Neighborhood disputes have a way of turning small problems into personal vendettas.

After first-time homeowners had their fence damaged by a windstorm, their nosy neighbor decided patience wasn’t an option.

So when the neighbor reported them to the city, it led to a lesson in unintended consequences.

Keep reading for the full story!

Neighbor wanted the fence fix, we just removed the fence

A couple months ago, my friend and his wife had just moved into their first house.

Then a strong windstorm came through and damaged their fence. By damaged, I mean the fence was now leaning slightly — about 70 degrees.

The homeowners planned to fix the damage, but didn’t feel any big rush — that is, until their nosy neighbor stuck his nose where it didn’t belong.

Because home insurance wouldn’t fix the fence, and since it was winter, my friend and his wife planned to wait until spring to hire someone to fix or replace it.

Well, their backyard neighbor did not like that. The neighbor wanted the fence fixed ASAP.

The neighbor went out of his way to cause more trouble for them.

When the neighbor found out they were going to wait until spring, the neighbor called the city and complained that the fence was out of code.

When the city inspector came out to inspect the fence, it was, in fact, out of code and needed to be corrected.

Apparently the neighbor had quite selfish reasons for reporting the fence, so the homeowners decided to fight back.

The reason the neighbor was so fixated on the fence being replaced was because the neighbor has a pool in their yard and needs to have a fence around it for safety.

Well, my friend and his wife, now ticked off at their neighbor, decided to only remove the fence and not replace it.

Now the neighbor is left scrambling.

This allowed them to be in city code, and now when spring hits, the neighbor will need to build a fence on the back side of their own yard if they want to fill up their pool for the summer.

If the neighbor had just been nice and not called the city like a jerk, my friend would have built the fence back up in the spring with no problem.

By complaining, this neighbor managed to only make things worse for themselves!

What did Reddit think?

This user advises the homeowners to make their own call to the city.

Nowadays, it seems like many homeowners are only out for themselves.

This neighbor really doesn’t have any right to be complaining about “violations” when they have a glaring infraction of their own.

This commenter points out it really doesn’t matter much what time of year it is.

The homeowners followed the rules, just not in the way this nosy neighbor anticipated.

Sometimes being right costs more than being patient.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.