Imagine having a nature preserve behind your house. It might be nice to look at, but it’s not your personal property. Would you ever be tempted to try to turn part of it into your backyard, or would you realize that it’s protected land that’s not yours to touch?

In this story, one man warns his neighbor not to mess with the nature preserve behind their houses, but the neighbor doesn’t listen.

When he’s away for the summer, the county checks on the nature preserve, and they immediately notice what the neighbor has done.

If the neighbor had been nice, this story would’ve had quite a different ending. If you learn anything from this story it’s to be nice to your neighbors so they can warn you when there’s a big problem.

Keep reading to see how the story plays out.

Neighbor tells Gramps he should “mind his own damn business”. That advice costs neighbor most of his yard and a car.

Gramps had just moved into a retirement park with a lot that backed up to county land that was a nature preserve.

His backyard was basically non-existent, but he didn’t mind as he got to look out over the preserve, however he did marvel at how his next door neighbor’s backyard extended a good 8ft past his, giving neighbor a nice space back there.

Gramps tried to warn his neighbor about a big problem.

Gramps tried to be friendly with all his new neighbors, exchanging phone numbers and the like, and one day he noticed the next door neighbor was putting down expensive pavers that extended from his back door all the way to the old fence posts that designated the preserve boundary.

Gramps watched the neighbor yank the three rickety fence posts out of the ground and move them back an extra two feet into the preserve before pounding them back in, then started to clear the land, intending to gain himself more area for his pavers.

Gramps used to work for the national park services as a young lad, so he thought he had better warn his neighbor of the consequences of his actions, so he heads out back for a little chat.

Neighbor is immediately defensive and before Gramps says much, neighbor tells him “you’re new here, I’ve been here 10 years” and to “mind your own damn business.”

And for awhile, that was that.

Gramps decides not to press the issue.

Nothing happens that year, but the following year when most of the park emptied out to head north for the summer the county comes by to check on the preserve.

Gramps notices them going back and forth behind his neighbor’s house, the workers are pulling out maps and taking photos and making phone calls and soon more guys show up.

This is bad news for the neighbor!

Turns out neighbor has moved the posts several times over the years, and in reality his backyard is supposed to be even smaller than Gramp’s backyard!

To make it worse, neighbor put pavers in the back specifically to park both his golf cart AND a cherry red sports car back there for the summer, so the county will have to move them before they can do anything else.

They tape a notice to the front door and leave.

Gramps goes over to read it, and it states that neighbor was in violation of encroaching onto protected lands, he has 30 days to move his car, tear up the pavers and pay a fine of $11,000 (because of damage to endangered species who inhabit the protected lands, as well as trespassing fees). Failure to do so within 30 days will result in golf cart & car being towed and impounded, pavers will be dug up and carted off at neighbor’s expense and the fine will increased for every additional day past the deadline.

The neighbor didn’t do anything.

30 days comes and goes, so a week after that Gramps has quite the show as first the car and cart were towed, pavers were dug up and hauled off, and the old fence posts and ropes were replaced with metal posts embedded into buried cement bases, connected by steel cables.

Whole process took several weeks to finish, but the preserve looked a lot more legit when they were done.

A few solar cameras were installed so the county could monitor the wildlife (and encroachers) remotely, meanwhile more notices were taped to the front door of neighbor’s house.

The neighbor finally came back to his house.

By November the snowbirds were flooding back into the park, including neighbor.

That was Gramps’ 2nd show of the summer as neighbor reads all the notices, digging down until he reads the first one, then runs out back and starts screaming and cussing up a storm before running back to his car to dig out his cell phone so he can call the county to find out where his car and golf cart were.

Gramps stays indoors to avoid the guy as he is frantically trying to unload his car, turn on his water and electricity, get the ac and the toilets going, and all the while trying to get someone at county to pick up the phone and give him some answers.

He finally gets a live person and proceeds to scream at them while on speakerphone about his car and cart, so the call keeps getting kicked to other people because who wants to help a screamer?

Basically neighbor is told to come to the county office to get this straightened out.

Here’s where the malicious compliance comes in.

Three days later neighbor catches Gramps outside and asks if he was here when the county “stole his car and destroyed his backyard”.

Gramps said he was, and neighbor says “well why didn’t you call me when you saw them putting notices on my door? You had my number up north!”

Gramps said he had thought about doing that, but figured neighbor would prefer him to “mind his own damn business”, so he decided against it.

Wow! I love it! If only the neighbor had listened to Gramps’ advice or at least been nice to him, Gramps probably would’ve warned him.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

It was almost too easy for Gramps.

Another person misses their Gramps.

This is probably true.

Another person looks it from the survey team side.

The neighbor was breaking the law. It wasn’t his backyard. It was a nature preserve.

Gramps was just trying to help him. If he had listened, none of this would’ve happened.

I bet it was very entertaining for Gramps.

I hope he took pictures!

The lesson here is to never think you’re above the law and don’t tick off your neighbors when they’re trying to help you!