Imagine hanging out at a friend’s house when a neighbor calls the police about your friend’s swimming pool. Would you comply with the rules as intended, or would you find a way to comply while annoying the neighbor?

In this story, some kids are in this exact situation, and with a friend’s mom as the ring leader, they choose the second option.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

Angry neighbor and Village Codes

Background: I grew up in a very white bread village/town of about 15k outside of a small city of 110k in middle America.

This came with all the petty little problems that come with small town Midwest life.

It seems like every neighborhood has that one annoying neighbor.

My twin brother and I would hang out around our best friends house, and their neighbors loved to stir the pot and cause problems.

I have two specific instances of MC with them, specifically the wife, Mrs. Nelson.

I don’t really blame her for being an angry person tbh. I probably would be too if I had to raise 4 kids while working and trying to go back to school.

I digress

Technically, his friend’s family was breaking the law.

The summer before 7th grade, my best friends family decided to put up one of those 3-4ft tall inflatable pools.

Our town has a code where any yard containing a pool must be completely enclosed in a minimum 5ft tall fence.

My friends fence was only the regular 3 foot chain link fence, and the gate had recently been broken by the Nelson’s kid.

So, as soon as they put the pool up, Mrs. Nelson called the police because the pool violated code and present a drowning danger to her children (mind you they have a permanent above ground pool that their kids swim in unsupervised all the time).

They decided to comply.

The officer arrives and tells us we either need a taller fence or to get rid of the pool.

Here’s where the MC comes in.

The code states that the fence just needs to be 5ft tall, not contiguous, made of the same material, or good looking.

Technically, this fence follows the rules.

So, me and my brother went around collecting sticks while my friend and his mom went to the fleet farm to buy chicken wire and zip ties.

We then Spent the next hour zip tying the sticks to the fence and the chicken wire to the sticks as well as zipping the gate closed.

Mrs. Nelson is of course disgusted by this affront to her beautiful neighborhood, and calls the village again the next day.

The officer came back.

The same officer is sent out as the day before and lets the angry lady know that the fence is up to code, and that she should stop waste info officers’ time with nonissues.

This was not the first or last issue with her and her family, even in terms of Malicious Compliance, but this one is pretty funny and almost perfectly encapsulates my experience growing up in almost rural Middle America.

The neighbor may not like it, but now there’s a fence just like she wanted!

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This person needs clarification about the fence.

It seems to be.

One person comments on the size of the town.

Here’s another story about a fence.

They followed the rules!

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.