Everyone has a tale of a bad neighbor.

But these neighbors weren’t just bad, they were “dumping toxic waste in your parking lot” bad.

After months of back and forth between two businesses, one act of rudeness would ignite a battle that would bring one company to their knees, nearly costing them millions.

Find out what happens next!

Still waters run deep, and there’s sharp rocks at the bottom

Far too many years ago, I worked in a retail plumbing store.

There were two of us that worked the counter. The other guy, Tim, was, generally speaking, a very nice, well mannered guy, always polite to everyone. He worked opening shift, I worked closing.

Over the back fence of our parking lot was a chemical plant that manufactured fertilizer.

They weren’t exactly a joy to be around.

They were the worst neighbors is so many ways, but one of the most obnoxious things they did was to have trucks arrive with various chemicals for their plant, and they’d just dump raw powdered crap into the parking lot, and have their workers (with no protective gear) start shoveling it into bags.

We’d have to literally hose our cars off to be able to see to drive home at night. I’m amazed I never saw anyone working there with an extra hand growing out of their forehead.

Now for the inciting incident.

And one day, a bigger than usual truck – a tractor trailer – was parked up next to the gate into our back parking lot, close enough that Tim couldn’t get past it to get to the back door without actually climbing over it.

The alarm system was configured such that there was only a delay to disarm it before it went off (and called the police) if you came in the back door.

Open the front door, and we get charged by the police department for a false alarm.

So he goes into the office next door and politely – and he was always polite – asks the driver to move it.

They were decidedly un-polite in return.

The driver’s response was “Go **** yourself.”

OK, well, that’s anatomically unlikely, but – still waters run deep – ******* you is certainly possible.

It’s time to bring out the big guns.

So, in climbing over the truck to get in, he notes that it’s parked in a fire lane, and calls the cops who hated this company as much as anyone (for good reasons, but that’s another story).

So the cops showed up quickly and told the driver, “There’s a tow truck on the way, you have until it gets here to move your truck.” The truck was moved, quickly.

It’s not over yet, though.

But that’s only the beginning of those still waters. There’s still the sharp rocks at the bottom.

From that day on, every time they unloaded one of their trucks onto the asphalt, he’d call the fire department (who handle hazmat situations).

Still, the neighbors refused to learn their lesson.

The first couple of times, their excuse was, “Well, the truck was broken, and this was the only way we had to unload it.”

About the third time, they started writing citations (expensive citations).

After a few more times, I came back from lunch one day to find a fire truck parked in the alley, and guys in hazmat suits taking core samples out of their parking lot.

This finally got their attention.

They apparently came within a few parts per million of having to pay to have the entire parking lot dug up and hauled off to a toxic waste dump (which, in California, would probably have cost them seven figures – and it’s federal law, so their friends in the city government couldn’t protect them).

But they were never rude to Tim again.

Once we (or, rather, the kid who worked in the detailing shop we shared a building with) taught their stupid Doberman to stay out of our parking lot, they were still annoying, but not nearly as much so.

Sounds like the chemical plant learned a valuable lesson that day about respecting boundaries.

What did Redditors have to say?

This user thinks more than just the police could have been involved.

It’s up to Good Samaritans like this to look out for the common interest.

This Redditor is already itching for a follow-up story.

Ultimately the chemical plant learned that every interaction mattered.

Mistreating the wrong person can end in a world of hurt.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.