Their Next Door Neighbor Constantly Complained About Everything They Did, Including Projects That Directly Benefited The Neighbor Himself, But They Are Pushing Forward Anyway
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Some neighbors seem to want to get in everyone’s business and stop them from doing anything to their own homes.
What would you do if you had a ‘Karen’ as a neighbor who was always complaining about every project you took on, even though you tried to treat them nicely?
That is what happened to the people in this story, and they finally just pushed forward with their projects and endured the constant complaining of their neighbor.
At some point, all you can do is ignore people like this. Check out the full story below and see if you agree.
How to deal with Karen next door?
We bought our home in 2020, and unfortunately the neighborhood Karen lives right next to us. He’s been nothing but a nuisance since we moved in.
He was upset that snow WASN’T thrown into his yard? That is odd.
Our first interaction was him scolding me for not throwing snow into his yard when I shoveled out my driveway for the first time. But it’s gotten much worse.
A few years ago, we got solar panels on our detached garage. He complained to the town that they “caused glare and we don’t want to have to put shades on our window”.
Is the neighbor coming onto his property to turn off these panels?
The installer commissioned a 3rd party glare report to prove it wasn’t true. Town never verified, but told us to move the panels.
We did, and soon after we were approved, they were mysteriously turned off. The technician was surprised because someone didn’t throw the obvious cut off switch; there’s a second, failsafe recessed switch designed in a way that animals can’t trip it.
That also means you can’t see that it’s been tripped, and resulted in having to pay the utility for power for 2 weeks.
Putting up cameras was a good idea.
We can’t prove it was our neighbor, but no one else had any reason to touch it, nor any reason to know it was there. So, we got a camera and for some reason, haven’t had any more issues with that. Imagine that.
We hired a landscaper to clean up our yard a bit. The landscaper wanted to take down a weed “tree” from our yard. Karen came out to scream at him not to touch their “shade”. We played nice and told him to just leave it.
They are really trying to get along.
Even tried to build bridges by sharing homemade bread, and grilled chicken when their friend walked up to the property line to say our food smelled really good.
We were polite and let the neighbors know about landscaping work we were pursuing, including dry wells to mitigate stormwater runoff. He shrugged. No objections at all. This was over a month before applying.
What is this guy’s problem?
We were denied permits for a patio as part of the project and sought a variance. Karen told us a few days before the zoning board meeting that he was going to speak against us because “dry wells don’t mitigate stormwater, they make it worse.” He waited until we paid for the application to object at all.
At the meeting, he opted to lie under oath: he falsely claimed our other neighbor was opposed to our project, but was too old to come speak against us. Those neighbors strongly support, and have been encouraging, our project.
He also claimed that our driveway and garage were dumping catastrophic amounts of water on his yard that threatened to destroy his shed.
Clearly, the plan was a good one.
With the help of an engineer and a planner, we got a unanimous yes on our application. Enough dry wells to bring our impervious cover from about 70% down to about 50%: both neighbors stand to benefit greatly.
It’s a tiny yard, our experts all said this was overkill compared to the patio we were requesting. We also included a drain to explicitly mitigate stormwater where it’s worst.
What will Karen say about this?
After months, we finally started work a few weeks ago. Our landscaper needed my car out of the driveway, so I parked on the street. Karen has 4 cars on the street, for the 2 drivers in their home…
Part of the project involved an electrician: we had to move the power line going from the house to the garage to make room for the drywells.
The electrician had to confirm the power was off and physically disconnected at the house and garage so the landscaper could move the cable to another trench. That’s all. 15 minutes of work.
This guy is just nuts.
The electrician had parked in front of Karen’s house. Karen came out to scream at the crew, demanding they move because his wife was coming home with groceries.
Didn’t ask, just barked at them. The electrician was done before he finished ranting. Then he started asking how I’d feel if he started parking in front of my house, and then kept ranting when I said I wouldn’t care because it’s a public street.
He is really crossing the line.
Today, the landscaper finished pouring cement: the bulk of the drywells are under the driveway, fed by drains. Two across the driveway, a ditch around the new patio, and a downspout from the house.
Our camera got a shot of Karen’s kid kneeling in the grass with a laser level because Karen thought the driveway “looks sloped towards my yard.” Yelled at my partner for it while he was taking out the garbage.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this driveway.
Landscaper did string leveling and followed the engineering plans to conform to the driveway he tore out. He raised it at the back to aim water into the drain. He offered to come back out immediately to confirm the neighbor was full of it: he confirmed it was level, matched the grading he was required by the town to follow, and then took the tape off the drains since the concrete had set enough.
The town also inspected before he poured concrete and confirmed he was doing the work correctly and according to the engineering blueprints.
The guy is really all talk, and he has no leg to stand on.
But Karen ranted at him while he checked his work. “I can see it’s sloped towards my yard. I didn’t have any problem with water coming off their driveway before. If I get water in my yard from this, I’m calling the town. And my lawyer.”
I’m not particularly worried about him following through: I have the transcript from the variance meeting where he claimed to be getting catastrophic amounts of water from our driveway, and an official copy is maintained by the town.
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It is time to just start ignoring him entirely.
So, if he does convince a lawyer to sue, he would either be admitting to perjury at the zoning board meeting, or committing perjury with the complaint. He’s just really obnoxious.
How do you deal with a neighbor who enjoys lying to create issues to be mad at? It’s frustrating, and killing them with kindness has done absolutely nothing.
The only option is to just start ignoring him entirely. Why even pay attention to someone like this when they can’t be reasoned with?
Let’s see if the people in the comments have any recommendations.
This commenter thinks the neighbor is crazy.
It is great to be nice, but only for so long.
Why are they even talking to the neighbor about these projects?
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who wants peace and quiet by the pool, but finds guests and loud music instead.
Here is a great way to handle this situation.
This person went through something similar.
There is just no pleasing some people, and you can’t drive yourself crazy trying. At this point, this person needs to just ignore their neighbor completely.
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