Nifty
26 Rather Unusual Neighbors You're Gonna Be Really, Really, Really Glad Don't Live On Your Block
Reddit user Karin_Loo asked the AskReddit community, “What strange thing is your neighbor doing?” The thread quickly filled with stories of, um, rather unique neighbors. Here’s what people shared:
1. “The neighbor across the street feeds the stray cats outside. After he empties the food on their plate, he runs his fingers inside the can and licks the remaining cat food off his fingers.”
2. “My neighbor has a nightly ritual of serenading his garden gnomes with a ukulele. The gnomes seem to appreciate it, but I’m still trying to figure out if they’re the real audience.”
3. “One of my neighbors down the road dressed up as Trump with a suit and mask and stood there shouting and waving a giant American flag for hours. He did this the day Trump was found guilty in the hush money trial. His house is also covered in Trump merch and ‘no trespassing’ signs. These people are nuts.”
4. “He hunts with a flashlight for golf balls in my yard that he hits into my yard because he refuses to change his launch angle when he practices his swing. He gets bonus points for being both drunk and in his underwear. Time will tell how I will reciprocate his trespassing. It should be fun.”
5. “I don’t know if this is something my neighbor actively does, but I did witness a weird behavior once, and it has lived rent-free in my head ever since. I noticed the neighbor across the street walk to a tree in the middle of his yard, reach into a hollow, pull out a toothbrush, and proceed to brush his teeth while watering his lawn. I drove away, so I didn’t see if he returned the toothbrush to the tree hollow or not, and I have not since seen him repeat the behavior, but man, I can’t stop thinking about it.”
6. “I was biking through my brand new neighborhood and spotted some dude walking his freaking LLAMA like it was a dog. I still have the photos, lol.”
7. “My neighbor mows his lawn at the crack of dawn every Sunday. Not so weird, right? He does it dressed as Darth Vader, complete with the breathing sounds. I’m not sure if he’s embracing the Dark Side or just really into Star Wars-themed yard work.”
8. “My neighbor insists on doing his gardening only during thunderstorms. He claims the thunder makes the plants grow faster, so he’s often out there with his rain boots and umbrella, tending to his garden, while lightning flashes around him.”
9. “I once witnessed a battle of political yard signs between a father and daughter. It was so funny. I swear, each day, one sign was taken down, and the other sign was put back up. It went on for a while. The dad is a boomer, and the daughter is a millennial. I will let you guess who put what political sign out. I would get excited to look out the window each morning.”
10. “My neighbor has a pet rooster that he walks on a leash. He takes it for a stroll around the block every evening, much to the confusion of everyone passing by.”
11. “The lady across the street from me is the only one of my neighbors I haven’t met. Every afternoon, she vacuums her driveway. She pays for a gardener, but I always see her spraying weed killer on the yard or raking the gravel. She has one car with a driveway and a garage she can use for parking. She puts up traffic cones and ‘No Parking’ signs along the street, even though street parking for up to 36 hours is legal in my city, and in the three years I’ve lived in this house, I have never seen anyone obstruct her driveway with or without the cones and signs.”
12. “When I was a kid, we had these neighbors who assumed the mantle of my parents’ best friends. One day, we got home to find their kids in our pool, so my dad asked how they had gotten into our yard. It turns out the neighbors had gotten tired of waiting for my parents to get home, so they decided to take down a piece of the wall between our properties and put a small gate there instead.”
13. “My neighbor lost her mind when she went out of town and returned to find we’d mulched our entire backyard. She was so mad that she started roping off her fence line to ‘pay us back’ for beating her to the punch. We didn’t mulch near her fence line. We ignored her for about two months while she continued to escalate the situation. She put tubs over my mom’s plants, dug up shrubs and flowers that she deemed ‘too close’ to the fence, and more. It finally peaked in June of last year when my mom put flags in the ground for summer, and she called the police on us. I spent my birthday explaining what she had done and how she kept worsening over time. A policeman went to her house, was in there for a very long time, and finally left with her chasing him outside, screaming some nonsense. Now, we say nothing to her. She tried to start things with us, but it didn’t get very far.”
14. “My neighbor has a few apple trees — not the kind you eat, but the small crab apples. Whenever I go outside, she throws an apple at me or in my direction, ducks behind the fence, and crawls inside. Portland is a fun place.”
15. “My neighbor has started setting up elaborate, life-sized dinosaur sculptures in their yard, and they change the scene every few days. It’s pretty strange but entertaining to see what they’ll come up with next. I guess everyone has their own way of having fun.”
16. “They howl with the coyotes that are howling outside every night.”
17. “He’s building a bunker. This has been going on for at least 10 years. He also runs his bobcat in the middle of the night. He works for the government, so maybe he knows something we don’t.”
18. “My closest neighbors treat their front yard like a landfill. Every day I walk outside, I see brand new trash lying in the grass. This behavior is strange, to say the least.”
19. “I’ve got a new neighbor that sets up an LED-lit karaoke machine to sing sermons. He’ll go for several hours when he’s fired up. It’s just him on the steps outside his apartment with his karaoke machine, singing gospel-style sermons about the Lord punishing sinners and saving the righteous. Then, he goes back to smoking pot and drinking on the porch with the guys down the street. I can’t decide if he’s more or less annoying than the guy who always tries to block street parking as if he owns it.”
20. “When she mows her backyard at the fence line, she picks up twigs and whatnot and tosses them over the fence into my backyard. She’s a boomer, and while I have every right to confront her, she told me a story about how she had a neighbor’s tree (it was a rental house) cut down without their knowledge. So, I figure it’s best to let her do her thing. Otherwise, I might invite the wrath of Boomer Karen.”
21. “My neighbor sets off what sounds like explosives on random evenings. Other neighbors tell me that they are high-quality rockets. You’ll be chilling and winding down, and then BOOM, maybe around 8:00 or 9:00 p.m., you’ll hear this loud explosion. I’m sure he loves it, but it’s so annoying.”
22. “They’re building a fence on my property. I’m just waiting for them to finish so I can call a surveyor to deliver the bad news, and they can tear it all down.”
23. “My neighbor keeps the inside ground floor of their house lit up like an airport 24/7. Bright lights beam out their windows no matter what time of night. How in the hell can the family relax and enjoy their living space under those lights? I’m curious about why but don’t know how to phrase the question.”
24. “Most days, between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., he fires up his circular saw, makes one single cut, and then turns it off. I don’t know which house it is in, but I am so curious about what he is doing.”
25. “My neighbor’s favorite pastime is washing his car, but only the tires. He’ll spend hours polishing them while the rest of the car remains covered in dust.”
26. And: “It’s strange in a cute way. She dances with her cat every single night. She gets home at 10ish every night, turns on a little light music, the cat gets on her bed, and they dance for a few minutes. She always opens the window and has great taste in some old jazz records, so I never complain. However, sometimes I can’t help but watch for a second at how pure and wholesome it is.”
Do you have any unusual neighbors? What’s something strange you’ve seen or heard them do? Tell us in the comments or share your story anonymously using this form.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
