'I took all of the knobs and handles off of everything—TV, dresser, stereo...': 20+ People who got the pettiest revenge on their exes

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Oct 1, 2024 5:00 PM EDT

Pettiness knows no bounds when it comes to a relationship gone sour. Just ask the thousands of people who replied to u/EasyReveal2752's question: "What's the pettiest thing you've ever done after a breakup?" 

When some people break up, all bets are off. Any loving feelings go right out the window! Instead of trying to plan for a future together, both people are out for revenge. Well, these people got their comeuppance in ways big and small. 

One person who's absolutely diabolical hid 12 different random noise-generating devices around his ex's home. He even hid them in some furniture! Even if the ex moves, she'll still spend every waking moment trying to figure out where the mystery noise is coming from. A different person thought it'd be a good idea to try and one-up his ex just by getting a way larger TV than her (and it certainly did get under her skin). After all, if you date for a long time, you know everything about your former significant other, including all of their most personal likes and dislikes. 

Up next, this consultant was adamant that she wouldn't take any fashion advice from her coworker… too bad she was "unwilling to listen." 

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  • 01
    What's the pettiest thing you've ever done after a breakup? 'I guessed my exes password and cancelled his flight to Europe'
    via Alexander Mils on Unsplash+
  • 02
    What's the pettiest thing you ever done after a break up? I'll go first... My ex ditched me in a foreign country after getting belligerently drunk on the flight there, I decided to make the most of the trip& continued on without him... then he got arrested at the airport before boarding for having an illegal substance on him. I continued home, packed all of his belongings that were at my house, nicely bagged them in his
    via u/EasyReveal2752
  • 03
    car that was in my driveway then called a tow truck. Had it towed to the dealership he bought the car from& told them he had been arrested in Africa and probably would miss some payments. Never talked to him again despite his many attempts. Feel blessed I dodged that bullet!!! Also something to note: I met my husband of 4 years on that trip& he's my angel! Happier than I ever thought was possible.
    via u/EasyReveal2752
  • 04
    merlot120 Not my breakup, my daughter's break up. Her ex threatened to keep the kids after a visitation one weekend and she was scared and upset. I told her that he didn't want them full time. He worked out of town, and he was a big on going to the bar and drinking. I insisted she go camping, out of cell phone reach for a couple of days. The next day
    via u/merlot120
  • 05
    he was calling me and demanding that I take the kids so he could get to work, he had to leave that night. I refused. After a couple of days, I did take them, but he missed a week of work. And he never did it again.
    via u/merlot120
  • 06
    MOPPETT331 We had moved 1,200 miles away from home and after I caught him cheating I couldn't pack up much in the compact car I'd be driving home. I took all of the knobs and handles off of everything. TV, dresser, stereo (etc), packed up the remote as well.
    via u/MOPPETT331
  • 07
    whenisnowthen After the breakup she said the towels belonged to her. There were 4 of them and they were really nice fluffy bath towels. I sprayed them with 3m scotchgard to make them waterproof before she came by to pick them up.
    via u/whenisnowthen
  • 08
    shelbeelzebub We both played French horn in the high school band and he really wanted to make the all city band, so I practiced the music they wanted us to perform in tryouts for hours every night for months to take his spot from him. I ended up getting last chair and he got first alternate.
    via u/shelbeelzebub
  • 09
    flexisexymaxi Not an ex but we went on four or five dates. He broke it off with a post it on my front door. I saw him a few years later at a party and introduced myself when he came over and pretended I'd never seen him before, when he clearly remembered me. Nothing hurts an ego more than to be forgotten by someone you remember.
    via u/flexis*xymaxi
  • 10
    MissMurder86... My ex was abusive, controlling and a cheater. When I moved out, all the bills were in my name. He asked about transferring the power, gas and internet into his name. I told him that's fine, I can do that. He also said that he would use the gift voucher to an electronics store I gave him for his birthday months prior to buy a modem (side note:
    via u/MissMurder8666
  • 11
    when I gave him this voucher, he made a big deal out of it, trying to give me the money back, bc he was being self pitying and trying to make me feel bad about not having much to spend for his birthday at the time, even though I also said I'd take him out for a nice dinner which he told me he didn't want to go out to dinner with me)
    via u/MissMurder8666
  • 12
    So, when I'm moving out, he says he's leaving for the weekend to "make it easier for [me]" but really he was a coward. I had the power and internet transferred to my new house and the gas cut off on the Sunday, day after I moved out (the services were connected at my new house though) and the gift voucher? I spent $99 of it, leaving $1. He didn't come home til the Monday, no internet, no gas, no
    via u/MissMurder8666
  • 13
    electricity and he said he tried to use the voucher for a modem and there was no money left on it. I said "there's money on it" and blocked him
    via u/MissMurder8666
  • 14
    psychosis_ind... So, back in the day when we used flip phones, you could set it to show a little message every time you turned on your phone. When my geeky programmer ex wasn't looking, I set his phone to display "STARTUP ERROR 54EDGT4" (or some alphanumeric gibberish) whenever he turned it on.
    via u/psychosis_inducing
  • 15
    He spent several weeks trying to diagnose the problem.
    via u/psychosis_inducing
  • 16
    Crysnia He was cheating with someone he met on WOW and was then trying to pass me off to his friends. I took everything I owned out of his apartment, all the towels, sheets, and cookware. I then logged into his WoW account and gave away all his gold and items to random people in the starter zone and deleted all his characters.
    via u/Crysnia
  • 17
    NHBuckeye Outed his lying at his family reunion in front of everyone. Then left, went back to our apartment where my father was waiting with a moving van and never saw him again.
    via u/NHBuckeye
  • 18
    Blergsprokopc I found out my boyfriend of seven years was cheating on me when his affair partners husband showed up on my front porch with two of his adult daughters. After I kicked him out, I called his boss and told him some of the finer details (he had been having at work among other things) and got him fired from the job I got him. Then I called and
    via u/Blergsprokopc
  • 19
    canceled his car insurance. Then I canceled his cell phone. Then I donated every scrap of clothing he couldn't fit into a backpack. Because I had paid for it all. That was about 8 hefty bags of clothes. Then I donated his DVD collection (mostly horror movies and all the fast and the furious...l know....I know). Then I sold all the movie memorabilia and speakers I bought him.
    via u/Blergsprokopc
  • 20
    And now he lives in a trailer with his father and neither one of them have a job.
    via u/Blergsprokopc
  • 21
    oopps_sorry I took all the lightbulbs out of fixtures and took all the labels off the canned food. Good luck getting peaches or ravioli for dinner.
    via u/oopps_sorry
  • 22
    delta_vel I got dumped about two months before Christmas (years ago). As we were talking, my mind. was jumping all over and I said "I guess I'm going to return the Christmas presents I already bought you then." I didn't even mean anything by the comment, I was just thinking out loud.
    via u/delta_vel
  • 23
    But then she asked me what I got her and I said "No, - they're being returned and we're not together so I'm not going to tell you." Anyway, I heard later from mutual friends that this drove her crazy for awhile wondering what the gifts could have been.
    via u/delta_vel
  • 24
    Very small, very petty, and very unintentional revenge. But it did warm my heart to hear it drove her crazy lol
    via u/delta_vel
  • 25
    codeneon89 It was the TV. You see, my ex, and her whole family were competitive. So freaking competitive over nothing... like they would shoot down each other's idea for going out to dinner just so that their idea could be the one that wins. We would spend literal hours deciding where to go out, it was awful.
    via u/codeneon89
  • 26
    Anyway, she had gotten a perfectly fine 40" TV one day. Then, her brother got a 42" TV. It drove her mad, she spent weeks researching, looking for deals, and lucked out with a 45" cyber Monday deal and sold the "old" TV to a friend. Her brother couldn't take it... he waited until after holidays January sale and got a 50" TV...and my ex was devastated...
    via u/codeneon89
  • 27
    Anyway, separate from the family drama, my ex and I had an ugly messy breakup. She had someone lined up to replace me and went and lived with him within 3 days of us splitting. She didn't want any of her things, until she found out that I had a date coming up and insisted I return her TV to her as a means of making my evening hectic before my date.
    via u/codeneon89
  • 28
    So a few days later, here I am without a TV feeling mildly annoyed because I cannot play any console games. I go to the store, (fry's electronics) and am looking at TVs balking at how expensive they were. I mentioned to a sales person the story about my ex and her competitiveness and her TV. He directed me to a new TV, but I didn't like the price.
    via u/codeneon89
  • 29
    He offered to sell me the floor model at half price, and I took it. A few weeks later, my ex came by my house to grab the last her things. For a brief moment the impact that we were done set into her, and instead of meeting. me with anger, she expressed sorrow over how roughly we split. She looked down at the floor and said that she needed to say
    via u/codeneon89
  • 30
    something important. She looked towards me, not at me, but past me...directly at my new 60" TV and said "that's a really nice TV". It was in that moment I knew that I had "won" the breakup.
    via u/codeneon89
  • 31
    smellsliketacos1 Added a new college class to his current semester without telling him.
    via u/smellsliketacos1
  • 32
    Brilliant-Buildi... I guessed my exes password and cancelled his flight to Europe, but let him get half way there. He killed my cat, he deserved much worse
    via u/Brilliant-Building41
  • 33
    wheresmychin Not me, but I had a buddy that was cheated on by his longtime partner. They lived together, and she decided that she and her new boyfriend (the person she cheated on him with) were going to move in together and he needed to move out as soon as possible. He was devastated but wanted to remove himself from this as quickly as
    via u/wheresmychin
  • 34
    possible so he agreed. His now former girlfriend went to stay with the boyfriend for a few days while my buddy packed. He found a small device on Amazon that makes random noises at inconsistent random intervals. He bought 12 of them and as he packed he hid them as well as he could throughout the house. Threw them inside air condition vents, unscrewed
    via u/wheresmychin
  • 35
    and hid them behind wall outlets, took off the bottom panel of the fridge and hid one deep inside it. Basically the most inconvenient places he could think of. He moved out and never spoke to her again, so we never found out how her and the new boyfriend dealt with random noises going off in the house all the time with no idea where they were coming from. But I like to
    via u/wheresmychin
  • 36
    think it drove them crazy spending hours looking for the sources of the noises.
    via u/wheresmychin
  • 37
    My ex lived with me and was on the lease. Despite me paying virtually all the bills, I couldn't legally kick her out since her name was on the lease. I am a good cook and also did most of the cooking around the house, especially dinners.
    via u/IlllIIlIlIIllllIl
  • 38
    I decided to make her miserable. I put locks on the master bedroom and bought a twin mattress off Craigslist for her to sleep on. No sheets or pillows or anything. Then I bought a hand truck from home depot and moved the fridge into my bedroom. I cooked delicious meals every day for 2 weeks and kept the leftovers in my bedroom where she couldn't have them. The only things I left
    via u/IlllIIlIlIIllllIl
  • 39
    in the pantry was like rice and instant noodles (the only things she knew how to cook). I changed the wifi password and Netflix and all other things I paid for and refused to tell her. Her windows, adobe, amd multiple other software subscriptions were tied to my accounts as I worked, at the time, for Microsoft and got them all at discounted or free pricing.
    via u/IlllIIlIlIIllllIl
  • 40
    Canceled all those. After about 2 weeks of this she finally left on her own.
    via u/IlllIIlIlIIllllIl
  • 41
    neonfrontier She cheated, we broke up and went to move out of the house we were renting. Before she came to collect her things, I removed a very small piece out of her computer id helped her build so that it would no longer work next time she switched
    via u/neonfrontier
  • 42
    it on. (Hard drive pin if anyone cares). Cue an angry call a few weeks later and me going gee I have no idea what's wrong with it sorry :D
    via u/neonfrontier
  • 43
    Ok-File-4502 My ex put his hands on me one night. That was it for me. He left for work the next morning and I moved out. I scratched every CD he owned, took everything from the house including shower curtain, toilet paper and soap. I left the waterbed, but I poked a large hole in it before I left. Never talked to him again.
    via u/Ok-File-4502
  • 44
    Oldbutnottired... When I called the house he was sharing with coworkers overseas, and the woman who answered the phone identified herself as his live- in girlfriend, I called the bank and canceled the credid card he had on my account by declaring it stollen. Then I called the airline I worked for and removed his benefits. He got stranded very, very, very far
    via u/Oldbutnottired3119
  • 45
    away with no return ticket to mommy's and had to spend the night in jail for using a stolen credit card. I met my husband two months later and married him within a year. The ex called and called until hubby told him to have some dignity. It's been 25 years. No regrets.
    via u/Oldbutnottired3119
  • 46
    randomnameje... My ex was on crutches and called me to help her carry somethings across campus. I was still in the "I will make this work as a friendship" phase and I agreed to help her. She spent the first half of the walk across campus informing how awful I was that I had started dating someone else. When she insulted my new girlfriend directly. I calmly set the
    via u/randomnamejennerator
  • 47
    boxes I was carrying down on a bench and walked away from her. She had a total meltdown and screamed every foul thing she could think of at me. I just kept on walking.
    via u/randomnamejennerator

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