Mow it—or burn it
Let’s face it: If you haven’t mowed your yard in a while, your neighbor has a right to knock on your door and ask you to get it under control. Under no circumstances, though, does your neighbor have a right to burn down your house for overgrown grass, as Phillip Bennett allegedly did in 2013 when his tolerance for his neighbor’s unkempt yard reached its limit. Thankfully the family—who were in the house in Cartersville, GA, when it was set ablaze—escaped unscathed and had their neighbor arrested. The worst part? They’d helped him move in! So much for neighborly karma.
Things that go ‘beep’ in the night
When Greg Jennings’ home in St. Peters, MO, was raided by drug task force officers in 2013—who found nothing—he presumed the anonymous tipster must have been his neighbor Cathy Hesterberg. So how did he retaliate? He made Hesterberg regret installing a motion-sensitive camera in front of his place by dancing for hours in front of it right next to the property line, dressed in nothing but boxers, or walking around for long periods with a cardboard box on his head.
“He does this all night long because he knows it makes this thing ‘beep,’” Hesterberg complained to local news. As of last year, the two were still neighbors, but we’ll bet Hesterberg is just a few beeps away from calling 911.
Crying over spilled nail polish
When the tween daughters of White Bear Lake, MN, neighbors Lori Christensen and Kim Hoffman got in a spat over a bottle of spilled nail polish, Hoffman thought it was no big deal. But Christensen disagreed. The single mom started taunting Hoffman—a recovering alcoholic—with comments such as “Why don’t you drink some more Scotch?” and “I’m too drunk to drive” after driving remotely controlled cars into their driveway.
The Hoffmans filed a restraining order, but Christensen found a workaround by posting 25-foot signs on her own property saying, “I Saw Mommy Kissing A Breathalyzer.” Eventually Christensen was arrested and forced out of her home. Did she learn anything from this? Here’s what she told the News: “I’m assertive. I hold my own. I love life.” Too bad that love didn’t extend to her neighbors.
It’s not a swastika—it’s art
This guy isn’t going to war with his neighbors, although what he’s doing certainly isn’t kosher. A man in Sacramento, CA, has decided to decorate his home with three large swastikas. He claims freedom of speech, so the police can’t do anything, but the neighbors are understandably ruffled—and attempts to reason with him have failed.
“I went over one day and just said, ‘[The swastikas] kind of cross the line for this neighborhood,’” one neighbor told the news. “He called it his art and got very defensive about it.”
Always there, staring…
What if every time you opened your curtains or exited your front door, your neighbors were there, staring at you? Then, if you tried to go and have a civil conversation with them, they’d scoot behind a tree and blow a whistle? (Still with us?) Then, every time you drove to work, they’d follow your car—on foot—to the end of the street, only to celebrate your departure from the neighborhood? That’s the kind of cray-cray one couple faced, who decided to fight back by posting clips of them on YouTube with the title “My crazy Nutjob Neighbor.” Because after all, if you have no privacy, why should they?