'She wouldn't stop spraying us!': Karen neighbor wages water war with family BBQ

Living next to neighbors offers a great sense of community along with lessons in mutual respect and reciprocation, but—depending on whom you're residing next to—it can also be a living nightmare. Getting stuck next to the wrong individual can be all it takes to turn a peaceful life upside down and send it on a one-way fast pass to Suffertown.

It doesn't matter how peaceable of an individual you are: days, weeks, months, even years of living next to inconsiderate neighbors is enough to send anyone careening into feuding behaviors.

The final straw might come in the form of the most innocuous event, like a relatively casual outdoor barbeque in which loud drunken voices carry for hours as bleating children savage each other unnoticed as if reenacting a new-aged reboot of "Lord of the Flies."

You might find you—yourself—that once reasonable person, wandering out in the backyard, muttering maniacally as you grab the garden hose and set the nozzle to "jet." Now, you wouldn't normally water your plants with jet, but today you're going to, and you're going to specifically focus on that ivy that stretches along the length of the fence—the ivy that wouldn't normally even need watering, doing a fine enough job on its own of spreading and taking over everything in its path.

With a half-twisted smile, you begin to spray, ensuring to spray at the top or just over the top of the fence pickets to best simulate the effects of rain on the thriving plant… definitely with no ulterior motive.

Screams answer, along with a surprised bellow as your neighbor, Big Tom, tips backward, collapsing his folding camp chair, as the first blast catches him square in the back of his enormous, shining bald globe-like head. His wife, Trish, is the next to fall, catching a spray of water square in the chest; a yell of shock and arms flailing as the cold water sends her sprawling. Their guests begin to panic, seeking refuge outside of the lengths of your watery blast, grabbing their children as they flee, who have frozen in the midst of their feral game, mouths gaping. Big Tom is on his feet now, preparing to charge. He gathers speed, propelled by sheer mass and will, reaching the fence with another roar, clumsily grasping the top of the pickets as if to climb them. 

Another blast of water catches him square in the face.

. . .

By no means am I suggesting you solve your neighborly issues with a spray from a hose; that would likely create only more issues and bad blood. What I'm saying is it's never cut and dry over who the "bad guy" is in these situations. While it's possible the hose-wielding neighbor is completely in the wrong, it's more likely that a thousand small cuts from these loud neighbors finally sent her over the edge. 

It stands to reason that any time we see recordings painting one party to be the villain, this doesn't automatically mean that the recording party is heroic.