Imagine living in a nice quiet neighborhood when a new neighbor moves in who seems social, friendly and altogether perfectly neighborly. What would you do if that neighbor suddenly changed, showing his true colors, and they may or may not be illegal? Would you mind your own business or report him to the police?

In this story, one homeowner was faced with this exact situation, and for quite awhile, he just put up with it. Eventually, he realized he might be able to make a call that might or might not make a difference.

Now, he’s not 100% sure if what he did is responsible for the downfall of his neighbor, but it most likely is. Either way, there are new neighbors now, and they sound pretty awesome.

Keep reading to see why the one neighbor was so awful, how the homeowner took action, and what happened to put his home on the market.

I don’t like my neighbor, so I make a couple of phone calls.

I’m home while taking some time off from my job when, in the wee hours of the night, I hear music. It’s loud, it’s horrible, and it irritates me. But I put up with it and get a few more hours sleep after I put some earplugs in.

After I wake up later that morning, I bring it up with my next door neighbors.

They dredge up a tale about this scumbag.

We shall call him Dennis.

Dennis is a pretty awful neighbor.

He moved into my neighborhood several months ago.

When he moved in, he was the nicest guy. Outgoing, social, talking to everybody in sight. That lasted about a week. (Relevant.)

Then, he defaulted to what seems like his normal behavior.

He blasts bad music that penetrates my apartment fifty meters away, most often when the sun goes down and right before it comes up, and the hours in between just to round it off.

It gets worse.

He has a car and two motorcycles parked on the street, collecting dirt. Neighbors assume they’re non-functional because they haven’t been moved in three months and no one has ever seen them being used. No one can confirm that they were actually driven to their current resting place when he moved in.

He has two dogs on choke chains. He beats them more often than he feeds them; the next door neighbors can hear the yelping. I have been told that these dogs have caused injury to at least one person, if not more.

He has people going in and out of his place at all hours. Not a problem – the problem is that about half the time the people who drop by are staggeringly drunk or obnoxious, or both.

Dennis himself is a mean drunk, and both neighbors and passersby have been subjected to his invective on a regular basis.

He’s most likely doing something illegal.

Neighbors have put in multiple complaints, but visits by local government officials* to keep the noise down are met with compliance for a few days, then it’s back to whatever he was up to before.

Everybody within hearing distance hates him with a passion, but no one says a word to his face.

Dennis has never said it outright and no one has found proof, but everyone suspects he’s . . . an entrepreneur of controlled substances. And no one wants to point the finger because he knows who his neighbors are. (Told you it was relevant.)

No way, nobody deals in my neighborhood.

OP adds this commentary about the police.

(I will not comment on the efficiency or the integrity of our local police force, but these LEOs work and have worked in an environment of temptation and corruption, with those on the bottom rung getting less than USD600 a month. (That amount figures in a 100% salary increase went into effect just this past January 2018.)

At the end of the day, they all just want to get back to their families in one piece.

PDEA, however, don’t give a care. They’ll go after anybody. Elected officials, organized crime, high rollers. Zero cares. They’re busy, as they tend to go after the big fish. The President has given them pretty much carte blanche, and he gives zero cares too.)

He decides to make a call.

I decide to roll the dice.

I’ve had my fair share of time working with LEOs as an EMT, and I once did someone a favor a long time ago.

I pull out an old, worn card out of my stack of professional contacts. Only one of the numbers is still working, but the person I spoke to gives me an updated number. I call and get in touch Mr. P.D.L. He’s no longer with PDEA, but he knows someone who still is.

We talk for about 30 minutes, and he asks all kinds of questions. When he’s satisfied, he tells me he can’t promise anything, then hangs up. Honestly, I don’t expect much either.

But something happened.

Two weeks later: I wake up and go on my daily walk to buy some fresh bread down the street when the (cute) girl working there tells me the cops were all over the place early that morning just when they were putting in the first batch of yummy in the ovens.

I don’t make the connection and ask her out (again) and she turns me down (again – it’s now a running joke between us) and buy my bread.

The following day, next door neighbor knocks on my door and asks whether or not I knew Dennis had been arrested.

I shrug and say, “Nope, can’t say I know anything about that.”

Dennis never came back.

The house stayed empty for a while after, but I just saw a new family moving in today which reminded me of the entire thing.

Honestly, I don’t know whether or not my phone call had anything to do with Dennis’ arrest, and I’m not about to call anybody in LE up to ask them.

I may not have put up with Dennis’ problems for any length of time, but my neighbors certainly have.

I’m pretty sure that phone call had something to do with it.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about neighbors who can’t get along because of a totally legal gate.

Let’s see what Reddit thinks.

One person points out how intense this revenge was.

Another person shares their favorite part.

I was thinking about this too. He needs to stop.

Animal cruelty should not be tolerated.

There were a lot of things that awful neighbor did wrong but only one (probably) that would be likely to get him arrested. I’m glad OP made that phone call. I’m even more glad that the new neighbors sound wonderful. They’re definitely an upgrade!

I agree with the comment about the girl at the bakery though. I know OP mentioned that situation in passing, but my first thought was that I’m not so sure she thinks of this daily exchange as a joke. In fact, it might make her pretty uncomfortable. She’s probably just good at hiding her feelings and putting on her best customer service smile. I hope he does take the advice to stop that banter.

I wonder what happened to the arrested neighbor’s dogs. I hope they were able to find good homes where they wouldn’t be mistreated.

In the end, whether he admits it to himself or not, that phone call made a big difference.