I am very lucky to have had good neighbors or real issue in all my time as a renter.
So I'll mention a friend of mine who spent a year living in a building with a neighbor who stomped around like an elephant, blasted crazy loud music at all hours of the night, and her shiftless landlord who stood by and did nothing. My poor friend's mental health suffered a not insignificant toll because of this episode and she moved out after six months. At that point, she didn't even care about breaking her lease!
But some neighbors are worse. Much worse, in fact, as we learned after Redditor FloydTheB1rd asked the online community, "What are your 'neighbours from hell' stories?"
"She started texting me constantly..."
New neighbor moved into the building aside from mine (we had the same landlord, our buildings shared a yard/were on the same plot of land). Ran into her outside when I was coming home one night, and we chatted for a while. She seemed super chill and someone I could potentially become friends with, so we exchanged numbers so we could make future plans for me, her, and her partner that also lived with her. Biiiig mistake.
She started texting me constantly (and I mean constantly "where are you, love?"), waiting out on her stoop for me, standing in her window and looking into mine every time I looked outside. Texted and called me whenever I wasn't home, just to mention that my cat was in the window, or just to tell me I left a light on but she "knew I wasn't home". My downstairs neighbors contacted my landlord and asked him to ask THEM to put curtains up because they were always nude and staring out the window, but they refused.
She started leaving me voicemails begging me to Venmo her "just $20" or just "$50 until next week". Her reasons were "I need new speakers for my car", "I have to buy a gift for my friend", "I wanted to go out tonight, but now I'll have to be alone like usual".
Everyone on the lot has access to the main entrance of either building (for washers & dryers) and that concerned me, because I live alone. She knew when I was home, when I wasn't, and what exact apartment was mine. If she could come in and knock at any given time, what would stop her from breaking in?
I found myself not only dodging her messages, but SNEAKING in/out/around my own home with the lights off, or trying to find some place to stay every night so that I wouldn't have to come home. My home that I once felt 100000% safe being alone in did not feel safe anymore.
Some events suddenly went down that did NOT involve me that eventually got her evicted, and I haven't heard from her since. But holy hell.
Lived in an apartment with a long narrow driveway. There was two parking spots for every apartment in the house (three apartments, six spots), so all the tenants had parking, but there wasn't extra for guests. My spot was all the way in the back of the driveway. Normally that was fine, but the neighbors had a habit of constantly parking friends in the middle of the driveway overnight, blocking my car from pulling out with no way to get around. I also would regularly leave very early in the morning for work or to go to drill weekends in the National Guard. Time and time again, the neighbors would block me in and I told them politely several times that they needed to stop because at some point it would happen on a night when I was leaving before 5am.
I got ignored. Finally one night I was coming back around midnight from a party and was planning on getting up and leaving at 8am. Low and behold, theres somebody parking me in. Now, being a little drunk, I was less than polite. I banged on the door and told them to move the car. I was told to eff off. I told him he was a piece of sh!t and he needed to move the car right now because I knew he wouldn't do it later on. He sucker punched me in the face. It ended up in a short brawl with him in a headlock, but I ended up with a black eye from the sucker punch and bruised ribs because one of his friends kicked me while I grappled him. Cops ended up driving by and we both got charged, since there was no proof on who started it. Charges were later dropped, but I learned my lesson not to confront him.
He on the other hand, did not learn his lesson not to park me in. So fast forward a month to my next drill date and I wake up at 4am to see I'm parked in again by this POS lowrider. I wasn't about to get jumped again, so I called the cops and called my landlord. Cops knocked on the door, nobody answered. Landlord agreed to have the car towed and I got to be an hour late for drill while waiting for the tow truck to move the thing. I found out later than the car had cost the neighbors $150 to get out of the impound and another $1000 to fix the front end because it had gotten horribly messed up when the tow truck drug it out of the driveway. I never got parked in again.
"I had this downstairs neighbor..."
GiphyI had this downstairs neighbor who kept calling the cops on my Roomba and my cat while I was at work. I had the Roomba set to run a few days a week around 3pm so that the place was clean when I got home. My cat is big (15 lb tomcat), but not the "stomping elephant" she reported to the police. She'd call in a noise complaint while I was at work. I would get a call from management about the noise and inform them I was not home. This went on for about a year.
Then the Sunday noise started. Homegirl downstairs likes to have her Sunday morning "me time" with some K-Ci and JoJo blasting full volume. I got fed up one day and went downstairs and asked her to turn it down. She answered the door in a purple silk robe and chewed me out about the noise from my apartment during the week.
I walked away, went upstairs, and decided it was a good time to listen to Master of Puppets because I cannot stand K-Ci and JoJo.
Fast forward another 2 months. It is now winter. It's a Tuesday around 7 pm. I get home with some groceries and am putting things away in the kitchen. I get a knock at the door. It's an off-duty cop, but still in uniform. He says my neighbor says I'm stomping and have been for hours. I'm wearing winter boots in my kitchen and the bags of groceries are on the counter. I tell him I just got home and yeah I know she calls sh!t in but as you can see, I just walked in the door. He looks at the log and sees the number of times she's reported things, informs me that he lives on the next floor up and will stop responding to these calls.
"Random people would walk up to the building..."
My upstairs neighbor was a drug dealer. Random people would walk up to the building and whistle at him through the window and then he would throw a bag down. Super brazen to pull that out in the open like that. Then one night two guys somehow entered the building and knocked on a different neighbors door. He opened it and these dudes had a gun pulled out on him. After they realized they had the wrong apartment they ran off and the neighbor called the police. The drug dealing neighbor moved out soon after.
"This family..."
This family had this kid run around, constantly causing trouble, stealing stuff, and just being a little sh!t in general. My family would not not put up with him. Especially when he flies his drone to dive bomb me and peek into girls' windows. He constantly brags about how rich he is, and how much of a loser I was. After a bit of this, I smacked his drone out of the air, took the memory card, checked to see if it had the stuff he saw, and took it to the police. Kid got exposed in front of the entire school. And he knew it was me. He doesn't have the balls to do anything to me, so I regret nothing.
"They had 17 dogs."
They had 17 dogs. Not all at once, two or three at a time over the course of ten years. They barked, they shat, they barked some more.
Animal Control would issue citations and order them to appear in court for neglect or forfeit the animals.
They would simply let animal control take their dogs and then get new ones.
Other times the UPS truck or some other driver would hit/kill their dog, so again, they would get new ones.
At one point the neighbor was keeping a female pit bull for a friend who was in prison. He let the dog roam free or kept it tied up on a clothesline. Wonderful folks, these neighbors.
"I kid you not."
My neighbors from hell were so loud and fought so much that I ended up on Oprah to discuss it. I kid you not. I became a community mediator to learn the skills to deal with my neighbor. Oprah flew me all the way to Chicago to talk about mediating disputes with neighbors on her show. Worth it. The episode aired in 1999 and it was entitled "Difficult Conversations". I am the woman who dealt with the drummer next-door.
"So I own my house..."
So I own my house and my neighbors rent their house (their landlord is a slumlord but that's another story). So there are two people who actually rent the house and they are great people, quiet and respectful. However, they are low income and rely on sub-tenants to make ends meet. The main renter guy works with people who have drug related issues and trouble with the law, I gotta give it to him, good on him for finding the good in people. But that being said in the last 2 years they have had 8 different sub-tenants!
The first two that moved in were bike thieves, they would go out, steal bikes and then chop them up in the backyard. Not only that they would put the chopped up garbage in my garbage bin so the day after garbage day I couldn't put any of my trash away. I ended up moving my bin into my locked backyard.
Eventually the cops kept showing up and they got evicted.
The second set of sub-tenants were also addicted to meth. They would honestly bring stolen sh!t back and stack it in the backyard. At one point there was so much crap in the backyard you couldnt walk. This included more stolen bikes and old washing machines etc. It looked like a trailer park. One of the subs set up a tent in the backyard and slept outside all summer long. They would lean over the fence and ask for cigarettes or beer and throw trash into our yard for no reason.
But I saved the best for last. The current sub-tenants are just horrible people. We have caught them stealing mail from other people and throwing the empty boxes in the alley or on the street. Clearly selling drugs out of the house as people come and go all day and only stay for a few minutes. I've found needles on my property and they're extremely rude. I have two young kids and don't want them playing outside because of this. As well, they cut across our lawn when leaving, absolutely zero respect for other peoples property. Worst part is I've brought this up with the main renter and shown him videos and he says there is nothing he can do as he relies on the money to pay rent...
I feel for the guy honestly, but this house single handedly makes our street worse and brings all the hood rats around causing even more crime. Our police force is useless as they have said on multiple occasions unless they catch them in the act there is nothing they can do. Such a shame as it used to be such a great neighborhood.
Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.