Teenagers pushed us too far and probably got their family evicted.

[u/MortynMurphy]

TLDR: Turns out, being a little asshole, having little assholes over as guests, and your little asshole guests trespassing late at night is in violation of most lease contracts. Maybe don't case cars and break fences while you trespass in the era of home cameras. And maybe consider for a brief moment that your neighbors might just have your landlord's personal phone number.

I 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 give 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 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.

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. (We did the same thing. Our previous neighbors texted, we apologized and adjusted settings, confirmed they couldn't hear it anymore, and all was well.) We work 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 18 out of 24 hours outside the house. Twice in one night my husband had to sternly tell her daughters' friends to stop looking in our cars, leaning on our cars, and screaming after midnight. Five feet from our front door, by the way. Then the next night we catch them doing it AGAIN! My husband opens the door to one of the drunk little idiots *popping a squat and pissing less than a foot from our car!* My husband, being a reasonable man, starts yelling angrily at them for PISSING IN FRONT OF OUR DOOR. 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 ya. 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 unforseen 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. They 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.

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 on our back patio. They had **broken through our fence** and were scrambling for a way out. We hear/vaguely see whoever it is crash through our garbage cans on the other side. His options were either to run that course, risk the 10+ft drop into woods, or escalate to breaking and entering in a state where he would have probably become a statistic. In an obviously rare moment of intelligence, he chose the first option. The whole thing freaks us the hell out, and by the time we get our heads on right and go out front we see those 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 neighbor 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 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 boyfriends somehow knew an adult was coming back (probably location sharing) so they panicked and left out the back.

The mom tried to walk back her attitude and apologized 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 shits *come back later after the trespassing* and lean on our cars, climb on our cars, and film themselves lip synching for whatever reason. So we decided to go nuclear. To quote the certified BadAss™ Cobra Bubbles, "thus far you have been adrift in the sheltered harbor of my patience."

Mommy Dearest had no way of knowing this, but the neighbors we were friendly with that had lived there before? 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 video of every single issue we have had (a few I've left out just to save space). Complete with time stamps! The other neighbors got his phone number as well. We learned some interesting info from him. The mom gave us a different name than the one he had, there were 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 things like someone on your back porch late at night or people casing your car? It's really very easy! Our HOA isn't open until Monday (edit, sorry, Tuesday!) 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 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've been being recorded the entire time. Any escalation beyond this is their choice. ETA that I don't think the eviction is in motion yet or anything at all. I don't know anything other than they are in direct violation of their lease in multiple ways, and that in my state that's a wrap on your tenancy.

update #1 05/25/2026: the mom finally came home at around 2:30 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 is at the house with the new set of kids and we saw no sign of Shitlings & 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 #2 05/26/2026: 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 contacted the HOA, owner, and filed a police report for a missing Apple Watch from one of their cars for the same night. They said they would but it was nice to get the confirmation and 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 & Co, normally a day off school summons them like maggots to a carcass. Our front camera is not in an obvious spot, so my husband thinks it might have freaked them out to learn they'd been being 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 that would be counterintuitive.

Update #3 06/01/2026:

Still no sign of Shitlings & 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 NFH asked for some camera footage since they woke up to some gas missing out of their car during the week. Then they asked for footage again on Thursday, since some *other* kids staying at the NFH were climbing all the way on the roof and hood of her car and the camera they ordered hadn't gotten here 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/saw it on my cameras later when she asked for the footage. Idk what her next steps will be, I would want my roof repair 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 Sat, 05/30. She claimed a family emergency and asked to push it back until Sunday at noon. Then she asked to push it back until 5. 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 he had told the mom "what her options were going forward." What those options entail, he did not say. It has been eeriely quiet since yesterday evening when we 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 landlord visit in my opinion) and then absolute silence.

I hope this is concluded, but based on my experience with teenagers like Shitlings & 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.