Have you ever experienced a bad neighbor? I’m not talking like a curmudgeon, I’m talking like full on, overbearing, overstepping neighbor. A neighbor that not only crosses the line in humane ways, but literally crosses your property line and does something unthinkable? Quora user Gail tells her story about her terrible neighbor in NY. Good think he only lived there half the year!
“I had a real prick a neighbor many years ago on Long Island in NY.
For background, my backyard was half abutted the nuisance neighbor and the other half my best friend. She and I had a gate which joined our backyards, so she and I could get together without having to walk or drive around the block. Her husband put it in after I moved there. That gate is important.
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Her next door neighbor, who was the same moron whose back yard abutted mine, was a real winner. He would take his leaves and throw them over her fence into her flower beds which was bad enough, but what he did to me was worse.
He actually lived half the year in Brooklyn and came out to the island in the summer. He also grew a vegetable garden, which he was fanatical over. His yard was raised a bit, had a cement border, and a chain link fence separating us. The guy was a creep. I had a cement patio and if I was outside reading, he would come out, water his garden and stare. Fine. I put up a trellis and planted a couple of butterfly bushes and wisteria for privacy.
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At some point, he decided that my plantings and trees were interfering with his precious garden and that’s where the fun starts. I had honeysuckle growing on the side fence. It in no way was growing on the back fence, so it wasn’t growing into his garden but while I was at work, he came in my yard and cut it down to the ground.
I also had an oak tree in the corner with some gladiolus planted around it and some bayberry bushes in front. There was also a small birdbath. He decided that my oak was blocking his sun, so he came in the yard while I was gone and started cutting branches. Not the ones hanging over his yard, but the ones clearly in mine that were supposedly blocking his sun.
When I confronted him, he admitted to doing it and basically told me that his garden trumped my property rights and too bad if I didn’t like it. I called the police but if they don’t see it or you can’t prove it, tough luck. Now, I’m starting to about have had it with this guy.
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I was a single mom then and worked a lot of hours. I drove a school bus, so I was also in and out. He would wait for the bus to leave and strike. Now, I had three dogs. Two I couldn’t leave out because they were both descendants of Houdini but one, a lab, I could. He had found some potpourri and tried to eat it, (he ate anything) and while it didn’t really hurt him, he did get diarrhea, so he was banished until it was out of his system.
Now Tar (the lab) was a typical lab. Friendly, but dumb as a box of hair. He also barked if you were in the yard and he didn’t know you. It was during this time that prick neighbor decided to trim a bit more of my tree while I wasn’t home. I come back later and poor Tar is leaning on the back of the house trembling.
My gate is wide open and my shovel, which was on my patio is also leaning on the house. I have no idea what was going on I’m trying to calm the dog down and it all falls into place. Creepy, has gone into my friends yard, through her gate into her back yard, through the connecting gate into mine to cut back that tree but this time the dog was there and probably barking at him.
So he grabbed my shovel, hit my dog, god knows how many times until he was cowed and cut that tree. Could I prove it? No, but Tar would make a wide berth past that guys fence and cower when he saw him, so that was all the proof I needed. I had Tar checked out and other than being scared, he was fine and that was when I made my plan.
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When the prick went back to Brooklyn, I went to the store and bought six boxes of Kosher salt. I also bought three gallons of kerosene. I salted his precious garden and gave it a good dose of kerosene on top of it. Falls on Long Island are rainy, so it soaked into the soil.
The following Spring, I put a small 10 by 10 garden next to my patio. I planted tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and some herbs. My tomatoes grew beautifully, I had so many I gave them away.
His garden? Well the plants would start then shrivel up into a brown mass of death. He kept asking me what I was doing to make mine so nice while lamenting his and wondering what was wrong.
I just played stupid. He never had a garden that year and never found out why. I put a lock on my gate and gave a key to my friend, so he was never able to trespass. Hurt my dog, will he? Fixed him, but good.”
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