Neighbors can be annoying, but some just take it way too far.
So, what would you do if one of them kept pestering you to fix something on your property?
Would you fight back?
Or would you cave into their demands and put your own twist on it?
In today’s story, one family finds themselves dealing with a difficult neighbor and makes him regret complaining.
Here’s how it went down.
My parents had a few rental properties.
One was a 3 story Victorian divided into apartments.
Two of the neighbors didn’t like that it was a rental.
One was often referred to as Mayor because he spent most of his time going around the neighborhood telling people how to do everything.
From mowing their lawns to pruning shrubs, whatever he saw that he didn’t like.
I had a few friends on the local cemetery maintenance crew, and they had stories about him (they gave him the title of Mayor).
He would come up there regularly to tell them what they were doing wrong and what they should do instead.
He would complain about every little thing he could find wrong with their property.
The other neighbor was a childhood friend of his and never had any complaints of his own but always backed up anything his friend said in any complaints.
The neighbor didn’t like that it was a rental, so he complained constantly.
In addition to phone calls and personal confrontations (nothing terrible, just going up to the residents and us when we were there to make his feelings known), he went to borough council meetings to complain.
He submitted complaints to enforcement for anything they could find.
We once got fined because the address numbers painted on the trash cans were 1″ (2.5 cm) too short (seriously, it cost my dad $15).
Then, he started complaining about the home’s paint.
He started to complain about the house needing paint at first with no luck (it wasn’t that bad, so the code officer said it was OK), but eventually, he prevailed, and we got the order to paint the place.
We didn’t have a lot of money, so my folks went to the local paint place and purchased all of the stuff they wanted to get rid of.
Returns, stuff not mixed right, whatever they could get, and even had a few painters donate their leftovers.
I spent hours in the sun hand mixing the paint that was poured into a huge trash can, and once it was mixed, it was poured back into the cans, ready to paint the house.
It turned out to be a bright pink.
The neighbor hated the new color, but there was nothing that could be done about it.
We started to paint the place.
The color was not well received … not at all.
The neighbor and his friend went to borough council meetings to get it stopped.
They complained to the code compliance people.
The answer?
There is nothing in the code that states what color a house has to be painted, only that it must be reasonably maintained (or some similar words).
They also said that you asked for the house to be painted, and you got what you asked for.
He lived next to that place for many years after he got what he asked for.
That must’ve been a pretty paint job!
Let’s see what the folks over at Reddit have to say about their revenge.
This is very true!
They needed people to want to live there, so this probably was not a good idea.
Maybe the home was pink before.
It’s nice they liked their neighbor’s paint job.
The neighbor needs to mind his own business.
Hopefully, this was an important lesson for him.
If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.
