To ask about your petty neighbour experiences

[Dotty1219]

Kind of lighthearted because its so ridiculous, but also not because the cheek has actually annoyed me 😂

Backstory: DP and I live on a row of 5 houses, with a shared yard (but everyone has their own parking spaces). The house we live in used to belong to my grandparents. On the end there's another couple (I'm guessing around 60 and 80 years old) who are not very nice people. Constantly trying to control what other neighbours do, where they can park, harassing them, reporting them for silly things like kids playing in the yard, they've had issues with every single neighbour. I'm sure you know the sort. Weve never had any issues with them really as we've kept our heads down, until now when we committed the ultimate sin of using the outdoor tap to wash the dogs muddy feet. 😂
This tap is communal, we all pay a share of the water, it doesn't belong to anybody. Weve used it about 3 times in 4 years, but the nasty neighbour uses it all the time.
He told me we couldn't use it as it was broken (but I've seen him using it after this) and I've notice this week he's put a bag over it and tied it up so nobody else can use it 😂 I can't get over the pettiness. Half of me is tempted to go and take it off and use it everyday to make a point. The other half of my brain is telling me to leave it, I don't really use it anyway and not to make trouble.
I'm just absolutely gobsmacked by the audacity. Can anyone else top my petty neighbour? Would I be unreasonable to start using the tap daily to have a wash 😂 should I surrender in the tap war?

@Ireolu we have our drive and patio power washed every year. Has nothing to do with neighbours as it’s annual maintenance. You may want to consider that as regards to your neighbour (and if you haven’t had it done since getting your drive, you may want to look into it).

Previous home we lived in my parents had a tall fence between them and next door house (council house now housing association) as fence provided on boundary was a 3 foot tall chain link fence the other side of wooden fence. Over the years, as fence panels got damaged parents replaced them with no hassle from neighbours.

Eventually, new neighbours moved in and had a habit of drenching fence panels with their hose/sprinkler for hours on end all through the summer. By this time parents couldn’t afford to replace fence panels when they deteriorated so they simply had them removed and left the chain link fence on boundary. Neighbours complained every time that my parents ‘had’ to replace the fence as they were stealing land from their garden by not doing so (even though the chain link was on the boundary and wooden fence was only a few inches inside it). Then they tried forcing the HA to replace the fence on our side of the chain link and send the bill to my parents which was declined as the HA pointed out there was a perfectly adequate chain link in situ and that was all that was required for them to provide. Next attempt was to install a fence their side of the boundary and have their builder send my parents the bill (he refused saying his contract was with them). In the end they installed 2 fence panels from house (original fence much longer as garden is 90 foot long) which just looked daft but had all their kids toys etc further down the garden!!

Same neighbours had a pre-teen son with access to a ball bearing gun of some sort and, quite randomly, one of the double glazed windows in the only bedroom at the back of my parents house had damage to it that was exactly the same size as a ball bearing and couldn’t have been explained any other way than bb’s being fired at the window!! My parents never did anything about replacing the window as it was sound inside and didn’t affect its use - and they couldn’t actually afford to replace it - pretty sure it’s still like it despite being sold a couple of years ago!!

@itookallthetreats

This one should hit the petty criteria. Bins of course it has to be bins.

A small group of Terrace houses with a shared drive way (half way along the terrace) into a car park at the back. Everyone keeps their bins out the back and pulls them up the drive on collection day. There is extra wide path at the top of the drive, perfect for bin collection without causing any inconvenience.

One of the neighbours gets a right tiz on if anyone puts their bins on this pavement near his house, apparently everyone should pull them all the way down the street and place in front of their own houses.

I'm the other side and quite frankly couldn't give two hoots, especially as the complainers has large loud parties (think live music in a tiny terrace garden) but shouts loudly about the inconsideration of the placement of bins......

All but one house on the complaining neighbours side now dutifully drag their bins to the front of their houses...bar one. Every bin day complaining neighbours, huffs and puffs about the inconsiderate nature - complexed on why this is still happening - removes the "invading" bin & "hides" places it somewhere to make a point to the "inconsiderate one".

Every bin day when I collect my bins, I have a quick look for the "misplaced" bin - and kindly take it back to the carpark bin storage area.

So complaining neighbour thinks he is making a point and inconveniencing the "inconsiderate" neighbour, "inconsiderate" neighbour hasn't got a clue. It is driving "complaining" neighbour nuts - he has never spotted me doing it. 🤣.

I love that the "inconsiderate" neighbour is probably quite happily thinking "what wonderful neighbours i have always bringing my bin back" oblivious to the fact their a pawn in a greater game

@Stellaris22

Our street had a power cut which meant our alarm went off. No power to put in the code so couldn't stop it. Neighbour complained to us about the noise even though she also had a power cut so knew we couldn't do anything about it.

Same neighbour followed me to work to complain about my dog barking. Went back to check and mine was quiet whilst hers was yapping!

Hate to tell you this @stellaris22 (awesome game) but you are being unreasonable.

Your alarm went off in a power cut because the battery inside is dead. Needs replacing it shouldn't go off in a power cut as the main battery provides power.

Our neighbour opposite us complained to our housing association that they didn't like the colour we'd painted our garden office (found it offensive apparently).

@BreakfastOfWaffles

At a previous house, we lived on a terrace and each house had a small front garden. In the autumn when the leaves blew off the trees, one neighbour would sweep up the leaves in his garden, divide them by type and return them to the relevant neighbours! 😂

This is marvellous! Did you gather round to watch him? How did he stop them blowing away? It’S the start of a Pixar short isn’t it lol.

@TSSDNCOP it’s so you know that they are doing you the favour of putting your bin away. Probably something like that. Not realising that you wouldn’t mind putting your own bin away & don’t care much.

The first next door neighbour that I had when I moved over here was barmy.
I was sat in my own garden speaking on the telephone to my mother in my mother tongue.
Next door neighbour demanded that I speak in English in future as speaking in my native language was anti social 😂

That would have been hilarious if we had all been invited to witness the ceremonial division of the leaves! The strange thing was that he was an otherwise completely normal guy and a nice neighbour. Just with a weird fixation about leaf ownership 😀

Someone flung a couple of black bin bags over the fence onto the path that runs behind the houses. It was bin day and instead of just putting them in his bin to get collected, my neighbour A dumped them onto my garden. I printed out the thumbnails from my security camera with a story on the back about "person fined £1000 for fly tipping" and posted it through his door. Next day at 6.15 A was on camera clearing it up.

Sometime later I was hearing from a newish neighbour B how in the time between completion and moving in someone filled their garden with about 10 black bags of household waste. Her husband had to make 2 trips to the tip and was not pleased. I told B "well we have a local fly tipper" and showed her the pictures and she asked me to email them over so she could show her husband. I dont know the outcome but I know this new neighbour B is a gossip and chats to a lot of others in the street.

Revenge is sweet - especially when taken by stealth.

Whammyyammy OMG can I please borrow your husband or his mate???

DH and I had lived in London for many years with no drive and we were fed up with the damage caused by parking our cars on the road. We swore our next home would have a large drive and we would never park in the road again.
After we moved out of London and into our new home we were shocked to regularly find cars on our drive and constantly using our drive to turn around, drop people off and pick people up. It was like living at a rail station with the amount of traffic we were dealing with daily. DH and I couldn't figure it out as all of our neighbours have large drives and some have those circular drives with an entry and exit point. There shouldn't be a parking problem here so why were they using our drive?
It seems that the previous owner was elderly and didn't drive so people started telling her it would be good for them to park on her drive (instead of in their own) so her house looked occupied. I have no idea why people don't want to park in their own drives.
DH and I tried to explain to people that this is our property now, we have two cars and we need to be able to come/go when we want. We also didn't like the constant noise these people were bringing to our drive with loud radios, yelling out the car window at each other, honking repeatedly to signal the driver was here to collect someone or to indicate they were leaving, my security lights going on/off and people slamming doors near to my house (windows) at all hours of the night, people siting in our drive talking on the phone and smoking flicking their cigarette out the window into my garden before driving away. I didn't know who these people were, some were neighbours but a lot were visitors to the neighbours like next door's teenage son's friends using my drive as a meeting point so they wouldn't be seen by son's parents. Me working in my garden or being in my car trying to come/go from my own drive didn't do anything, they would just sit and stare at me without apologising or making an effort to move on. I was sick of the confrontations and being told to 'park somewhere else'.

DH and I dared to suggest that all the neighbours (and their visitors) use their own very large drives and please stop using ours. You would not believe the backlash this caused. We instantly became the most hated people in the village.
Some people just talk shite about us loud enough for us to hear it, but others have started parking across my drive, parking on the footpath just over my dropped curb, or parking multiple cars in the road across from my drive so I struggle to get in and out. Once a neighbour had parked just over our drive so DH couldn't pull in. DH parked at the next available spot on the road which was in front of that neighbour's house. Another neighbour came rushing out screaming that DH didn't have a right to park in front of this neighbour's house just because that neighbour had parked across our drive. Not sure where she thought DH should park or why one neighbour has a 'right' to park across our drive but DH doesn't have a 'right' to park in the road (not blocking someone's drive).
It has been a nightmare and feels so petty. DH and I have tried to ignore them but years later this is still happening. Where is that karma everyone upthread keeps talking about?

I am usually quite busy with work and when I bought my house I could only take one day off to move before going back to work traveling abroad. It was like a whirlwind and due to my work schedule and a few odd jobs that needed doing around the house it took me ages to get settled in. Every time I was coming and going if I saw someone walking past my house or in a neighbouring garden I would smile and wave and say 'hello' to try to be polite and friendly. I eventually met my immediate neighbours, but one of the elderly neighbours across the road and down a few has apparently taken offence that I didn't go to her door to knock and formally introduce myself to her. I had no idea she was offended or that I was expected to go down the road knocking on doors after buying my house. I had noticed she never waved back or said hello to me so eventually over the years I stopped waving to her and just got on with my business. Apparently she has been gossiping about me to other neighbours, making up lies and criticising every single thing I do. She seems determined to be as horrible as possible to me because I didn't walk to her house and formally introduce myself to her. That seems very petty to me.

I got quite a few but a couple still make me laugh now that happened years ago.Working in a very nice cul de sac in surrey I was blowing some leaves into a nice pile ready for collection when a sudden gust of wind blew a load on to one of the front gardens.A couple of days later the head of residents that employed me had a massive row in the middle of the road with the gent that had a few stray leaves on his garden,it was all about the direction I was blowing the leaves.They had been friendly for many years.I still feel a bit guilty now.

My neighbour at my former house was chatting for the first time to me when he said quite out of the blue that I should really get to know my neighbours.A week later he was having an arm waving bust up about car parking spaces with a neighbour he knew really well..l didn't really mix with the neighbours from then on.

I'm puzzled as to why people's desire to have a BBQ should trump my desire for line-dried washing, don't they have a cooker inside they could use?

I don’t think having a bbq and line drive clothes can’t be done at the same time. Usually, a bbq is portable and they usually could move it away from your line. If it’s a built in bbq, the line should be away from that (as more portable). Both people have a right to use their gardens as they’d like.

I personally have a gas bbq as it’s not going to disturb people (other than the cooking smell)

But in answer to your question, cooking over coals does enhance flavours. So it as much as saying you could use airers in your home as opposed to line dried clothes. It’s your choice and it’s their choice

My the 9 yr old DS put a banana peel into downstair's neighbour's food recycling bin inadvertently as he didn't realise we didnt have one. She took it out and left it on top of our bin.

If our bins are overflowing I will leave any extra bags next to the bin and the bin men are always happy to collect and put the extra ones into hers if there is room. She chased down the bin men and yelled at them as they pulled the bins to the truck

Well, here’s one where I was the petty neighbour. Many years ago, we use to live in a house on a quiet, small cul de sac. The houses were very close together, perhaps a meter at best. We had lovely neighbours who sadly moved country and sold to what we thought was a family with older teen boys. Turned out the parents were moving abroad and bought the house for their sons to finish their A levels. The sons lived alone in the house. It turned into party central. The party would often spill out into the street too. So we (including our young children and baby) had no respite from the loud music, shouting, screaming.

In good weather, I’d open the bathroom window (directly opposite one of their bedroom windows) and put the radio on the windowsill playing early morning radio shows. It used to help me feel just a tad better.