Moving into a new rental property should be an exciting and happy event, but when you have horrible neighbors with whom you share a wall, it can quickly turn into a nightmare.

That is what the young couple in this story experienced, and they just couldn’t believe how things kept escalating out of control. They are at a loss as to how to handle things like constant complaints from the neighbors, them trying to get their dog to attack, 10+ neglected cats living next door, and much, much more.

Read through this awful story and see what you think the young couple should do. Personally, I think they really need to work directly with the authorities, and they should have been doing that for a while now.

Cat lady bangs on the walls and crashes out.

Last year my girlfriend and I moved out of both of our parents’ houses and into a private back unit duplex.

Sounds like a good place to live.

Both units and the front house are owned by the same land lord. It’s my girlfriend’s first apartment and my second.

Initially, when we moved here, we picked the place for the ample privacy from the main road, because the only shared wall between the two units would be the Living Room wall (this is critical to keep in mind for later), and because my girlfriend’s relative (we will call Elly and her boyfriend/husband Dwayne) rents the other duplex unit, so we were looking forward to familiarity and friendly neighborly visits.

Everything seems very reasonable at first.

I’ve shared walls in an apartment unit before, and that was my initial and only real concern, but I was assured that the unit next to us has a bedroom way in the back of the unit which shares NO walls with us.

Before moving into the unit, we even had the landlord ask the maintenance guy to install a wall plug in the center of the shared living room wall so we could mount a TV to it, which he had no problem with.

Additionally, when moving in, we had an not legally operable car we were upside down on with payments… We asked Elly and Dwayne if we could kindly park that car in their extra dirt lot in front of their side of the duplex, and they kindly agreed (this was a trap we walked into without realizing it).

I’m sure this didn’t make much noise.

When we moved in, our work schedules at the time revolved around working all day, and coming home at night, around 9pm and 10pm.

Every night, we would sit on the living room floor and quietly unpack boxes while we talked about our day. No music, no podcasts, just conversation and opening boxes of mostly clothes and my girlfriend’s makeup.

Kind of weird, but no big deal.

By the third night, Elly had texted my girlfriend asking us if we could not unpack anything after about 9 pm, because her and Dwayne were trying to sleep.

She explained that she had her sleeping arrangement in the living room, because she keeps all of her cats in her actual bedroom so they cannot climb on the furniture.

I guess they weren’t being quiet enough, but I’m sure things will just get worse.

We apologized and assured her that we would do our absolute best to be as quiet as possible and only unpack in our bedroom from now on. The fourth night was interrupted by my hearing loud deliberate wall banging coming from the one shared wall we have.

I don’t mean quiet thuds, I mean full hammer fists to the wall loud enough to rattle dishes in the cupboard. We got silent and effectively left the livingroom for the night.

They really are trying to be good neighbors.

This wasn’t addressed immediately, we just decided to stop unpacking when we got home, and instead wake up early to unpack before work or only during our days off…

One of the first things we set up in our living room was my gaming computer set-up and Television. We didn’t have a wall mount for the television yet, so we stood it up on a TV stand on the shared wall where it will eventually be mounted.

People have a right to live normal lives in their home, and that includes watching TV at a reasonable volume.

Every night when we got off work we would be wide awake since we’re both hardwired to be night people due to our jobs… We would get home, quietly make dinner, and throw on a movie with the volume often set so low that we required subtitles to understand dialog.

The volume would have been, now that I’ve looked up the law, WELL below the legal decibel level for night hours in our city. We were genuinely and in good-faith trying to be as respectful as humanly possible knowing they sleep in their living room.

What is wrong with this lady?

Almost every night we would hear loud banging on the shared wall… Every time we’d pause the movie, turn the volume down, change the volume settings, anything we could so we would be allowed to use our living room during our waking hours.

If we were cooking, the banging would come from our kitchen wall. It seemed like if we weren’t sneaking through the house, literally whispering and doing everything with a feather’s touch, we’d hear banging on the walls.

What more can this young couple do?

My girlfriend texted Elly about the banging, which she admitted she was doing because she was frustrated with our noise while she was trying to sleep.

We told her we were deliberately and conscientiously trying to be as respectful as possible with our use of the living room and kitchen, and that it was unfair to expect us to completely alter our lives to revolve around her and her husband’s choice to put their bed in their living room and against the ONLY shared wall in the house.

We didn’t expect her to change her sleeping arrangement, but that she’d have to be more understanding of our right to use the living room we pay rent to use, as long as we’re doing it respectfully, quietly, and far within the bounds of the law.

Getting the police involved is a joke.

Elly followed up by soft threatening to call the police on us if noise continued, saying something to the effect of “People can call the police for noise complaints around those hours, I don’t need to go to that extent, and I wouldn’t because that’s a bit much”.

We reiterated that we’re doing everything we can to be respectful and legal, and we’re not sure what else we can say or do other than just not be allowed to use the living room after dark.

Really, the landlord should be willing to step in here.

The banging on the walls continued. It would also happen early in the morning between 7 and 10am if my girlfriend was making breakfast. We notified our landlord, who effectively said they’re sorry we’re dealing with that but we’d need to call the police to handle it that way, and that he wont take sides.

I guess I can respect that, because we would need to prove they’re banging on the walls with video, which we tried to do a few times, but unsuccessfully.

And now, things are getting even weirder.

Over time, this made my girlfriend so nervous to use her living room that she effectively never came out of the bedroom on her days off unless I was home. She has gotten therapy for the stress and anxiety over doing anything in her living room.

At some point we noticed Elly and Dwayne installed a camera in the shared carport pointing squarely into our yard, which would turn on and chime every 20 seconds the second we came anywhere near the front half of our gated front yard or car port.

We began to suspect they were watching us live, because their camera would stop the repeated chime randomly and their camera would show a solid red light.

Is the neighbor finally ready to change?

I tried not to notice since we dont know for sure one way or the other, but my girlfriend became paranoid about being watched while she was doing laundry or getting into or out of her car by our psycho neighbor, and I don’t blame her…

One day, I’m coming home from work, and I am approached by Elly. Elly asked if she could have a quick word with me (it was probably 10pm in the driveway) and with a metaphorical hat in hand she explained that she is tired of the drama, and just wants to have a normal neighborhood again.

Hopefully, things can get to a normal place.

I explained what made my girlfriend uncomfortable about the camera and the wall banging, and she agreed that this was all a lot of extra nonsense that didn’t need to continue. She apologized, and agreed to just keep her distance until my girlfriend was ready to reach out.

After some time of therapy and healing, my girlfriend reached out to Elly. This peace was short-lived..

Now this lady wants to be friends? Weird.

Immediately Elly began bossing my girlfriend around about where we could install out TV, suggesting that we could install it in our bedroom without a shared wall, and also demanding that on a majority of my girlfriend’s days off she spend time with her in ways my girlfriend just wasn’t comfortable.

Honestly, she wasn’t comfortable with being told to spend the majority of her days off with Elly, because my girlfriend is an introvert. We dont go out often, and we dont like crowds, especially on our one or two days off per week.

And of course, things are escalating once again.

After rejecting Elly a few times, tensions grew immediately once again. My girlfriend noticed that text conversations were short and unfriendly, or she would be ignored completely.

We began to notice that whenever my girlfriend would get home off work or try to go out and do laundry, Elly and Dwayne’s uncontrolled pit/boxer mix would come sprinting out of their house, barking and charging toward the fence which would scare my girlfriend and make her afraid to come or go.

People who can’t control their dogs are a menace.

This would only happen with my girlfriend was coming, going, or doing laundry… And when I tell you the dog is uncontrolled, even when they walk the dog in/out of the yard, the dog is pulling with all of it’s strength straining it’s throat against its collar, and Elly/Dwayne are both like 100lbs soaking wet, they are stumbling forward barely able to control the dog… The dog walks them.

This continues sporadically for weeks, until randomly one holiday we receive a call from our landlord late at night saying our neighbor is demanding we move our car out of her unused dirt lot immediately or they want it towed.

Sometimes you have to deal with people on their own level.

We were shocked and informed him we had no idea they wanted us to move the car, and they hadn’t informed us in any way but gave us verbal AND written (text) permission to park it there. When we told our landlord this, he said that to remain fair, since we had prior permission, we would need to move it by the end of the week, and we did.

At this point, I got angry and decided to lower myself to her level and play the petty game. I informed our Landlord about their camera in the front yard, and explained how they use it to make my girlfriend uncomfortable by letting the dog charge out at her, and ONLY her, when she’s coming, going, or doing laundry.

He is finally starting to push back.

I was hoping our Land Lord would say something about the dog, but instead he asked me if I wanted him to tell them to take the camera down. Landlord explained that it’s his property and if he tells them to take it down, they have to since it’s pointing into a private area.

Now, I knew deep down he had basically no authority to ask them to remove their camera, but I said sure anyways, knowing the simple request would make Elly crash out.

I told Landlord we’d really appreciate it if he’d do that for us, as it would likely resolve all of the issues immediately. I assured my land lord we were and still are here to try to resolve these issues in good faith, and we’re really sorry for any of this needing to bother him during a holiday.

I honestly feel bad for the landlord too.

The next day I got a call from Landlord saying Elly was REALLY not happy he asked her to remove the camera, and that she needs it for her medical disability (allegedly she has diabetic issues), and she can’t remove the camera.

Elly not liking the request and the camera staying up was the expected outcome. Landlord then encouraged me to install a divider in between the cars and/or install our own camera.

It is sad that they have to live like this.

This continued for months. The dog rushing out at my girlfriend was the most common occurrence. The wall banging would still happen, all be it much less often and it became much lower in volume.

We didn’t really do any research into security systems and we assumed it would have been too expensive to afford most of them and just kept living life like this, trying to be quiet and stay inside or away from the house.

This lady is unhinged.

At some point randomly while I was out doing laundry, I was approached by Elly. Elly said to me that she feels like my girlfriend has been far too disrespectful of Elly and Dwayne, and she feels hurt, and like my girlfriend ruined any chance of them having any kind of friendship ever again.

I was confused and told her I think the feelings are mutual, but that’s between her and my girlfriend. She began shaking, stuttering, and started talking louder to cut me off to explain that she just wanted me to tell my girlfriend that she ruined her chances of being friends with her.

I asked her directly why she was yelling and seemingly getting angry at me over what was supposedly a casual encounter in the carport, and she said while spitting and stuttering that she’s not angry, that’s just how she talks.

Some people just can’t seem to change.

I kind of laughed, told her the feelings between her and my girlfriend are likely mutual and then called her out directly for trying to scare us with her dog. I told her “how about not sicking your dog on us when we get home. It scares my girlfriend”

She then blamed my girlfriend for being intimidated by that, literally saying verbatim “That’s her fault that she’s scared of my dog, not mine”. I questioned, “How is it her fault you release your dogs ONLY when she gets off work?”.

I will be honest, I stopped listening to her at that point. I called her a crazy B word and walked away from the encounter. She sent the video to family who told her she was being legitimately crazy coming out and confronting me the way she did.

This may be escalating to the level of harassment.

Randomly since then, they will mock us through the walls when they hear us laugh or cough, literally performing their best witch cackle when they hear us laugh or the worst acting coughing fit you’ve ever heard whenever we cough (we both smoke weed, coughing will happen occasionally).

After months of the dog charging out at my girlfriend, it got worse and worse. They began literally standing in their yard staring at my girlfriend while she does laundry, or they’ll suddenly need to water their dirt with the hose.

One time, this happened while I was home. My vehicle was in the shop, and they likely didn’t realize I was home. My girlfriend went out to do laundry, and the dog came charging out, and Elly came out to water her dirt. Like clockwork…

He is going to get this on video.

So when my girlfriend came inside, I decided I wanted to go outside to hang out in my front yard while I watched youtube on my phone… I quickly pulled up my phone camera app, and began recording while youtube played in the background. I stood at my fence while she stood there encouraging her dog to get riled up by me.

At this time, she had no idea I was recording. I could hear her say “we’re not scared by the bad man, get him.. Go get him, we aren’t scared by him, go on, get him!” until she looked up and saw me recording. She then immediately stopped and called me a weirdo.

There was a brief verbal altercation I’m not proud of where I said some really untasteful and ragebaity stuff to her… Here’s how that went:

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Maybe he shouldn’t be escalating the issue here, but what else could he do?

She pointed up at her driveway camera and said it’s all on camera and she’s not sure why I think I need to record. So, I told her it was because I wanted proof she’s training her dog to bark at me and my girlfriend when we come into/out of our house, literally saying “good girl” repeatedly at her dog for barking at me.

She said “Yea, because she IS a good girl”. I then told her “Hey, don’t delete your driveway cam video of any of this, because if you do, it’s spoliation of evidence of a crime”.

I kind of knew this wasn’t legally true, but I knew she wouldn’t like hearing it. She then said her dog is allowed out in her yard whenever it wants to be, and that I need to get a life.

He is wrong for escalating, but getting everything on video was smart.

She then hit me with “I’ll pray for you” before calling me a demon, and then encouraging her dog even more to get riled up by me, saying “Go get him! Go get him! Go get him!” and clapping her hands.

I then reiterated that I have a video of her encouraging her dog to harass us. I just stood there silently recording her from that point on while she continued like a lunatic for about a minute before slipping back into her house.

I know I was wrong for the things I said, but I was very angry at the stress and anxiety they were causing my girlfriend. For what it’s worth, I actually do feel bad for what I said.

Things just keep getting worse between these neighbors.

As a man I should be able to compose myself in the face of frustration better than I did. I was weak, and I broke. I let loose my word horde for the first and final time (hehe).

I have since installed a camera aimed at the exact center of the shared driveway, which I leave on firefly mode meaning every 2 seconds the light pulses to full brightness and then back off. I’m not sure if this sets off their camera at all, but I’m more concerned with safety than their camera at this point.

I also have my camera set to verbally say “Hello, you are being recorded” every 5 seconds it’s active with a floodlight attached. They have since installed really cheap see-through privacy sheets for their fence and a “Beware of Dog” sign.

Maybe it is time to notify the police.

They have taken to letting their dog out of their gate with no leash whenever they’re doing something in the shared driveway. I and my girlfriend are genuinely afraid they will forget their gate open, or they will have the dog off leash and we won’t notice when we’re coming/leaving the house, and we’re going to get attacked.

Elly and Dwayne have absolutely no control over that dog, and now they’re putting it in situations where if we’re doing laundry or getting into/out of a car, we are in direct danger… We have them on camera doing this….

This is absolutely disgusting. Why does the landlord let them have these neglected cats?

They have now become the cause of a cockroach infestation that my landlord is requiring we leave during fumigation for. We have seen nearly no cockroaches, but apparently their side is infested.

We know they have 10+ cats all locked up in a bedroom with more than one kitten locked in their bathroom…

The smell during the summer is repugnant. I’m becoming nose blind to it, but when we have visitors they ask if we have cats, or if the neighborhood has feral cats, because our back bathroom and shared brick fireplace/oven chute in the kitchen smells like ammonia/cat urine, because we share air through the fireplace and our bathroom windows are somewhat close to each other.

Letting them stay in that disgusting house is not good for the cats either.

They have consistently taken in stray cats and animals from the street since we’ve moved in, even offering cats to us in the past during our brief peace time.

What we don’t want is the cats to be taken and put down, that’s why we haven’t called animal control yet. That would be really really depressing and I don’t want that on my conscience.

But we do know without a shadow of a doubt that there are MANY cats back there, my girlfriend has seen them in person herself. Whenever someone comes to the door, 2 – 4 jump up into the tiny window they have with more looking through the blinds.

They really need to call the police and animal control.

We’re sort of at a loss on what to do next, because we’ve never wanted to deal with neighbors from hell. We moved here hoping family would be familiar, and we would have FEWER issues.

This has been the opposite of true so far.

I think their next steps are obvious. Call the police and animal control, but don’t stop there. Even if only to start getting things documented in case the situation escalates further.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this disturbing story.

The landlord may have known about this tenant and failed to deal with it. He does hold some responsibility, and he should be helping to fix the problem. I doubt he will, though.

Document the way their dog acts, and show it to the police and the landlord.

I like this commenter’s suggestion, though.

It is beyond time to call animal control and let them rescue the cats (and the dog).

They have tried everything on their own, but nothing works. It is time to call the authorities and let them handle it.

They are way past the point where they should have contacted the authorities, and they need to act fast. They can tell themselves all they want that they are worried about the animals if they call animal control, but these poor creatures are living in filth already.

Plus, with the threats (and implied threats) from the dog, it is a good idea to have things on record with the police. While they are young and want to be good neighbors, these two are hurting themselves by failing to file proper reports.