Imagine living next door to someone who starts doing a huge landscaping project. If you knew they were breaking a lot of rules during this construction project, would you mind your own business or warn them about the consequences?

In this story, one man is in this situation, and he tries to warn the neighbor. When the neighbor refuses to listen, he decides to mind his own business and see what happens.

Keep reading for all the details as told by the man’s wife.

Husband tries to warn neighbors about their landscaping, gets told to mind his own business…..

Some background: my husband is pretty handy. Prior to Covid, he had done several flip houses as a “fun” side gig (it’s what he loves to do), and he became very familiar with a ton of city codes.

During Covid, seems everyone was suddenly buying houses to flip out of boredom and prices sky rocketed, so he put that on hold.

So then he started doing household repairs and upgrades, building fences, etc. around the neighborhood as well.

He learned all the rules.

To get a better understanding of the neighborhood HOA bylaws and whatnot, he joined the HOA Architectural Committee.

Through that he learned all there was to know about what was allowed and what was not, how the process worked, how to work around things, etc.

Long story short, my husband was VERY knowledgeable in what to do and not do, and various processes with the neighborhood AND the city.

It’s not always possible to make one backyard look like another backyard.

Our next door neighbor decided they were going to start landscaping their backyard, and they I guess planned to make theirs as similar to our backyard as possible.

Problem was, despite being next door neighbors, our land was quite different.

For one thing, behind our house was a bunch of brush and pine trees maybe 3-4’ from the lake that’s at the back of the house. We didn’t have to do a whole lot to clear the area, but the brush on their property was about 1/3 of their yard (I’d say 10’ from the water?).

Also, the way the houses on our street are, the land naturally made like a valley, where the house to our right is at the “top”, we’re in the middle, and the next two houses are at the bottom before it very quickly rises again.

The neighbor was clearly ignoring the city laws.

First thing the neighbors did was cut down all the trees in their backyard. They were not small trees either, but 4 story tall trees or more.

Husband and neighbor were talking about the backyard plans when my husband casually mentioned he was surprised the city gave him permission to cut down so many trees (in our city, you had to have an arborist give permission to cut down any trees that were X ft tall.

Neighbor first said it wasn’t the city’s business what he did with his backyard, then told my husband to mind his own business.

Ok. Fair enough.

This seems like a disaster waiting to happen!

Then they started putting up the retaining wall to bring it up to level with our property, which would have been about 7-8’ tall. Basically they were just stacking a bunch of cinderblocks.

My husband uneasily asked if their landscapers had ever done a retaining wall like that, and if the city approved it. City says that if a retaining wall is over 5’ tall you need a structural engineer to come out.

Neighbor said again it wasn’t any of the city’s business what he did to his yard, and for my husband to mind his own business.

There was another problem.

While they’re filling up the backyard to bring theirs level to ours, the landscapers are dumping all the dirt, gravel, and sand in the street, blocking a little over half the road.

Several of the neighbors who had trucks would just hop the curb, but other neighbors with smaller cars were mad.

Before my husband could ask if they could put the dirt and stuff in their driveway instead of the road (like everyone else), neighbor went off on my husband to go right off.

Well ok then.

Apparently, another neighbor was pretty upset about this construction.

My husband let them continue working, and didn’t say a word as they started constructing a 10’ tall fence (which was against HOA regulations, fences couldn’t be taller than 6’).

Between them starting construction 6 days a week before 7am and them blocking the road, I guess someone had had enough.

Next thing I know city officials are out there putting a big sign in the yard saying all construction was to be halted until further notice.

It wasn’t us, but my husband found out through the architectural committee that someone had complained about the noise and the road blockage to the HOA, who came out to investigate, saw everything they had done, and then reported them to the city.

The next door neighbor had to pay a lot of fines.

They got a hefty fine for every tree stump the city official found.

The structural engineer said their retaining wall was not sound and had to be redone, and it had to have regular inspections during its build.

The HOA also told them that not only did they have to take down their 10’ tall fence, but as they did not get prior approval and because it was not an “approved design” the HOA also hit them with a hefty fine.

I wonder if the project will ever get finished.

Initially Neighbor came after us for tattling but we told them it wasn’t us, as nothing they did affected us in any way (our kids are early risers, so even starting before 7 didn’t bother us).

My husband then said he tried to warn them this would happen but Neighbor told him to back off and mind his own business and he did.

Landscaping had started on Black Friday, was shut down for 3 weeks while I guess they got things sorted out with the city and HOA.

Their backyard is still not finished.

Ignoring city and HOA rules can really backfire. The neighbor in this story learned that lesson the hard way.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

I wonder if the neighbor is “a smart person.”

The HOA isn’t always the bad guy.

This person is really upset about the trees.

It’s bad. It’s really very bad.

I’m surprised the landscaper went along with these poorly thought out plans.

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