In today’s story, one mom shares a story about nightmare neighbors who complained about everything and even threatened them.

It went on for a long time until she figured out how to get them to back.

Let’s see how the story progresses…

The Horrible Downstairs Neighbors and the Shared Boiler: A Saga of Revenge

My family moved into the upstairs unit of a split-level duplex about four years ago.

We met with the downstairs neighbors, who informed us they were also moving out in the next couple of months.

Things were peaceful, they moved, and for about three months we didn’t have any neighbors.

Eventually, new neighbors moved in.

Then one day the big lock was gone from the neighbor unit’s door, a moving van appeared, and we had neighbors again!

They were an older couple, and very reserved. We tried to be friendly, but they made it pretty apparent right from the start that they weren’t interested in any more contact than was necessary.

That was fine, honestly. I’m not huge on being insta-friends with neighbors anyways. I figured we’d just leave each other be.

The new neighbors think their family is too loud.

Within the first two days the neighbor lady came up complaining about us “banging around” upstairs.

It was strange, because we’d just been going about our normal business, and our son hadn’t even been horsing around or anything.

We promised to try to be quieter, but not long after she’d left she was back at our door, saying, “You’re doing it again!!! You have to stop this!”

We weren’t doing ANYTHING.

The neighbors complained to the property manager.

We suggested any number of things she could have been hearing – the old plumbing, the building’s shared boiler kicking up – but she wouldn’t have any of it.

A couple of days later, we got a formal noise complaint from our property managers.

Things rapidly went downhill from there.

Her family can barely even move without the neighbors complaining.

We couldn’t listen to music at any volume, I couldn’t play my guitar EVER, we couldn’t run our washer, dryer, or dishwasher when they were home (which was most of the time).

We could barely turn on our faucets, walking had to be catlike and god forbid our son laugh, jump, or play.

Any infraction had the neighbors pounding on their ceiling, the stairwell walls, or our door.

We quickly learned that the husband was far scarier than his wife.

He’d actually get in our faces, poking his finger directly in front of my eye and snarling, “I don’t have to take this from young punks like you.”

It was his turn to contact the property manager.

We started reporting incidents to the property manager.

At first it was difficult because they’d reported first, and every time I called them to try to explain that this was getting ridiculous they’d dismiss me with some kind of platitude about how we had to come to a compromise together.

It got even worse on Christmas.

To top it all off, at Christmas the neighbor got a punching bag and set it up in his garage.

This would have been fine, except he practiced at 4 in the morning every day, and the garage was located directly next to our bedroom.

He’d hit that thing so hard it’d shake the house!

We tried to talk to him about it, but he blew us off. He still had the gall to complain about noise all the time, too.

It escalated even more…

The final straw was about six months into living with them.

I remember because the day started with me walking down my hallway to go take a shower, and the neighbor started pounding on the floor beneath me, screaming to keep quiet, and scared the crap out of me.

Later that day, around about six PM, our son had a small accident and spilled some food all over himself.

We took the dirty clothes and set them to wash in the washing machine.

The neighbor started beating on the door. He was yelling and it sounded and felt like he was throwing his whole weight against it.

The neighbor threatened her husband.

I actually had a panic attack, and took our son to his room while my husband went to face the man.

He was shouting about how much noise he had to put up with all the time, and my husband was trying to explain that he was being totally unreasonable.

The guy poked my husband hard in the chest and said, “If the management doesn’t do something about you, I will!”

She contacted the police.

It was only a vague threat, but it was enough to get the managers to take us seriously, at least.

We filed a police report and managed to get a formal complaint in for once. However, I was still terrified by what had happened.

Although the neighbors were older, the man was certainly still strong, and the escalation had me so frightened.

I felt like there was nothing I could do but wait for him to intimidate us again.

She knew the neighbor’s schedule and used it to devise a plan.

But then I hatched a plan.

The neighbor would get up early to work out with his punching bag. He’d start around 4 am.

Then I’d hear his wife leave the house and go to work at about 4:30.

Then at 5 he’d stop, shut his garage door, return inside and take a shower, then head to work himself.

Our duplex has a shared boiler, I mentioned, for heat and hot water. It’s actually a pretty good size, but it doesn’t take too long to exhaust.

So I began.

She was trying to use all the hot water.

The dreadful rumble of the punching bag would begin, and I would lie awake, waiting for the neighbor lady to leave the house.

The second I heard her car pull out of the driveway, I’d spring out of bed and run to the bathroom, crank the heat on the tub’s faucet as high as it would go, and then wait.

Once I heard the garage door start to close, I’d run back in and turn it off.

It took 3 days before she heard how upset her neighbor was.

The first couple of times I didn’t hear much – a disgruntled murmur, maybe. I was diligent. This guy couldn’t stand much irritation, I knew.

I just had to be patient.

The third day I did this, I heard a loud BANG from the downstairs bathroom, and him shouting – not at us, just in general – before more banging around, slamming the door, and pealing out of the driveway in his truck.

I kept it up.

She found joy in messing with her neighbor.

Every day I heard his punching bag, I’d wait eagerly in bed to ruin his post-workout shower.

It got to where it was fun… once I went back in to the bathroom to test the water before he stopped his workout, and it was ice-cold.

I actually threw back my head and laughed.

It felt good to get him back, even though it was really, really petty.

The neighbors scared away the plumbers.

We stopped hearing complaints.

The guy slowly reduced his morning workouts.

We started seeing plumbers parked in their lot, and then we started seeing confused and frightened plumbers hastily leaving while the neighbors screamed at them when they couldn’t find anything wrong.

We got phone calls from the management asking if we were having issues with our hot water, and my husband had to suppress wild giggles at the look on my face when I said, “No, it’s been working fine.”

Eventually the horrible neighbors moved out.

Things calmed down.

The outbursts tapered off.

And one fine day, as spring began to arrive, I saw the neighbors loading their furniture into the back of their truck.

I set an alarm specifically to ruin their showers one more time before they left.

They moved out, and we got new neighbors. We haven’t had any complaints since, and life has been good.

It’s been about three years, and I still get a warm, fuzzy feeling when I recall how I got them back.

Sje certainly played the long game here, but it paid off!

Her new neighbors sound like a dream compared to the old ones.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…

This reader would’ve ended the story differently…

Another reader applauds how she handled everything.

This reader is grateful for nice downstairs neighbors.

Another person couldn’t say enough nice things about OP.

This person can really relate to her struggle with the neighbors.

It would be hard to live without hot water.

It’s kind of funny that the neighbors never figured out what happened.

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.