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Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.

What would you do if your neighbor, whom you hadn’t gotten along with for years, was getting ready to move, so she demanded that you trim your beautiful 6′ hedges down to the HOA limit of 3′?

That is what happened to the couple in this story, so they eagerly complied, knowing that such a dramatic trimming would cause them to look terrible for at least a year. When the neighbor’s real estate agent saw what happened, she was immediately upset at the reduced curb appeal.

Sometimes, the best thing you can do for revenge is give someone exactly what they asked for. Read through the full story below and see what you think about it.

We need to shorten our hedge to 3 feet max? Okay!

My husband and I developed an unpleasant relationship with one of our neighbors.

This is not responsible adoption.

It was mostly because this lady liked to adopt kittens (whom we adore) and then basically throw them outside, where they invaded our back yard and preyed on cute native wildlife like tiny birds, chipmunks, bunnies and so on.

There’s a bylaw against this, and we made some use of it while she lived next door. After a couple of years, we found out that she was selling and moving away.

I bet they were glad to see she was leaving.

Yay! However, she was still mad at us, and she shared her feelings with her real estate agent. The agent thought it over and called the (very nice and polite!) bylaw officer to visit us because the hedge between our two properties was technically too high.

It was maybe six feet high and needed to be half that. There’s no real reason for this rule, since we are on the outside of a bend in the road and visibility is fine, but whatever.

This is not going to look the way the neighbor expected.

My husband readily agreed to have at this lush, beautiful green hedge, and got out there right away with his heaviest equipment.

I quickly realized why he was so cheerful about this big job. As he cut the hedge to half its height, of course most of the greenery was trimmed away, and the result was a stark and (temporarily) sad-looking collection of bare branches and twigs.

She is not pleased.

He carefully cleaned up after himself, and we kept an eye out for the agent.

We were so lucky to be there when she next arrived and emerged from her car!

They were just doing what she asked.

Let’s say that my husband’s malicious compliance did not exactly improve the curb appeal of the next-door property!

She stood there for some time, then noticed us regarding her from our living room with gratified expressions, and marched away.

So very satisfying, we still sometimes mention it to each other.

Sometimes people demand to enforce the rules without thinking about what the results will really be.

Read on to see what the people in the comments had to say about this very funny story.

Here is someone who wants them to escalate even further.

This commenter would have made things much worse.

An HOA can cause a lot of problems.

This is impossible to calculate precisely.

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a feud that starts between neighbors after one reports an illegal drainage issue and the other can’t let it go.

She clearly didn’t think things through.

She wants the hedges trimmed short, and that is just what she got. This is a great story because the neighbor really has nothing that she can complain about.

Fortunately, after she moves out, the hedges will recover and look nice again for next year.