Imagine renting a house, and you’re in charge of taking care of the yard. What would you do if your next door neighbor kept criticizing how you took care of the yard even though his yard looked much, much worse than yours? Would you ignore him, complain to the landlord, or confront him about it?

In this story, one woman is in this situation, and she’s really frustrated with the annoying next door neighbor. Besides just criticizing her, he also seems to be spying on her. She’s not sure what to do about it, but she doesn’t want to move.

Keep reading for all the details about why she finds this neighbor so annoying.

Creepy neighbor (M45ish) watches me(F36) to complain about me to my landlord (F50’s)

For some context, I (F36) have lived in the same duplex for nearly a decade.

Last year the owner of the home moved out and offered me the downstairs apartment in exchange for keeping up with the yard work. They told me I could do whatever I want with the yard and to treat it as my own.

I agreed and have done a lot to the backyard, but have mostly just kept the front yard tidy. All I have done is kept the wisteria pruned and allowed the ivy to grow over the retaining walls, but have kept it tidy and off the sidewalk. This is important later.

Meet the neighbor.

I have a next door neighbor I will call Steve (M45ish). Steve is a handyman who has done a lot of work for my landlord over the years.

Steve’s house is a disaster. There’s junk spilling off of his porch, dying plants still in nursery pots, and his house is in total disrepair.

I don’t care about it at all, but it’s important context given his current complaints.

Steve sounds really annoying.

Over the years Steve has made comments about the amount of Lyfts I take, won’t speak to me or acknowledge that I have spoken to him when I am with a man, asked me for a can opener at 9pm (ladies??), and has told me he calls the city to report cars that have been parked for too long or too close to my driveway.

One day, Steve told me my car that I was saving up to fix had a tow notice and he had found a guy who wanted to buy it.

How convenient.

This is a short list of his comments…

It Steve spying on her?

After I moved to the downstairs apartment the landlord asked Steve to put in a new backdoor.

Steve came over to take a look without the landlord present. As we were talking about it he says to me “well, I’ll have to put in a threshold which will make it harder for you to walk around barefoot in the yard”

His upstairs windows overlook a portion of my backyard.

In the fall he got angry at me for leaving about a shovels worth of leaves in the gutter when it was leaf pick up day. He also raked up the leaves I left on the parking strip to kill the grass.

All annoying and weird, but I let it go.

She wants Steve to back off.

Anyway, this past January Steve came over as I was pruning dead branches in the front yard. Yes I know it’s early, but it was during a stretch of warm and dry weather.

Steve starts asking questions to the point where it becomes clear he doesn’t think I should be doing this at that time of year, but doesn’t want to say it outright.

At this point I am so over all his meddling that I send him a text the next day outlining how he’s made me uncomfortable and that I’d appreciate some neighborly anonymity.

Steve did not take kindly to that and denied everything and quickly ended the conversation. Steve has since avoided me.

At least her landlord is on her side.

All was well and fine until Steve tore down his fence which included the fence separating our properties. Steve tore it down in February, built two of the three sides, and left my side untouched until July when I finally contacted my landlord about it.

My landlord checked in with Steve and told me the fence would be finished by the end of July.

It was not.

I contacted my landlord again in September and the owner was very frustrated with Steve and said they’d call him and let them know it had to be done. I know the owner spoke to Steve on the phone for quite a while.

Days after, the fence was built.

This is odd.

A few days after the phone call my landlord texts me to let me know they’d be coming by the house this Saturday.

Yesterday my landlord comes by and starts hacking at the wisteria I’ve been pruning for years and cut the ivy all the way back over the top of the retaining wall. The wisteria was starting to crowd the sidewalk, but was by no means blocking the path.

I go outside to say hi and my landlord tells me they are going to start coming by once a month just to check on things.

Although they didn’t mention Steve by name, my landlord mentioned taking on a few other tasks that Steve had made some comment to me about in the last year.

She thinks Steve must have said something to the landlord.

My landlord did not indicate any problem even when asked if there had been complaints. They remained friendly and neutral and reiterated their plan of selling me the house one day.

However, none of it sits right since neighbors and people walking by always complimented the yard and wisteria.

Other than Steve apparently, everyone else thought my yard looked tidy and beautiful.

So that’s where I am.

She thinks Steve is hypocritical.

I feel like Steve has blown everything I’ve done this year way out of proportion to make me the evil tenant.

He cares so much about keeping the neighborhood nice but doesn’t seem to look in the mirror often.

I haven’t told the landlord anything about how Steve has made me feel uncomfortable and I am wondering what, if any, action I should take.

She’s not sure what to do about Steve, if anything.

Should I tell the landlord how uncomfortable Steve has made me feel and how he meddles in my business? Should I wait and see if venting his grievances were enough and now he’ll leave me alone?

I really really don’t want to move.

I would like to think the landlord has my back given everything that’s happened, but I still feel the need to cover my butt.

I am just so sick of this man watching me and trying to meddle in my life and I want advice on how to make it stop.

She dislikes the meddling neighbor but doesn’t want to move. Moving might be the only solution.

Let’s see if Reddit agrees.

This person thinks she should talk to the landlord.

Another person suggests moving.

This person would let the landlord deal with the neighbor.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an artist who made sure to leave the walls of her home blank and boring before moving out, even though they were covered with gorgeous murals before then.

Here’s a recommendation for cameras.

Security cameras are always a good idea. Her neighbor definitely sounds annoying, and that’s probably not going to change unless he moves. If she buys the house one day, she won’t have her landlord as a go between to deal with the neighbor. It would just be her. She might want to think about moving.