Some neighbors just can’t stand to see kids having fun, and they’ll go to wild lengths to ruin it for everyone.

So, what would you do if the grumpy guy across the street called the cops on your kids for playing football in an empty lot?

Would you move on quietly?

Or would you encourage the kids when they found a clever way to get him back?

In the following story, one parent faces this very decision and decides to let the kids have some fun.

Here’s what happened.

The Door on the Garage Goes Up and Down, Up and Down. The Door on the Garage Goes Up and Down All Through the Town (well, night)

Back when my kids were in middle school, we had a really horrible neighbor whose complaints would take volumes to document.

First on his list was the noise the neighborhood kids made while playing football in the muddy vacant lot across from his house.

I suppose this was annoying, but it was also none of his business.

We mostly endured his daily tirades, but things came to a head when he started calling the cops on the kids and got them informally trespassed from the property.

It was traumatic enough for them to lose their (admittedly not “their” but still) only free-play area, but getting yelled at by cops just made it awful.

Here’s where the fun started.

Not long after, one of the neighborhood kids found a garage door remote.

I use the word “found” judiciously.

One of them figured out that it was for Nasty Neighbor’s garage.

I assume by riding his bike down the street while clicking the remote.

Or maybe he just knew somehow? Plausible deniability abounds.

Somehow, my oldest kid ended up being the keeper of the remote.

Bad news for the neighbor, because my kid should be the poster child for this subreddit.

For the next few weeks, he’d open the neighbor’s garage around 2 AM every night.

That alone would qualify as “petty revenge,” but what I haven’t mentioned yet is that our neighborhood had a raccoon problem.

And the neighbor kept his garbage in the garage.

Not long after the nightly garage door opening, one of the more intelligent raccoons figured out that they had been given tickets to a veritable smorgasbord.

In due time, the neighbor fixed the problem, and the remote stopped working.

For a while, we would get daily updates about how much and what type of trash the kids on the school bus saw strewn across the neighbor’s driveway, complete with Nasty Neighbor shaking his fist at them as they rode past.

Nasty Neighbor tried to sic the cops on us, but I refused to let them speak to my kid (not that he’d have admitted anything—the kid’s a stone-cold criminal who’s never broken under pressure).

Eventually, Nasty Neighbor either got a new garage door opener or reprogrammed the remotes on the one he had.

The remote stopped working, and the fun was over. I’m sure the raccoons were as disappointed as we were.

Too funny! With an attitude like that, he pretty much asked for it.

Let’s see what the folks over at Reddit think about these kids and the Nasty Neighbor.

This person just loves how it was written.

Here’s a way they could’ve kept it going.

Interesting way to look at it.

It sure is something to laugh about.

The neighbor had it coming.

Next time, he’ll mind his business and leave the neighborhood kids alone.

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