Neighbor Wars·
LADDER WAR OUTSIDE
Past a quiet afternoon, a renter escalates from trespass to fireworks and trash-tossing, driving a terrified poster to seek safety with a kind neighbor while awaiting landlord action.
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A neighbor dragged a ladder three feet into the yard, tore up a flower bed, and started hurling plants and pavers over the fence, all before lunch.
For months, the poster had been dealing with neighbors on all three sides encroaching, storing junk, and dumping on their property. Two of those disputes had already been handled. The last holdout was the renter next door, a man who had lived there for 10 years and had been in the poster's home for 8 months. He kept deploying a ladder from his shed into the poster's yard for no real reason, even though there was no reason to keep it there. To the poster, it was a "liability and a hazard."
He also made a habit of complaining when the poster cleaned up their own property, while dumping yard debris back onto it, complaining about the dog, and wandering near the fence and onto the yard.
Then came Friday morning. After a rough shift at work, the poster found the ladder in the yard again. They pulled it down and put up a "no trespassing sign."
Saturday morning brought the explosion.
Around 7:30 a.m., the renter was outside "tearing up my flower bed and throwing the plants and pavers over the fence." When the poster told him to stop, he cussed at them. The poster took photos. Not long after, they saw him setting off fireworks too.
What happened next turned into a long, tense wait. The poster reported the behavior to the landlord and got conflicting advice from a boyfriend and a brother about whether to wait or call police. By 2 p.m., the landlord still hadn't responded, and the poster learned they would have to wait until Monday to file a non-emergency report.
At 3:30 p.m., the landlord finally said he would talk to the tenant and check back after work.
At 4 p.m., the renter escalated again. He cursed at the poster for reporting him, set off more fireworks, moved his car onto the torn-up flower bed, and started blasting music. The poster didn't go back and forth with him. Instead, they FaceTimed the boyfriend, took video, and kept sending real-time texts and photos to the landlord.
Feeling scared, the poster went two doors down to a friendly neighbor's house. That neighbor later checked on the renter and found him still in his car, blasting music, but seeming calm. The neighbor thought police might make things worse, so the poster stayed put with that neighbor and his aging parents for about an hour and a half.
Around 7:30 p.m., the friendly neighbor walked the poster home and stayed to make sure the renter was gone and didn't come back. The landlord still hadn't contacted the poster after the blow-up. The poster planned to follow up with police the next morning.
"It was out of character," the poster said of the day. "Very very weird day."