Tim looked out the window at the work going on in his back yard. “Again?!” he exclaimed, setting down his coffee cup down on the counter.
Once was bad enough, but aside from being totally rude, it was affecting everyone else. He grabbed the renovations plans. It was time he showed him the error of his ways.
The new build on the lovely property was something Tim and his wife had dreamed of having for a long time.
Granted, it needed some work, but what place didn’t? The best thing was the woods right at the back – green, lush, and filled with birds. At the time, it was perfect … until the neighbor moved in.
One day, the guy had made an off-hand comment about the noise level of Tim’s large generator.
However, since thunderstorms would regularly knock them off power, nothing else came of it. Then, he noticed the kids setting up sports nets … and using a third of his backyard without even asking.
Tim went out to talk to them and was quite surprised. They apologized and were very polite.
He gave them permission as long as they stayed at the back and didn’t destroy anything. It was mind-boggling – the difference between the kids and their parents. Tim didn’t realize that the mild tension was going to explode.
It was time to tackle the backyard. He hired contractors and landscapers to morph his small plot of land into a personal oasis of green.
The bill was painful right down to the bones, but the quality was good and the workers were very skilled. He was moving some things around the patio when he overheard something odd.
There, in the middle of the construction, was his neighbor.
Not only had he showed up without saying anything to Tim, but he was also walking around and ordering the workers as if he ran the place. He pointed at the ones that were “being too loud and yelling” and ordered them to be quieter. None of them looked happy.
Tim went out to find out what was going on.
As he walked closer, he heard more – things like, “no, you’re doing it wrong” or “it should be done this way”. What in the world was this guy thinking. The head contractor saw Tim and barrelled over, looking furious.
“This guy says you asked him to come over?” Tim’s eyes went wide.
“No, I certainly did not.” He went over to confront the guy. The conversation only got worse when the neighbor started acting like he was doing Tim a favor. “Leave them alone.” The guy stormed off … but two days later, he appeared again.
The crew was off, so he thought it was going to be a relaxing morning, but as he looked out the window, he saw the neighbor back again.
This time, he was pulling up freshly laid paving stones (that were still dripping with concrete), inspecting them, then throwing them back on the ground.
“What are you doing?!” He didn’t even let the guy answer.
Through a string of colorful words, he told the guy to stay off his property. The response was a middle finger flip and another angry, dramatic exit. Tim glared at the remaining mess, fuming. It was time to take action.
He called the contractor. “Hey, those trees that we were going to put in, can we move them to the back?”
When he added why, the voice on the other end eagerly agreed. He even offered to call the surveyor and set things ups. The new treeline was certainly going to have a grand effect.
Not only did Tim move the trees to the back of the property, but the living wall now put a distinct and impassable border between the two lots.
The neighbor came out, screaming something about property lines. A few hours later, Tim chuckled to himself when he saw his neighbor marching up and down the new treeline with a yardstick. Then, things escalated quickly.
The neighbor, unhappy that he’d been blocked from the large yard that he’d grown accustomed to using at his leisure, opted to try everything in his power to spite Tim.
After a few minutes of huffing and puffing up and down his side of the divide, he shot Tim a smug look and pulled out his phone.
Tim was curious about what his audacious neighbor was up to, but he didn’t have to wonder for long. The next day, the man was marching up and down the property line again.
And this time, he’d brought a city surveyor. The surveyor looked from the property blueprints to the new divide and began to measure… to Tim’s great amusement.
The surveyor checked and reckecked the position of the dividing line against the plans and shook his head. Unfortunately for Tim’s neighbor, everything seemed to check out.
Tim had made sure that the living fence was well within the stipulated eight inches on his side. Trying to catch Tim on the wrong side of the law, however, only served as a shot across the bow. Now, Tim was furious.
The original plan was to put a buffer between the generator and the neighbor’s property. It was an act of politeness, but since the guy had crossed a line, Tim no longer felt the need to take any extra steps for the guy’s comfort.
In fact, now he was actively going to do everything in his power to annoy him. A few days later, a storm rolled in and the generator kicked on.
The loud echo of machinery vibrated between the two houses. Tim spotted Mr. Angry, red-faced and mouthing as he glared out his window, powerless to do anything.
Tim grinned, delighted at the storm’s timing, and went back to his computer. But as he sat listening to the satisfying sound of the generator, he had a diabolical idea.
Tim rushed out, bought a timer, and affixed it to the generator. He set it to start itself weekly and run for an hour. And when Saturday morning rolled around, he sat on his porch and listened and waited, watching the clock and barely able to contain his childish glee.
And, like magic, the generator kicked on — right on time. He waited ten minutes and then he spotted his neighbor, also right on time.
Mr. Angry appeared in his pajamas and robe, shaking his useless fists at the sky. “There is no storm!” he yelled over the divide and the racket, “Turn that damn thing off!”
“I’m running weekly tests,” Tim calmly retorted, “that thing has been playing up lately.” And with that, he walked away, grinning. Not only was the work nearly done and his backyard complete, but another home addition was coming.
To be on the safe side, Tim installed personal security cameras on key points in his property.
There had been no retaliation, but he figured it was better safe than sorry. Who knows, the guy might have felt the need to come over and “fix” his newest electrical installation. Satisfied that he’d put his neighbor in his place once and for all, ther was just one last thing to do.
Tim decided to share his story on a popular Reddit thread called “Petty Revenge,” where users post their true-life stories about getting retribution after being wronged.
He detailed his neighbor’s behavior and then shared what he’d done to take him down a peg. It wasn’t long before hundreds of hilarious comments began to pour in.
“I dogsit for a family that lives in a heavily wooded area and they have a big generator too. The first time it kicked on to do its weekly thing I thought the kids next door were idling their dirtbike next to the window!” one user wrote.
“The neighbor should have been nicer, that’ll be a pain to listen to weekly for the rest of forever.” Most users were deeply satisfied with Tim’s story.
“Well handled,” wrote one. And another: “I am satisfied with this revenge.” But some users pointed out that the feud between Tim and his neighbor may not be over.
Many went as far as to say that Tim’s neighbor may be a threat. Many even suggested that he purchased security cameras to gather evidence. But Tim had already installed cameras, so they offered some advice.
“This is the type of situation where I would be concerned that my new trees might suddenly die off due to an angry neighbor,” someone said.
“He already knows you can see where he was standing by the pavers. Make sure the new, night-vision camera is pointed at a different angle towards the trees,” another user responded. “It doesn’t take much to poison a tree but he won’t be expecting two cameras.”
In the end, Tim’s neighbor never retaliated, and probably learned his lesson. Tim ended the post with a conclusion.
“End result, neighbor furious, but powerless; I have some nice trees to look at in the backyard; and there’s nothing to stop the symphony of my generator when it kicks on every week to do a status check.”
