People living in friendly neighborhoods are lucky. They have the comfort of having a familiar face asking how your day is going.
One might even help out in a time of need, no questions asked.
"What is the most WTF thing happened with your neighbor?"
Whatever happened to delivering cookies to a neighbor or asking to borrow cooking supplies? No one knows.
Between Two Crazies
"FBI raided my neighbor to the left, and the neighbor on the right came over asking if I could give him clean urine so he wouldn’t get fired at work. He also bragged about being a bank robber in Reno. I tried to look it up but didn’t find anything. I just wonder why he would say/do these things lol. Definitely don’t live in that neighborhood anymore."
– TheMoonDays
Creepiness Underfoot
"stopped to have a casual chat with our downstairs neighbor when we first moved in. all normal small talk, until he mentions that his bedroom is directly under ours, creepily smiles, and goes into detail about everything he’s heard."
– HazelnutSoup
Too Close For Comfort
"When my husband and I were dating as teens he lived in a duplex with a mom and a daughter my age on the other side. I ended up working with the daughter. One night she told me her mom’s bedroom was on the other side of the wall from my boyfriend/now husband’s bedroom."
"One day the daughter told me at work that her mom always listened to us having sex. I just stared at her. How do you even respond to that?"
– Pea-and-Pen
Unannounced Visitor
"I recently had a neighbor show up at the end of my front walk and freak the f'k out at my fiancée because the phone company told her that she owes them almost $300 bucks and that the equipment was at our address."
"Barring how insanely irresponsible it was of the phone company to casually give away our address, we proved to her during a tour of our house that we don't have any equipment from that company. She read the company the riot act and apologized to us. We're now all friends who mutually hate the phone company."
– mxmnull
What's Mine Is Not Yours
"Military husband married to non-English speaking wife:"
"Husband was deployed, wife would frequently invite her extended family over to their house and her guests would block ours and several other neighbor’s driveways with their vehicles. When we asked them to move because we needed to leave, they asked 'can we park in your garage?' Uhhh, NO."
– SuperShineeCoinToss7
You would think these types of occurrences would happen only on TV.
Why Security Cams Are Important
"A long while ago the woman a few houses down from us passed out in the alley by her garage. it was late at night and she was known to be a heavy drinker. the guy who lived next door to her came driving through the alley not long after she passed out and, well, he was drunk as well and hit her thinking she was a trash bag left outside, she didn't survive."
"he decided to park in his own garage and run inside like nothing happened. my StepMom came home from her shift at the hospital soon after all this, SM saw the woman in the alley and got out to check on her. THEN the guy comes out of his house freaking out, asking what happened, and claiming SM hit & murdered this woman."
"obviously SM ignores him and calls the police, dude still tries to convince the police that SM ran the woman over. it would have gone on much longer if the neighbors across the alley didn't have security cameras. the whole incident was recorded and the guy was quickly carted off to court. apologies i dont remember how/what he was charged with, this was a very long time ago."
"f'king crazy man, thanks security cams!"
– qhloae
Busted
"In one of the small culdesac neighborhood's I grew up in, turns out one of the neighbors was involved in human trafficking and sex trafficking of minors and was finally raided by the FBI. There were so many cops when I came back home from school."
– Mirror1rorriM
Crazy Starts Young
"Terror of a 10yo girl next door ended up dumping gasoline out of a lawn mower can on another neighbor’s 10yo boy and threatened to set him on fire. This little girl has also used the other neighbor’s credit card for door dash and phone games, screams at her parents constantly, is always truant, and most recently I saw her climb out her window and grab door dash off the porch and climb back in. She’s an absolute menace"
– Special-Emu3
This Could've Ended Badly
"I got drunk one night, stumbled home from the bar…my key wouldn’t unlock the door so I opened the living room window crawled in and passed out on the couch. Found out the next morning it wasn’t my house."
– JDB6986
Garage Gas Leak
"They were running some sort of chop shop out of their garage. I was told they jack hammered through their garage floor to get to the gas line before the meter. Apparently they did a poor job and they caused a gas leak which led to an explosion that sent their garage door flying out into the street."
Lost Daughters
"She broke into my apartment with a baseball bat searching for the 2 girls that lived here before me."
– Prestigious-Piano-48
Never Upset Mother
"A few years ago the mom of some of my friends shot and killed their dad and cut him up and put him those plastic storage totes. My friend came home from vacation had to break into the house through a window found the totes called his mom and asked her what it was, he response was 'its your father call the police.'"
– No-Juggernaut2968
Panties Pilferer
"In college, the guy in the dormroom next to mine got caught stealing panties out of the communal laundry room."
"They interviewed him in his room, with cops, and saw an open box in the corner of the room with a collection of panties - labeled by owner's name."
"He was arrested."
– Ganglebot
Lab Gone Wrong
"Underground meth lab blew up and basically sunk their house."
– iboughtmars
What is up with doors and neighbors? Read on and find out.
Getting Unhinged
"Someone stole his front door in the middle of the night. No, really. Someone went out of their way to somehow unhinge the doors and flat out take his entire door."
"Edit: this was in SF 5-6 years ago. No they never found out who did it. I don’t know how they got the door down either. Neighbor put up curtains for privacy until he was able to get a new one. Nothing else was stolen, just the door to his house."
– Shrek1onDVD
Special Delivery
"Shortly after my neighbor moved in I hear this banging in my door at like 2am."
"Get up and answer and my neighbor is standing there, topless, holding a door trying to convince me that I dropped it when I came over to meet her dogs."
"Turns out she has a sleepwalking problem, pulled her bedroom door off the hinges and brought it to me in her sleep."
– warboy3
I, fortunately, lived in a relatively fine area, but our family wasn't particularly close to any of our neighbors. My parents kept to themselves as we were the only Asian family in the neighborhood.
But last year during the pandemic, we put our house on the market as my parents prepared to move back to Japan.
As I was hauling some stuff out into the rollaway dumpster in the street, our next-door neighbor approached me because she was worried about my parents. She thought they had passed.
When I assured her they were still very much with us, she was very relieved and said, "I see your dad watering the flowers and your mom getting the mail sometimes. They seem so sweet."
Since this was just around the time COVID-19 vaccinations were starting to become available but were still hard to get, she asked me if my parents were vaccinated yet and offered to make them available if they weren't. She was a nurse at the hospital my dad went to when he suffered a heart attack.
Because my parents were vaccinated by then, I thanked the friendly neighbor I never knew I had for her sweet gesture.
My story is not a WTF moment, but it was one that served as a humbling reminder that there is still plenty of kindness in the world.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
- Angry People Reveal Why They Went To War With Their Neighbors ›
- Angry People Reveal Why They Went To War With Their Neighbors ... ›
- People Describe The Worst Thing Their A-Hole Neighbor Has Ever Done To Them - George Takei ›
The old wives' tales.
They are the stories of legend.
I think we all need a big DEEP Google dive though.
Where did they originate?
WHO ARE THE OLD WIVES!
You don't hear about them as much anymore.
It's like science and logic are suddenly a thing.
But they sure are a good way to keep your kids and their behavior in line.
Redditor the_spring_goddess wanted to discuss the tall tales we've all been fed through life, so they asked:
"What is an old wives tale that people still believe?"
"Wait an hour to swim after eating."
What a crock!
So many summer hours wasted.
I want revenge for that one.
Say Nothing
Giphy
"An undercover cop has to tell you he's a cop if you ask him."
LonelyMail5115
"Pretty much most advice when it comes to cops are old wives tales. I’m not even a cop but most of the advice you hear is pretty off."
I_AM_AN_A**HOLE_AMA
Say Something
"That you have to wait 24 hours to report someone missing."
Severe_Airport1426
"I really think this one is important and should be the top regardless. As it’s a piece of advice that needs to be relearned and the only way to do that is through awareness."
crappycurtains
"This used to be true. I think they changed it after some guy named Brandon went missing back in the '80s or '70s. You used to have to wait 24 hours if the missing person was an adult because they had 'a right to be missing' and then everyone realized that was stupid and stopped doing it."
AlbinoShavedGorilla
Body Temps
"That drinking ice cold water after eating oily foods will solidify the oil and permanently remain in your body. I informed my coworker that if your body temperature ever reached that point, you’d have bigger problems than weight gain."
chriseo22
"Oh, I have a cousin who 100% believed this. One of those guys who believed every early 2000s internet rumor and old wives tale. One night I chugged a big glass of ice water after dinner and he started freaking out and saying my guts were gonna harden."
"I sarcastically told him to drive me to the hospital if that happened. Obviously, nothing happened and the next morning I said something like 'Thanks for being on standby in case my guts filled with hardened oil.' He just walked off muttering under his breath."
apocalypticradish
Arms Down
"When I was pregnant, I was told by young and old alike that I should NOT raise my arms above my head or exert myself in such a manner because it could cause cord strangulation to my unborn sons and daughters."
Fatmouse84
10 Years Actually
Unimpressed Uh Huh GIF by Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Giphy
"Chewing gum stays in your stomach for 7 years."
"I remember accidentally swallowing a piece of gum when I was a kid in like 1995 and just accepting my fate like welp, gonna have this in my stomach til high school I guess."
Gecko-911
I was so afraid to sallow my gum when I was young.
This tale is haunting.
High/Low
Hungry Debra Messing GIF by Will & Grace
Giphy
"You can tell the sex of the baby by how you carry."
LeastFormal9366
"Pregnancy certainly wins awards for the most old wives tales. So much absolute BS was repeated to us by everyone we talked to."
IllIIIlIllIlIIlIllI
The Cursed
"If you’re a woman and you wear opal jewelry but opal is not your birthstone (October), you’ll never be able to have children, or will be widowed, or just generally have bad luck or something. You can counteract this by having a diamond in the same piece of jewelry as the opal, though."
"I have a nice opal ring that my parents gave me years ago, and I’ve had other women give me this 'advice' unprompted more than once when I’ve worn it. I have absolutely no idea where it started, but I’m pretty sure this little chunk of silicate rock has no concept of what month I was born in, let alone of how my reproductive organs work."
SmoreOfBabylon
Stay In
"Going outside with wet hair will make you get pneumonia. Or an earache. Or maybe arthritis. Depends on which old wife you listen to."
"Jokes on them - I haven't blow-dried my hair in decades and usually leave the house with wet hair in the morning. On winter mornings, the tips of my hair get frozen. No ear infections or pneumonia or arthritis yet."
worldbound0514
Dreams and Facts
"You never make anyone up in your dreams you've seen everyone in your dreams somewhere else before and never make anyone up entirely."
"How would you possibly prove that to be true? My partner adamantly believes this and tells me this 'fact' whenever I have a dream about someone I've never met before."
mattshonestreddit
"My late wife used to tell me that before she met me she would have dreams of standing at an alter on her wedding day but could never see the guy's face, no matter how hard she tried. After meeting me the face was filled in with mine. Don't know if it's true but one of those things I like thinking of every now and then when I miss her."
Darthdemented
Cracked
Getting Ready Episode 2 GIF by The Office
Giphy
"Some people still believe cracking knuckles causes arthritis."
Choice-Grapefruit-44
"There's a doctor (Donald Unger) that cracked his knuckles a couple of times a day for 60 years, but only on one hand, just to prove it. Both hands remained exactly the same."
MacyTmcterry
I love my knuckles.
Do you have any tall tales to add to the list? Let us know in the comments below.
