Unsolicited yard advice from a neighbor who fancies himself an HOA president is the kind of thing that slowly builds resentment. But in this story, one homeowner finally decided to get creative with his revenge.

A man who mowed on his own schedule and kept his bushes at whatever size they landed on had been absorbing his neighbor’s running critique for years — the specialty stripes, the geometric shrubbery, the constant offers of borrowed equipment as though civilization depended on edged walkways.

He never argued, but one day, he finally had enough.

So he just started walking his sister’s dogs through fields and rivers, brushing weeds off their coats, and scattering them across the perfect lawn on the way home.

A few weeks later, the once-immaculate grass was fighting a losing battle with tough weeds.

Keep reading for the full story.

A small, but petty, revenge

My neighbor down the road has an odd obsession with his yard.

I’m sure you’ve all met the type. His yard has to rival most golf courses.

There was pretty much no spared expense in the neighbor’s eyes.

He has specialty equipment attached to his mower to ensure alternating stripes in the yard, and he’s constantly tending his shrubbery to ensure pristine, geometrical precision.

You know… a jerk.

Mine, unfortunately, has been working diligently to form an HOA for the entire time he’s lived here.

Thankfully, the rest of us are more of the anarchist types, so he’s never managed to get any traction.

But since he couldn’t form an actual HOA, he resorted to cobbling together a makeshift one.

Not that this stops him from pretending he is the president of an HOA, of course.

Which means every single time I decide to whack the collection of weeds that passes for my yard down to a manageable size, he simply must come over and harass me the entire time I’m working.

Each complaint is more petty than the next.

He points out how my bushes are growing wild and how my walkways are never trimmed, offering to loan me his electric edger so that I can join the rest of civilization, and on and on and on.

I do my level best to ignore him while I push my old mower around, but it’s like ignoring a mosquito — and just as annoying.

But finally, the homeowner decides to fight back.

So I decided to give him something else to worry about and started taking my sister’s dogs for long walks as a favor to her, letting them run through fields, splash through rivers, and otherwise collect as many tickclovers and cockleburs as possible.

Then, since I am such a good brother, I make sure to brush them all out of their coats before returning the pups to my sister.

Then he decides it’s time for the final act.

Then, since I am a petty AH, I scatter the tickclovers and cockleburs over the erstwhile president’s front lawn on my way home.

After a couple of weeks, his once-perfect lawn is a mess of bloody tough weeds, and he’s constantly out there weeding and spreading herbicides — even while I’m mowing.

Take that, neighbor!

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a family living outside the HOA who refuse to remove their tree or lights despite their neighbors hating them.

What did Reddit think?

This commenter wasn’t so impressed by this revenge.

This commenter stated their distaste in even strong terms.

This commenter doesn’t even think this story is real.

This homeowner may have been pretty pleased with himself, but redditors seem to think he went way too far.

The comments weren’t exactly sympathetic — several pointed out that a neighbor who maintains his lawn, offers to share his equipment, and talks too much is not exactly a villain origin story.

Headphones exist. The word “no” exists.

Deliberately seeding someone’s property with weeds because they annoyed you while you mowed is a significant escalation from a problem that had much simpler solutions.

Annoying neighbor or not, this was a step too far.