I am very lucky to have had good neighbors or real issue in all my time as a renter.
So I'll mention a friend of mine who spent a year living in a building with a neighbor who stomped around like an elephant, blasted crazy loud music at all hours of the night, and her shiftless landlord who stood by and did nothing. My poor friend's mental health suffered a not insignificant toll because of this episode and she moved out after six months. At that point, she didn't even care about breaking her lease!
But some neighbors are worse. Much worse, in fact, as we learned after Redditor FloydTheB1rd asked the online community, "What are your 'neighbours from hell' stories?"
"She started texting me constantly..."
New neighbor moved into the building aside from mine (we had the same landlord, our buildings shared a yard/were on the same plot of land). Ran into her outside when I was coming home one night, and we chatted for a while. She seemed super chill and someone I could potentially become friends with, so we exchanged numbers so we could make future plans for me, her, and her partner that also lived with her. Biiiig mistake.
She started texting me constantly (and I mean constantly "where are you, love?"), waiting out on her stoop for me, standing in her window and looking into mine every time I looked outside. Texted and called me whenever I wasn't home, just to mention that my cat was in the window, or just to tell me I left a light on but she "knew I wasn't home". My downstairs neighbors contacted my landlord and asked him to ask THEM to put curtains up because they were always nude and staring out the window, but they refused.
She started leaving me voicemails begging me to Venmo her "just $20" or just "$50 until next week". Her reasons were "I need new speakers for my car", "I have to buy a gift for my friend", "I wanted to go out tonight, but now I'll have to be alone like usual".
Everyone on the lot has access to the main entrance of either building (for washers & dryers) and that concerned me, because I live alone. She knew when I was home, when I wasn't, and what exact apartment was mine. If she could come in and knock at any given time, what would stop her from breaking in?
I found myself not only dodging her messages, but SNEAKING in/out/around my own home with the lights off, or trying to find some place to stay every night so that I wouldn't have to come home. My home that I once felt 100000% safe being alone in did not feel safe anymore.
Some events suddenly went down that did NOT involve me that eventually got her evicted, and I haven't heard from her since. But holy hell.
Lived in an apartment with a long narrow driveway. There was two parking spots for every apartment in the house (three apartments, six spots), so all the tenants had parking, but there wasn't extra for guests. My spot was all the way in the back of the driveway. Normally that was fine, but the neighbors had a habit of constantly parking friends in the middle of the driveway overnight, blocking my car from pulling out with no way to get around. I also would regularly leave very early in the morning for work or to go to drill weekends in the National Guard. Time and time again, the neighbors would block me in and I told them politely several times that they needed to stop because at some point it would happen on a night when I was leaving before 5am.
I got ignored. Finally one night I was coming back around midnight from a party and was planning on getting up and leaving at 8am. Low and behold, theres somebody parking me in. Now, being a little drunk, I was less than polite. I banged on the door and told them to move the car. I was told to eff off. I told him he was a piece of sh!t and he needed to move the car right now because I knew he wouldn't do it later on. He sucker punched me in the face. It ended up in a short brawl with him in a headlock, but I ended up with a black eye from the sucker punch and bruised ribs because one of his friends kicked me while I grappled him. Cops ended up driving by and we both got charged, since there was no proof on who started it. Charges were later dropped, but I learned my lesson not to confront him.
He on the other hand, did not learn his lesson not to park me in. So fast forward a month to my next drill date and I wake up at 4am to see I'm parked in again by this POS lowrider. I wasn't about to get jumped again, so I called the cops and called my landlord. Cops knocked on the door, nobody answered. Landlord agreed to have the car towed and I got to be an hour late for drill while waiting for the tow truck to move the thing. I found out later than the car had cost the neighbors $150 to get out of the impound and another $1000 to fix the front end because it had gotten horribly messed up when the tow truck drug it out of the driveway. I never got parked in again.
"I had this downstairs neighbor..."
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I had this downstairs neighbor who kept calling the cops on my Roomba and my cat while I was at work. I had the Roomba set to run a few days a week around 3pm so that the place was clean when I got home. My cat is big (15 lb tomcat), but not the "stomping elephant" she reported to the police. She'd call in a noise complaint while I was at work. I would get a call from management about the noise and inform them I was not home. This went on for about a year.
Then the Sunday noise started. Homegirl downstairs likes to have her Sunday morning "me time" with some K-Ci and JoJo blasting full volume. I got fed up one day and went downstairs and asked her to turn it down. She answered the door in a purple silk robe and chewed me out about the noise from my apartment during the week.
I walked away, went upstairs, and decided it was a good time to listen to Master of Puppets because I cannot stand K-Ci and JoJo.
Fast forward another 2 months. It is now winter. It's a Tuesday around 7 pm. I get home with some groceries and am putting things away in the kitchen. I get a knock at the door. It's an off-duty cop, but still in uniform. He says my neighbor says I'm stomping and have been for hours. I'm wearing winter boots in my kitchen and the bags of groceries are on the counter. I tell him I just got home and yeah I know she calls sh!t in but as you can see, I just walked in the door. He looks at the log and sees the number of times she's reported things, informs me that he lives on the next floor up and will stop responding to these calls.
"Random people would walk up to the building..."
My upstairs neighbor was a drug dealer. Random people would walk up to the building and whistle at him through the window and then he would throw a bag down. Super brazen to pull that out in the open like that. Then one night two guys somehow entered the building and knocked on a different neighbors door. He opened it and these dudes had a gun pulled out on him. After they realized they had the wrong apartment they ran off and the neighbor called the police. The drug dealing neighbor moved out soon after.
"This family..."
This family had this kid run around, constantly causing trouble, stealing stuff, and just being a little sh!t in general. My family would not not put up with him. Especially when he flies his drone to dive bomb me and peek into girls' windows. He constantly brags about how rich he is, and how much of a loser I was. After a bit of this, I smacked his drone out of the air, took the memory card, checked to see if it had the stuff he saw, and took it to the police. Kid got exposed in front of the entire school. And he knew it was me. He doesn't have the balls to do anything to me, so I regret nothing.
"They had 17 dogs."
They had 17 dogs. Not all at once, two or three at a time over the course of ten years. They barked, they shat, they barked some more.
Animal Control would issue citations and order them to appear in court for neglect or forfeit the animals.
They would simply let animal control take their dogs and then get new ones.
Other times the UPS truck or some other driver would hit/kill their dog, so again, they would get new ones.
At one point the neighbor was keeping a female pit bull for a friend who was in prison. He let the dog roam free or kept it tied up on a clothesline. Wonderful folks, these neighbors.
"I kid you not."
My neighbors from hell were so loud and fought so much that I ended up on Oprah to discuss it. I kid you not. I became a community mediator to learn the skills to deal with my neighbor. Oprah flew me all the way to Chicago to talk about mediating disputes with neighbors on her show. Worth it. The episode aired in 1999 and it was entitled "Difficult Conversations". I am the woman who dealt with the drummer next-door.
"So I own my house..."
So I own my house and my neighbors rent their house (their landlord is a slumlord but that's another story). So there are two people who actually rent the house and they are great people, quiet and respectful. However, they are low income and rely on sub-tenants to make ends meet. The main renter guy works with people who have drug related issues and trouble with the law, I gotta give it to him, good on him for finding the good in people. But that being said in the last 2 years they have had 8 different sub-tenants!
The first two that moved in were bike thieves, they would go out, steal bikes and then chop them up in the backyard. Not only that they would put the chopped up garbage in my garbage bin so the day after garbage day I couldn't put any of my trash away. I ended up moving my bin into my locked backyard.
Eventually the cops kept showing up and they got evicted.
The second set of sub-tenants were also addicted to meth. They would honestly bring stolen sh!t back and stack it in the backyard. At one point there was so much crap in the backyard you couldnt walk. This included more stolen bikes and old washing machines etc. It looked like a trailer park. One of the subs set up a tent in the backyard and slept outside all summer long. They would lean over the fence and ask for cigarettes or beer and throw trash into our yard for no reason.
But I saved the best for last. The current sub-tenants are just horrible people. We have caught them stealing mail from other people and throwing the empty boxes in the alley or on the street. Clearly selling drugs out of the house as people come and go all day and only stay for a few minutes. I've found needles on my property and they're extremely rude. I have two young kids and don't want them playing outside because of this. As well, they cut across our lawn when leaving, absolutely zero respect for other peoples property. Worst part is I've brought this up with the main renter and shown him videos and he says there is nothing he can do as he relies on the money to pay rent...
I feel for the guy honestly, but this house single handedly makes our street worse and brings all the hood rats around causing even more crime. Our police force is useless as they have said on multiple occasions unless they catch them in the act there is nothing they can do. Such a shame as it used to be such a great neighborhood.
Every now and then, a friend of ours might say something, or we might overhear a complete stranger say something that makes us stop in our tracks.
More often than not, what we can't believe we just heard is something so ridiculous, we can't help but put the person who said it in their place.
Other times, however, what we just heard might have stunned us silent because of how shockingly clever it was.
Resulting in our not wanting to scold or yell at someone, but rather give them a handshake.
Redditor SubmergingOriginal was curious to hear the sharpest and wittiest things they've ever heard, from friends and strangers alike, leading them to ask:
"Enough with the dumbest; what is the wittiest thing you've ever heard someone say?"
Don't Give Me So Much Credit...
'I was on a team at work that was on a project working insane overtime."
"One night after an 80-90 hour week, we were all sitting around the table trying to finish up so we could go home."
"Around 11, my buddy's wife called, dubious about the hours he'd been keeping."
"We heard her through the line - 'are you cheating on me?'"
"Exasperated, he looked at our boss, then replied 'honey, if I was cheating on you, I would have been home by now'."- lionbatcher
Eternal Optimism...
"Asked a blind guy if he'd been blind his whole life."
"He said 'Not yet'."- Feeling_Mode_6465
Free time Isn't The Only Thing He Has On His Hands...
"My brother got a vasectomy and when the doctor was releasing him and giving him instructions (with the nurse listening in), one of the orders was to 'come back and have a follow-up appointment after you’ve ejaculated 30 times'.”
"Without missing a beat my brother asked 'what time do you open tomorrow?'”
"The nurse couldn’t keep it together after hearing that."- UtahUtopia
Awkward Season 8 GIF by The Office
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Double Whammy!
"My pal uses the phrase 'he doesn’t look strong enough to carry information' and it cracks me up every time."
"Calling someone stupid and weak in one fell swoop."- JennyW93
Can't Hide Your DNA...
'Whenever I jokingly insult my mum, she says 'that must be where you get it from'."
"She cracked the code."
"I can never offend her without offending myself."- JennyW93
Self-Sufficient!
"My brother was a line cook at a New Orleans restaurant."
"My mom was in town, staying at a fancy hotel, and he stopped by after work, still wearing his kitchen whites."
"He was reading a newspaper in the lobby waiting for her to come down when the shocked lobby manager sputtered at him, 'MAY I HELP YOU!?!?'
"He answered, 'thanks, but I know how to read',” and went back to his paper."- jobrody
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A Miracle!
"My brother-in-law’s comment."
"The entire family went out for my mother’s 80th birthday and after the meal we all went to a local park, largely occupied by the elderly, to rest."
"My mother needed crutches at this point, and they were resting against her bench."
"My 10-year-old niece, who looked like every starving waif image from Dickens, grabbed the crutches and started hobbling round the park."
"All the OAPs were following her progress with looks of pity until my brother ran up behind her, and kicked away the crutches."
"There was an audible gasp from round the park and then my niece picked the crutches back up and started chasing my brother, clearly intending to hit him."
"In the confused silence my brother-in-law’s voice rang out 'Praise be! She can walk again!'"
"We still think this was the highlight of the birthday celebrations."- DdraigGwyn
Still Legal, Whichever Way You Cut It...
"I picked up my pleasantly tipsy boyfriend from a nightclub."
"We were stopped by the Police for a random breath test."
"They asked me my age, and I said, 33."
"My bf blurted out '33? You told me you were 22'."
"Police just laughed and let me go."- Aggravating-Corgi379
Music Video Police GIF by Andrew W. K.
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A Bit Too On The Nose?
"Business law class in college years ago, talking about the issues that black Americans had before the Civil Rights."
"Amendment, trying to travel through the south with the discrimination so rampant, trying to find restaurants to serve them and decent lodgings."
"My instructor was posing a hypothetical: 'So you pull up out front of this place, you're exhausted from driving for hours, and you see the sign out front says 'Ku Klux Klan Motel'."
"'What would you expect to find there?'"
"Without missing a beat, from the back of the room came this gem: "'Extra sheets in every room?'"- NedsAtomicDB
Not Yet, Anyway...
"I was working with my friend and his dad."
"My friend (26) heard an ice cream truck near where we were working."
"He asked his dad if he could have a couple dollars."
"His dad asked, 'what for?'"
"My friend told his dad that there was an ice cream truck in the neighborhood, and that they were playing music."
"My friends dad told him "'They don't charge anything to listen to the music'."- tatersalad1234567890
Words Escape You In The Literal "Heat" Of The Moment...
"A friend of mine is a teacher and her husband is known for his wit."
"She told this story to him:"
"One day at school a kid took the hall pass and returned reeking like smoke."
"She asked the kid if he’d been smoking and he denied it over and over."
"She was about to send him to the office when she noticed smoke coming from somewhere."
"She told the kid and he realized that he didn’t put his cig out completely and it was burning in his pants pocket."
"The kid noticed and frantically tried to put it out and someone finally poured water on it."
"Her husband sat listening to this with a weird look on his face."
"She asked him what was wrong."
“'What’s wrong???'"
"'This was probably the only chance you’ll have in your life to say literally, ‘liar,liar, pants on fire’ and you missed your chance'."- Luder714
On Fire No GIF by PEEKASSO
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Amazing What You Might Say A Few Drinks In...
"When I went to a renaissance faire once, I went to a beer tent and ordered a Newcastle Brown Ale (seemed the most fitting for the surroundings)."
"The beer wench, without skipping a beat, said, 'Everyone wants a Newcastle - no one wants to remodel!'"- jayhof52
Read The Room People!
"My dad wiped out when skiing down a mountain and lost a ski."
"After a few minutes of hunting for it, he gives up, slings the one remaining ski over a shoulder and starts walking down the mountain in his ski boots."
"About half-way down, another skier stops and goes 'Gee! Did you lose a ski?'"
"My dad instantly replied 'No, I was out for a walk and found one!'"- PeterJoAl
There's a reason your mother always told you to "use your words".
As clever remarks can have a much more lasting effect on people than a push or shove.
Teachers are meant to impart knowledge to the next generation, but they have to get the kids to pay attention first.
Not an easy task.
So many, too many schools are plagued by kids who have no self-control.
Teachers end up playing referee, counselor, and parent in addition to their teaching role.
All of those additional hats don't come with any additional pay.
It's no wonder we're in a teacher shortage.
Redditor _Planet_Mars_ wanted the teachers out there to share some rough student stories, so they asked:
"Teachers, what is the worst thing you've seen a student do?"
I once saw a kid drive their car into the school office.
They were drunk.
Thankfully no one was injured.
POP!
"The was a loud pop and a flash in the back corner of the classroom. I asked the student sitting there what happened. She said it was firecrackers. I sent her to the office. While she was still in the office, I realized the electrical outlets in the room didn’t work. At that point, another student fessed up that the student sent to the office had put a pair of scissors in the outlet. I’m not sure why that student thought it was better to lie and claim she was doing fireworks inside the school?"
mynamelessname
Pain
"When I was teaching preschool, I had a little girl, between 3-4, walk up to another girl who was sitting on the rug reading a book, grab her by the hair and slam her head into the wall. They hadn’t been interacting in any way prior. When I asked her why she did it, she said she 'wanted her to know it hurts.'"
No-Doubt-8748
That Kid
"A different type of bad than most of these."
"I was a teacher at a poor inner-city school. I had a lot of wonderful students but some difficult ones. One was the worst — bright but was always sleeping through class and acting up and never doing homework. I lived about 30 minutes away. One night, I stopped by the local Wawa after a night out with friends. Was at least 11:30 pm and I was already dreading the early morning drive to school. And who should be checking me out but my own 'problem' student."
"He was working late to make money for his family and then getting home at 1:00 am or later before heading into school on 4-5 hours of sleep. He was a smart kid. Really smart. I hope things worked out for him but I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if he’d been allowed to have a childhood and focus on his education."
Low_Cartographer2944
Blame the Heat
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"It gets very hot here in the warmer months and so the school put out those big containers for water for everyone. Well, one student was caught peeing into a bag and dumping it into the containers."
huzzahserrah
Some kids really need some deeper therapy.
Peeing in bags? Seriously?!
From Beneath
"My wife is an elementary teacher and has a kid this year that likes to slip under their desk and lick toes (we live in a warm state) and they all think he will grow up to be a creeper."
CherryManhattan
BOOM
"This was the worst thing I know of that happened at my high school."
"Someone brought a blasting cap to school (OK, that's a bit dumb), and flushed it down the toilet (that's REALLY dumb). Then told a teacher about it, because maybe it wasn't such a good idea (their best idea that day, really)."
"Wound up with that restroom being taken out of service while the fire department x-rayed the plumbing to find and remove the (admittedly tiny) explosive. Took several weeks before it was back in service."
gogstars
Sad
"My favorite teacher in high school was a very kind a lenient man. Do your work, be respectful, and follow the major school rules and you and him would be cool. The one thing that would seem minor, but that he was very strict about was taking any medication in any way shape, or form in his classroom."
"One day, I needed to take some Advil for cramps and asked to take it. He said I needed to go to the nurse for permission. I ended up asking him why he was so strict about it. it turns out, he had a student pass out in class one day at his former school. He tried to wake her up and called the nurse, but she wouldn't wake up. They called 911 and by the time they got there, she had died of an OD on narcotics she took in the bathroom that she had hidden in a Tylenol bottle. I don't know how he went back to teaching after that."
musical-nerd24601
Painful
Moving Season 2 GIF by Paramount+
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"Saw a 4-year-old purposely push a piece of furniture over onto another 4-year-old at preschool. It actually really hurt the other kid, and her parents took the school to court."
MPD1987
Kids are brutal.
No wonder people home school.
