‘I made a mistake!’: Man cleverly complies with neighbor's demands to remove fence, leading to desperate pleas for restoration

Author image for Sienna Varady
Sienna Varady
Jun 3, 2024 1:00 PM EDT

A neighbor can be your best friend or your worst enemy, depending on the situation. Then, what would you do if your neighbor 'demanded' that you remove or replace your fence? Which would you do—give in or stand your ground?

The story below is an account of a frustrated neighbor. The original poster (OP) has been living at his house for a while. Soon after moving in, OP and his next-door neighbor built a fence between their two homes without consulting a surveyor. Living in a peaceful area brought them both peace of mind and harmony. However, all changed when Anne, a new and tough neighbor, moved in and the accommodating neighbor moved out. In contrast to the previous neighbor, Anne did not respect the informal agreement between them and insisted that OP remove his fence since it infringed on nine inches of her property. Although OP first opposed it, in the end, he decided to maliciously comply.

Therefore, make sure to read the story below if you're interested in learning the specifics of what transpired between Anne and OP! After you're done, don't forget to read the story of the man who confronted the truck driver for using blinding headlights, sparking a heated discussion about proper driving behavior!

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  • 01
    "Take it down!"
    via canva
  • 02
    New neighbor didn't like my old fence so I took it down.
    via u/Kid_Endmore
  • 03
    About 5 or 6 years ago I built a fence in my back yard. I talked to my neighbors and we decided on a good place to build the fence. We knew an approximate property line based on some survey pins, but were both too cheap to pay for a surveyor. We shook hands and I built the fence. It was a great deal for my neighbors, I paid for everything, built the fence, and all they had to do was give me a thumbs up when it was done.
    via u/Kid_Endmore
  • 04
    Then, a year later, they sold their house. That meant I got a new neighbor, more specifically, I got Anne! Anne was from the big city, Anne was a realtor, Anne had flipped 8 houses in 12 years, Anne loved this new house and planned on staying for a long time, and Anne had a dog. Razzy was a German Shepherd mix that spent most of the day outside while Anne went to work. Razzy was aggressive towards children, animals, insects, and any plants that waved in the breeze.
    via u/Kid_Endmore
  • 05
    Razzy also, as Anne once told me, LOVED to chew on furniture. That's why Razzy stayed outside so much. About 6 months after Anne moved in I saw a surveyor walking around in my neighborhood and he was paying special attention to my back yard. The next day Anne showed up at my front door with a stack of papers and asked me if I was going to pay her for the 9 inches that my fence
    via u/Kid_Endmore
  • 06
    was encroaching onto her property. I explained the handshake deal with the last neighbors, but she was having no part of it! She wanted the fence moved or she wanted money, no discussions. She had spoken to her lawyer friend and was perfectly happy to take me to court over the fence. She told me "I don't know how you guys do it out here in the sticks, but where I come from we follow the rules!"
    via u/Kid_Endmore
  • 07
    So, I got rid of the fence. The next day I un wed the horizontal rails from the brackets, stacked the fence panels up against my garage, and pulled up the fence posts with my work van. About a week later Anne shows up at my front door again. She wants to know when I'm going to be building a new fence. Turns out, without my portion of the fence she has not been able to let Razzy out unattended for fear that he will run away, a ck something, or get hit by a car. She
    via u/Kid_Endmore
  • 08
    also told me she can't keep him in the house all day while she's at work anymore. Her furniture and carpet are all but ruined. I told her "Well, Anne, I'm not going to be rebuilding the fence. I don't want any legal trouble and the best way to stay out of trouble is to not build near your property." The look on her face was priceless!!! I thought she was going to cry! (She probably did when she got
    via u/Kid_Endmore
  • 09
    back home.) She tried to protest, saying that she really needed the fence back and she would even help pay for the new one. She told me how much she loved the style and aesthetic of the old one, it was just the location that she had a problem with. I stood firm. There would be no new fence. She never got a fence. She made half-hearted attempts to put up some bamboo fencing, but Razzy tore through that stuff like wet newspaper.
    via u/Kid_Endmore
  • 10
    Eventually, I sold my place and moved away. I took the old fence panels with me and I still look at them everyday when I let my dog out in the morning. TLDR: New neighbor with dog didn't like where the old neighbor and I built a fence. She th atened legal trouble, so I completely removed the fence. Dog destroys her house. I keep the fence.
    via u/Kid_Endmore
  • 11
    SnooWords4839 · 7 hr. ago Well, Anne, this is how we take down a fence here in the sticks!
    via u/SnooWords4839
  • 12
    Ο Known-Associate8369 7 hr. ago I had something similar - bought a house, then a few years later one of my fence- sharing neighbours knocked down her garage and decided to build a dwelling in its place - her first approach to us was to ask if they could buy a few metres of our land to give that dwelling a decent back yard. We refused as it would make our back garden an odd shape, and also it would make it hard to subdivide our plot later on.
    via u/Known-Associate8369
  • 13
    So then she approached us saying that the fence was a couple of feet into her yard, and she would like it moved. We said sure, lets get a surveyor to fix the property line and we can move the fence into a better position - the fence did have a dog leg in it to go around an old tree (long since removed), so if we could bring it back to a straight run then great. Surveyor came out and put down their official stakes setting the line.
    via u/Known-Associate8369
  • 14
    The entire fence, end to end, was already about 2-3 metres into our property. She ended up losing a lot of land for the entire length of the fence, and we ended up gaining a decent chunk. We now have a huge vegetable garden down that entire length of fence, with no loss to our usable back garden because of this entire debacle.
    via u/Known-Associate8369
  • 15
    CJW-YALK 5 hr. ago . Had a neighboring “farmer” to our farm, he started to put up fencing where the historic natural property lines (creek, lay of the land) had always been but then got in his head that we had been encroaching on his land, demanding that we have a survey done....we told him it was fine, he might be over on ours or us on his but we weren't using that
    via u/CJW-YALK
  • 16
    portion of the fields currently, he was getting into cows...it wasn't worth paying a surveyor for a few acres here and there that won't effect the cows.... Finally he had it surveyed anyway, paid for it all and insisted that we'd all bide by what they laid out, on one end his fence was several feet inside his line, so fine we had been assuming that was ours....but on the far end it was a couple hundred on ours, ended up being like 7 acres of land
    via u/CJW-YALK
  • 17
    This is when he started saying "well, it's fine, y'all weren't using it and it won't hurt to leave the fence" We made him move all 1000 feet of fencing to where the surveyor laid out the line he paid for TLDR neighboring farming paid for a survey that cost him 7 or so acres of land plus labor to install a barbed wire fence twice
    via u/CJW-YALK
  • 18
    RealUltimatePapo . 7 hr. ago "Move your fence or I'll sue you!" "You got it, ma'am!" "...oh, I am so stupid" Genius should have used the money she was gonna sue you with, and either built a new fence, or trained her dog to not destroy everything in existence
    via u/RealUltimatePapo
  • 19
    quiet-Julia · 6 hr. ago I had a friend who wanted to place a fence on his neighbour's property line in order to separate their back yards. The neighbour didn't want to go along with him and wouldn't pay for part of the fence. So he got a survey performed and found out that the neighbour had a hedge and a garage infringing on his property by 6 feet. He then got a court order to demolish the garage and remove the hedge. And he built his fence.
    via u/quiet-Julia
  • 20
    digitydigitydoo · 7 hr. ago • She's a realtor! She flips houses! She didn't get a survey done when she bought the property? Yeah, she sounds exactly like who I want to sell me a house /s. (I bet she advises her clients not to get inspections)
    via u/digitydigitydoo
  • 21
    Bucksin06 . 7 hr. ago I'd love the story and the fact she doesn't even realize she could just pay to have her own fence built.
    via u/Bucksin06
  • 22
    heynonnynonnomous 7 hr. ago Oh, I'm sure she realizes she can pay for a fence. She wants a free one.
    via u/heynonnynonnomous
  • 23
    Kid_Endmore OP. 7 hr. ago 100%
    via u/Kid_Endmore
  • 24
    MystrE 7 hr. ago Good fences make good neighbors.
    via u/MystrE
  • 25
    UniqueIndividual3579 · 4 hr. ago I did something similar. The wooden fence between our properties had one broken post. It leaned a little, but not that much. He filed with the county to demand I repair it. So I removed it. We both had pools. Mine was enclosed with a chain linked fence, his had no fence. So I reported him for having a pool without a fence. He offered to pay for half of a new fence, I told him to *&%&. He had to pay for the new fence.
    via u/UniqueIndividual3579
  • 26
    Kid_Endmore OP 2 hr. ago Great minds think alike, and so do ours!
    via u/Kid_Endmore
  • 27
    Dropthetenors · 7 hr. ago If she was willing to pay for a new fence why did she just put up a new one on her property?
    via u/Dropthetenors
  • 28
    Kid_Endmore OP. 6 hr. ago She wanted me to do all the work. I highly doubt she would have actually paid me. Just something she said to try to get me to put the fence back ASAP.
    via u/Kid_Endmore
  • 29
    Dropthetenors · 6 hr. ago Fair enough. As a 'flipper' she should've had contractors on hand who could've helped. Sux for her. Good on you!
    via u/Dropthetenors
  • 30
    Kid_Endmore OP. 6 hr. ago Her "contractor" was her ex-husband. They had a contentious relationship and he told me later that he advised her to leave the fence issue alone.
    via u/Kid_Endmore

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instant karma neighbors entitlement malicious compliance neighborhood malicious-compliance-reddit neighborhood-drama reddit karen entitled people karma Bad Neighbor Reddit karen entitled people
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