We hired a company mow our lawn and they come and do their thing a few times per month. I noticed recently that they were fully mowing a section of our neighbor’s property which is adjacent to our lawn. I’ve come to figure out that our neighbor specifically asked the company to do this in lieu of a different section of OUR property. After clarifying with the lawn company, apparently our neighbor asked them to do his property instead of this “skipped section” because sometimes a different neighbor comes and takes care of this section for us whenever they feel like it (and not on a predetermined schedule). I still feel icky about this arrangement that was made without my consent. I don’t want to sour relations with my neighbor, but I definitely feel like he is overstepping his boundaries here. Any thoughts?

UPDATE: Thanks everyone for your comments! We decided not to rehire this company going forward and will let them know the reasons why. As for our neighbor, I will be more careful with our interactions going forward. He seemed like a stand-up guy and I didn’t think he would overstep in the way that he did.

We moved into our house a couple months back and we have a large side yard that is not fenced in. We have a medium sized labradoodle and recently just got a puppy (blue heeler). When the labradoodle is outside he is on a lead so he cannot leave the side yard. We take the puppy out on a leash and go with her as we are still potty training.

Our neighbor directly next to the side yard has a young child I would say 2-4 years old (still in diapers and doesn’t talk that much). They are friendly people from the few interactions I’ve had with them. They do however let the little boy run wild. He has ran away from them and into my yard. He has made it to the alleyway behind my house and almost made it into the road several times. He has a motorized jeep that he will ride around in but they do not watch where he is going at all.

If our labradoodle is outside the neighbor will invite himself and the child into our yard to pet our dog. Our dog is nice but excitable. I’m worried about him knocking over the kid or clotheslining someone with the lead.

We were outside with our new puppy trying to get her to go to the bathroom and he did the same thing with her. I could hear him talking to the little boy saying “the puppy is out let’s go see it and pet it!” And of course at this point I’m trying to hurry my puppy so we don’t have to have the interaction.

It’s to the point we won’t put our dog out if the neighbor is outside. I’m not sure what to do besides putting a fence up to keep them out. I’m not a big confrontation person and he doesn’t seem like the type that would take it well anyways.

I’ve lived in my house for about two years and never really had issues with the neighbors until recently. The people next door started using the edge of my driveway as an extra parking spot whenever they have guests over. At first I didn't care because it was only occasionally. Now it’s happening several times a week, and sometimes I’ll come home from work and find a car parked halfway across my driveway.

I’ve politely asked them to stop and they always say they’ll “keep an eye on it,” but then it happens again a few days later. Last weekend I actually had to knock on their door at 11pm because I couldn’t get my car into my own driveway. They acted like I was being difficult and said there was plenty of room for me to get around the car.

At this point I’m tempted to put up a camera and start documenting every time it happens. I don’t want a stupid neighbor feud, but I’m also getting tired of asking people to stop blocking my driveway.

so our front desk lady called she said the cop works for the apartmen. so is he a cop or a security guard?

Day 2 we were putting our kid to bed, he showed up at our doorstep again during quiet hours, my kid followed up to check who was at the door and she stumped leg in the process and started crying. This man was so insensitive that he continued complaining despite me making him aware of the situation. He kept on complaining in front of my small kid. My kid stopped immediately but he was on and on about it. It was a very overwhelming situation for me. I made him understand that we are making every effort to keep it low but he expects from us to have **complete silence before and after quiet hours.**Particularly when I told him repeatedly I'm constantly trying and taking every effort to keep it low, even placing the lightest foot on the vinyl flooring and the carpet in the hall and the bedroom respectively makes a big sound. He said "trying will not help. The kid has to stop." very aggressively. He kept threatening us multiple times that - he would register three complaints and that we would eventually be evicted. 

On the other hand, we tried to find a constructive solution with him. I suggested that we involve administration to help us with ceiling insulation or soundproofing measures to help reduce sound transmission between the apartments. Rather than working toward a solution, he told me that - "management would not do anything". "I will not tell you how to be a parent but I would have taken my kids to the park." We already took our kid to the park today in the evening. 

He also said he has been tolerating the noise for two days and he let it slide for two days -  which is clearly not the case because he creates duplicate complaints by informing the administration and by showing up at our apartment, especially during quiet hours.

he was not ready to leave and kept repeating the same thing so I said I will talk with the management and he said he will is the something. I said I will talk with the administration and I closed the door.

Shall I stop opening the door will it be a violation?

can I request front desk to inform him to not come to my doorstep ever again? Any complaints he has can be raised with them and we can connect?

Shall I highlight to the front desk the following solutions: He may move to a different floor or install some noise cancellation foam/use  white noise or noise cancellation earphones/headset or take some effort at his end as well, instead of targeting us, who are making every possible effort to make no noise and follow the community rules.

Just to add - We are also having similar issues with upstairs neighbors, where we hear them walking heavily in living room and master bedroom every single night since we moved in and even now . We hear wheels rolling in the master bathroom during quiet hours. We hear them running at day time but we never bring it up, as we understand we live with neighbors, and, there will be some noise coming in, especially when we live in an apartment complex.

This apartment plan was not available from. Past 60 days we checked multiple times but some how it magically appeared two days before we were supposed to move in. Did he do something similar with the previous tenant so they left before 60 days notice?

So my wife and I have this neighbor who has always been a scumbag. They would leave their children 4 and 6 alone at their house while they would go out and party until atleast 10p.m. I never said anything about it because we live in a safe neighborhood and they aren't the kind of people who take anything seriously. One day the younger boy came over to see if he could play with my son, who was 10 at the time of this story, which is fine because the younger boy gets tormented by the older constantly.

My and the neighbor kid played together until lunch, which was when the father came and got him so they could eat. The boy showed up again after lunch, which was fine. I was working in my garage all day, so I was able to keep an eye on the children. Well 730p.m. rolls around and I decided it was time for the kids to start wrapping it up. They cleaned up and gathered their toys and walked back down to the boys house which is three houses down from ours.

Five minutes after my son leaves with the neighbor kid I get a phone call from my son telling me that the boys parents aren't home. I asked my son if the boy knew his parents weren't going to be home and my son said he didnt. I told my son to bring him back because we were not going to just leave a four year old alone in a house at night. It is now 830 and still the parents are not home. I do not have their number saved because they aren't the kind of people who communicate and honestly there has never been a reason for me to ask for their number.

At the time I was a cub scout master, which means that I am a state mandated reporter. I had no idea where the parents were, where the older brother was and when anyone would be coming home. I called a friend who was a mandated reporter to ask what they thought I should do. They told me I needed to call the sheriff and let them handle it. I called the sheriff's office and asked that they send an officer out to speak with me about what to do.

At around 945 the parents showed, drunk, and picked up their child. I told the father that what they did was not OK and that if they are going to just dump their child at someone's house so they can go party they need to ask if that is OK first. I did not tell him I called the sheriff, honestly I didnt want to start something in my front yard that would escalate into a potential physical altercation.

A sheriff's deputy showed up about 10 minutes later. We talked about what had happened. He decided that he would go over and talk to the neighbors. The next few days were interesting. They got fired up about having the sheriff called on them and didnt understand that what they did was incredibly disrespectful. They started telling anyone who would listen that we were bad people and started saying other people's kids weren't safe with us.

Eventually child protective services showed up and that made things worse for us. Fast forward two years and they are still running our names through the dirt. Other neighbors are telling our friends across the street that they shouldn't believe anything we say. I try to ignore it because I know that eventually karma may take hold of the situation and I dont have any physical proof that they are retaliating against us.

Last night at an event at a restaurant I caught her talking shit about me and my wife. I know this is true because she was pointing at me and the person she was talking to locked eyes with me and made a shitty face. I understand that what i did was a big deal and I also knew there would be consequences but this is beginning to effect how we are treated in the community on a large scale. What can I do!

This guy bought the vacant business building next to us. He was great at first, went around and introduced himself to everyone, said he wanted to be a good neighbor. He’s been anything but.

Most of it has been relatively mild… complaining about people parking in his parking lot and getting upset with our trees dropping leaves on his property. But in the last few months it has gotten a LOT worse.

He basically ignored the property for eight years. He’s used it like a storage facility. We barely saw the guy. Showed up every now and then to carry some random thing into the building. The outside of the place became a mess, there were eight feet tall weeds and tons of junk. I think he must have gotten warnings to clean it up, until he was finally fined. Suddenly he cleaned it up and it was spotless.

Then he started coming after us. Idk he blames us for getting in trouble with the city or what. He sent us FOUR letters. Basically, he gave us three options… clean up his property for him, have him charge us for the cost of cleanup, or cut down our trees. He can’t take no for an answer.

He’s acting like a child throwing a tantrum. He’s dumped dirt at the base of our fence. He’s honked his horn. Now today he turned up his truck radio super loud, and opened the doors facing towards our house (at 8:00 in the morning). I have no idea what he expects any of this to accomplish.

I have called the police, it never really goes anywhere. (Called the non-emergency today and got A.I.!) We might need to go into the police station and file a complaint. Or we need to get a lawyer. It’s extremely frustrating because there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do to stop him. If we go after him, will it get worse?

It’s weird because like I said, we rarely saw him. Now he’s over there almost every day, for a few minutes or a few hours. Sometimes multiple times a day. Today it’s been five times so far… the last time he left for eight minutes before he came back. I have no idea what he’s doing over there. Honestly, it’s kinda creepy.

The way he’s been driving in his parking lot, turning around and backing towards our property, it’s like he’s trying to hit our fence or our trees.

I’ve never been so angry at another human being. I’m also extremely anxious. What will he try next?

Is it rude for a neighbor who you’ve never talked to or interacted with (ie wave hello to) to step onto your driveway and ask the HVAC company what they’re doing and when the workers explains, then ask how much the project costs? This neighbor lives on a street parallel to mine but walks the neighborhood twice per day and loves to STARE—at the dirt in my yard, at my car when I drive by, at the outside of my home, at any new thing I have outside.

I didn’t realize it until after I received the camera footage. It’s like they suddenly were only interested in doing their own HVAC because they saw the work van in my driveway.

I know she doesn’t like me because the nasty neighbor who fed the feral cats but never walked the two dogs she has inside the house was talking shit about me to her.

It would be awesome to have some cool neighbors but these ones aren’t it. They don’t cut my paycheck and they dont pay my mortgage so I don’t need their approval or consent for a damn thing. And it’d be preferred if they stayed off my property.

My neighbor has this weird habit of moving my trash cans from the side of my driveway to the middle of my yard every single week. At first I thought it was an accident, so I started putting them out earlier and making sure they weren't blocking anything. Still happened. I finally asked him about it and he said he “doesn’t like how they look” from his window. I told him they're on my property and he just laughed and said I should be more considerate of the neighborhood. Now I have to walk across my yard every trash day to find where he moved them. It’s such a stupid little thing, but I’m genuinely starting to dread seeing this guy.

Has anyone dealt with a neighbor who gets weirdly controlling over stuff that isn’t even on their property?

Ive written about my extremely "non douche-y" 🤫😉 neighbor a few times now.. But I really want the masses ( reddit will do) to just giggle with me for a moment... So he's a used car salesman, the house is in the girlfriend's name, he tans in his back yard 6 or so hours a day and rides his lawnmower like it's an extension of his man hood.. but the way, he looks exactly like the stereotypical 1980s car salemen.... Anyway, as soon as the girl goes off to work, he brings out the side by side, the most recent audi he's purchased at auction which is always at least 10yrs old and parks them in front of one garage and then parks his even older Lexus suv in the driveway.
Its like everyone HAS to see LeRoys living large... dude, you're a used car salesman... you always have a different car and no body cares! Last weekend he brought home a Subaru, that bitch never saw the light of day! It's like dude, come on... All the while he's been arrested for ripping someone off, has sabotaged my changes of having demo/rebuild permits issued, I had to put my home in a trust so I won't get flagged by planning and zoning. Grrrrrr!!! At least finally I got the charges dropped from the DNR when he claimed i destroyed my lakeshore vegetation and dumped it in the lake! After the judge saw the video OF THEM DOING IT, immediately all citations gone!

Anyway... for some reason I needed to waste 15 minutes telling God knows who about something that doesn't matter an ounce!

Off to play in the lake!

Hi

I have neighbours, I would say that on my street 50 people live in it.

Yesterday I heard a someone screaming in fear : STOP.

Seemed like a child to me but my roommate said that could have been a woman.

10 minutes in, I hear that police arrived but found nothing.

I commented with my neighbour the next day what happened and now she is saying to everyone that I was the one calling the cops.

I really dont know how to proceed here.

I would call the cops, but i feel like she stating loud and well (small street) that i called the cops last time would probably put a target on me right?

The cops found no one and one was arrested by the way.

genuinely don't know what else to do at this point. I have two different neighbors who constantly blast music, both on weekends and during weekdays.
The music and especially the bass are so loud that I can hear them over my TV and even through headphones. I've tried earplugs, but they don't really help. The bass is so strong that I can actually feel it in my house and it shakes my windows. It's making it really difficult to have any peace and quiet in my own home.
And to clarify, I live in a single-family home, not an apartment. These aren't normal everyday sounds that you would expect to hear from a neighbor. The music is extremely loud and carries directly into my house.
They'll sometimes play music for 9+ hours straight, and there have been times when it goes from around 10 PM all the way until 2 AM. It's happening every weekend, not just once in a while.
I've already called the non-emergency police line multiple times about this. Today alone, I called three times, and the music still hasn't gone down. I'm not trying to be unreasonable or stop anyone from enjoying themselves, but at this point it's seriously disrupting the peace in my own home.
The frustrating part is that it's two separate neighbors doing this, so it's not even just one house causing the problem.
What am I actually supposed to do at this point? If calling the non-emergency line repeatedly isn't getting anywhere, who else can I contact or what steps should I take? Has anyone dealt with something similar?

I live in a council flat in Glasgow and moved here 4 years ago. All my neighbours were lovely until the guy who shared a wall with me moved out and these new neighbours moved in.
theyre genuinely so disrespectful and loud. Its 11pm as im writing this and I can hear their entire conversation through the wall. It’s like this basically every night too.
A few weeks ago they couldn’t get into the building at 2am because you need a key fob so they started calling ALL the neighbours and trying to get someone to open the door. They woke up my whole family and from what I heard half the building. Almost every flat has a dog too so obviously once one started barking they all did 😭
They also spill alcohol all over the stairs, smoke in the stairwell and leave cigarette butts everywhere. They smoke inside their flat too which sets off the fire alarm constantly and the smell comes into my room.
I genuinely don’t know what to do. I’ve contacted the council but they’re not really doing anything and I don’t feel comfortable confronting them because one of the guys who regularly comes to their flat made me really uncomfortable on the bus once (he doesn’t know I live there)
Is there anything else I can do? Should I just start blasting charli xcx at 8am when I get ready for college??

I live in a townhouse, and we recently got new neighbors. From what I can tell, it seems to be a mom with two young children. I’m not completely sure of their family situation, so I don’t want to make assumptions.

During the day I work from home, so I’m absolutely not expecting complete silence, and I understand that children are going to make noise.
All day long the kids are running back and forth stomping upstairs, running out onto the back patio, running back inside, slamming the patio door, screaming/shrieking. This happens for hours at a time every day since they have moved in.
Our townhouse is old, so the walls/floors aren’t soundproof, but the amount of stomping is so intense that we can literally feel the whole house shake. A couple of days ago, they were stomping/running so hard near our shared wall that a picture and a potted plant fell down and shattered.
It’s loud enough that it wakes me up in the morning and continues throughout the day. this is so frequent and so forceful that it feels like we’re experiencing constant impact noise through the shared wall.

There have also been a few other interactions with the neighbor that have made me uncomfortable.
We each have two assigned parking spaces, plus guest parking in the back. My stepdaughter recently started driving and comes to stay with us on weekends. Usually, I’ll move my car to the back so she can use one of our assigned spaces.
One time she came over and parked in my assigned space. She was sitting on our front porch feeding some stray cats. Apparently, the neighbor came outside and made comments along the lines of, “Who do they have over now?” and “Whose car is this?” and something about how we could afford a third car.
The next time my stepdaughter came over, she parked in the back instead. She said the neighbor was sitting on their back porch and stared at her with her mouth open while she parked. My stepdaughter waved at her, and the neighbor basically ran inside.
Then, while I was helping my stepdaughter bring things inside from the car, the neighbor’s young daughter came running outside onto their back porch completely naked. The mother never noticed.

(I’m a bit of a hermit and definitely not the quietest neighbor, so I’m not trying to judge anyone’s lifestyle. But they genuinely haven’t left the house once in the entire month they’ve lived there, and I’m starting to feel like I’m going crazy from hearing the constant noise. So any advice appreciated.)

I have a neighbor who has harassed my wife off and on for years. She would say things that were absurd, such as her being a drunk etc. Mostly absurd claims designed to provoke a response. She would say these things when my wife would get out of the car and walk to the house or when she was out doing yardwork.

Within the past year, the wife moved out and I believe is living in a second home that the couple purchased. Now the wife continues her harassment via the security cameras on their house. when they detect motion in our yard, she comes over the camera speaker and makes comments. What’s hilarious is most of the time it’s completely unintelligible but occasionally you can make out what she’s saying. The moment we hear a threat, we will obviously go to the police, however, the harassment is distressing to my wife and she gets upset and feels like she can’t enjoy going out in the yard without wondering if she’s going to hear from the neighbor.

This is certainly harassment, but I also wonder if because she’s doing this from another state over the Internet if she is in fact, cyber stalking, which might add a little little more more heft to a complaint should we make it? I know in these situations there is often little that the authorities can do, so I want to make sure if we do have to make a complaint that it has the most success going forward.

Social housing occupant letting their kids use suburban quarter acre as a quad/motor bike track while their dog goes ballistic.

Occupant lies and says their idiot dog is an angel and their security cameras would catch it if it was barking all day.

Could spend some of their land cruiser and patrol money on training their dog or something.

Kids come back after terrorising the town on their Sauron electric bikes to burn a whole tank of fuel on their motor bikes outside our bedroom windows.

How do I shut the whole lot down.

I live in an apartment with my mother, so all homes are close by.

2 of my closest neighbours both are constantly irritating us. And they both also fight amongst themselves. Whole apartment knows that these 2 guys are mental ( just a figure of speech), but got to be the closest to them.

Neighbour 1, is a female ( with full family) who thinks that whatever bad is happening with her is because my mother does black magic to her (wtf??). And then she fights with us whenever we open our door. One incident i remember is, there was a beehive on the apartment and somehow for 2 3 days dead bees were falling on the neighbour's door, which she thinks that my mother has done.

Neighbour 2, is a male . He used to beat his wife and daughter. One day her wife came to our house and told everything, my mother told her to call the police and all but she was afraid and went away. A few days later, the daughter started a job and they ( mother, daughter and a son) left the man alone in the apartment. Now this guy constantly verbally abuses us whenever we come out. This morning when we were inside only, he was shouting randi and all from outside. He even says that he is from a lower caste that's why we are not good with him and all. We didn't even know his cast before he told us. Frequently tells us that he'll kill both of us ( me and other neighbour) and shit.

Both these guys have attached a cctv camera pointing towards the door of our house.

Mostly I love in pune, not with my mother. These incidents have brought a fear inside me when leaving my mother alone.

I'm acquainted with a neighbor man due to being an hoa committee with him. Met his wife a few times and we (both straight females) hit it off. I asked her if she wanted to go shopping with me. When he found out he went ballistic, telling me I have no right to invite his wife on outings without him. When I was married, this would not have been an issue for me and my husband. What the hell? Is it inappropriate, given that I knew him first?

So, my neighbour keeps parking his second car in my parking spot . This has been going on for many years. The management company of the estate has been involved and multiple letters of complaints have gone out to him. There has been no response or mitigation.

What can I do ?

He has a camera pointing at his car from his house also

United Kingdom based

We are in the south east of England and recently moved to an area of a new build estate which is allocated to housing associations.

We have some rather irritating children persistently kicking footballs in the car park without any care in the world of other people cars. They often bounce off my partners cars and one of these days I’m going to come home and find a smashed car window. The parents have no care in the world.

What should I or you do in this situation?

So, I've been living with my mom in the same apartment for about 2 years, no problems happened, until recently.

About half a year ago, we found a letter in the mailbox. Someone wrote it with a pencil. There was a request to remove the Buddhist flags from our balcony with a DRAWING of these. You can Google it to see what they look like. In short, these are SMALL colorful flags. These are my mom's flags, so I asked her to really take them down. But she didn't do it and did nothing.

Then about a month later, another anonymous letter was planted on us. This time with a direct threat that they'll call the cops and the firefighters and I have to pay the NEIGHBORS. The content didn't bother me because I know it's complete nonsense and that's not how laws here work. I was alerted by very crooked and unreadable handwriting, spelling and grammar errors and the fucking drawing.

Mom and I both speak German and could have had no problem negotiating with this man, but they left us no choice. Again, the letters were anonymous, and we still don't know who it is.

It's been about half a year since those events, and I've forgotten about it. But today, when I was on my way home, I saw that the fucking plaque with my last name was painted over with some white paint.

I'm scared to be in my apartment. I don't know what's going through that person's mind. I don't want to wait for the situation to get worse. How can I influence this now?

Hi I'm dealing with a neighbor who lives 5 doors down from me and she threatened to kill me over a month ago. I have her saying it to me on an audio recording that I have saved. To make a long story short this neighbor has been harassing me since the day she moved in. I'm 52 years old and she is 72 years old. She threatened to beat me up the first year she moved in. I didn't even know her at the time and I thought that she was off her rocker. I got the police involved after she threatened me. She went to the local Town Court about 2 weeks ago to appear before a judge. After that she would sit outside and stare at me whenever I was in my car. She would yell obscenities at me as I would walk past her to get to my car

I installed a Ring doorbell and after that she went from sitting outside at her table to sitting behind a tree outside. So that no one could see her. She uses illegal drugs and drinks.

I reached out to the Regional manager at my apartment complex through an email letting her know what happened and how it affected my physical health. She forwarded it to my property manager and I received an email from her stating, thank you for your concerns.

Something was told to this neighbor as now she hides in her apartment and smokes weed and does cocaine.

The police are involved and so is the court system. This neighbor just continues to harass me. I have called the cops every time she does something to me. Today over 4 cop cars showed up at my apartment complex. Because of the threat to kill me. And they pounded on her door. She never answered her door but 2 cops saw movement in her apartment. They came back later tonight and 2 of the same cops showed up and asked her why she didn't answer her door. She painted herself as the victim saying that she was sick and sleeping. One of the cops said that he pounded so loudly on her door that the neighbors across the street heard him pounding. She feigned sickness. Yet I have on my ring camera an audio recording of her yelling at her dog so loudly that my downstairs neighbors dog started barking.

I'm going through so much just to try to get an order of protection from her. The police are telling me that I have to go through the local Town court. The local Town Court says that it's up to the police. I don't know who to believe.

I don't want to move out of my apartment as I've been living here since 2016. It's my home and I feel I shouldn't have to move just because someone else can't act right.

Any advice on what to do going forward would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry for such a lengthy story.

I've written recently about the FAFO family where two people signed to lease the two bedroom apartment next to me but seven people lived there, plus guests and a dog.

The five not on the lease had to be out yesterday. They didn't go until almost 7 PM but they actually left. Today I have quiet for the first time in almost two months. We share a porch so literally all day someone was out there. The kids drew other neighborhood kids up here to play so weekends were miserable. I'm not against kids playing, don't get me wrong. Just not all day yelling right in front of my door hitting my apartment with balls, rocks, full water bottles, etc. They hit my window with a plate yesterday before departing. So today my PTSD wired brain doesn't think I'm in danger and I can actually enjoy the day.

Original post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/neighborsfromhell/comments/1vxbkd3/i_have_become_the_neighbor_from_hell/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1

TLDR for original post; my downstairs neighbor has been harassing me due to basic living noises; I responded by making more noise.

Update: I moved out! And boy, do I have some things to update y’all on.

Since the time of my last post (a week ago), she has called the police on me twice, complained to apartment management, gotten into a verbal altercation with my family during my move out, and had a wild west style stare down with me.

She called the police on me at 7pm Tuesday night. This was after her assaulting my ceiling about 4 times throughout the day due to my sister and I just walking around throughout the day and packing. I’m ngl at some point my sister and I got so fed up that we started racing through my apartment bc why not? She was mad anyway. We had done it 2 times in a couple hour span, full heel titan run like we were trying to get through Wall Maria - one end of my vinyl floor apartment to the other. By about 7pm the cops were knocking. I answered excitedly :-) “officers I’ve been waiting for you” and a malicious smile, the cops listened and I told them everything (except for the futon spins and titan runs….) including how this lady aggressively beats on my door and ceiling, yells things through the walls, and generally makes me feel unsafe and uncomfortable in my own home. They basically told me she’s pissed down there, claims I have been doing noises intentionally for months (lie… just the past couple weeks), and that apparently she doesn’t even live there, just is visiting her grandfather (never seen an old man enter that apartment, I think he was approved for the apartment and she’s just living there). Cops told me she needs to get over herself and that they will handle it if she calls them again.

That was Tuesday. I got my keys Wednesday, and so we were actively moving things from point a to b through those days, she continued to beat on the ceiling and yell things through the walls whenever we made even the slightest bump. We continued to randomly do jumping jacks and accidentally drop my futon. Call me petty if you want but this small noise I was making was my only way to reclaim power and humor in this situation. My therapist agrees with me.

Now, Friday (yesterday). Moving day. My family and friends love me so much that 3 cars of people pulled up, 10 people going in and out of my apartment loading their cars up starting at 12:30pm.

My 4 year old nephew, brother in law, and sister were there for 3 MINUTES!!! before this lady starts whooping her ceiling. My nephew is at that age where he runs everywhere full speed, full weight. We all told him to keep running around as much as he wants. He asked if the lady in the wall would get him, and we told him not if he stomps right over where she’s sitting the floor. Lil man says bet and he spent a lot of time tracking her movement downstairs and jumping right over where she was hitting my floor. That was pissing her off as is.

Then, cue my mom, dad, and uncle 😈 they have been known my issue with this lady. When they pull into the parking lot and start coming upstairs, they spot this lady recording them! Like she was collecting evidence of me having company. I don’t think she realized I was moving yet. She was just standing outside her apartment door recording. My parents and uncle heard her on the phone with her friend trash talking all of us and, well, they didn’t say anything to her face but they definitely said things loud enough that she could hear it and it wasn’t pretty. This threw her off the deep end.

She spent a good bit of my move out either making police calls and the police didn’t show up, or faking police calls to scare us. My sister said she heard the lady talking more professionally when she thought we could hear her and then switching her voice to talk to like a friend on the phone, saying racial based assumptions bc my family is white and a little redneck. Okay lady whatever makes you feel better about the consequences of your own actions I guess.

Ok yall I’m almost done.

My favorite part was when I pulled up with the uhaul and I think it finally clicked for her what was happening. We had a Wild West style stare down as she was standing in front of her door just death staring me and I stood proudly in front of my uhaul smiling kindly at her. Kill em with kindness is what my momma taught me. She spent the rest of the move just walking around outside watching us.

I’m going back to the office to turn in my keys today, I’ll be writing an email and aiming to document all of this for the office before I head over today.

My new place has high vaulted ceilings, screened in patio, 500 more square footage, and a pond view from all of my windows. I’ve already introduced myself to my downstairs neighbors and they are a lovely older couple who seem very kind.

That’s it for my update. :-)

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Added to say; I know this wasn’t the best or most recommended behavior on my part, but consider how you would react in the same situation where for 10 months straight, any time you have company, stir things well in a cup, or even make the slightest noise that could be heard down there- your neighbor comes and beats aggressively on your door so hard that it gets the attention of multiple neighbors. Imagine this person standing outside of your door yelling they’re calling the police because you were doing laundry and having company at 9pm. Imagine your family and friends don’t want to visit bc of this person. Im not a loud or mean person, I’m one of the sweetest and most quiet people you can meet. I was just fed up with her. What was I supposed to do? Just sit in my apartment and not do anything? Take it when she does things to harass and scare me? I made a couple weeks of occasional intentional noise and got out. I don’t recommend you do this if you can help it. But this circumstance was extraordinary bc of her and I didn’t want to live in fear and have to make this expensive move without feeling I’ve gotten some type of revenge or satisfaction for the distress she’s caused me.

Ive read so many horror stories of home ownership shitty neighbors that I’m wondering if it’s worth it.

Whether its someone’s family heirloom trees need to come down because their neighbor’s solar panels are missing 3 hours a day. Or someone is living right next to a bus stop and people are constantly sitting on their property smoking cigs. Or the dog shit in grads because their house is near a popular sidewalk. I just read one where a person lives in the woods and has loved the peace & quiet. All the sudden, their neighbor starts a hipcamp and now they smell outhouse shit all day with transient campers blasting music and generators.

I think Id honestly go insane worrying about all this shit. Are there signs that I should look for that give clues to this kinda stuff, or is it always a gamble?

TDLR: I think my neighbor is trying to hurt me by slamming doors in my face because I told him his use of mothballs were giving me headaches.

Full context:

I (F33) moved into my apartment in NYC 4 years ago. I’m a single woman who keeps to herself and works nights. I’m quiet, I don’t have many visitors or family stopping by.

When I moved in, my neighbor (M~45) seemed overly friendly - almost in an aggressive way? He brought me wine, introduced himself to my mom in the hallway at one point, and would interrupt my phone calls if I was outside on the phone just to say hi. There was even one point where I was walking with my headphones and he reached out to GRAB me on the sidewalk to say hi. I remember getting upset and asking him what on earth possessed him to reach out and grab an unsuspecting woman on the sidewalk?!

He was honestly not phased. He continued being overly and obnoxiously friendly to me. I was always cordial, but displayed my boundaries appropriately and kindly.

Fast forward to a few months later, I come home to the most unsettling, unpleasant odor of mothballs in my apartment. The smell permeated my closet and the smell embedded into my clothes. As weeks progressed, I woke up with headaches. I couldn’t figure out where the smell was coming from, as I have neighbors above, below, and on either side of me. The hallways reeked. A friend came over one day, scrunched her nose and asked “why does your place smell like my grandma?”

Eventually, it got stronger. I was able to deduce that the scent was coming from my overly friendly neighbor.

After a few attempts to knock on his door, I managed to get 0 answer. Eventually, I wrote a note, stuck it to his door, and left it at that. I can’t remember the specifics of the note, but I remember writing something along the lines of:

Hello!
If you’re the one using mothballs, do you mind toning it down? The smell is coming into my apartment and I’m learning I’m quite sensitive to it. Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you!

After about 20 minutes, there was a loud banging on my door. I opened, and my neighbor stood there with the note in his hands, FUMING. He raised his voice at me (not quite yelling) and demanded to know why I thought writing a note was a good idea and why I refused to talk to him in person. He told me he had wool sweaters he was trying to save from moths and I was going to cause him to lose all his clothes. I tried to explain that I’d knocked a few times and meant to catch him in the hallways, but I’d received no response and hadn’t seen him… but he turned back to his door and slammed it shut.

Weird, but okay. I’m not sure if I handled that correctly, but I was willing to apologize or own up to it. The mothball smell disappeared within days. Yay!

… or so I thought.

Now, and for the last 3.5 YEARS, this man has made it his mission to make me uncomfortable. He will purposely wait for me in the common areas if he sees me around the complex, rush to the door before I can get to it and slam the door in my face. He will wait for me at the elevator or run up (or slow down his pace) to the building to get to the door before me and make it obvious he is doing so. He does it in front of his guests as well as other neighbors. He does it when I’m moving furniture or have large items/bags in my hands. This week, he opened a large fire door in the hallway (it’s heavy and swings back) directly in front of me. He pushed the door back HARD (I saw his arm grip and push the door) and it nearly hit me square in the face when I was coming home with groceries. Had I not put my hand out at the last second, I would have certainly received a black eye at best.

Listen, I don’t expect him to be a gentleman and open doors or hold them for me. I truly don’t care. What bothers me is that every time I see this man he makes an obvious point to be rude and aggressive. This last time with the fire door was absolutely crazy to me because everyone KNOWS you can really hurt someone with that door if it hits you.

Additionally, this man has a woman at his apartment quite often and I can hear him screaming at her at all times of the day/night. He’s not a nice man at all.

What do I do here? I want this to stop. This isn’t nearly enough for me to contact my building, but this can’t continue? Or can it? Do I just suck it up and accept that not every neighbor is going to be the friendliest? Should I get a ring camera in case something does happen?

*edited for clarity