‘My neighbor is suing me for having a loud voice’: Nice guy's neighbor files over 160 falsified noise complaints and sues him for the second time, he plans to fight it

Author image for Lana DeGaetano
Lana DeGaetano • "Show me to me please."
Feb 17, 2025 2:00 PM EST

If you're not new here, you know that neighbor quarrels are inevitable in almost every situation. Folks have disagreements over grass height, parking spots, and kids playing in the empty streets of their picture-esque cul-de-sac every day. Usually, the situation is handled by either an HOA or personally before any legal action can be taken. However, if you live next to someone who has clearly had it out for you since you've moved in next door to them, you'll probably be hearing from their lawyer sooner or later. C'est la vie.

The nice guy who posted the story you're about to read states that he has been a very unproblematic neighbor for as long as he can remember. He is not loud and respects the shared spaces he has with his neighbors. There's one neighbor, though, who complains about his every move. Park a bit over the line in a shared driveway? Call the police. Using a light to hang clothes outside his property to dry? Call the police. The police inform the man that his neighbor has filed over 160 complaints, but they do not believe her. What follows is a long legal battle that he thought was mediated, but his neighbor comes back with a second lawsuit and he comes back with a vengeance.

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  • The guy who is dealing with this neighbor explains that he's never given her a problem to complain about at all, let alone a problem to turn to the police for. She clearly has an unresolved, possibly unmotivated vendetta against him and he can't seem to understand why. In cases like this, you wonder if someone could be so bitter just for the sake of it… and you hope that is not the case. Humans will be humans, and some of us don't know how to process our feelings. So, instead of getting therapy, we call the cops on an unassuming nice guy neighbor!

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  • So a few years ago I moved into a rental. There was a rental crisis going on at the time and it was the only property I was approved for out of the hundreds I applied for. It was in a great location near my work and was a really nice house. I was super thrilled. The
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  • real estate passed on an email from the landlord, basically welcoming me to the house, here is the best local cafe, here is how the dishwasher works, oh by the way the Neighbour is notorious for calling the council.
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  • Didn't think to much about this until a few months in to the lease I awoke one morning to a parking fine on my cars. windshield. I was parked in the driveway but overhanging past the fence line about 1 meter. I was p ed off and confused as to why the local council was patrolling an outer suburb to issue parking fines until I remembered the email.
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  • So I was like, okay my neighbour has called the council because I was parked 1meter past the fence line. For some clarity this is a share house I was living in. 3 people sharing 1 driveway that barley fits two cars, and given the street is lined both sides with
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  • townhouses and apartments, street parking is hard to come by. My Neighbour next door (we are both in detached houses with a yard) has a trailer parked on the street in front of her house, centered so it takes up two parking spaces. This trailer is
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  • completely rusted out, flat tires you name it, but registered (and thus legal to leave on the street for as long as its registered). I checked on google street view, and confirmed with other neighbours, and the trailer has been there for at least 25years.
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  • So TDLR, my neighbour is paying $150 a year to register her broken a trailer, just so no one will park in front of her house, on a busy street, while also calling the council on anyone else that parks even slightly out of place.
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  • Another night, I had to hang some clothesline on my back deck, so I set up a portable work light (one of those tripod ones you would use to paint a wall). It so happened that the light was pointed into her backyard. Well you guess it, few days later I get a letter in
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  • the mailbox from the local council, saying a neighbour has reported me for light pollution! I ring the council and they assure me that its just a formal letter saying someone has made a complaint, and that if what I said was true, that I should just ignore it.
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  • Then the next day the real estate ring me up. They explain to me that despite the landlord instructing them to ignore the neighbours complaints they just wanted to let me know that they were receiving so very many of them. Turns. out, every single time I would have a
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  • visitor, even if it was just a relative dropping by for 5min in the middle of the day, she was immediately on the phone to the real estate reporting me for having guests and complain. She would send them weekly updates on the length of the lawn. She would email them if I forgot to take my bins out.
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  • At this point I went and confronted her, asking her what her problem was. This quickly got heated and she started screaming at me, saying my voice is to loud and I am being a nuisance. Then the legal sh began.
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  • About a year and half ago I came home to a statement of claim. My neighbour was suing me for costs, damages and seeking a permanent injunction to prevent me or anyone else in the house. from making any noise, smoke or light whatsoever. I would later find out, that
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  • in the 10months she had filed over 160 noise complaints to the police. We are talking 2pm on a Sunday for playing my car radio while washing it in my yard. 6pm on a Tuesday for playing an acoustic guitar on the front porch. The
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  • police even had stated in one of the reports that they had "never" detected noise, and that they had deemed her to be vexatious complainer. It should also be noted that in those 10months, I had never once had any interactions with police. 160 complaints and not once had the police even done so much as issue me a warning.
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  • One night, in winter, my roommate put two logs in a designated fire pit in the front yard and sat around it with his friend. In the lawsuit, she described this as us "lighting a bonfire on the front grass" and demanded that I replace all the curtains in her entire house due to the damage the smoke caused them.
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • She is claiming damage from inhaling ciga tte smoke. We don't even smoke. She is legit taking me to court to try and ban me from having guests be able to smoke a ciga tte in my own yards.
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  • So after spending thousands of dollars. to retain a lawyer, we go to mediation, where she demands that I am to make no noise what so ever after 7pm 7 days a week. I say this is ridiculous. After 7 hours in mediation, I make it very clear that her demands are absolutely insane and she has no leg to fall on in regards to her complaint regarding smoke and light. I also explain that it's
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  • a share house and that if she has issue with my roommate she needs to take it. up with them and not sue me for their behaviour. She changes tactics and claims the main issue is my voice being to loud. Eventually we settle. She agrees to drop the lawsuit. I agree to limit my speaking outside after 10pm. We swap numbers.
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  • Almost immediately she starts harassing me though text. 7pm, and I'm inside cooking dinner in the kitchen talking to my roommate and she's texting me telling me to be quite (again we are in separate detached houses). She basically ignores the mediation and starts harassing us for making reasonable and expected levels of
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  • noise at all hours of the day or night. Cant have people around. She called the cops on me for having a phone call with my mother on the back deck on Mother's day. I block her number, understanding that there is no compromising with crazy.
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  • One Saturday night we have a few guests around. I'm sitting in my loungeroom watching tv and notice there are a few police standing on the footpath shining torches into my yard. I got outside to see if everything is all right. The police explain there here. about a noise complaint, but there
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  • literally standing on the footpath and can not detect any unreasonable noise. They look extremely frustrated. At this moment, the neighbour comes outside and starts SCREAMING at the police. Telling them to do their jobs and arrest me for being a nuisance. The cops roll their eyes and go over to confront her. I go back inside.
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  • A year goes by. Another lawsuit. This time in the district court. This time I am fighting it. There will be no mediation. There will be no compromising. I've gone through the dates she's indicated on the lawsuit. I swear to god, one of the nights is because I was playing a game of Uno in my bedroom with 2 others between 6pm - 9pm on a Saturday night.
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  • Frequent-Local-4788 Your lawyer should go after her to have declared a vexatious litigant. They might be able to get a sizeable costs award against her. She won't be able to sue you again unless she convinces a judge she has a case. The council may want to have her nailed for all the false complaints!
    via Frequent-Local-4788
  • Schmoe20 Yeah, it's time to go from Defense to Offensive. She wants something to complain about, exceed her requests in the maximum ways.
    via Schmoe20

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