'I'll do what I want in my own yard!': HOA resident gets even with noisy neighbor by ensuring that smoke from his fire pit travels next door

Author image for Ben Weiss
Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Jul 7, 2025 4:00 PM EDT

If you're going to be inconsiderate to your neighbors, then you need to prepare yourself to get a taste of your own medicine. Most folks who show zero remorse for actively inconveniencing the people around them seem to live in some warped reality where their actions don't have consequences and where the general experiences of others are not their burden to bear. Sure, ultimately, we are responsible for ourselves and our own wellbeing, but when you follow those instincts at the expense of the well-being of others, you might unknowingly be making enemies… and putting a target on your back.

In this instance, we've got an entitled neighbor who refused to care about the fact that the way in which he constantly revs up his mustang was actively disturbing other folks in the neighborhood. What he underestimated was that the guy directly next door, whose requests to quiet down were repeatedly denied, was a member of the HOA board. The rest, as they say, is history…

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  • This is one of those situations where the entitled guy's comeuppance involved an active reversal of the same dynamic he instigated himself. It was as if this dude was staring at his own behavior in the mirror and was forced into the shoes of someone on the receiving end of his own self-serving mentality.

  • 01
    Last Spring, my old neighbor, who was a saint, sold her house and moved away. The people that moved in were awful.
    via [deleted]
  • 02
    The guy, who we'll call Pete, owns some sort of a new black Mustang that sounds like it has no muffler, and he revs it up and down the subdivision
    via [deleted]
  • 03
    streets in the evenings LITERALLY 5 days a week when a lot of people- myself included- sit on the back porch and watch TV during the summer. It is relentless.
    via [deleted]
  • 04
    This guy also drives up and down the state highway that is on the other side of my house
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  • 05
    doing the same thing but LOUDER because it's a 55mph speed limit. You can hear it for miles. And he has friends over regularly in the backyard,
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  • 06
    and they sit there on the weekends and some weeknights... revving up the car. It truly is so loud that you cannot do anything but wait for him
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  • 07
    to be done. There was a big Facebook conversation in the HOA group, and a bunch of neighbors politely asked him not to do this. Pete's exact response? "I pay a
    via [deleted]
  • 08
    lot of money for this house!! I'll do what I want in my own yard!" and "The streets are public!"
    via [deleted]
  • 09
    Well, I didn't like that, so here's what I did next (with a little context):
    via [deleted]
  • 10
    Our subdivision has about 150 houses on about 300 acres. Its big. Most of the properties in this subdivision are between 1
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    to 4 acres in size. I have a 3 acre corner. Due to an agreed upon land split/sale 10 years ago between the HOA, all
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    neighbors within the vicinity, and the former owners, my next door neighbors house is on the smallest piece of property in the subdivision at .45 acres.
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  • 13
    I've attached a stunning artistic representation here. Note the Green borders- those are all 10' privacy fences that are white vinyl. And note the little pentagon shape, that comes in handy later.
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  • 14
    The only side of Pete's house not bordered by somebody else's privacy fence is the side that my house is on.
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  • 15
    Road Pete Back Roa d Me
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  • 16
    Well, I know from 15 years of living here that any time I have a fire on the side of the yard next to Pete's, the smoke is guaranteed to travel in the direction of Pete's house. I know this
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    because I couldn't ever have a fire when my old neighbor was outside as it would literally fill her backyard with smoke if ever the wood had even a hint of moisture in it. So, I
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  • 18
    moved my fire pit- about a dozen years ago-to the other side of my house and towards the road so that I could be a good neighbor.
    via [deleted]
  • 19
    And you know, Pete letting me know that he wouldn't quit making noise reminded me that I just LOVED having my fire pit right in the middle of my backyard. That's
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    where the little pentagon is in the diagram above. It took me a single weekend to dig up the pavers and blocks, move
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  • 21
    them back to my preferred spot, and get myself a fire going in my new fire pit. I just need to wait until Pete had people over.
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  • 22
    I made sure the inaugural fire was a good one... Pete had friends over, it was a nice day, and so I started the fire. Got it JUST about started... and
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  • 23
    then I added all the wettest, grossest wood I could. And about 10 minutes later, Pete and all of his friends were visibly upset by the stench, so they all went in.
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  • 24
    They came back out a little later, I added more wet, nasty wood. They went in again.
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  • 25
    I kept that up the entire day, and then I added a bunch of grass clipping to keep it going over night. The next day, still smoldering. Still smelling awful.
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  • 26
    I put out a Facebook post on the HOA website that let people know I'd be continuing to utilize my fire pit as often as possible, so they could. bring me their lawn scraps. I had about 20
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  • 27
    people respond in a few hours saying their clippings were all mine. I kept that fire going. My dogs are good alarms,
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  • 28
    and they rush outside anytime anybody is in Pete's backyard, so I would hear the dogs scramble, go out, and add more clippings.
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  • 29
    After about 3 weeks, Pete and his wife came out and very kindly asked me what was going on with the fire pit.
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  • 30
    She very politely informed me that her hair would smell like a campfire if she went into her backyard for any amount of time, and they
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  • 31
    could smell it coming into their house through their ductwork. He said I was making it hard for him to enjoy his backyard with his friends. They asked
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  • 32
    me if I could ease back with the fire because I "probably didn't know" that it was impacting so much of their home life.
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  • 33
    I looked at him and his wife, and I said that it was clear that sometimes we didn't recognize how big of an effect something
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  • 34
    could have on our neighbors until they told us about it. But then I said, as objectively as possible that I normally. live by the same "I'll do what I want in my yard"
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  • 35
    thought process as Pete does. I have a right to enjoy my yard.
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  • 36
    I looked at Pete de d in the eyes and said "and I know you support that because of how the conversation concluded about your car, right, Pete?"
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  • 37
    He looked at me like I scratched his favorite CD. He knew what I was doing. And his wife looked at him and it just...
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  • 38
    dawned on her. She said she gets it, and we won't hear the mustang anymore. I said "thanks!".
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  • 39
    I took a gamble and put the fire out right after that. It was the right call.
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  • 40
    I haven't talked to them much since. I'm not too concerned about that because I haven't heard the Mustang since, Either. All in all, a good little case. of "petty revenge".
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  • 41
    Cheezburger Image 10525082112
    via Unsplash+ (Hans Isaacson)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 42
    Cheezburger Image 10525082368
    via Unsplash+ (Andrej Lišakov)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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revenge story hoa hoa stories neighborhood revenge neighborhood-drama bad neighbors neighborhood-stories petty revenge petty entitled people karma entitled people hoa members
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