a while and moved to another home. Dude took down the fence separating our townhomes and cut down my lemon tree. I was livid. 10.6k Share
    via u/HoboHones
  • 15
    Font - ItsOfficially ME. I once had a neighbour in college that would knock on my door and ask for money. I would just say I'm a broke student and I can't spare anything. It was weird as and a weekly occurrence at the least. She was in her 50s and working. One day I got fed up when she knocked on my door (I think I was stressed for exams) and I said yea I got some money for you. I asked her to hold out her hands and gave her maybe 2 dollars worth of nickels that I had in a change jar. She never
    via u/HoboHones
  • 16
    Font - criminyWindex I'm probably someone's bad experience, although they don't know it's me yet. The malfunctioning smoke alarm in my apartment complex hallway has almost become a sort of bitter joke among my neighbors--it's been chirping multiple times a day for the past two months, but no matter what, maintenance just can't seem to make it stop.
    via u/HoboHones
  • 17
    Font - What my neighbors don't know is that the smoke alarm only chirped consistently for about three days. Everything since then has been my parrot, who liked the sound so much that she's been mimicking it as often as she likes (read: 57+ times daily, this being about month 4).
    via u/HoboHones
  • 18
    Font - They don't know I have a parrot. The woman immediately next door does think I have a dog, though, because the feathery little also likes to bark and then scold herself for it. EDIT: haha shout-out to my littlest brother u/LuckyLeprechaun1 for taking a screenshot of this comment and showing it to me because he thought I'd relate to it, bless him. Whoops now he knows I'm on reddit.
    via u/HoboHones
  • 19
    Font - EDIT²: gilded?? No way. I'm blushing; knock that off y'all. EDIT3: holy did not anticipate this response to my stupid- pet...anyone who wants further videos of my dumb bird doing/singing dumb things, pm me or whatever. I'm out of town now but I guess I should find places to add videos later, because it seems folk actually want to see this nonsense. I'm a long time lurker but a general reddit n00b, sorry. (super late) EDIT4: due to a large volume of requests, I uploaded a video of her talk
    via u/HoboHones
  • 20
    Font - GrumpyKitten1. Retired woman on my street follows the garbage truck and moves the garbage cans off the street while the rest of us are at work (because they are an eyesore). This would be fine except she would leave them in the middle of the driveway and there is no stopping on our street during rush hour (bus route) so you either need to park a block away to move the garbage can then go get the car or risk getting a ticket while you move it. Since the houses are quite close together we f
    via u/HoboHones
  • 21
    Font - Faeriebee99. Came home to a an smoke filled apartment. Called the fire dept. when we couldn't find the cause. Turns out our downstairs neighbours put a charcoal grill on their stove so they could bbq indoors. My only relief was a friend had walked my dog earlier that day so I know he wasn't in a smoked filled apt all afternoon. Tldr: buy a carbon monoxide detector. 6.0k Share
    via u/HoboHones
  • 22
    Font - InfinitySandwich I was 13 at the time, he tried to steal my dog and her puppies, he tried to enter our house and when my mom and i stopped him he told us he could break our necks whenever he wanted, quite a nice guy. We obviously called the cops after that. 5.2k ↓ Share
    via u/HoboHones

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