It’s never a good idea to act like a crazed lunatic before you have all the facts AND before you know who you’re dealing with.

Because a situation like that can get out of hand in a heartbeat and it doesn’t always end well for some folks.

Just like the guy in this story!

The fella who wrote the story explained what went down when a new neighbor moved in and thought he could call the shots.

Check out what happened!

Get your stuff off my property!

“I live not far from Milla Milla in North Queensland up in the mountains and rain forest. On my property I am blessed with a strong mountain stream that never goes dry and was perfect for a small hydro-electric setup to produce power for my house.

Now to place it on my property I would only get a small “head” of water meaning the hydro system would not be running at full capacity and produce a lot less power that it was actually capable of.

To ensure I never was left dry, I instead installed two hydro systems which essentially meant I could now run everything as much as I liked. To burn off excess power produced I mounted a row of heating elements, from old hot water systems, on the roof of my shed. (I could not feed the excess back into the grid as apparently it is illegal to do this from hydro for some reason but is apparently perfectly alright from solar panels?)

This is pretty cool!

A pretty nice setup once complete and apart from a very small amount of maintenance I never paid a cent for power ever again.

I was on very good terms with my downhill neighbour and eventually we struck a deal to place the generators on my neighbour’s property where there would be a higher head from my weir and the turbines would run at full power, easily providing enough electricity for both houses.

So we poured a new cement slab for the generators and ran a new feed pipe from my weir to the new generator site. Wired everything in and presto, free power all round.

Everything was good for nearly a decade until my neighbour finally sold the place and moved south to be with his kids.

Enter the new neighbor…

At first the new neighbour seemed okay. He had been told about the power sharing arrangement but apparently had not grasped the bit about the generators being on his property.

They were down by the creek and in the forest so it may not have been immediately obvious where they were located.

Unfortunately when he did discover them he appeared to take it as a personal affront and came storming to my door one night.

This was gonna be interesting…

N: “Why are there two bloody great machines on my place with a pipe coming from your place?”

Me: “Uh? Do you mean my hydro turbines?”

N: “Is that what they are? Why are they on my property? I don’t want them there! You need to get rid of them or I will!”

Me: “Wait a minute, those turbines are where our power comes from. We can’t just rip them out.”

N: “That is not my problem! I don’t want YOUR STUFF on MY land. You have one week to move them, or else!”

The discussion went on some more as I tried to get him to understand why they were there and what they did as well as the original deal to share power because of where they were. He was either too stupid or too rude to care so I finally agreed to move them the next day.

Well, if that’s what you want…

So the next morning I shut off the drive pipe, disconnected the turbines and loaded it all onto my ute. I then went to the original site on my property and reconnected the whole mess.

Of course I had to use the original wiring setup to connect them which only supplied my house. In any case there was now only enough power for one place anyway due to the lower head supplying less pressure. All good and my place had power again by the evening.

My neighbour came home after work to a dark house and defrosting freezers… and went mental!

LOL.

N: “Where the hell is my power? I am supposed to get free power on my place! You can’t do this!”

Me: “As I repeatedly explained yesterday, the DEAL was you get power in return for me being able to site the generators on your property. Now that you forced me to move them, you get nothing. In any case they now can only supply enough power for one house because of their location so I guess you are going to have to sort out something for yourself.”

Neighbour stormed off to buy a petrol generator.

In the coming week he had an electrician in to do a quote to supply mains power to his house, wasn’t happy with that as the house had been off-grid for a decade and would need extensive modifications to get back on grid. They would need to put a new pole in on his property at his expense as well as a new fuse box, around $15,000.

He then got a quote for his own hydro electric turbine but discovered he did not have sufficient head on his property. The salesman suggested he talk to his uphill neighbour (Me) to see if he could run a pickup pipe from that property.

Well, isn’t that interesting…?

Guess who came to my door, cap in hand and very apologetic, to ask if I would mind putting the generators back on his place so he could have power. When I told him there was no way in hell I was going to do that, he asked if he could have permission to run a drive pipe from my weir instead.

Me: “Gee, I don’t know if I want your stuff on my land.”

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I eventually let him do it although I did make him sweat a bit first. However there was a condition attached. If he ever made trouble with me again, that drive pipe was going to come out immediately!

Haven’t had so much as a peep from him since.”

Reddit users spoke up.

This person weighed in.

Another individual shared their thoughts.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a man who stops helping his neighbors out with his snowplow after they complain about his farm.

And this Reddit user spoke up.

Well, it looks like this guy should’ve kept his mouth shut, huh?

You can say that again!

Repeat after me, friends: I will not speak up until I know what I’m talking about.

There, wasn’t that easy?!?!

This is a perfect example of why it’s important to be a good neighbor!