When you own a home, you have the right to do many different things on your property, but just because you can do something doesn’t always mean you should.

What would you do if your neighbor was constantly revving his engine loudly and disturbing everyone in the neighborhood, and refused to stop even when asked nicely?

That is what the people in the neighborhood in this story experienced, so the guy’s next door neighbor decided that two can play that game, expect he used smelly revenge instead of noise.

Let’s see what happens.

“I’ll do what I want in my own yard!”. Ok, I’ll make it impossible to enjoy your air.

Last Spring, my old neighbor, who was a saint, sold her house and moved away.

The people that moved in were awful.

The guy, who we’ll call Pete, owns some sort of a new black Mustang that sounds like it has no muffler, and he revs it up and down the subdivision streets in the evenings LITERALLY 5 days a week when a lot of people- myself included- sit on the back porch and watch TV during the summer.

It is relentless.

This would get so annoying.

This guy also drives up and down the state highway that is on the other side of my house doing the same thing but LOUDER because it’s a 55mph speed limit.

You can hear it for miles.

And he has friends over regularly in the backyard, and they sit there on the weekends and some weeknights revving up the car.

It truly is so loud that you cannot do anything but wait for him to be done.

There was a big Facebook conversation in the HOA group, and a bunch of neighbors politely asked him not to do this.

Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.

Pete’s exact response? “I pay a lot of money for this house!! I’ll do what I want in my own yard!” and “The streets are public!”

Well, I didn’t like that, so here’s what I did next (with a little context):

Our subdivision has about 150 houses on about 300 acres.

Its big.

Most of the properties in this subdivision are between 1 to 4 acres in size.

I have a 3 acre corner.

He tried to be a good neighbor.

Due to an agreed upon land split/sale 10 years ago between the HOA, all neighbors within the vicinity, and the former owners, my next door neighbors house is on the smallest piece of property in the subdivision at .45 acres.

The only side of Pete’s house not bordered by somebody else’s privacy fence is the side that my house is on.

Well, I know from 15 years of living here that any time I have a fire on the side of the yard next to Pete’s, the smoke is guaranteed to travel in the direction of Pete’s house.

I know this because I couldn’t ever have a fire when my old neighbor was outside as it would literally fill her backyard with smoke if ever the wood had even a hint of moisture in it.

So, I moved my fire pit- about a dozen years ago- to the other side of my house and towards the road so that I could be a good neighbor.

Time to move the fire pit back.

And you know, Pete letting me know that he wouldn’t quit making noise reminded me that I just LOVED having my fire pit right in the middle of my backyard.

It took me a single weekend to dig up the pavers and blocks, move them back to my preferred spot, and get myself a fire going in my new fire pit.

I just need to wait until Pete had people over.

I made sure the inaugural fire was a good one.

Pete had friends over, it was a nice day, and so I started the fire.

That smoke would be thick!

Got it JUST about started and then I added all the wettest, grossest wood I could.

And about 10 minutes later, Pete and all of his friends were visibly upset by the stench, so they all went in.

They came back out a little later, I added more wet, nasty wood.

They went in again.

I kept that up the entire day, and then I added a bunch of grass clipping to keep it going over night.

The next day, still smoldering. Still smelling awful.

The neighbors were happy to help.

I put out a Facebook post on the HOA website that let people know I’d be continuing to utilize my fire pit as often as possible, so they could bring me their lawn scraps.

I had about 20 people respond in a few hours saying their clippings were all mine.

I kept that fire going.

My dogs are good alarms, and they rush outside anytime anybody is in Pete’s backyard, so I would hear the dogs scramble, go out, and add more clippings.

This went on for weeks.

After about 3 weeks, Pete and his wife came out and very kindly asked me what was going on with the fire pit.

She very politely informed me that her hair would smell like a campfire if she went into her backyard for any amount of time, and they could smell it coming into their house through their ductwork.

He said I was making it hard for him to enjoy his backyard with his friends.

Oh, he knew!

They asked me if I could ease back with the fire because I “probably didn’t know” that it was impacting so much of their home life.

I looked at him and his wife, and I said that it was clear that sometimes we didn’t recognize how big of an effect something could have on our neighbors until they told us about it.

But then I said, as objectively as possible that I normally live by the same “I’ll do what I want in my yard” thought process as Pete does. “I have a right to enjoy my yard.”

I looked at Pete dead in the eyes and said “and I know you support that because of how the conversation concluded about your car, right, Pete?”

Pete finally understood.

He looked at me like I scratched his favorite CD.

He knew what I was doing.

And his wife looked at him and it just dawned on her.

She said she gets it, and we won’t hear the mustang anymore.

I said “thanks!”.

I think this was a pretty safe bet.

I took a gamble and put the fire out right after that.

It was the right call.

I haven’t talked to them much since.

I’m not too concerned about that because I haven’t heard the Mustang since, Either.

All in all, a good little case of “petty revenge”.

Some people won’t learn to be nice until they are forced to be nice.

Read on to see what other people in the comments on Reddit have to say about it.

This commenter got it right.

LOL – Too true.

Oh, absolutely.

Yes, it was a good move.

At least he learned his lesson.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.