There are petty neighbors, and then there are dangerous neighbors — and the way these situations are handled is drastically different.

So what happens when one neighbor rears his head as petty but ends up being a dangerous threat to this woman’s family?

Let’s read the Reddit post below to find out.

Bad neighbor

About 12 years ago, we lived in an upstairs apartment in a tiny complex.

We had a garage that shared a wall with the downstairs apartment (only way to access it was the garage door, didn’t connect to our house), and right next to it were 3 small parking spaces.

Right outside our door was a small play area, with a small jungle gym, and then next to that was the pool/hot tub.

We had been there for a year; myself, husband (DH), daughter (DD 13), son (DS 3), and 2 cats.

We both worked, so during the day, DS was at daycare and DD at school; we were all out of the house no later than 7:30 am, and DD would get home about 4pm, and we’d arrive after 6, except Thursdays.

I always had Thursdays off, but would take DS to daycare anyways, and spend the morning by myself, playing WoW, getting shopping and cleaning done, etc.

A new neighbor moved in downstairs, a 20-something-year -old guy and his female friend. For the first few months, no problems, as far as we knew.

We parked my car in the garage, and DH would park in one of the spaces by the garage, or if those were full, he’d park outside the complex on the street. NBD.

A young guy like that seems harmless, right?

One morning, I went to leave, and there was a car parked partially in front of my garage and partially behind DH’s car that was parked in the spot next to the garage, blocking us both in.

Recognizing the car, I knocked on the neighbor’s door and asked him to move so we could leave. He gave me a bit of an attitude and told me he just got home from work, and was about to go to sleep.

No problem, just move the car and you can have DH’s spot and go back to sleep. Half an hour, I’m trying to get this guy to move.

Finally, [I] told him to move the **** car, or I was going to call the cops. He moved, we left, he parked and the day went on.

Ok, I take back my initial thought…

From that day forward, it went downhill, for the next two months.

He complained about noise. Any noise.

Now, I’ll admit, we had a 3 year old and he liked to play, but it wasn’t during the complex’s quiet hours (10pm-6am), and we kept the inside jumping and running to a minimum, but it’s going to happen with a 3 year old.

And living in an apartment, you’re going to get some noise from neighbors.

But this guy took it to the extreme.

If I ran the garbage disposal, he banged on the ceiling.

If anyone was showering and dropped a bottle, he banged.

Walking across the floor at noon? Banging.

One Thursday, only me at home, sitting at my computer desk, playing WoW, and the cats ran across the floor…and he banged. Two less-than-10-pound cats made so much noise, he had to bang on the ceiling.

It got to the point where we would just find things to do during the weekend so we weren’t home listening to the banging and yelling.

What does he expect? Zero noise from a family with children??

The last straw came when one day, I was outside sitting on the porch, watching DD and DS play.

The guy came out, and started screaming at the kids (he didn’t see me on the porch).

Profanity laden (I hadn’t heard him scream at them before, so I was a bit in shock), he called them some pretty nasty names.

I came down the stairs and told him to shut the fark up, and sent the kids upstairs.

He made a comment about kicking my ***, and if I didn’t shut those F-ing Bas—-ds up, he’d shut them up permanently too.

Whoa. This has taken a sharp turn.

I went to the office and filed a complaint, and called DH. (Strangely enough, he had never complained to the office about our “noise”)

DH arrived home about 30 minutes later and proceeded to bang on the guy’s front door.

DH was a pretty impressive specimen back then (6’4″, former Marine, trained in Krav Maga and MMA), and this guy was maybe 5’7″ and weighed as much as me if he was soaking wet.

DH asked, in his I am done with your BS voice, what the guy’s problem was.

The guy stammered that he had to sleep during the day, because he worked overnight at a casino, and he needed his sleep.

DH calmly pointed out he picked a downstairs apartment, next to a pool and play area, and he would have to deal with some noise from these items during the non-quiet hours.

That we were doing our best to keep it down, but yelling profanities at a 13 and 3 year old were not a good thing, nor was threatening them.

The guy stammered an apology, shut the door, and DH came upstairs.

He made it as far as our bedroom (literally 10 steps from the front door) when the guy started banging on the ceiling.

DS and DD were both sitting on the couch, watching a movie, and I was walking with DH.

Is this guy seriously starting things up again??

[We] left the next day for a 4-day weekend, a quick trip to Disneyland, and the office notified us we had received a complaint for one of the days we were out of state.

We showed them the hotel receipt, pictures of us at Disneyland, and asked how we could be making noise when we were gone.

They agreed the guy was nuts, and that he had complained about noise at the pool/hot tub and play areas all the time.

They told him nothing could be done, it wasn’t excessive and it wasn’t quiet hours.

The next day, DS is down for a nap, DD and DH were gone somewhere, and I was putting away groceries, and the guy started banging on the front door.

I answered it, and he started screaming that we were making noise again, and that he was done.

I started shutting the door and he pushed it into me, hitting me in the arm.

I shoved it shut and called DH. He came tearing home and called the cops. We filed a report, they went and talked to the guy, and told us to avoid him and document everything.

This definitely crosses the line. When will this guy learn?

A couple days later, after going to the office and documenting every time he banged on the ceiling, I had the kids down at the play area, and DH was on the porch, watching us.

Guy came outside, screaming nasty things at us again, and threatened to shoot me, until I pointed up at DH; guy saw DH, turned around and went back into his house.

DH called the cops, to file yet another report.

I would be out of there so quick…

We decided it was time to move. We were done with this guy.

The office was ok with letting us out of our lease, with no penalty, and told us they were evicting the guy, but understood we didn’t want to risk anything with the kids, since this was getting out of hand.

We weren’t the only people complaining about this guy’s behavior; his next door neighbor’s were moving too, because of his banging on their shared walls.

Well, in a weird way, it’s nice to know you aren’t alone in this.

We found a really nice town-home condo, gated community, etc, for about what we were paying. [We] got approved and started the moving process. [It] happened really quickly too, less than a week from application to move in.

The day we were moving our stuff out, DH’s coworkers came to help.

The guy came out to yell about the excessive noise (to be fair, we weren’t even trying to be quiet, being done with his BS at this point), and shut up when he saw six men just staring at him.

I smell a misogynist…

[We] got all moved, and I went back to clean the apartment; I had the kids with me. DD and I were cleaning the kitchen shelves and DS was asleep and sure enough, the guy started banging again.

The only things we had left to do were the floors at that point, so I sent them outside while I swept and mopped, and was planning on carpet cleaning after dropping the kids off at the new place.

They were at the play area, sitting, not running around or anything, and he came out and cussed at them again.

He had a baseball bat in his hands, so I put the kids in the car, got all my stuff, and went to the office.

I apologized for not cleaning the carpets, but that we were done, and here’s the video of him screaming profanities at the kids.

No worries they said, and they called the police for me and we filed another report…(and I got my entire deposit back).

This guy is just stacking the police reports up, isn’t he?

At the new place that afternoon, we’re in the office, dropping off a form, and who would come in but bad neighbor.

He was applying to live in our new place.

I pulled our leasing agent aside and gave her the rundown of the guy, and showed her the police reports and paperwork from the old complex.

Oh, karma, karma karma…

She went to the guy, handed him back his application and check, and told him he wouldn’t be renting at ANY of their complexes in the area.

He asked why, and she said she saw the complaints about him, and they didn’t want that kind of mess at their properties.

He got angry and started to storm out, saw us sitting there. I just waved my fingers at him….

Have fun finding some new apartment walls to bang on!

Funny thing, this company ran 6 complexes in our area.

There were so many more complexes, with so many more companies, but apparently there is a network among them, and he couldn’t get a place at any of the nicer complexes, according to our leasing agent.

Just like tenants, rental companies talk too.

This guy’s rage seems completely out of place and unacceptable.

Does Reddit agree? Let’s find out.

One Redditor congratulated the mother on her peaceful tactics.

Another user echoed that sentiment, saying the family really handled this well.

A commenter mentioned that maybe the police reports would have brought the tenant’s bad reputation up to the surface anyway.

And finally, a poster advised this woman get a restraining order against him ASAP.

This was a very scary story of a bad neighbor to the max, and this woman was in the right to keep her family safe and away from him.

Here’s hoping no one in her family ever has to interact with him again.

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