‘My car was covered in plastic’: Neighbor hires contractors to paint their house, they end up spraying paint all over a next-door resident's car and try to hide the evidence

Author image for Lana DeGaetano
Lana DeGaetano • "Show me to me please."
Nov 4, 2025 8:00 PM EST

Sometimes, even when you really want to be angry with your neighbor because of something that has happened to you, a higher power is to blame.

And no, we're not talking about the fella upstairs. We're talking about contractors. Painters, carpenters, you name it. Even though you might think you're hiring professionals, nobody said they'd be respectful, too. This isn't to say that most contractors and blue-collar folks aren't respectful, but there's a chance you might come across the odd bad apple of the bunch in your lifetime. All they care about is getting their job done, even if their oversights and spatial awareness might pose a problem for you later on.

This next story is a cautionary tale about hiring contractors who not only respect your property but are also mindful of the properties around you. The neighbor featured here didn't vet their contractors well enough, but again, why would they have to? Shouldn't we be able to comfortably assume that contractors will do their best to avoid getting paint all over our next-door neighbors' cars? Or, at the very least, come clean about their mistakes instead of hiding the evidence? This homeowner received an unwelcome paint job from their neighbor's contractors, and now, they can't get in touch with anyone to fix it. Scroll to read.

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  • Cheezburger Image 10571560704
    via Getty Images (Unsplash+)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • "Neighbor painted their house and sprayed my car, how should I handle this?"

    Neighbor has been having their house fixed up, new roofing, landscaping, etc. Last Wednesday I came out to painters painting their garage which is about a foot away from the fencing dividing where I park, so about 3+ ft of garage pokes over the fence.
    via IronSea975
  • My car was covered in plastic and I thought, "ah that's a nice thing to do!" And since I was on my way, I had to take it all off.
    via IronSea975
  • I told the guys thanks and said I'd park elsewhere so they didn't have to do it again.
    via IronSea975
  • Find out later that there is specks of paint all over my windshield, hood, driver window, ROOF, driver door, etc.
    via IronSea975
  • it feels like sandpaper. You can hear it like scraping crust when I use my wipers.
    via IronSea975
  • Went and got a car wash today (it's now Sunday) and it made no difference. I went to knock on their door 3x around 630pm and people were moving around and didn't answer.
    via IronSea975
  • A
    via Getty Images (Unsplash+)

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • I went home, wrote a note saying hey, here's what happened, call me and took it back over....
    via IronSea975
  • All the lights were off, tv still on in the back. I took a photo of the note, took a photo of the note on the door, have a car wash receipt, have a text to my neighbor saying to avoid parking nearby from Wednesday.
    via IronSea975
  • Any ideas on following up assuming they don't follow up? UPDATE: Y'all pulled through and gave a LOT of great advice and food for thought/things to bring up during conversations.
    via IronSea975
  • My plan for now is to go through insurance and see what we can do. I have receipts, convo screenshots, I talked to my neighbor about being a witness, etc.
    via IronSea975
  • I'm gonna see how far we get. Hopefully my neighbor cooperates. Not their fault exactly, but it would be nice to get their support.
    via IronSea975
  • I have a 100$ deductible on my comprehensive coverage so I won't be out a lot to get it back to normal, and thank you for the advice about making sure my car matches all the way around, so I don't have shiny spots!
    via IronSea975
  • The worst case is getting a quote and going to small claims court to get it handled.
    via IronSea975
  • Ideally insurance will literally take care of the whole thing but we'll see.
    via IronSea975
  • BigB tSkinner7 Small claims or insurance
    via BigB**tSkinner7
  • IronSea975 Sort of thinking that if they don't respond. Maybe insurance can deal with it. I'd love to get them to pay for a detail/clay at type polishing but idk.
    via IronSea975
  • Hairy-Concern1841 My mom was involved in fender bender with another 99 y/o half blind driver (it was my car) and I convinced the other party to allow me to have her car detailed rather than turn it into insurance. Sure enough a friend of my took the clay to it, washed it and waxed it. The woman insisted on paying half of the cost as her old car looked good as new. You can try this but there is a real chance you could need a paint job. This sounds like something the painter's liability is going t
    via Hairy-Concern1841
  • IronSea975 Good foos for thought. Tbh I'd love to get it handled without involving anybody besides the homeowner. I don't blame THEM, but if they could pay 300$ to get it removed via a good detailer then great! But I'm worried they'll be shitty about it. I figured if they have the money to get a new roof and a new paint job, they could spend a little more to fix my car.
    via IronSea975
  • I went ahead and filed an insurance claim with the possibility of just closing it. Working car insurance claims myself, I know they frequently go after whoever is responsible for reimbursement since this is a not at fault situation. Maybe the owner will give me the painters info.
    via IronSea975
  • Cee Ty The painters put that plastic on your car after they noticed they'd sprayed it in an attempt to hide it from you. If they are licensed and Insured then I'd think that's who you would go after. I'm not sure why you think this isn't an at fault situation? They failed to protect your property from their own actions.
    via CeeUNTy
  • IronSea975 Oh my fault on my wording. I don't blame the home owner directly, but definitely blame the painters. I want the home owner to help me work this out, for sure though. I think you're 1000% right that they put it on afterwards. They probably went "oh sh" and went ahead and did it.
    via IronSea975

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neighbors neighborhood neighborhood-drama bad neighbors neighborhood-stories reddit story terrible neighbors entitled reddit thread Bad Neighbor r-entitled Reddit strange behavior entitled people neighbor
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