When we purchased our 1st home as newlyweds in 1978 (still living in it) the people next door seemed nice enough. 6 months down the road and the s**t hit the fan. He was a drunk (a mean one), and she was a philanderer (loved to rub his nose in it). The screaming matches, the things flying out windows into our yard, and each time the police would come and calm them down. The final straw: his pick-up truck was registered in her name, she traded it in for a little economic car. Well, he didn't like that one bit. So, he took her keys and drove off - she calls police and reports the car stolen. Police spot him, chase starts. The chase ended when he drove the car into their garage - and I mean "into" their garage. The door was down, and he drove that car right thru the door, thru the garage, thru the back wall, down an embankment, into the creek. Thankfully, they divorced shortly thereafter, and they had to sell the house to split the proceeds.

We used to rent a house. Next door there was a drug dealer (pot) renting the house next to us. We suspect he used to dump his pot "leavings" in my garden, because I used to find some might suspicious looking "weeds".

I yanked them pretty quickly, I could just see our 85 year old landlord getting busted for growing illegal substances.

LOL! Here is my neighbor story. Most of the rest of my neighbors are quite elderly and/or infirm.

The "bad" neighbors finally moved out of the only rental on the block. They took the 8-10 crappy cars with no mufflers and primer gray fenders and missing hubcaps with them! We were all thrilled.

The reported exhibitionist is also about 40 and rides a skate board in his grandmother's driveway where he lives. He has a little ramp set up.

The 20 year old has finished his sentence and is off of house arrest so his social options have widened!

On the other hand I have a nice neighbor next door who takes my garbage can in for me if I forget. He also "disappeared" some rubbish for me recently that wouldn't fit in my can and didn't qualify for large item collection. I took him a bottle of nice wine. He and his wife have been great neighbors for many years.

Here is a link that might be useful: The wacky neighbors!

The first home we rented was in a sub where all the houses had very little yards. Even so I was determined to hang clothes instead of buying a dryer,. There was a creepy man living in the house behind ours. Each time I would go outside to hang laundry, he would come out with his beer and just sit and stare. I finally figured out that the easiest thing to do was hang the sheets first blocking his view!

I have a lonely old guy for a neighbor, not normal, about 75 years of age. He brags that he watches us. If I am paining in my house, the next day he will say, I saw you were painting last night. At our wedding he was telling all my guests that he is disappointed that I have blinds now (and keep them closed all the time), and told them that my husband and I "like to kiss a lot". Keep in mind, we do this inside our house, not so much outside.

He's always on my property even though we have been very nice but clear in telling him we don't want people on our property when we aren't around.

He sprays my basement windows with his hose after it rains because they get dirty (when dirt splashes up on them).

He has tried to get into my house with his old key, which he got from the previous owners, but found that it didn't work. I was home sick that day, and he did not know it.

When my husband isn't around, he tells me that he likes loose women, and asks me about the tatoo on my back (which obviously must have showed when I was weeding the yard at some point), and whether I have any more tattoos. How appropriate is that?

Kimcoco, I think you need a restraining order.

We suspect he used to dump his pot "leavings" in my garden, because I used to find some might suspicious looking "weeds"

Lol, you ought to tell that one over in the 'soil' forum in the Gardening section of Gardenweb. They'd be all over that one - free material for the compost pile!

I had a false arelia potted plant by my homes front door. Wife bought it at a friends in-home party, some kind of decorative pot sales party. Plant had grown tall and top heavy with the plant leaves.

Anyhow, called the cops to report oddity's found in my back yard on day.(moth balls in stockings here and there) Sheriff came out and rang the doorbell. Asked me if I knew what kind of plant this is.. no, not a potted plant expert. Told him the wife bought it at some kind of pot party.

Again as he left, he asked if I was sure I didn't know what kind of plant that is.. nope, wife's not here, she would know, if you really want to know, call back later.

False arelia leaves apparently look a lot like Pot leaves.

Oh yea,, he took a sample.

My sister has a small 60 acre family farm that was annexed into the city about 15 years ago. While she still maintains it as a horse farm most of the adjoining property around her has since been sold for residential developement.

For the most part she gets along fine with her neighbors but she has one neighbor who took it upon himself to cut a barbed wire fence, fill in a perimiter drainage ditch and extend his lawn another two acres into her field.

The property has twice been officially surveyed and the neighbor was served written notice of encroaching on her land. On top of that she has twice taken him to court for property damages for cutting the fencing, yet he continues to extend his lawn more and more.

On day in early spring I was at the farm and sis was at wits end on how to deal with this character. I said, "no problem sis, I will get his attention today"

I then went an got the trusty old John Deere farm tractor out and gave the horse barn a thorough spring cleaning, removing about 4 tons of manure, which i loaded on the manure spreader and hauled it to the back of the property where tne neighbor was happily puttering along on his little craftsman riding mower. I went right up close to the property line and dropped the manure spreader in gear, then i ran parallel to the fence making sure that nothing was being thrown over the fence but making a good ground cover at the state mandated maximum rate of two tons per acre. I made one pass and when i turned around to come back on the parallel track the neighbor walks out in the fields and asks "What the hell do you think your doing?" I said, "Simple buddy, I am just spreading all the BS you been passing to us?"

The neighbor then pulled out a cell phone and called the cops. The cops came and asked me what i was doing? I said, i am spreading horse manure in preparation of plowing this field, its technically called "Organic farming", do you have a problem with that?"

I then got off the tractor and walked the cop over to the property line and showed him the survey stakes and where the neighbor had actually cut the fence.

The cop then went over to the neighbor who was livid, shouting all kinds of stuff about health regulations and spreading effluent, etc. The cop pulled out his pad and asked the neighbor for his ID. The neighbor thought the cop wanted his information to file a complaint against me so he immediately handed his license to the cop, all the while still pointing at me and shouting obscenities and nonesense about health laws and such.

Imagine the neighbors surprise when the cop handed him a citation for cutting the fence, filling a drainage ditch and tresspassing, then telling him that what i was doing was perfectly legal and normal functions for a working farm. The cop then waved at me and hollered "have a good day, and by the way, if this guy gives you any more problems call me, next time i come out her I'm gonna haul him in."

I call this the "get other people to pay for your stuff" maneuver.

Bought this house last summer. It has a huge cedar hedge, much taller on the east than the south side. I will need to take off the top portion at some point but it's healthy and not a priority compared to other things. There is a chainlink fence between the hedge and both neighbors' property. Of course, the hedge grew through the fence over time. The hedge looks good on my side.

Yesterday I was clipping it a bit when my neighbor behind me on the south side approached me. I couldn't see her through the hedge but I could tell where she was by the huge puffs of smoke coming through the hedge. She asked me if I was interested in putting up a privacy fence.

Why, I asked, confused because this hedge makes for a LOT of privacy.
Well, apparently someone on her side decided to take a saw to the hedge and cut it right back to the fence, instead of keeping it trimmed and in check over time. This being cedar means of course that it did not grow back and now they are looking at what seems to be a dead hedge on their side.
So she wants a fence instead.

I played dumb and pretended not to know what she was getting at. Eventually, she made it clear that she wants me to take down my hedge and pay for half of a privacy fence. (Now that the hedge is chopped back to the property line, there is no reason why she couldn't just put up a fence on her property, anyway, whether or not my hedge is there.)

I told her that I didn't have the money for that and suggested growing a nice clematis over the dead wood. I did say that I planned to top the hedge for neatness later this summer.

Not getting anywhere with me, she then started complaining about the maple that is on the edge of my property - maple keys everywhere. This isn't my favourite tree, either, for the same reason, but it provides light shade for three properties and is perfectly healthy. I'm not about to cut it down, even if I did want to spend money on that.

Again, I played dumb and agreed with her about the general evilness of trees and compared this one to the neighbor's maple across the street which is also filling my front yard with maple seedlings. I cheerily concluded how such is the way life goes when you choose to live in a well-treed neighborhood.

I have the feeling that I haven't heard the end of the debate. Our properties are small and the neighborhood lives at close quarters, generally in peace and tranquility. As such, putting up with a neighbor's maple tree seedlings just comes with the package, I think.

However, if pushed, I would probably tell her that I'll give up my annoying maple tree and hedge if she'll quit playing her loud country music, fix her lawnmower so that my yard doesn't turn blue with exhaust every time they use it, keep her cat out of my gardens, and stop coughing up a lung every time she steps outside. I wonder if she'll go for that....

Lazypup:

ROTFLMAO!!!!

Too bad it wasn't cow manure. That stuff REALLY reeks. Horse poo isn't so bad, really.

A couple of years ago a black expensive car with a guy in a dark trench coat and dark sunglasses suddenly showed up in front of my house. He sat in the car reading the newspaper or just staring out the window all day long. It really creeped me out. I was sure he was a pedophile oogling the kids at the nearby school bus stop. After a couple of days of this I called the police. They did some checking and called me back to tell me the guy was a private detective hired by a husband two houses down from me to spy on his wife's activities during the day. Eventually the car left--and the couple divorced and moved away.