Neighbor Blocks In Person’s Car To Teach Them A Lesson, Ends Up Getting Evicted Almost Immediately
Interview With Author
If you happen to be behind on your rent, the best thing to do is to pay it and don’t make any waves. The last thing you want is to get the entire neighborhood’s attention with your antics!
Redditor u/Smedleycoyote told the r/pettyrevenge subreddit how they got their neighbor evicted, after she blocked in a friend of their wife’s with her car. Not only did the author of the post have to call the police in the middle of the night, they actually ended up getting paid to help with the eviction.
You’ll find the full story, in the redditor’s own words, below. Scroll down to read it in full, and to check out how the internet reacted to the tale of petty revenge.
Bored Panda got in touch with u/Smedleycoyote, the author of the story on r/pettyrevenge, and they were kind enough to answer some of our questions. “I’ve lived in the same complex for years. I’ve never had a problem with another tenant before or since,” they explained just how unique that situation was.
A spot of drama over a parking space in the communal lot led to a woman getting evicted
Image credits: Smedleycoyote
An internet user explained exactly how everything went down
Image credits: Cory Doctorow (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Smedleycoyote
“My intention that night was not to get her evicted, just to get her to move her car. As I said in the story, she also almost ended up spending the remainder of the night in jail due to her attitude with police,” redditor u/Smedleycoyote noted that they never actually had any intentions for the rude neighbor to get thrown out of her apartment.
“As for the reaction to the story, everyone seems to be on my side. Nothing worse than telling people what you think is a funny anecdote and having them inform you that you were the a**hole in the story,” the said.
We were interested to find out to what extent the OP knows their neighbors. “I know the people who live directly under me, and that’s all. Everyone else, my wife and I have just made up names for,” they told us. “There’s Daisy, because I know her dog’s name is Daisy. Dumpster Lady, because she stands by the dumpster and smokes. And Bro Dude, who wears shorts and sandals all year round with a backwards baseball cap. Everyone else to me is just a car. Blue Subaru live a few doors down, and Gray Ford SUV lives in the next building.”
According to the redditor, there are hardly ever any disagreements over the parking spots! Meanwhile, the only person to actually have a reserved spot is the manager, who needs it for their work van.
“And in the winter before a snow storm, one end spot gets blocked off with traffic cones for the plow to push snow into. At least once a year, someone moves the cones, parks there and gets their car buried.”
The OP shared in their post how they ended up calling the police at 3 in the morning, after they found their wife’s friend’s car still blocked in. The officers were thoroughly confused why the woman had decided to do this instead of parking in the free space right nearby.
As it turns out, the neighbor had decided that the spot was her spot… in a communal parking lot… next to an apartment complex. Eventually, the neighbor relented and moved the car. Especially after getting threatened with some jail time by the police.
However, that’s not where the story ends. As it turns out, the woman had also yelled at the apartment manager when he had asked her to move the car. She was behind on her rent, the manager had had enough, and decided to get her evicted.
There’s even a cherry on top. The manager even paid redditor u/Smedleycoyote $150 to take all of the evicted neighbor’s boxed-up things to the “dirty basement” in the building.
There’s no foolproof shortcut to getting along with your neighbors. Usually, you can deal with disagreements by having a few friendly but to-the-point conversations where you set out your boundaries, and try to settle things like adults. Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to compromise.
In those cases, you might have to involve your apartment manager, the local homeowners association, law enforcement, or even get in touch with your lawyer. It’s not what you want to lead with, but if someone is being malicious and making your life hell, they need to understand that their actions will have consequences.
The fact of the matter is that fewer and fewer people know who lives next to them in this day and age. The Pew Research Center notes that a majority of Americans only know some of their neighbors. There’s also a wide generational gap: older Americans tend to know more of their neighbors than younger people.
We’ve recently written on Bored Panda about how over the past half-century or so, the world has changed in such a way that it’s become harder and harder to know who lives in your neighborhood. Generally speaking, Americans have become far more independent, and a lot less inter-dependent. A lot of it has to do with changes in technology and how we live our lives.
Fewer people stay in the neighborhoods and hometowns where they grew up, meaning that they forego all of the relationships they had made and would have potentially created with everyone else who lives in the area.
Meanwhile, technology has evolved to the point where Americans spend far more time indoors than outdoors. Air-conditioning, for one, has made staying at home far more pleasant. If you didn’t have that, you might be sitting on the front porch, where you’d naturally interact with your neighbors walking by. Perhaps you’d invite someone to have a seat on your porch. Maybe you’d strike up a conversation about something with a passerby. There were more interactions and opportunities to get to know everyone in the area.
Meanwhile, with the spread of cheap, accessible entertainment, kids spend more time in front of screens inside their homes, instead of playing outside with other children. They might be more connected to their friends through tech, but they don’t meet up in person as often as they would have last century. What this means is simple: fewer people know their neighbors, meaning that there are fewer reasons to get along. Most of them are strangers who simply live next to you.
Here’s how some internet users reacted to what happened
Meanwhile, some others shared similar stories about parking spots
As a young-ish looking person with a disability that is not “visible” to others maybe 50% of the time, I can not TELL you how many s****y looks and just-less-than-audible grumbling I have received for parking with my placard in a disabled spot. I’ve had people say directly to my face that I was too young to be hurting the way I claimed I was. This has been said, remarkably not only from able-bodied people but also from seniors with disability placard of their own, who should have known better. This has led directly to one of my most common anxiety-reducing mantras: “I do not have to perform my disability to deserve help.”
That happened to my friends gf. She is young and disabled (lost a leg). Some woman got mad and left a terrible note on her car because she was parked in the disabled spot in her apartment complex. A prominent magazine wrote a story about it because of how mean the note was (calling her scum, etc.) I don't have sympathy for people that park in handicap spots that aren't handicapped.
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Had our driveway blocked again this afternoon, only 3 other cars on the street but they parked on the pavement/sidewalk totally blocking a double width driveway.
I am surprised the police would engage like this on a private parking lot. What would they be able to arrest her for? In these circumstances, it would usually fall on the property manager/HoA to call a tow truck if someone is improperly parked.
Because handicapped parking spaces (even on private property) are subject to quite a bit of legislation.
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As a young-ish looking person with a disability that is not “visible” to others maybe 50% of the time, I can not TELL you how many s****y looks and just-less-than-audible grumbling I have received for parking with my placard in a disabled spot. I’ve had people say directly to my face that I was too young to be hurting the way I claimed I was. This has been said, remarkably not only from able-bodied people but also from seniors with disability placard of their own, who should have known better. This has led directly to one of my most common anxiety-reducing mantras: “I do not have to perform my disability to deserve help.”
That happened to my friends gf. She is young and disabled (lost a leg). Some woman got mad and left a terrible note on her car because she was parked in the disabled spot in her apartment complex. A prominent magazine wrote a story about it because of how mean the note was (calling her scum, etc.) I don't have sympathy for people that park in handicap spots that aren't handicapped.
Load More Replies... Had our driveway blocked again this afternoon, only 3 other cars on the street but they parked on the pavement/sidewalk totally blocking a double width driveway.
I am surprised the police would engage like this on a private parking lot. What would they be able to arrest her for? In these circumstances, it would usually fall on the property manager/HoA to call a tow truck if someone is improperly parked.
Because handicapped parking spaces (even on private property) are subject to quite a bit of legislation.
Load More Replies...
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