You can ignore a lot of things in life, but a floodlight pointed directly at your bedroom window is not one of them.

So when one homeowner’s backyard oasis was flooded nightly by his neighbor’s blinding security light, he decided to fight back.

That’s when a little landscaping project turned into long-term leafy revenge.

You’ll want to read on for this one.

I planted Bamboo that overrun my neighbors property over a security light

About 4 years ago, I used to live in a nice HOA in a small town in TX and enjoyed having only one neighbor over my backyard fence.

The plot was about 2 acres, and the other side of the backyard butted up to a hay field.

The stars were beautiful at night because of virtually no light pollution…

But one day, that all changed.

Until the neighbor decided to install an incredibly bright security light over their back porch aimed right at my back patio and bedroom windows.

I tried to ignore it at first and put shades in the bedroom, but out on the patio it was like having a bright LED headlight in your face all night.

The homeowner decided to enlist the HOA’s help in clawing back some of their peace, but they were ultimately no help.

I consulted the HOA about adding a privacy addition to my fence to increase its height, and they said no because it’s already at the 8′ max allowed height.

They said there was nothing in the bylaws or whatever about bright lights, so there was nothing they could do.

So the homeowner turned to bribing instead.

Diplomacy: So I hated for this to be the thing where we finally had a formal greeting after 3 years of back porch waves, but I walked over and rang the doorbell with $20.

I politely explained how the light was causing the aforementioned nuisance and asked if there was any way I could convince him to point the light down or in a different direction.

I even offered to buy him a case of beer (the $20) out of goodwill and even a new motion-sensing light.

The neighbor seemed amicable at first, but it all fizzled out.

He seemed nice and agreed to point it down… but after waiting a month, nothing changed.

I went back to have another polite conversation, and he said he had changed his mind and was going to leave it on every night and leave it pointed as-is.

So the homeowner then had to resort to much more drastic measures.

Petty Revenge: Needless to say, I was a bit upset diplomacy failed and started figuring out how to win.

If the military taught me anything, there’s always a way to adapt and overcome.

They began researching the best way to carry this revenge out.

So I started researching fast-growing plants to create big privacy walls and reading through the HOA bylaws and city/state ordinances about what I could or couldn’t plant and if there were any repercussions for encroachment across the property line.

Finally, the homeowner found a winner.

I quickly discovered running bamboo, despite being very invasive, would grow super fast to make the neighbor’s house and light disappear from view.

There was nothing on the HOA/state/city books to prevent me from planting it or cause legal recourse if it spread and grew on his side of the fence.

The only thing he could do is cut anything that grew on his side of the line.

So he started putting up the plants everywhere so the neighbor couldn’t possibly miss them.

So I pulled the trigger and planted a bunch of Golden Bamboo, which grows and spreads crazy fast in TX and grows up to 20′ tall.

I didn’t care if it took over the fence line because his house is 15′ from the fence while mine was 50 yards away.

So I planted a bunch right against the fence and only put root barrier on my side to prevent it from spreading into my yard.

Before long, nature totally took over — and the neighbor took notice.

Within 6 months, his house and light were gone from view, replaced by a pretty bamboo jungle row at the edge of my yard.

Within 1 year, he complained it was growing into his yard via mailed letters.

They went right into the trash with no response.

The story has a pretty satisfying conclusion.

He rang my doorbell once, and I looked at him through the window but just didn’t answer the door.

I unexpectedly sold the house and moved 2 years after planting for a career opportunity.

It’s been 2 years since I sold, and I just checked the property on Google Earth, and his entire backyard is bamboo.

What a satisfying end to this story.

Redditors flood to the comment section.

This commenter has also been personally victimized by bamboo.

If there’s one way to get back at an HOA, it’s on a technicality.

This commenter thinks they may have also seen the neighbor’s POV.

This commenter fought back against a bad neighbor in a similar way.

He wouldn’t adjust the spotlight, so the backyard turned into a jungle.

Nature always wins in the end.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.