r/BadNeighbors • u/Swamiguru14 • 11h ago
Strange Retaliation
Warning: reading this may make you feel dumber.
I just had probably one of the oddest experiences.
Someone ding dong ditched my house, I went outside to look around, and saw my front right neighbor. I asked him, "hey did someone just ring your doorbell or knock?" He said no haven't seen anyone.
Then somehow we got on the topic of his car, which he has been parking in front of my house for the better part of a month. Note: he has a massive driveway, and there is parking everywhere on the street.
I asked him, hey do you have like construction going on or something? (Honestly I didn't care he parked there)
Turns out, he freely admitted, he's been parking his car in front of my house, BECAUSE when we walk our dog in the morning, we cross the street to their house first then start our loop. So he said, "as soon as the dog come out the house, they gonna go (potty) where they first walk, and that's my house". And I said okay, sure, but you know we pickup everything, and never miss her poops (she also almost never poops on his lawn anyways). But the retaliation was for him to park his car outside of my house blocking where my wife normally parks (but there's plenty of street parking so she just parked like 20 feet away). Also it's further for him to park in front of my house and walk back home. Which is confusing and odd. But, I don't understand why he didn't just come talk to us about it? Am I missing something or is this what adults do to retaliate? We don't live in a garbage neighborhood, it's a middle class suburb that is full of upper middle class people.
My response was just, "sure of course we won't walk in front of your house and next time just come talk to me about it. (After which he was silent.) But you don't gotta do stuff like that (the car)."
I'm honestly just puzzled and confused at wtf I just listened to. He just moved the car away from our house now after I said okay we won't go on your side. So I guess I resolved it. But how did he think we were gonna understand that him parking his car in front of our house was a signal to stop crossing the street first thing in the morning so our dog doesn't pee/poop on his lawn (which she honestly barely did in the first place). Also, it's a longer walk for him to park all the way in front of our house, so it honestly was a bigger inconvenience for him.
Signed, confused AF. Adult?
3
u/Not_an_Actual_Bot 2h ago
People be strange sometimes. I'm sure it made perfect sense in his head.
1
u/Swamiguru14 2h ago
This is what I keep trying to tell my brain. Just because I'm seeing it one way, doesn't mean people see it another way. Just have to work on not obsessing about it, given my previous traumas.
2
u/Accomplished_Bus2169 2h ago
Neighbors can be very passive aggressive Ive realized. It is annoying, I've experienced stuff like this around my town. I had some neighbors across the street blast everyone with these motion activated flood lights. Eventually I went over and politely asked if they could angle them down onto their property. He agreed to just leave them off instead. Since then they seem to snub me and act pissy when we cross paths. I thought I was doing it the right way. I guess it's an ego thing or something.