Angry People Reveal Why They Went To War With Their Neighbors

Neighbor wars are hilarious in comedy films. Nobody really gets hurt, everything is funny, shirtless Zac Effron shows up and that's always good times. Real life can sometimes be just as hilarious as movies, but does that apply to the neighbor war trops? One Reddit user asked: Redditors who have gone to "war" with a neighbor, what's your story?

Yup, this is every bit as petty as you would think it is. We've got passive-aggressive bird feeders, nun fights, and a mariachi band that just won't stop. It's more than just that, though. Things get dark, of course, cause this is Reddit. Lives are lost, children are neglected, people are awful. Real neighbor wars don't often involve Zac Effron - much less shirtless Zac Effron.

Dancing On The Ceiling

Had a neighbor that lived downstairs. Did all sorts of loud s*** late into the night. Usually music and friends. One day I had enough and after about 10 minutes of very loud music I just started stomping on the floor. He came bursting out of his apartment and pounding on my door. I answered, acting very confused. "You need to stop stomping around! I'm trying to work!"

"I wasn't stomping."

"Yes you were!"

"I was dancing to your s****y music. Turn it down and it'll never happen again."

It never happened again.

The Mariachi Neighbor

The house I grew up at had that issue, new neighbors moved in and they would absolutely blast obnoxious mariachi music with as much bass as they could get out of their speakers, for most of the day.

We would ask them to turn it down, to no effect. I think they used to tell us they would, but then wouldn't. Eventually they got so irritated with us asking that once when I went over there to ask (16 or 17 years old), the "man" of the house threatened me with physical violence for asking.

So we started calling the cops. Unfortunately, they knew we were the ones calling, so everytime the cops showed up at their house for a noise complaint our vehicles would be vandalized: tires slashed, hoods and doors kicked in, etc.

As far as I know, the police were never able to do anything like issue a fine or anything like that. So it had no effect on them whatsoever.

Fighting A Bunch Of Nuns

My parent's neighbor constantly blows his leaves onto my parent's property. My dad tried to confront him a few times and the guy literally ran away every time. Yes, a grown man dropped his leafblower and ran inside and locked the door and pretended not to be home when he saw my dad coming, on multiple occasions. My father is not a scary man.

My dad was finally able to confront him one day -- he was super polite and said the guy could blow the leaves into their woods, but just not onto their clean lawn. The guy responded, "your property doesn't start until 10 feet from the road, so you can't do anything about it. If you want me to stop, sue me." This is technically correct, as the property is off a private road owned by a convent, and per state law the owner of the road also owns the 10 feet of land on either side of the road.

So, my dad called up the Convent and asked if the neighbor is allowed to dump his leaves on their property. Turns out they don't like that, so now instead of being in a neighborly argument with my parents, he's trying to fight a bunch of nuns in court. Not a good look.

Dorm Life

Live in a dorm with shared kitchen and toilet. One neighbor refused to buy toilet paper and always stole food. During a summer break only him and me were living at the dorm and he continued the practice so I made some stew and put a lot of laxatives in it. I also left only one roll of toilet paper in the bathroom that was covered in itching power.

He was PISSED, but I laugh whenever he tries to scold me for it

Four Months And Dozens Of Phone Calls

Years ago my upstairs neighbors were wanted felons living in an apartment leased by the ladies brother, they sold drugs out of there, loud music 8am-12am, locked their daughter outside for hours at a time so we would do things with her and give her snacks. You could tell her social and educational development was way behind. After finding their pictures online on the MN 50 most wanted I called the police - they didn't believe me. They called me a child (I was 22) all while the neighbors behavior got worse as more people reported them.

It took them 4 months and dozens of phone calls to finally get the police to arrest fugitives they were supposedly looking for...

Cold War Lawncare

It's more of a Cold War situation. When my boyfriend cuts the grass, even if our neighbor just cut his grass a few days prior, he (our neighbor) will cut his again the next day. He's an old man who can't stand to have his lawn just a smidge taller than ours.

Cruise Neighbors

On a week long cruise. First two mornings our neighbors on both sides were ridiculously loud basicaly screaming in Spanish and constantly waking us up. We didn't go to bed until 3-4am so they cut into your sleep. On 3rd night at around 10-11pm we go to our room, blasted the TV (side note-TV's on cruises should be programmed to not go as loud as we made it) and left it like that until 3-4am. You could hear it outside our door, it was very loud like they were. Next morning what do you know the neighbors realized other people can hear them and were quiet the rest of the cruise.

He Got A Fence

When I was in elementary school, our neighbor's four dogs would always poop in our backyard. My mom asked the neighbor many times to pick it up, but he never did.

So every morning before school, my mom would send me and my brother on 'poop patrol'. At first we just put the poop in the neighbor's yard, but our neighbor never got the hint. My mom then had us put the poop on his porch and then he got a fence.

Food War

Well it all started one day when they were having their fence put in and one of the workers accidentally snapped one of our tomato plants at the base. So she decided to take it inside and cook all of the green tomatoes into this unbelievably yummy Indian food I can't even begin to pronounce or spell and brought it over as an apology. Then we made fresh cut pasta and gave them some to give the container back because we of course didn't want to keep it. Then they had the audacity to make us some Indian desert thing that tasted like heaven by then our garden had started to produce so we gave them two bags of produce that would have gone to waste and they gave use some eggplant dish. So we brought over a tray of cookies and now it's three years later and we are in a heated war over who can out food the other.

We're fighting a losing battle though because they are vegetarian and we are not so we have to modify most of what we make for them but we have a huge vegetable garden so we have the leg up on that.

Water Bottle Mountain

My neighbor leaves trash in their yard. We have a HOA that is basically as feckless as possible. And this isn't some s*** neighborhood, we're talking 300k in Columbus, Ohio, which is about as upper middle class as you can get in the midwest.

They don't tie up their garbage bags, so some random falls out, and blows into my yard. I took the 6 pieces I could find and duct taped them to their garage, because I wanted them to be aware of the issue.

For all of winter, they threw their plastic water bottles into a pile next to their garage, and it kept getting bigger and bigger until the snow melted and it was way too obvious, so they finally trashed it.

And if all this is too specific, and my neighbor happens to read this, then clean up your trash you Vernon Dursley looking f***.

Cocaine Club

I lived next door to a coke club for years. They'd start up around 11PM or midnight, and go till dawn.

The cops (Brooklyn) were clearly on the take, as they'd repeatedly tell me during the day that the place had been closed down, and yet they were showing up three or four times a week there to deal with fights. I asked one of them about why they couldn't close the place at 4AM one day after a particularly noisy fight, and they wouldn't even look me in the eye.

We had a huge number of beer bottles because I also used the place as a performance/rehearsal space, so at a certain point I'd start throwing bottles out my window to smash at their back door when they were noisy.

They really hated that, but as I pointed out, what were they going to do, call the cops? So they eventually managed to keep the noise down. It kinda worked out!

Eventually they were gentrified out of existence...

Babies To The Rescue

Back in like 2009-2010 I was at war with my downstairs neighbor. She would hit her ceiling with a broom stick, and I would point my bass speaker down toward the floor. I got pregnant with twins that were high risk, and got a temporary handicapped placard for parking closer. She borrowed one and took my spot.. few months go by of straight war...then I had my twins.

My washing machine had flooded her kitchen, and she came up to scream at me for ruining her dinner. I yelled back something sarcastic like: **"I totally did it on purpose, I mean come on lady!" **

She laughed, I laughed..and she asked to see the babies (they were in their swings in her line of sight) and just like that, it was over. I'll be damned if we didn't stop messing with each other, and that woman was the ONLY person to help me. We became best friends, and still are to this day. We still laugh at our silly war. Thank you Heather!

Bicycle Mediation

I ride my bike to the train station in the mornings. I have to ride past a few houses on the sidewalk before I can move onto the street. One day, a neighbor comes at me and accuses me of 'almost' hitting him with my bicycle. Now, I have no idea what he talked about since I've never been anywhere close to him but he insists on it. Fast forward a few weeks he complaints again that everybody keeps riding their bicycle on the sidewalk and he's scared for his life. He says he's terrified that people will hit him because he's deaf in one ear and won't hear them coming.

He doesn't look where he's goes and instead relies on what he can hear from his other ear, but that's outside the story!

I reassured him, saying I would go very slowly and watch out for him.

I almost never see him after that. Fast forward 2 months and suddenly a mediator shows at my door telling me that my neighbor wants to talk, but doesn't want to do it alone. I'm confused. The questions keep adding up. I told the mediator that if he wants to talk he can just knock on the door and we will talk, never had a problem with him before so no idea why he would now. Nothing came from that.

Another 2 months pass without incident. Then one day police officers show up at the door. Neighbor has filed a complaint about not only me, but also my other neighbor, claiming that we are threatening with the way we ride. That neighbor doesn't even know how to ride a bicycle. I explained the story to the police. They advised to be careful around his house, which I already was.

Another month later another mediator shows up and wants to talk with us together. At this point I refuse it. He's had plenty of opportunities and this is literally about things that aren't happening. This was 2 months ago, I wonder when his next complaint will be.

Deadly Dirt

A guy down the street from where I used to live would complain to me about how his neighbours wouldn't move their tractor and dirt load, they'd complain to me about his dogs being loose etc. One day a few years ago the guy complaining about the dirt strolled into their house and shot the elderly couple and their middle aged son dead.

Get Some Anger Management

Currently at war with two young women who live across the street. I'm a pretty live-and-let-live guy, so this took a lot.

I ignored the overgrown lawn and piles of leaves they raked up and left there to moulder. I didn't like the assorted s*** that collected on their front lawn, but that wasn't enough to prod me into action.

I didn't like the front-step parties they'd have every weekend that kept me awake or forced me to close my windows and turn on the AC. But I didn't call the city. Not even then they'd wake me, yelling in the middle of the street at 4 AM.

What finally put me over the edge is one has two kids. The oldest is about three years old. She shouts obscenities at him. Daily. The first time it happened I thought "You shouldn't do that, but kids can drive even the most reasonable person around the bend." Then I realized it was every day.

The poor little guy never says a word. It's like learned helplessness. The I started to listen for it, and realized she was constantly scream at them and berating them inside the house too, though I couldn't hear particulars. Just constant screaming.

You better believe I called Child and Family Services. I don't give a s*** if those horrible people key my car at 4 AM. If you treat a child like that, you don't deserve to have that child.

I am currently raining regulatory hell down on their heads through all the channels I can find... I will not stop until either those kids are taken from her or she gets some goddamned anger management.

Dogs And Fences

Dog kept chewing through old fence, kept coming up with excuses why he wouldn't pay his half to replace the fence. We shouldn't have had to pay any of it since it would have been structurally fine if his dog didn't keep chewing holes in it and escaping into our back yard. We decided to start leaving our side gate open, the dog would chew threw and then go wandering through the neighbourhood. After the third pick up from the pound he decided to buy scrap wood and patch up the holes.

Soccer Players

Lived in a dorm with 5 other guys in college and had to move out to the dorm across the quad building. (it was a total of like 40 ft move.) below us were the soccer players. They were a rowdy bunch and often partied until 3-4 am with loud music and drinking, often times we could feel the floor vibrate and we called safety services on them to get them to quiet down. Well when we were moving the decided to egg our door. we called safety services who claimed they "didn't have cameras" up on that particular set of dorms.

So, since they "didn't have cameras", we egged them back. Safety service was called on us. They said they knew we did it because they saw the footage. We reminded them they "didn't have cameras" on that area. If they punished us, they would also have to punish the soccer players.

We then found out how to stop their music by trying to connect to their bluetooth speaker. Victory.

Taking It Out On Us

We had some problems with our former neighbor. He would come over and yell at us over the most random things that were A. never actually wrong, and/or B. not actually our fault. Once he came over on a Sunday morning ringing our doorbell & throwing a tantrum about some vines growing on the back fence. My husband went back there with him to check things out, and sure enough, they were growing up from the neighbor's side. Another time my husband was out in our driveway washing out a couple of flower pots and the dude came out of his house & started screaming at us about spraying dirty water into his yard (we weren't). He also called the fire department on us for smoking a brisket. Just lots of small weird incidents like that.

This was a relatively normal guy in his 40s with a job, wife & 2 kids, and we live in a pretty nice suburban neighborhood. LOL. It wasn't like it was some crazy old crackpot. They sold the house & moved last year (thank goodness), and we found out later they'd divorced & apparently had some pretty big financial issues. I guess maybe it was the stress of what was going on in his life, just taking it out on us.

Birds Don't Pay Taxes

This is so dumb. My neighbor got pissed that I hung up a bird feeder on my property, stating it attracted birds. I said "well that's the point", to which he goes on a tirade about how he pays taxes and the birds don't, and that they were destroying his house blah blah blah. This is all well and good until I just stopped responding to him and he brings up my ex girlfriend by saying "No wonder that lady moved out". It was an amicable breakup so this was not an ok thing to say on many levels.

I resisted the urge to punch him right then and there and calmly got into my car. Drove to the nearest Lowes, and bought a few more bird feeders to hang all around my property. I glared at him the whole time I was installing them. It's been two years, and he hasn't spoken to me since.

I had never had a problem with him before that, and I rarely even converse with my neighbors because I normally keep to myself.

H/T: Reddit