“I lived next door to ‘Bob’ for 10 years with no issues. He’s a retired prison guard, cop, military, about 70 or so. I was 25. We share views on many of life’s situations; political, legal, etc. We always got along swimmingly.
We share tools, chat now and then, but we’re not really ‘buds.’ He spends 6.8 days a week at his girlfriend’s house, so we never really see each other more than 2 hours a year seems like.
At the 10 year mark, a policeman walks into my backyard where I’m raking leaves. He’s there about the complaint from Bob. Huh?
We go to speak with Bob, and when I ask him what’s going on, he interrupts, yelling about my kids on his lawn, me riding motorcycles on his lawn, and more. He’s absolutely livid, spit flying, and he looks like he’ll have a stroke. I just looked at the cop and shrugged. We’ve all heard or read stories of neighbor spats escalating into retribution or violence, but all of his accusations are false. Completely baseless and out of the blue.
Cop says he has to give me a criminal trespass warning, so if I ever step foot on his property again, I can be arrested. I told him that’s like telling me I can’t sleep with his sister anymore. Never happened, never will. I spoke with him privately, and the best we can come up with is some mental illness, or he’s off his medication. It really was the strangest thing.
What annoyed me the most was two days later, as I’m driving away, he’s on his lawnmower, and waves and smiles at me like nothing ever happened. We’ve never determined if that was genuine because of the crazy, or he was taunting me.
That was nearly 15 years ago, and I have never spoken to him since. I keep my family away, and we leave if we ever see him. Oh, and he’s moved back home this year, so he’s baaack!”