Family feuds are a tale as old as time. We’ve all heard the stories of them escalating to something truly terrible, and the potential is always there for love to turn into hate.

OP’s dad and brother lived next door to each other.

My uncle has always been a self righteous, petty slime ball, with a foul temper and grandiose idea of his own importance but little to no brains. My dad always just took it and tried to keep the peace because family is so important to him.

This is the story of how my uncle finally pushed my dad too far and ended up getting arrested for his trouble. It is pretty long since it covers several months of a feud between them.

As background, my dad and my uncle are neighbors in a rural community of 600ish people. My dad built the house my uncle lives in and sold it along with a small plot, so my dad’s remaining land is about 6 acres and runs along the side and the back of my uncle’s smaller property.

My uncle is a dealer for HVAC units. My dad is in the HVAC business and would buy some things from his brother, even though his brother’s prices were higher and he had a more limited inventory than other dealers, in order to help his brother out.

My dad also rented a building his brother owned and used it as his shop/office. He only rented the building and parking lot, but in the field out behind the shop my uncle and my dad both would collect old HVAC units.

These things are rusty and all around fugly, but when they didn’t have anything else to do they could go get one of these old units to break down for scrap.

Everything was awesome….until it wasn’t.

This story starts when one day my dad went to his brother and said he needed a certain unit, but his brother quoted him a really high price and also couldn’t deliver in the time frame my dad needed.

So my dad called up another dealer he works with and that guy had a unit on hand to give him for a much lower price. A no brainer.

My uncle found out about this somehow (dudes in the HVAC business are apparently like gossipy teenage girls) and confronted my dad, basically giving him an ultimatum that if my dad wouldn’t commit to buying 100% of his units from my uncle then my uncle wouldn’t sell him anything.

I already told you my uncle is an idiot….

So my dad didn’t say anything to his brother, but he took him at his word and stopped buying anything from him.

A month or so later my uncle showed up at my dad’s shop and confronted him again wanting to know why my dad hadn’t ordered anything from him that month.

When my dad told him why, my uncle exploded. They apparently had a screaming match, and in the end my uncle announced that my dad was no longer his brother, they were no longer doing business together, and my dad was evicted from the shop.

The feud began with the brother calling the police – repeatedly.

I will note that legally my dad was not evicted because evicting him would have required a legal notice, a certain period of time, etc. But my dad was over it, so he said fine and began converting the barn at his house into his new shop.

So my uncle, who apparently had thought my dad would not call his bluff, showed back up at the shop a few days later and informed my dad that he also has to move all of the old HVAC units scattered around in the field behind the property or he would sue my dad for the cost of removal.

Now, this too probably had no legal power, since my dad’s lease was only on the building, not the field, and my uncle contributed to and used the old units as communal property…

But when my dad is mad he is really irate. So he agreed to move the old units. He took his tractor over and loaded each one onto his flatbed trailer, drove out behind his barn, and painstakingly arranged hundreds of rust bucket fugly old HVAC units an inch or two off the property line at the back of my uncle’s house.

Note that my dad could not see these things from his house due to the way his property is set up, but my uncle had an HD view of them in his backyard.

My uncle started being even more of a creep than usual and was always spying on my dad’s house, so my dad decided to build a privacy fence down the side of his property that runs along my uncle’s property (but not the back of the property where the HVAC units are).

The fence guys arrived and worked for a few hours before my uncle came screeching into his driveway and exploded out of his truck already screaming because these poor fence guys had laid posts or tools or whatever temporarily on his side of the property line as they were building the fence.

My uncle called the police, who basically told the fence guys okay dudes just don’t put anything on this crazy man’s property and left.

The next day apparently someone left a hammer across the property line so here comes my uncle screaming at them again.

He called the police again but by the time they got there the guy had already moved his hammer so the police were just annoyed by this point but could only warn them not to do it again.

Then, they both filed restraining orders.

Later that afternoon, my uncle called the police a third time, I kid you not. This time he wanted to report that my dad had stolen a backhoe from him. Like one that attaches to the back of a tractor.

One that, again I kid you not, my uncle had given to my dad two whole years prior because my uncle didn’t even have a tractor big enough to attach the thing to.

The cop was not amused when this story came to light, and since it was the same cop who’d been there earlier that day she was beyond annoyed at that point.

My dad helpfully said “Come get the backhoe if you want it,” knowing full well my uncle had no way to pick the thing up or haul it even the few feet to his own yard.

My uncle replied that my dad was just trying to trap him and would say he was trespassing if my uncle came onto his land (even though the cop was standing right there when my dad offered and, by the way, this conversation was taking place in my dad’s driveway).

He then said that he wanted to file a complaint with the police that basically amounts to a restraining order against my dad (it isn’t a restraining order because it isn’t issued by a judge but the cops treat it that way–it’s for habitual trespassers).

Annoyed Cop helpfully informed my dad that this would mean that even if my uncle texted or emailed him and invited him to come over to his house to discuss things, even if my dad had that written proof he’d been invited, if my uncle called the cops or even took a picture of my dad on his property he could potentially get arrested for trespassing.

My dad said he wanted to file one against his brother too.

Then his dad got a little tricky.

My dad knew full well that his brother had no real clue where the property lines were and was not going to dig up his survey to check. He only “knew” where the lines were because my dad knows exactly where they are and maintains wooden stobs in the ground periodically along his property lines.

So when his brother was away for a few days my dad moved all of the old HVAC units along the property line over further onto his own property by a few feet and moved the stobs back the same distance.

So basically it looked the same as it had before, except it looked like the property line was a few feet further back than it actually is.

He then placed some random piece of scrap across the fake property line (still on his own property but it looked like it was across the property line if all you had to go by were the incorrectly placed stobs), set up a few game cameras aimed at the line, and waited.

So, the uncle ended up arrested.

Sure enough, his dumb brother came storming out of his house as soon as he noticed this scrap on “his” side of the “property line,” crossed the real property line to get a good look at the scrap, and called the police.

My dad was waiting for them with his survey showing where the actual property line is, a copy of the report Annoyed Cop had given him, and game camera footage of his brother clearly trespassing on his land, and it was my uncle who got arrested.

The only way his revenge for all the trouble and heartache his brother caused could possibly have been any sweeter would have been if it were Annoyed Cop who showed up at the scene and arrested my uncle, but alas he had to make do with someone he and his brother had both gone to high school with, which worked out since it was especially embarrassing for my uncle to be arrested by someone he knew well.

And who could make sure everyone else in town knew.

Now, they might be dead to each other but at least the cops can stay out of it.

Nothing really came of my uncle’s arrest, or at least not that my dad has heard about (and he’d hear about it since this is a town of like 600ish people).

But it was probably enough for my uncle just to have to get put into handcuffs, spend a night in jail, and have people know about it, because my uncle hasn’t caused anymore trouble for my dad other than generally existing where my dad occasionally has to see his truck drive by.

My uncle, aunt, cousin and my cousin’s wife all unfriended me on social media so I only know what going on with them via small town gossip nowadays.

My sister was driving down the road recently, saw my uncle in his yard, and waved at him. He turned away like he didn’t know her. None of us got an announcement when my cousin’s wife had her baby recently.

So I think the end of the story is just that we are all dead to my uncle and his family, but he is too afraid to do anything besides pretend we all don’t exist!

Is Reddit glad they took the time to read this one? Let’s find out!

Some people thought they should push the uncle even further.

They say there’s nothing sweeter than revenge.

This story really does have it all!

Some wondered why dad didn’t see this coming.

It is sad how often families let things come between them.

I do hate to hear how families fall out.

It sounds like this guy definitely had it coming, though.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.