As soon as I saw the words “old hippies” in this person’s story on Reddit, I knew it was gonna be ugly.

Because, in my humble opinion, hippies SUCK.

Young, old, it doesn’t matter!

They’re awful!

Okay, enough about me, check out how this person was forced to get nasty when it came to their neighbor…who was an old hippie…I told you so…

My driveway is messy? Yours will never be the same. And you walkway, and your utilities, and your foundation….

“We used to live in a newly upscale hill community.

Funny how that works…

Apparently old hippies get possessive when they find that their hillside shack is suddenly worth 20x what they paid.

It was usually enough to fund a comfortable retirement through reverse mortgages and the like.

From the first day we moved in, our older downslope neighbor was really angry about the state of our walkways.

“Get that resurfaced! Those cracks are going to erode and shower dirt down onto my driveway! And put in a proper concrete walkway, not those cheap paving stones!”

Sounds like a great neighbor!

I tried to be polite, but he was just full of orders on how we should make his life better/easier/prettier.

His comments about our taste, our lack of compliance, and other “kids these days” rants weren’t ever about his own place, only criticizing ours. It was unending:

too many plants

too many invasive plants

too many poisonous plants (somehow they all were poisonous?)

too much mulch

too many repairs

too much new paint

what good will swaling the yard do

not enough expensive concrete

not enough herbicides/pesticides/whatever other nasty sprays he like to kill things with.

The space between our property and his was our paving stone walkway on dirt, a 2′ wood retaining wall, and then his poured walkway.

His yard was mowed, sprayed, and beaten into concession: all bare dirt, nothing planted to hold soil.

It had been so long since his soil was protected that there were visible erosion runnels. No wonder he was worried about erosion: he was building new rivers across his property.

In a few years, he’d escalated to threatening to call the authorities on us. We had code enforcement out twice in a month for “wasting water” until they refused to make any more special trips.

This guy was a psycho.

He kept calling different city departments to check up on our plans or report us for anything possible. Twice we got a permit for small repairs. He called every day to try to get us in trouble.

He even lied about an unpermitted pool to the authorities, who got there and just sighed, toured the (unexcavated) backyard yet again, and left.

He was always yelling about something out a window every time he saw us. It got so bad that I had to sneak out to garden.

So when the market got markedly better, we put the house on the market. It sold just at the beginning of our rainy season. Two days before we moved, I left him two going-away presents.

He’s gonna love this!

I bought dried blackberries and mixed them with birdseed. Then I cast it across his backyard. For two days. Blackberries will find a way to grow even in the worst, most oversprayed, sterile soil.

As birds eat, they poop. So in a few hours the birds were depositing loads of blackberries in nutrient-rich guano everywhere on his property.

Now, we had mulch down between established plants, so no new plants on our side, but awful neighbor quickly had a bramble patch.

Some of those thorn canes can get bigger than your thumb, and underground crowns bigger than your fist.

They weren’t done yet…

Running bamboo will wedge into every crack available, buckling walkways and growing underground in surprising directions.

It created a delightful privacy fence the new owners loved, and didn’t bother our solid foundation or paving stones at all.

When it popped up in his yard, it had spread seven feet out into his territory and busted up every one of his walkways.

I don’t think his foundation was very solid… he was apparently complaining that he found bamboo growing inside his basement for years afterwards.

I’m just glad I got the opportunity to help my neighbor with his erosion problem.”

Let’s see what Reddit users had to say.

One reader didn’t hold back.

This Reddit user chimed in.

Another individual was impressed.

A perfect example of why people need to mind their own business.

But I don’t expect them to start now.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.