Contractors Trashed His Yard for a House-Flipper—So He Parked Junk Cars outside Until the Realtor Begged for Mercy
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When contractors are working on one property, they should be careful not to cause problems on any of the surrounding homes, but that is not always how things go.
What would you do if some contractors were causing a lot of damage to your lawn while they were working on the next door house for someone who was going to flip it?
That is what happened to the guy in this story, and when they refused to pay for the repairs, he put up a trashy no trespassing sign and other things to drive the value of that home down.
To me, it seems like he handled this whole situation poorly. Read through the full story below and see if you agree.
House Flippers Drove a Skid Loader Through My Front Yard.
Several months ago, the house next to me went up for sale and was immediately bought buy a house flipper.
House flippers can be great, or they can be awful.
The very first day the contractors showed up to start painting the brick and put in crappy fake flooring, they dropped a porta-potty right on the side of the house next to my house.
I come home from a day of work, park my car right in front of my house in the street like I always do, get out of my car, look down and say, “What the heck is all this mud?”
He has every reason to be upset about this.
Mud all over the street where they unloaded the skid loader, tire tracks right up the sidewalk, and straight through my front lawn, cutting across to where they dropped the porta potty.
I completely flew off the handle. I yelled at every contractor out there until someone gave me the number of their boss. I was trying to get the owners number, but the contractor, fine.
They won’t accept responsibility.
I called and chewed out both the porta potty company and the contractor. Both argued with me that I was wrong. So, I then parked my little honda right where they unloaded the skid loader (to prevent future unloading in front).
I also then drove my truck on down to Lowes and bought a stake and no trespassing sign. I then put the no trespassing sign right on my property line.
The contractors are upset with him for some reason.
I then left my Civic in that spot for about 1.5 weeks and just drove the truck out of spite. During this time, I had to deal with contractors trash making its way into my yard daily, rags, dusts masks etc.
I would over hear them laughing how I have my property lines wrong and that my sign is now on their yard etc etc. 1.5 weeks later, when I get in my little civic, somehow my front windshield is now cracked completely across.
It will be nice to have the workers out of there.
It has since been progressing all different directions. Odd how my windshield just magically broke. I am pretty certain the contractors were mad at me for yelling at them and where throwing random bits of crap at it. I can’t prove it so its a whatever point now.
Several months later, they clear out and the for sale sign comes up. Thank gawd! It might finally be over. I leave my no trespassing sign up anyways.
If the no trespassing sign looks bad, I can see why they would want it down. But it isn’t theirs.
Several people come and go looking at the house, all meanwhile I have a crappy broken up no trespassing sign flopping in the wind, my ugly Civic with a broken windshield (ugly and multi color right now from a couple hit and run accidents) sitting right there at the edge of my house facing theirs.
Once again, I come home from work one day and my no trespassing sign has been stolen off my property line. That’s it! I am done with this! I call the realtor company, my blood is pumping.
None of this is a receptionists fault.
I get the receptionist, and I realize this is not her fault. I try to calm down and keep cool with her, but I am still a bit angry. I am stern with her and tell her to tell the realtor get a surveyor out here, mark the lines, bring back my sign and apologize, and after she is done with that, the contractor can roll up the sod truck, re-sod my side of the yard and apologize as well.
The receptionist then asked if I wanted the realtors direct number, I replied really not a good idea with how angry I am right now. Just relay the message for me. I then hung up.
Apparently he doesn’t mind making his own yard look trashy, as long as it hurts the neighbor.
Couple days later on Sunday, I hop in the truck, go back down to Lowes, get bright orange paracord, and a new no trespassing sign. As I get home, my old no trespassing sign is magically back.
Realtor waited until I left to return it. I still proceeded to run my property line with my bright orange paracord, and new no trespassing sign.
Finally, the realtor is backing down.
Couple days later, coincidentally, my Civic gets reported to code enforcement as abandoned. Well guess what, its not. I called code enforcement. They were actually really cool with me. I explained it was completely legal and that I drove that car to work that day. They removed me from the list right away.
Today, I get a note taped to my front door. The contractor is trying to apologize now, several months later, and offering me $500.00 if I will just please remove my no trespassing signs so they can sell the house easier.
The very definition of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
I’m ready to tell them all to go kick rocks. I want this house scalper…sorry I mean house flipper to just bleed financially on this house for several months.
I won’t be calling back for several days if ever.
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It is easy to see why he was frustrated, but he handled the situation poorly. He should have put up cameras, gotten proof, and sued the contractors or the flipper in small claims court.
Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about this.
This would have been a good idea.
Here is someone who says he should keep the signs up.
Why talk to them? Bring them to court.
He really wants them to lose money.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a college student who decides to send his university a counter-bill after they try to get him to pay “inconvenience fees.”
This commenter thinks he is entitled to more.
He might not have handled the situation perfectly, but he made his point. Taking them to small claims court would have gotten him what he wanted a lot faster.
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