Walking on Eggshells at Home: How Hyper-Critical Neighbors Can Drain the Joy Out of Property Ownership

Matthew Gilligan

34 minutes ago

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Are you the kind of neighbor who is friendly but standoff-ish?

Or do you get right into the nitty-gritty and become best friends with the folks who live around you?

I prefer to stay somewhere in the middle.

I’m friendly and I’ll help someone out if they ask, but I’m not hanging out on anyone’s front porch who lives around me and having beers after work.

But, to each their own…

In today’s story, a person explained why their neighbor is driving them crazy because they like to complain about EVERYTHING.

Let’s take a look…

Has anyone else won the neighbor lottery… in the worst possible way?

“Ours seriously seem to look for reasons to be mad.

It’s been going on for years, and we’ve mostly just laughed it off, minded our own business, and gone about our lives. Somehow, though, they always manage to find a new reason to create drama.

The reason I’m finally posting is because something happened recently that brought years of this back to the surface.

While we were on vacation, the water company showed up at our house after receiving a complaint that we had a water leak. I’ve filled my pool before (well over 15,000 gallons) and they’ve never even called me, much less come to my house.

What was this all about…?

When I called the water company afterward, they told me my neighbor had made the complaint. They also told me my neighbors met them outside when they arrived, and that information—along with my neighbor’s name as the person who made the complaint—was documented on my account.

After checking everything, they determined it wasn’t even a water company issue because it was past the meter, so nothing came of it.

That whole situation made me stop and think, “This has been going on for years.”

For some background, our property is L-shaped and wraps completely behind theirs. When we bought our home, we had young children, and one of the biggest reasons we always planned to build a fence was because there was a 20-foot-deep pond directly behind our property.

Originally, my husband wasn’t even planning to fully fence the back section. We were trying to be considerate and leave more of their pond view open by using a different style of fence in part of that area.

Sure, no problem…

Then they called the police because one section of our fence was a few feet too close to the pond. The responding officer explained the setback requirement, told us it could potentially be a civil issue if we didn’t move it, we thanked him, moved the fence back, and complied.

Honestly, I thought that would be the end of it.

It wasn’t.

Over the years they’ve banged on our fence and yelled over it whenever our dogs were barking or playing (which, of course, only made them bark more), sprayed poison near our fruit trees and blueberry bushes after becoming upset over our property survey—which killed one fruit tree and two blueberry bushes.

These folks are awful…

They burned yard debris right next to our shared fence where hot ash blew into our pool and even landed on my husband while we were swimming, installed two elevated PTZ cameras above the fence line that can pan, tilt, zoom, and track movement throughout our backyard, and even tried to start problems for my son on his very first day of work.

We also used to have water standing on our front porch every time it rained because runoff from their ditch flowed onto our property. When we finally placed cinder blocks to keep the water out, they built up their yard because they believed we were going to make them flood.

One of the PTZ cameras was installed after we put our pool up, and I have date- and time-stamped photos showing it wasn’t there beforehand.

Before we installed our privacy screens, those two cameras overlooked essentially our entire L-shaped backyard, including the pool area. They can pan, tilt, zoom, and track movement.

We eventually spent a considerable amount of time and money modifying nearly 200 feet of our fence by adding taller posts and privacy screening just so we could enjoy some privacy in our own backyard.

This is getting out of hand.

Then, just the other day, after I calmly told them they couldn’t keep attaching lights and other items to my fence because it’s my fence and entirely on my property, one of the cameras was repositioned toward the side of my house where my water hose and my youngest son’s bedroom window are located.

Can I prove why it was moved?

No. But considering the timing, it definitely caught my attention.

At this point, I honestly just have to laugh because every time I think, “Surely that’s the last thing they’ll do,” they somehow come up with something else.

The crazy part is that we’ve never retaliated. We’ve never called the police on them—not once. We’ve always tried to mind our own business and enjoy our home.

Every time something happened, we made changes to our property instead of trying to create more conflict.

Thankfully, I’ve kept pictures, videos, and date-stamped documentation over the years because after a while you start realizing, “Nobody would believe this if I didn’t have proof.” I’m genuinely curious if anyone else has dealt with neighbors like this.

At what point did you decide enough was enough?

Did you keep documenting everything, send a cease-and-desist letter, file a civil lawsuit, or eventually move?

I also can’t help but think there should be better laws protecting families from intrusive surveillance by neighboring properties. Before we built our privacy screens, those two cameras overlooked essentially our entire backyard and pool area.

If we hadn’t spent the money to build those screens, they could have watched our kids every time they were outside swimming. Even now, the screening isn’t 100% effective.

I’d love to hear how others have handled similar situations because after all these years, I’m still hoping there’s a better solution than living next door to an unrequested reality TV series.”