Property lines have a funny way of turning once-friendly neighbors into instant competitors.

One couple was enjoying their new home when their neighbors suddenly accused them of stealing part of their yard.

But when the survey tape came out, a small dispute ended up turning into a much bigger revelation.

Read on for the full story!

Bet you’re sorry now!

Many years ago, after decades of saving, my husband and I were doing well enough to finally build our dream home.

After we moved in, we still had to have our yard leveled and sodded and arranged it early the next spring.

That’s when trouble with the neighbors began to heat up.

That night, I was out watering the backyard sod when I saw my neighbor’s wife, Chris, using a measuring tape between our homes.

I asked her if everything was okay, and she said that we had sodded a section of their yard.

I told her we had followed the sticks that the builder had left.

She said the builders must have screwed up and rudely insisted that we had stolen part of their yard.

These homeowners graciously agreed to a survey, and soon uncovered something far bigger than they ever anticipated.

Not wanting to have an ongoing beef with her and her husband, Keith, we agreed to have our property re-surveyed.

When we did, we got one heck of a surprise.

The actual property line wasn’t halfway between our two houses as we believed; it was about a foot and a half away from the side of their house.

They owned a construction company and had built their house too close to the property line.

This was an insane mistake for a professional!

Providing way more kindness than these neighbors deserved, the homeowners tried to strike a deal.

Still wanting to be good neighbours, we offered to split the cost and labour of a “good neighbour” fence using one of the four accepted fence styles allowed.

My husband kept asking Keith when he wanted to start, but he always had one excuse after another.

Then Keith rudely told Dan to stop bothering him.

Dan was furious.

So he took matters into his own hands.

He bought all the materials and built the fence himself.

He had been planning to put the fence halfway between our houses, but our neighbour was so rude that Dan built the fence just inside our property line, making the neighbor’s house look terrible.

The neighbors were, of course, irate.

The neighbor’s husband came over p’ed as h, but Dan reminded him that HE and his wife wanted a new property survey and HE had put off the fence for months.

Our fence was magnificent, because Dan was a carpenter and I’m a great painter.

But the neighbor’s attempt at payback ended up backfiring too.

The neighbor’s husband built a fence next to ours, but it was ugly, badly built, and not one of the approved designs.

He was forced to tear it down later.

Sounds like these neighbors probably just should have kept their mouth shut!

What did Reddit think?

These neighbors could stand to lose a lot more than just a few inches of yard.

This neighbor’s “payback” didn’t even really make sense.

This neighbor is hardly a worthy adversary.

Maybe these neighbors didn’t actually know what was going on.

In the end, the neighbors got exactly what they asked for — and hated every second of it.

Arrogance can really come back to bite!

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