Isn’t it annoying when people don’t keep simple promises?

This annoying neighbor promised they wouldn’t cut a branch but they did.

Check out how this clever neighbor taught the neighbor a valuable lesson!

I planted some mint.

Last year one of my(40F) partner’s(47M) relatives first got very sick and then died.

While he was in hospital for several months, we regularly dropped by to look after his house, fix the garden, make sure nothing was amiss and such.

Now, one of the neighbors is a real consolation prize.

This neighbor was really troublesome!

As she does not like to garden, she had the garden (front and back) of the property she has rented filled up with gravel.

I think it’s stupid and ugly, but as long as she is happy, more power to her – in HER garden.

Said neighbor started pestering my partner and me about things she wanted changed in the relative’s garden.

Bushes cut off, plants removed, that stuff.

She wanted things her way!

She also claimed that the way we were gardening was attracting harmful “bugs” (which, when I showed them to a friendly biologist, were confirmed to be wood sorrel seeds).

Anyway, I talked everything through with her to confirm what needed doing and removed any plants that were threatening to intrude into her garden (ivy, blackberry etc.).

She wouldn’t work it around one little favor!

The only thing I did not cut was one hazel branch, as it was in the middle of a dry spell (cutting them then is bad for the plant) and we were planning to relocate the bush anyway.

I explained this to her and asked if she could wait until spring. She said it was fine and let me get back to gardening.

UH OH…

The next time I dropped by, “someone” had hacked the branch in question off, at the widest area near the base, splintering and at a weird angle.

To be clear, legally she was allowed to cut anything growing over her property back, and the branch was approximately 10 cm across the border.

I’m just really annoyed she said it was fine to wait and then hacked at the plant the moment we were not looking.

They ignored it…

But as my partner’s family was worried about the relative, I decided to let it slip and kept taking care of the garden.

(By now we have cut and relocated the hazel, as promised.)

There was an empty spot in the middle of the relative’s front yard (maybe 6 x 4 feet), and I decided to put some regionally native mint there.

In case you do not know, mint is a very useful plant (insects like it, you can make it into tea, it smells delicious and keeps mosquitoes away) – and it’s unstoppable.

She got smart with it…

I know it will spread into the neighbor’s yard and mess up her peaceful gravel paradise, and it is all but impossible to get rid off (it spreads along underground root tendrils).

My father thinks this is hilarious, obviously I got my petty qualities from him. My partner, on the other hand, thinks I may have been unnecessarily mean.

She’s satisfied with what she did.

The family plans to sell the property, so by the time this problem becomes obvious we will be long gone.

I have also ordered a bee-friendly mix to freshen up the grass in the backyard, as she complained the grass was too high-growing and we had to rake out most of it.

Can’t sell a house with a bare-dirt backyard, right?

YIKES! Only if the neighbor didn’t cut a branch they promised they wouldn’t cut!

Let’s find out what folks on Reddit think about this story.

This person loves the idea of a minty backyard.

This person loves the revenge idea!

This person has better suggestions!

This person thinks the revenge was justified.

This person knows how to do it!

Commentators clearly don’t mind some mint in an annoying neighbor’s garden!

Guess this story will give gardeners some minty ideas!

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.