Peak Points
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Peak Points
Did my kid just get us evicted!?
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A loud bang at night. A flashlight on the patio. Then the realization hits: someone just broke through the fence and is scrambling out of your backyard. We start with a “neighbors from hell” story that escalates from thin-wall bass and rude teens to trespassing, car-climbing, and a full-on safety scare and we unpack how the situation finally stops.
We talk about what actually moves the needle in real-life neighbor disputes: documenting every incident, saving security camera footage with timestamps, contacting the landlord directly, and filing HOA complaints and non-emergency police reports to build a paper trail. We also wrestle with the messy feelings that come after the dust settles, including the relief of quiet and the discomfort of knowing an eviction can still be a harsh outcome.
Then we shift to a different kind of nightmare: a neighbor who seems to pop outside at 6 AM to spy over a privacy fence, using a step ladder and small tactics to harass without clearly breaking the rules. From there, we get into boundaries with a “nice but exhausting” neighbor who leans on guilt and constant crises, plus a petty dog poop conflict that proves how fast small grudges can turn into ongoing retaliation.
If you’re into Reddit stories, community drama, HOA advice, home security cameras, and the psychology of escalation, this one is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who has wild neighbor stories, and leave a review. What would you do first: talk, document, or report?
Welcome And New Show Format
SPEAKER_03Welcome everyone to another episode of Peak Point. We have a very special episode for you today, and all Reddit neighbors from hell. Bum bum bum.
SPEAKER_02And a little bit of news.
SPEAKER_03And a little bit of news.
SPEAKER_02We're uh gonna change up our format a little bit. We're gonna be experimenting a little with doing just UFC episodes and then just Reddit episodes rather than trying to combine them. It seems to be a better received format and a little easier for us on the production side.
SPEAKER_03And uh we'll try to throw in a little bit of fun uh segments, uh we'll we'll try to experiment a little bit more for the listener, and uh hopefully you guys like it. Hopefully you guys like it.
SPEAKER_02Uh and hopefully they'll be a little more engaging, so you can feel free to put your own two cents in on questions that are like, would you rather or what have you.
SPEAKER_03And let's get on with the show.
SPEAKER_02And with that, from neighbors from hell is a quite long one,
Teens Escalate From Noise To Trespass
SPEAKER_02so buckle up. This one gets deep.
SPEAKER_01Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_02From Morton Murphy. Teenagers pushed us too far and probably got their family evicted. TL um I'm not gonna read the TLDR 'cause it gives away too much.
SPEAKER_03Copy that.
SPEAKER_02I try to be a polite neighbor. You're not going to see me often and I won't seek out conversation, but when new neighbors move in, I will go and introduce myself and offer mine and my spouse's phone number. This is a nice neighborhood. It's completely normal to have Christmas baskets or let someone's dog out if they need it, stuff we did for our previous next door neighbors. No one would complain about a random party on a holiday weekend. I won't be bothered by your kids playing loudly on the sidewalk. People behave but aren't unreasonable about expectations, especially since we live in townhouses that are all connected. There's just no way to eliminate all neighbor noise. All this to say that I don't think we have unreasonable community expectations. Since these new neighbors moved in to the vacant rental next to ours, we have had nothing but trouble. They have only been here a couple of months, but they are the second worst neighbors we have ever had. The absolute worst was a couple at our first apartment who resolved conflicts via fisticuffs. A little extreme there. The first annoyance was a normal one. Their bass was too loud through the walls, a common problem since people aren't aware of how thin the walls are. And we did the same thing, and our previous neighbors had texted and we apologized, adjusted the settings, and confirmed that they couldn't hear it anymore, and all was well. We worked from home and needed to be in meetings, so we went over to ask them to turn it down, and no one answered. Finally, we texted the mother, and the music only happened in late afternoon between the time when her kids would get home from school and when she would get home from work. Since it was a couple of hours maximum, we let it go and didn't schedule any meetings during those times. We were kids once too. Then spring break happened. Either the mother works both days and nights or simply spends eighteen out of twenty four hours outside of the house. Twice in one night my husband had to sternly tell her daughter's friends to stop looking in our cars, leaning on our cars, and screaming after midnight. That's qu just a quick aside, that's wild to have to do that twice in one night.
SPEAKER_03Insanity.
SPEAKER_02Five feet from our front door, by the way. Then the next night we catch them doing it again. Whoa. My husband opens the door to one of the drunk little idiots popping a squat and pissing less than a foot from our car.
SPEAKER_03No way.
SPEAKER_02My husband, being a reasonable man, starts yelling angrily at them for pissing in front of our co our door. That's that's pretty reasonable, I mean reasonable. Maybe not the most emotionally well adjusted response, but fully expected in that situation. The hooligan closest to sober remembered basic survival instincts and began wrangling the rest of them into the house, apologizing sloppily but profusely. Apparently, a very angry, very big, very bearded man yelling will do that to you. Later, we have yet another text exchange with the mother. We make our stance known, and I'm quite proud of myself for keeping my temper in check. She said she will handle it, and we end the conversation on good terms. Even then we were willing to try and be nice and give them another chance. We were little asshole teens once and chalked it up to the high of spring break. We hosed off the pavement and tried to generate a level of patience hitherto unforeseen in either of us. We had about a week of peace, but the good times couldn't last. The teen girls have developed a small collective of devoted derelict boys who hang around outside their house several afternoons a week.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_02They once again leaned on our cars, looked into our cars, and were little assholes when my husband came outside. They tried to mouth off, but when he asked them to repeat themselves, they scuttled down the sidewalk. Rinse and repeat for a couple of weeks. Weeks weeks Wow. That brings us to last night. We're fun and exciting people, so we were idly scrolling our phones while watching something. Suddenly there was a loud bang, and we noticed a phone flashlight in our back patio. They had broken through our fence, and were scrambling for a way out. We hear slash vaguely see, whoever it is, crash through our garbage cans on the other side. His options were to either run that course, risk the ten plus foot drop into the woods, or escalate to breaking and entering in a state where he probably would have become a statistic. In an obviously rare moment of intelligence, he chose the first option. The whole thing freaks us the hell out, understandably. The whole thing freaks us the hell out, and by the time we get our heads on right and go out front to see the same goddamn teens scattering through the neighborhood like mice. One of them didn't get far enough away and tried to casually act like he was just walking by, but when we confronted him he was clearly rattled. We weren't about to detain a child because we're not psychotic, so we let him go. He scampered off to wherever little shits go when they're not ruining everyone's evening. The neighbors on the other side of the problem house had someone break into their back area as well, going the opposite direction, and I panicked. I reached out to the mom, convinced her daughters may have been hurt or they were robbed. She brushed me off and got a little rude when I told her the trespassers had definitely come from her house and that every other neighbor said the other said the same thing. That is until a random uncle appeared, driven home by someone else. He listened to us and fed us the usual bullshit people do when they don't want to deal with anything. Lots of empty apologies and excuses for why the kids are alone, but apparently he told the mom that four adults were all saying the same thing. The working theory is that the boyfriend somehow knew an adult was coming back, probably location sharing, so they panicked and left out the back.
SPEAKER_01Hmm.
SPEAKER_02The mom tried to walk back her attitude and apologize after hearing how many witnesses there were. But I am not very forgiving once I'm at a certain point. It's something I'm working on. I did not accept her apology. Later, when we reviewed our camera footage from the whole night, we saw the same little shit we stopped go into her house with the others about an hour before they trespassed. The same little shit comes back later after the trespassing and leans on our cars, climbs on our cars, and films themselves lip syncing for whatever reason. So we decided to go nuclear. To quote the certified badass Cobra Bubbles, whatever that is, thus far you have been adrift in the sheltered harbor of my patients. That's a pretty solid quote. Whatever that's from. Sheesh. Mommy Dears had no way of knowing this, but the neighbors we were friendly with had lived there before, and they were very good friends with the homeowner. It was very easy to get his number from them, text him, and bing bang boom. Suddenly my husband is on the phone with a very embarrassed guy whose apologies were much more coherent than Piss Girl's friend. He was really very appreciative of the Google Drive link with videos of every single issue we have had. A few I left out just to save space. Complete with timestamps. The other neighbors got his phone number as well. Wow. We learned some interesting info from him. The mom gave us a different name than the one he had. There was only supposed to be two people total living there. We see five or more living there regularly. Other fun things I'll leave to your vivid imaginations. Needless to say, they're in violation of their lease with just this. But one thing my husband and I have in common is that we are very thorough. So the next step was the police report. Did you know that in my state you can file a non-emergency report online for the things like someone in your back porch late at night, or for people casing your car? It's really very easy. Our HOA isn't open until Monday or Tuesday, as I later learned. But they had a nice little contact page we filled out. The other neighbors also filed reports and contacted the HOA. However bad my Saturday night was, I think their upcoming week might be worse. My husband informed the mother via text of all the steps we had taken, and that our cameras are always on, front and back. She has been silent and absent from the home since I did not accept her apology last night, and laid out exactly how much trouble her kids have been in when she's not around. Which is always. Not sure what will happen next, a little concerned about retaliation from the little Dingleberries. But now we have a paper trail, an immediate line of communication to the landlord, and they're aware they're being recorded the entire time. Any escalation beyond this is their choice. Edited to add that I don't think the eviction is in motion yet or anything at all. I don't think anything other than that they are in direct violation of their lease in multiple ways, and that in my state that's a wrap on your tendency. Update number one five twenty five twenty six. The mom finally came home at around two thirty in the morning with a literal warehouse of younger kids. She put them in the house and then left herself in a different car that was there to pick her up. The uncle or whoever he was at the house with the new set of kids, and we saw no sign of shitlings and co last night. My husband thinks the mom and older teenagers are avoiding their own house since we've now taken to sitting on our porches. Update number two, five twenty six twenty six. I have had terrible insomnia for the past two nights since getting the shit scared out of me by the trespassing. I have confirmed with a couple of other neighbors that they have contacted the HOA owner and filed police reports for a missing Apple watch from one of their cars on that same night. They said they would, but it was nice to get confirmation and to vent to each other. If the kids choose to retaliate, they would have to target multiple people, all of whom have cameras. Still no sign of shitlings and co. Normally a day off of school summons them like maggots to a carcass. This person's colorful.
SPEAKER_03Like they said thorough.
SPEAKER_02Our front camera is not in an obvious spot, so my husband thinks it might have freaked them out to learn that they've been recorded the whole time. I'm so angry I want to go piss next to her driver's side door. But that would technically be right next to my car again, and would be counterintuitive. Update number three six one of twenty six. Still no sign of shitlings and co. They haven't shown themselves since the night they broke our fence down. Our cars and property have been left alone entirely. But the neighbors on the other side of the neighborhoods from hell asked for some camera footage since they woke up to some gas missing out of their car during the week.
SPEAKER_03No way.
SPEAKER_02Then they asked for footage again on Thursday, since some other kids staying at the neighbor from Hell's house were climbing all the way onto the roof and hood of her car, and the camera they ordered hadn't gotten there yet. She was heated and came out yelling at them because her roof is now dented. The adults came rushing out to usher the kids inside for only a minute, and then the whole crowd bundled up into their cars and left. I think they know they're on thin ice. I wasn't part of this confrontation. I heard about it slash saw it on my cameras later when she asked for the footage. I don't know what her next steps will be. I would want my roof repaired and paid for, but I also understand not wanting to deal with them in that way. The landlord had a meeting scheduled with the mother that he called a walkthrough and HOA citation review for noon on Saturday may thirtieth. She claimed a family emergency and asked to push it back until Sunday at noon. Then she asked to push it back until five. The landlord was openly irritated by the third rescheduling. He offered this information by the way we did not ask. The landlord ended yesterday by reporting that he had told the mom what her options were going forward. What those options entail he did not say. It has been an eerily quiet since yesterday evening when they told us that. I don't want to speculate since I genuinely have no information beyond this. All I know is I heard vacuuming and cleaning for a while on Sunday. Normal amount for a landlord visit in my opinion. Then absolute silence. I hope this is concluded, but based on my experience with the teenagers like Schitlings and Co. they tend to forget lessons pretty quick. Hopefully the landlord and whatever he said helped the neighbors understand the precarious position their teenagers' friends put them in. That was a lot.
unknownBut there's more.
SPEAKER_02No There's there's a updated second post that puts a conclusion to all of this. It's significantly shorter, thank God.
SPEAKER_03The end of the story.
SPEAKER_02Update. Teenagers pushed us too far and probably, in parentheses, definitely found their family evicted. Sheesh Again I will be skipping the TLDR. Thankfully, the conclusion to this whole situation is not dramatic. After we went nuclear, we had absolutely no issues except for the couple of things on the small updates in the last post. After the first weekend of June, we barely even saw signs of human life. If it hadn't been for the car appearing and disappearing, I would have thought that they had already been kicked out. I'm not sure what happened inside, but the only activity was a U-Haul parked there on and off over a couple days, a couple weeks ago. We have not seen either of the teenage girls since the landlord meeting. I know that my own mother would have tied me up like a pretzel and shipped me off to Camp Green Lake to dig holes for a year. Shitlings and Co disappeared off the face of the earth for a couple weeks, although we did see a couple of them walking back from a nearby gas station a few days ago, so they're clearly still around the neighborhood. I guess doing TikTok dances on the hoods of the neighbors' cars, breaking down fences, and ultimately helping get her family evicted is not a good way to keep your girl interested. Young love is tough that way. Yesterday the landlord came by to ask how things have been and to let us know they were officially evicted a couple weeks ago. They have been having payment problems as well. Both us and the neighbors on the other side of the problem house submitted HOA complaints and police reports that helped him push things along and he seemed really appreciated. The power of documentation once again proves itself. I'm personally a bit conflicted now that the anger from my first post has cooled off a bit. To reiterate, we never had a problem with the regular neighbor noise and would never have complained about that. We want kids to play on our sidewalk, we want friends to chat in the parking lot. We don't care if you have a party on the weekend. Pissing drunk next to my car, screaming outside our bedroom windows at two AM on a weeknight, blasting bass hard enough to rattle the pictures on my walls, and breaking into our back patio area late at night do not fall under normal neighborhood noise and activities. On one hand, life is already hard for a single parent, and I wish that we could have worked things out between us as neighbors without getting all litigious. But on the other hand, we did try to tuck it out between adults first, and maybe don't piss off your neighbors, violate your lease,
Going Nuclear With Proof And Reports
SPEAKER_02and not pay rent. Hopefully, they found a place that works for them, and I hope those kids don't keep making their mom's life hard.
SPEAKER_03That's a fact, dude. I mean Dealing with kids is hard enough, but hoodlums Yeah, that's even worse.
SPEAKER_02I'd say these definitely fall under hoodlums.
SPEAKER_03Hoodlums.
SPEAKER_02Um and I don't know if she's gone so much because she's working, or if she's gone so much to just stay as far away from her normal living situation as possible. I don't know. But either way, it's not of benefit to your children. And by extension, it's not of benefit to yourself and your home life. And it just kind of cascades into every aspect of your life if you keep doing stuff like that.
SPEAKER_03That's a very unfortunate scenario. Like it's kinda like, what do you do? I mean, obviously they need better adult supervision. Obviously, I know that it's very difficult and we can't judge people on how they raise their children, but this is one of those scenarios where it's dangerous for more than just yourself, for more than just the teenager. Dangerous for everybody all around.
SPEAKER_02Unsupervised teenagers will often feed off of each other. So once they start pushing the boundaries to do one silly thing, a week or two later they're doing another even sillier thing. Exactly. And so on so forth. Because they're constantly chasing that high of oh my god, that was crazy, and we got away with it. And then it escalates into something truly horrendous. And fortunately, at least for the uh original poster here, it didn't get truly horrendous for them. But had they continued to allow things like that to happen and not had the video proof and and reports to both HOA and police, it very easily could have gotten out of hand where they genuinely were full on breaking into everyone's cars or if not that was them already doing that with the Apple Watch. That could that could be a loss, it could have actually happened, we don't know.
SPEAKER_03We don't know. And that's the part that's very unfortunate is that they've kind of lost the trust of uh everybody in that neighborhood, it seems like. And like you said, i it's leading up uh like escalation wise, where it's it's it's constantly escalating, starting from them just hanging out outside to them literally jumping on the cars to them possibly stealing. And uh like I said, it's unfortunate all around. Um and you Can't knock you know the doll all the time because you really can't trust kids, you know, teenagers, whatever. True, very still kids, you know, you can't trust them and you can't trust the influences, you know.
SPEAKER_02A well brought up kid, even under uh shall we say, lacks supervision around potentially bad influences should have had enough of a base of hey, avoid this, this, and this, or else terrible things will happen. Yes. That the kids can, you know, see those kinds of trends and avoid them.
SPEAKER_03Right. You would think like common sense. Uh I remember in middle school, uh, the craziest thing me and my friends used to do is we used to uh try to do like the jackass stuff. Like you remember jackass? That was pretty common.
SPEAKER_02I'm Johnny Knoxville and I'm about to get kicked in the bows. I couldn't stand that stuff. It's terrible.
SPEAKER_03I didn't watch it myself, but I am aware of its existence. It's enough. You don't need to watch it. I think it kills brain cells. Amen. But hey, the point is the frontal lobe isn't developed at the time yet.
SPEAKER_02Yes, that's that's the operating concept there.
SPEAKER_03Um I'm glad I'm glad that the neighbors kind of got some solace, but I'm not glad that someone got evicted in this homeless. And but honestly, this should have been handled, you know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well It should have been handled better, but what can you do?
SPEAKER_02And being late on rent that early into your tenure at a time. Yeah, exactly. You already knew you were on your way out.
SPEAKER_03It's it's so many things compiled,
The Neighbor Who Spies Over The Fence
SPEAKER_03you know. Yeah. And uh we'll move on to my story Neighbor from Hell by embraced age seventy-six twelve. Up at sunrise and the neighbor from hell is right out the back door spying on me. Oh no. This is a vent slash rant. Due to my health, I've been getting up early and getting some light exercise in. Some of that has turned into a routine with our shepherds uh going out and running uh a bit. It's good for both of us. They like to chase balls and frisbees. We're behind a six foot fence that we installed to keep our neighbor from hell from being able to just stand and spy on us. Sheesh. The dogs are quiet and when focused they even ignore the neighbors. We're out at six AM by six oh one, the neighbor is out there clunking in his yard, making noise and trying to get a reaction from the dogs and us. They did a great job of ignoring him. I can hear him dragging something across his patio. It's a step ladder. He was pretending to mess with some hanging flower pots, but looking over the fence and get a location on all of us. Wow. He hopped down and started spraying plants close to the fence, making sure to splash water into our yard where he thought the dogs were. Of course, by then they were inside and I was on the deck sipping a cup of coffee, waiting for him to notice that his plan is not working.
SPEAKER_02Sounds like somebody who's very bored.
SPEAKER_03We made eye contact once he realized I had moved. I'm pretty sure he hurt himself trying to dive for cover. I watched him limp back in and I could see their curtains adjusting, and he positioned himself by the window. I went back in and gave the dogs an extra treat for being so good, and went about the rest of my routine. I guess my question to everyone that deals with neighbors like this is what do they get out of this? They look foolish as if they pre obviously are spying and making noise on purpose. They're not ever going to get a response from the dogs. What bothers me the most, and this sounds kind of creepy, is that they have constantly watching what they have to constantly be watching to be able to pop outside so quickly. My morning routine is fairly new as far as getting up a little earlier is concerned. So it's extra creepy that one of them is out that quickly. Thankfully the fence has cut down what they can do to harass us, but they seem to be evolving.
SPEAKER_02New habitat, new uh new evolutionary traits.
SPEAKER_03Technically, none of their activities are in violation uh of our harassment order on them.
SPEAKER_02Oh wow, this is long running. Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_03I'm worried that will escalate. And uh yeah, that's creepy, scary. Mm-hmm. Uh if you already have an order on them, then they're evolving.
SPEAKER_02They are evolving, and not in the good way.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, um, this is um they're asking what we do, and you've already it seems like you already made a report on it. Um I would say just get cameras. Just get cameras, put them all over outside. Sometimes they're um on sale. Um, not just to protect yourself from them, but also to protect themselves, you know. Cause you see them climbing ladders and stuff trying to take a look at you, uh that's all around. That's terrible. I don't even know what I'm trying to say cameras, but that's creepy.
SPEAKER_02At a loss for words, honestly. Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um I hope things get this resolved, like they said.
SPEAKER_02Um I mean, if you've already gotten legal involved, law enforcement involved, shall we say. I mean, I'm not sure what else you can do because six-foot fence is the typical limit for a lot of places. It's pretty tall for fence, yeah. It's not that tall.
SPEAKER_03I know there's like add-ons and stuff that you could do.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, there's there's plenty of add-ons, but most places there's ordinances or HOA um compliance stuff that makes it so you can't go over six foot. Yeah. Six foot's a very common limit. So given that you've already been through legal proceedings and built a fence, I'm sure they would have built a taller fence if it had been feasible.
SPEAKER_03And it's funny that you mentioned that because people are posting pictures, privacy options, uh like those wall things that you add to the gazebos and stuff.
SPEAKER_02Oh, like almost like screens basically, but they're more hoovered.
SPEAKER_03However, uh OP does respond to this and does state. We're working with the city on something similar. Um, but due to utilities and I think like like you were saying, like some have height restrictions. It says we have to watch our height. We're hoping to get an exemption due to harassment.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_02It sounds like they've already covered about every base they possibly can, realistically. I'm betting if you were to look at their post history, they've got a whole slew of posts about this neighbor. Because wow.
SPEAKER_03There's like a hundred there's like two hundred comments on this one.
SPEAKER_02You you don't get from mild harassment to legal proceedings with a six-foot fence built and in talks with the whole city council to get an ordinance exemption. Like there's some major background information going on.
SPEAKER_03And they should be concerned. They should be concerned.
SPEAKER_02They should be concerned because if you already have gotten a harassment order on them and they're still doing as much as they feasibly can to try and circumvent it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Honestly, I'm kind of shocked that they're still living there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, sometimes you don't have an option. Um and it sounds like they have kids. I'll throw out a comment that's very interesting as um and that confirms the camera situation uh by Hippie Graham. He may have a motion activated camera that alerts him when you go outside.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, very likely.
SPEAKER_03OP responds, that's part of my worry as well. We have cameras, so I won't fault them for doing the same. The difference is ours uh are because of actions and only alert us activities on our fence line and in. So anything beyond that uh they don't get. I also don't want them taking videos of my daughters. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Um that's a real neighbor from Hell Story. Uh what do you do, huh? Because after the ordinance, it's like you can't stop me, you know, and then it seems like you're s like they're saying it it it escalates. This is another situation that seems to be escalating, and you don't want it to escalate past this point because then it gets very questionable, like for your safety.
SPEAKER_02The the next reasonable escalation that you that you can think of, at least in short notice, is dangerous.
SPEAKER_03Exactly.
SPEAKER_02And good lord, I do not want to see anyone have to go through that. So I I really hope that something can be figured out with their city council to provide for more privacy, because wow. Just frickin' wow.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Uh it's unfortunate. Uh one more comment that I'll add um that OP responds to. It's uh it's a little long-winded, but basically it's that uh uh this other person, a female in their thirties, had an interaction with their neighbor where they started in the same situation, you know, trying to sneak peeks at them and ultimately ended up becoming a peeping Tom. Uh and OP responds to that and says, I worry about my daughters in that sense. Exactly. He's already been busted by other neighbors for staring at their kids play outside. Now with the fence up, mine are finally comfortable to be outside again. So I like you said, this is a long, ongoing issue, it seems like. And yes, it's very concerning for the kids. There are a lot of creeps out there. Um I'd quickly recommend if you have kids not to be paranoid and not to be give you anxiety, but you there are those websites where it shows where predators are living because they have to register themselves. Um if they haven't already done this. Um, however, you know, sometimes they don't get caught. So true. Uh very concerning. This was deep in another way. Um man.
SPEAKER_02I I don't have an easy answer for this one because the legal options have already been explored at least as far as I can think of. I don't think there's a way to try and like legally evict him from his own house. Yes. Or to like evict him from the neighborhood or whatnot. The only other thing I could think of would be to like somehow get a get a judge that is sympathetic to your cause and can somehow mandate like therapy or something. But honestly, I don't think that's easy.
SPEAKER_03It's crazy, huh?
SPEAKER_02Alright, now with that deep and foreboding one, let's go for one that's a little less foreboding, but uh it could be considered just as deep, just
The Exhausting Neighbor And Hard Boundaries
SPEAKER_02completely different. By throw away one nine nine eight one nine oh six. My neighbor isn't a bad person. He's just a massive loser. Well then with the tag what would you do vent slash rant? I feel kind of bad saying this because my neighbor isn't actually mean. He can be pretty nice. He's just a complete mess. And I've I've been getting tired of constantly hearing about it. I'm in my twenties and he's around forty. He does drugs, doesn't really have his life together, and spends a lot of time at this free space where a lot of other users hang out. Sometimes he'll be gone for days because he's there getting high. He smokes so much weed that I usually smell him before I see him. That's that's a pretty strong odor. He was recently admitted to the hospital after apparently not sleeping for ten days. His parents took his cat away because he can barely take care of himself. He also has a child who doesn't want to see him, and he complains about that a lot. But I don't really see him doing much to change the situation. He loses his stuff all the time too. His phone, his keys, random things. Recently he told me his bike was stolen. Maybe it was, but honestly, knowing him, there's also a really good chance he left us somewhere while using and just doesn't remember. There's always something going on with him. He also keeps talking about this girl who doesn't like him back. I've heard about her so many times that I feel like I know the entire relationship, even though there wasn't really a relationship. The annoying part is that I have tried to help him. I suggested going to the local community support teams because they could actually help him with some of this stuff. He doesn't want to go. Right now the reason is that his foot hurts. That's basically how it always goes. There's always a new problem, a new excuse or a new reason why he can't do anything about his situation. Then he comes to me to complain, ask for favors, or make me feel guilty because nobody helps him. But people do try to help him. He just doesn't seem to want the kind of help that would require him to actually change anything. That's why I'm losing patience. I know addiction is complicated, and I don't expect him to fix his whole life overnight. But I'm also just his neighbor. I'm not his social worker, therapist, or caretaker. The weird thing is that I don't even dislike him. He's not a bad guy. He's just exhausting to be around, because every conversation is another crisis that he doesn't really want to solve, and him being very smelly despite my efforts does not help either. I honestly just want him to stop making his life my problem. So he lost his phone and the bank froze his account. If I don't help him with reaching his bank, he might not be able to pay his rent and get kicked out. Should I let him get kicked out or help him? That was that's the end.
SPEAKER_03Wow. That's I mean, I I I know somebody like that too, but I don't really talk to them anymore because it's kind of toxic. You know, it's just always being a downer and never wanting to do something about it is quite unfortunate. Because you know me, I'm I'm very independent as far as like if I need something, you know, I'm gonna find a way to get it, you know. It's just the way I've always been, the way I grew up. But uh everybody's wired differently. You can't blame them for how they are. Um for the most part.
SPEAKER_02The addiction, I'm fine with letting go. That's that's an addiction.
SPEAKER_03But my point is you could only help people who want the help. Um really is like that. Um the only thing you could do is live your life and simply just pray for 'em. Like it's a little it's a little funny, but uh honestly, yeah, that's what you could do is just pray for 'em. Like pray that they seek a path forward from this, you know, big because then they become a black hole, and that I mean that in the sense that everybody around them just becomes spiraling to help them, and they just become a black hole that sinks them along uh along for the ride, you know, honestly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and there's quite a number of comments that are kind of similar in vain to that, and also they kind of speak to the concept that you're just really enabling his behavior the more you help him. You have to let him face consequences. It would seem that his parents probably have reached that point themselves to the point that they took the cat but didn't do anything else.
SPEAKER_03That's kind of funny.
SPEAKER_02If someone who's forty has less of a grasp on how to handle life than you do as a 20-year-old, that's in large part self-inflicted. Because there's been more than enough time and opportunity for him to try and learn how to navigate life without having everything constantly be in crisis mode. And the more you unfortunately the more you enable that, the more it's just gonna drag you down, much like you were saying, like being a black hole. Just sitting there draining everybody of all their time, energy, and compassion, honestly.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. Um that's exactly my point, is just you can only help people who want to be helped.
SPEAKER_02Now a number of comments also bring up that they need to that OP needs to set boundaries and and kind of withdraw to being a neighbor and not trying to be a parent or family member in that respect. And the OP did ask specifically in a comment, how would you set boundaries? Do you have some tips? He's very good at guilt tripping. Wow.
SPEAKER_03Tips um is honestly use this as a moment as of self-reflection and that really gives you the chance to appreciate what you have. You know, that's just uh a simple tip for themselves is um look at them and see the situation that they put themselves in and be like, you know, sometimes it's good to be like, damn, I'm glad to be where I'm at, I'm glad to have what I have, uh, and appreciate that. Obviously, that's not gonna help him.
SPEAKER_02How does that help set a boundary though?
SPEAKER_03Uh no, that doesn't help with boundary, that just helps with like yourself because then it starts to you it starts to weigh on the in you if you try to like damn like you know how can I help this person and and it and should I help this person? Obviously, they're feeling this way if they post this. As far as boundary goes I think it's like a band-aid. You know, you gotta you gotta push them back. You gotta like do you have to interact with this person? You know, is that a must? And if it's not then you could sometimes cut that out of your life, you know. Um if it's toxic, it's toxic. That's just as simple as that is. And toxic has many definitions, and this is I think a little toxic.
SPEAKER_02Oh, certainly, I would say this falls under toxicity. It might not be intentional toxicity, but the neighbor from hell, but definitely toxic behavior.
SPEAKER_03The point is, you know, appreciate that you're not in their position to make yourself feel a little better, and also focus on yourself and maybe cut that out of your life.
SPEAKER_02I would say for tips for boundaries would be take a moment, well, more than a moment, really, take some time to self assess and decide how much energy and time you can devote to others, not just this person, to anyone, and still maintain the kind of life that you want. And you might have to. play around with it a little bit. Experiment because rarely do and rarely does anyone get something like that right the first time. I mean it's kind of an experimental thing.
SPEAKER_03Exactly.
SPEAKER_02But it's very important to stay mindful of your own self and your livelihood and just everything around you and to constantly self-assess during this process because it's so easy to slip right back into being in this scenario again. Yes. Especially if you're concerned about the guilt trip. Exactly. As far as the guilt tripping tip for that would be acknowledging the fact that this person is approximately twice your age. There are more than enough resources that they are refusing to utilize. They might be playing with excuses but that is that's refusal. They're refusing to accept the help that you have offered in that respect to actually solve problems. Exactly and anything beyond suggesting ways to fix in a broader sense is frankly getting in getting to be too much, in my opinion, for anyone who is in a situation like this. Because if you can't address the bigger issues, the little issues will never end. You have to address the foundational issues and if they refuse to do that I hate to say it but they're gonna be too toxic for you to be around unless you're very well established and very good with your boundaries.
SPEAKER_03And have a strong mental will to be honest.
SPEAKER_02And a strong mental will you and if you're still trying to figure out what what boundaries even are much less how to set 'em this is not the task for you this is not the task for you exactly my point is uh let them do them and then let the chips play man and in a situation like this a way to set the boundary with the person not just with yourself could be that you tell them the next time they ask you for help be like look I have my own life and I have to attend to that I'm sorry you're going through this I have tried to show you how you can get this fixed until you do that I can't help you. I do not have the capacity to help you I can't ruin my own life to help you with this be it the bank be it the bike be it whatever.
SPEAKER_03Yeah everything um last thing I would say is um and I've uh I think I've used this piece of advice on the show before to get out of um uh having to like an obligation or something is just say you have diarrhea. Like hey man that's not a very healthy like coping like I want to help you but it's explosive
Entitled Dog Owner Sparks A Poop War
SPEAKER_03I just had Taco Bell um I you know you know what that means just tell them you know what that means you know you know what that means anyway uh sage advice from Master Harley that was great dude this is my last one for the episode uh under neighbors from hell it's uh by competitive dash life dash eight five two title is simple entitled neighbor what would you do murder no I do not condone murder our our neighbor let's just call him Tom has always been a jerk loud music for the neighbors to hear leaf blowing ten times a day just rude and inconsiderate person anyway he has a dog and walks him across the street to do his business in another neighbor's yard and leaves it there we noticed a couple weeks ago that a sign was put up on the pole please pick up your dog's business thank you nothing mean or rude but we saw Tom walk his dog to the sign dog does his thing and he walks away a few days after we noticed that the sign was taken down so I'm assuming he did it a couple times there I got my dog's poop bag, scooped it up and threw it on Tom's yard I probably shouldn't have done that but I was furious a couple weeks go by and I notice that there's a pile of poop in the street in front of our house now Now I'm tempted to do the same thing again Understandable He had political signs in his lawn at last election and American flags lining up his lawn. You'd figure for someone who loves America so much he'd want to keep it clean only his little splot of his little everybody else everybody else living squalor. I'm a female and I'm scared to confront him but I'll do what I need to do We've already talked to the police a couple years ago about him because he was letting his kids ten and under in parentheses ride motorized buggies around our neighborhood in high speeds without helmets and it was pretty dangerous You can't really talk sense to him anyways he's very stubborn not sure if there's anything I can do question mark and someone commented nineteen count 64 said take a picture of of him and his dog doing the business and post it on the telephone pole and his yard contact your city about this they should have laws on the books about picking up after your pets I once posted a picture of an owner and his dog on the next door app for the neighborhood and it worked there is that um I would say take a page out of that uh that first post that I went through and document document document document and make reports if you don't make reports the police don't know the history because all they know of history is the hearsay from you in the moment and any records that they can pull up about the situation.
SPEAKER_02So if there is consistent records over years even months of this sort of thing happening then they know that person is a problem and it's much easier to get citations to stick in situations like that. Because people like this are much more likely to combat a citation in court and possibly win unless there's lots of evidence. So I would suggest yeah video, picture, both and report it.
SPEAKER_03Report it, report it, report it I think it's a little funny they're going through a little poop war right now I'll put some on your yard you put some on my yard.
SPEAKER_02Sounds like they did it once I don't know if they continue to do it but that's funny.
SPEAKER_03Just a poop war. And then it's gonna be like monkeys just throwing poop at each other Gods.
SPEAKER_02You do not want that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah so that's what I would say um I know people are saying like their city has bylaws um where you could actually complain about that the dog has to be picked up after um I guess most cities do have some sort of ordinance like that and a lot of people really upset about this uh Tom person and how he really doesn't care about anybody else in the neighborhood.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm I'd say that's probably the best option is to document I I mean I hate to say it but people that refuse to see reason and can't be spoken with and are just too stubborn for anything sometimes the only way to get through to them is by the law. And they'll probably hate you forever because of it because they don't like to be shown to be in the wrong but you know if you ha if you've already documented it and you continue to document if they try to retaliate you'll already be in the mindset of documenting everything. Especially if you have a camera that actively records, you'll be able to catch them when they do. So um so well hopefully Tom gets his come up it's hopefully unfortunately it's really hard to get through to people like that their world is quite small. Oh yes it's their own yard it's their own whatever happens a political party it's it's their own house everything and everything else doesn't matter with that said I'd say the biggest takeaway from all of these is to keep your gloves up because people be crazy.
SPEAKER_03People be crazy
RV Squatters And A Cautionary Story
SPEAKER_03and before we end the episode I just want to touch upon this segment in particular um because it does tie in a lot with my life because coming from Los Angeles and only living in the freaking ghetto areas and the trash areas I get a lot of neighbors from hell I have so many neighbors from hell stories and um the one I'll share real quickly is one um like I've had several neighbors from hell. I've had neighbors pull guns on me I've had people block my car in I've had so many different neighbors um I've had domestic abuse situations next door to me haunting my nightmares but one in particular that I remember um close to the last years that I lived in Los Angeles was I finally had enough money to move out of the freaking ghetto into a little better neighborhood into a cul-de-sac a nice neighborhood I want to say where you can walk your dog and it was really pretty and everybody had pretty grass. I'm thinking oh man my problems are are you know beyond me finally I live somewhere kinda cool and um neighbors aren't shooting each other and pulling guns on each other and fighting each other long story short we had one RV pull up to the other side of the street which is also a cul de sac in the front part of the uh place and it was all fine and we were like okay it's just one RV I don't know if they're gonna do something about it. Uh the neighbors all came out and they were like hmm I wonder what this RV is about like a like another couple weeks later another RV. Two RVs in a cul-de-sac. That takes up a lot of room in a cul de sac-de-sac and mind you they're not on the looping part of the cul-de-sac they're on the main street into the cul-de-sac so that's like the first thing you see and we're we're like okay getting more concerned who are these people that are living there and I'm like living in the RVs. All of a sudden three four five RVs in my nice little cul-de-sac what happened the neighbors start to get crazy. You're a magnet. And and I'm yeah I guess and I'm starting to think like damn like what are the solutions that we could do here because people are getting upset that they're in the way they're like outside the RVs fixing their RVs their legs out there's trash on the side of where they're at there's chairs all kinds of stuff. The neighbors are fuming are fuming even to the point of one neighbor telling me you know what we should do? I go what you know one time we uh we used to live in RV park and they were squatters and we burned down the RV and I was like what he said it's really easy you just need like a gas you know gas can and you just burn it and I'm like oh man with the people in it and he's like no no he's like no no no you wait till the you know you see them gone and I'm like okay first of all I don't want to talk to you anymore second of all I'm just going home nobody did nothing for a while. Um it's getting trashy until the last draw some guy starts running into people's yards and I was witness to this he's screaming out he's got a gun he's got a gun running into people's yards and my neighbors are freaking out rightfully so they call the cops and people are talking the neighborhood they're trying to say like it was probably a drug deal gone wrong potentially pulling the gun on him long story short I'm moving out of this neighborhood moving out of California and I notice chunks of a v of a RV pulling into the when I'm pulling into the street the front has been burnt dude I know this sounds like unreal because even to me I'm like this literally didn't happen maybe it's PTSD but uh let's just say that RV was the only one left after that are those RV people left the guy screaming he's got a gun left and I never saw that neighbor who said that but I got a little bit of advice but I'm like dude I'm getting out of here before they blame it on me because I talked to this crazy guy. So guilt by association. Yeah I'm like man uh well that's one way to get rid of squatters RP squatters and don't do it listener whenever you don't do that illegal highly illegal yeah um find other cruel um maybe get your neighbors to sign a petition or something again in that's it in those kind of situations the best you can do is get a paper trail. Yeah paper trail as much evidence as you can evidence uh pictures um but I'm pretty sure they did all that um yeah I'm fairly certain they did all that in reports and everything and they basically said if they're not because like in California like squatters have like so many rights it's insane.
SPEAKER_02It's wild how much rights they have.
SPEAKER_03Yeah it's insane like um it's very crazy and they basically said if they're not um you know breaking into property or be you know doing anything violent that they can't kick them out. They're homeless.
SPEAKER_02So they can just come and set up their little encampment on your yard and you have no recourse against them.
SPEAKER_03Made their little neighborhood outside of a cul de sac that was crazy. But like you said for that kind of thing you're gonna keep your gloves up and I just want to say thank you to the listener.
Final Takeaways And Goodbye
SPEAKER_03Let us know if you like the new format. Just reiterate we're gonna do UFC episodes and then we're gonna do all Reddit episodes. You know so hopefully you guys like it. Like comment subscribe and catch you on the next one.
SPEAKER_02Alright y'all have a good one. Thanks for listening
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