Imagine if a neighbour drilled into your property without permission? You’d likely be fuming and looking for the perfect way to get revenge on them for being so ignorant.
That’s exactly the situation one householder found themselves in, but were also facing more drama from another neighbour at the same time, which had them at the end of their tether with the people around them. They pointed out the police were getting “angry” with them for reporting their neighbours’ behaviour, rather than trying to get them to stop, and said they were feeling “tired and dejected” over the situation.
On Reddit’s ‘Neighbour’s From Hell’ forum, they wrote: “For the second time, our neighbour drilled new hooks into my garage roof from his side to hang up a tarp. I called the local police. Police came over, took a look, and told me that because the garage wall faces his yard, he can do what he wants.
“Legally, he can’t: we’ve had a property survey done and some free legal counsel, which said otherwise. I tried to explain this to the cops, but they yelled at me, told me it’s a civil matter, and said they’re not going to ‘deal with this again’. They stormed off.”
They had another drama with another neighbour as well, because they were playing “very loud music”.
“I always keep all my windows and doors shut at night, but it’s so loud I can feel the vibrations in the furniture and windows. Outside, it’s over 100 decibels (as recorded by my phone, which may not be fully accurate).
“I’ve called law enforcement. Long story short, the cop said that she couldn’t hear any music until she was in the neighbour’s driveway and to only call after 10pm. I waited until 10pm and called again. I didn’t hear back from law enforcement. The music stopped around 1-2am,” they seethed.
They wrote: “Combined with other stressors in my day-to-day, work and other things, I just feel so incredibly tired, dejected and stupid” because they’d purchased a property in this area and they wish they’d done more research prior.
People urged them to get revenge by “documenting everything” and re-presenting it to the police again, in the hopes they take it more seriously.
Someone wrote: “You’re not a fool, you’re just stuck in a nightmare neighbourhood with zero backup. Document everything and escalate to your city council.”
Another suggested: “Hot take but you gotta start matching their energy. Put a massive speaker facing their wall and blast something awful the second they stop. Only way these people learn is their own medicine.”
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A kind Reddit user wrote: “You’re not crazy for being worn down by this, that’s a rough combination of issues. At this point, I’d start building a paper trail for everything (dates, times, recordings, police reports). If police won’t act, code enforcement or a municipal noise/nuisance complaint process sometimes has more teeth than a standard call.
“The garage roof thing especially sounds like a property boundary dispute, which really does need a survey and possibly civil action rather than police.”