I know nothing about plants, so this story was an eye-opener for me…

But I do know about bad neighbors, so at least I have that going for me!

Check out this story from Reddit’s “Petty Revenge” page and remember, be nice to your neighbors, okay?

I planted Bamboo that overrun my neighbors property over a security light.

“About 4 yrs ago I used to live in a nice HOA in a small town in TX and enjoyed having only one neighbor over my backyard fence.

The plot was about 2 acres and the other side of the backyard butted up to a hay field. The stars were beautiful at night because of virtually no light pollution…

Then things changed…

Until the neighbor decided to install an incredibly bright security light over their back porch aimed right at my back patio and bedroom windows.

I tried to ignore it at first and put shades in the bedroom, but out on the patio it was like having a bright LED headlight in your face all night.

I consulted the HOA about adding a privacy addition to my fence to increase it’s height, and they said no because it’s already at the 8′ max allowed height. The said there was nothing in the bylaws or whatever about bright lights so nothing they could do.

There was a peace offering.

Diplomacy: So I didn’t like for this to be the thing where we finally had a formal greeting after 3 yrs of back porch waves but I walked over and rang the doorbell with $20.

I politely explained how the light was causing the aforementioned nuisance and asked if there was any way I could convince him to point the light down or in a different direction and even offered the to buy him a case of beer (the $20) out of good-will and even a new motion sensing light.

He seemed nice and agreed to point it down…but after waiting a month, nothing changed. I went back to have another polite conversation and he said he had changed his mind and was going to leave it on every night and leave it pointed as-is.

It was on…

Petty Revenge: Needless to say I was a bit upset diplomacy failed and started figuring out how to win. If the military taught me anything there’s always ways to adapt and overcome.

So I started researching fast growing plants to create big privacy walls and reading through the HOA bylaws and city/state ordinances about what I could or couldn’t plant and if there were any repercussions for encroachment across the property line.

This might work!

I quickly discovered running bamboo, despite being very invasive, would grow super fast to make the neighbor’s house and light disappear from view and there was nothing on the HOA/state/city books to prevent me from planting it or cause legal recourse if it spread and grew on his side on the fence.

Only thing he could do is cut anything that grew on his side of the line. So I pulled the trigger and planted a bunch of Golden Bamboo which grows and spreads crazy fast in TX and grows up to 20′ tall…I didn’t care if it took over the fence line because his house is 15′ from the fence while mine was 50yds away so I planted a bunch right against the fence and only put root barrier on my side to prevent it spreading into my yard.

Boom!

Within 6 mo his house and light were GONE from view, replaced by a pretty bamboo jungle row at the edge of my yard. Within 1 yr he complained it was growing into his yard via mailed letters, they went right into the trash with no response.

He rang my doorbell once and I looked at him through the window but just didn’t answer the door. I unexpectedly sold the house and moved 2 yrs after planting for a career opportunity.

It’s been 2 yrs since I sold and I just checked the property on Google Earth and his entire backyard is bamboo.”

Let’s see how folks reacted on Reddit.

This person said this was nuclear revenge.

Another individual shared some advice.

This reader has also had to deal with bamboo.

One Reddit user talked about another invasive plant.

And this person said this stuff is IMPOSSIBLE.

Bamboo sounds dangerous…