When my kids were pretty young — the oldest was four, the middle three, and the youngest six months — I transferred jobs, and my husband and I purchased a used twenty-four-foot travel trailer to live in until we could financially afford to get into an apartment or house in the town near my work.

It was about a week before December, we had been living in the trailer since the beginning of October, and we had already found an apartment to move to but were waiting for December 1st to move in.

My sister (who I always thought had similar views on children and what they should and shouldn’t watch as I did) had allowed my kids to watch the movie “Tremors” while they were at her house, and my kids loved the movie. It made them afraid to go to sleep at night, but that is a different issue we had to work through.

On this particular day, the children couldn’t really play outside much since it was snowing for the first time that season and it had been very cold recently. To entertain themselves, my two oldest children were playing inside on the bed. Their favorite game at the time was one they called “dirt monsters”, which was their phrase for the creatures from the “Tremors” movies. The game consisted of one of the kids being on the bed and the other falling off it and clinging to the side calling the other for help to save them from the dirt monster. The child on the bed would then pull them to safety. Sometimes imaginary guns were involved to shoot the dirt monsters.

After they had played this for quite a while, we ate dinner and then got them ready for bed. We used to sing songs with the kids at bedtime. One song the kids always loved was “Jingle Bells”, but for my sanity, my rule was that we would only sing “Jingle Bells” when there was snow on the ground; otherwise, we would be singing it in the summertime, and that was always kind of weird. So, since there was snow that particular day, we sang a very, very rousing rendition of “Jingle Bells”, practically shouting the last part.

As we sang the very last bit there was a knock on our door. I thought perhaps we were bothering the neighbors with our singing and someone was there to complain. But it was much different. When we opened the door, there were two police officers standing outside. I then thought that we must have really annoyed our neighbors for them to call the police on us with a noise complaint, even though it wasn’t that late — only about 8:00 pm.

The officer was very polite but what he said kind of shocked us. Our neighbors in the RV park had called them, yes, not to report noise, but to report possible child endangerment.

One of our neighbors — we never knew who — heard our children playing dirt monsters and calling for help so they called and informed the police that they heard a child calling for help and that they sounded distressed.

We explained the kids’ game to the officers. I can’t remember all the questions they asked as this was about seventeen years ago now, but I remember that we explained to them that our living situation was temporary and that we were moving in around a week. The kids, who were thrilled that uniformed police officers were there, were crowded around them asking them questions and very much not looking like abused children. The officers then said that they didn’t see any problems and eventually left.

I don’t blame the neighbors that called, especially if they really thought that one of our kids was in danger, but I was confused about how they could hear the kids’ cries for help but not hear their laughter or excited squeals when they were playing. Mainly, I was just so embarrassed because we had five people at the time living in a twenty-four-foot trailer, so it was crowded, cluttered, and chaotic, not to mention that we had just eaten dinner so there were dishes still on the counter. Also, I knew the town newspaper had a police blotter section where they listed all the police calls of the week. It was a small town, and I wasn’t quite sure how extensively they reported the calls and whether our names would be mentioned. (They weren’t.)

It definitely made for a story we had to tell for years about when we got the police called on us. Thankfully, they didn’t decide we were unfit due to the clutter and mess.

My neighbor and I live in a split condo — him on one side, me on the other. We equally take care of the shared front steps, both our walkways, and both our driveways. He has a snowblower, and I go along behind him and shovel what it cannot get.

We also do the driveway of the neighbor across the street because he’s elderly. This particular snowstorm today is what we call “heart attack snow”. It’s all slush and yuck, and it’s hard to move. Even the snowblower is clogging every two minutes. It’s just pure slush.

I should note that I very much become an “I don’t care what you think of me” person when someone manages to push my buttons. I’m 5’2” tall, but my friends like to joke that I’m “ten feet of spite in a five-foot package”. I’m not outright spiteful in this story, but it gives you an idea of why I acted the way I did.

We are in the middle of doing the elderly neighbor’s driveway when a woman walks up with a condescending look on her face. She looks to be in her forties, so not elderly.

Without so much as a “hello”, she starts screaming at us.

Woman: “I need to go to the store! Why have you not dug me out first?!”

Me: “We are not hired—”

Woman: “I need you to dig me out. Now!”

Neighbor: “We are not—”

Woman: “No! You will shovel me out! Now!”

Me: *Finally raising my voice* “We do this because he is elderly! It’s not a job. Do you see a freaking uniform or snow removal company logo on us?!”

Woman: “So?”

Me: “You going to pay us?”

Woman: “Why would I do that? Does [Elderly Neighbor] pay you?”

At this point, I’ve hit my limit. I try to splash cold water (figuratively speaking) on her logic.

Me: “So, you expect us to shovel you out, for free, and make you a priority, just because you screamed at us?”

Woman: “Well, you should not shovel out anyone if you won’t help everyone!”

[Neighbor] is off with his snowblower by now, just doing what we came to do, because it’s still snowing and we want to be done for now.

Me: “The man is eighty years old. It’s called ‘being a decent human being’. You’re—”

Woman: “Well, you—”

Me: “No. Shut up when an adult is talking.”

Woman: “You—”

Me: “No! I said be quiet when adults are talking! You clearly never learned how to say ‘please’. If you were in trouble, we would have helped. Instead, you could not use your adult words to speak like a proper person, so go f*** yourself. Now, get off this property before I ask the owner to call the cops.”

The town police station is literally four buildings down from where I live, so response time for an elderly man calling about trespassing would be lightspeed.

I walk back to [Neighbor].

Neighbor: “What did you tell her?”

Me: “I pointed out that she should learn to ask for favors like an adult, is all. I felt I was very reasonable, and I hope she took it to heart.”

We spent another thirty minutes doing our elderly neighbor’s driveway, and we could see the woman glaring at us from her living room window the entire time.

It’s been two hours since we finished, and I can look out my window and see that her driveway is STILL unshoveled. But I’m not going to help someone who acts like my sole reason to exist is to make their life easier.

I live in an apartment complex. About a year ago, I noticed a letter wedged into the door frame of the apartment across from the complex’s entrance hall. It struck me as odd because only residents or management can get into the building, so it was clearly not a normal letter that would go in the mailbox. About two weeks passed without any sign of the letter being moved, and another letter appeared in the doorframe. Another two weeks after that, a notice was posted on the door itself for everyone to see. The gist of it was that, due to unpaid rent and lack of communication, the apartment management would enter the apartment and begin eviction procedures if they didn’t receive any reply within the next month.

I started to get a bit nervous. Skipping out on rent is a great way to tank your ability to get a new apartment — the rental companies can and do talk to each other about tenants — so the most likely explanation seemed to be that someone had died in the apartment and no one had figured it out yet. There was no smell in the hallway, so I hoped that wasn’t it but couldn’t think of an explanation.

Then, suddenly, the letters just disappeared from the door and nothing new was posted. I figured I’d never learn what happened, but when my partner called up the management company for an unrelated repair request, he asked them what the deal was, not actually expecting an answer. I don’t know if they lied to him or not, but frankly, their answer was so outrageous I have to believe it’s true.

The only person living in that apartment was a cat. Someone had rented out a two-bedroom apartment within a thirty-minute train ride of the city center, probably around 700 USD a month, just for their cat. That’s why the door wasn’t used for over two months; the window was open for the cat to get in and out. 

I’ve still never seen anyone go in or out of that apartment, and this is a nice, new-ish building, so if someone did die, there’s no reason they wouldn’t clean it up and re-let it. I refer to it now as Schrödinger’s apartment; the cat is both living there and not living there until someone opens it up and finds out what the heck is going on.

I’m proud of my garden. I mostly grow herbs, greens, fruit, and vegetables. I have several very fragrant bushes and plants in my herb garden that look very interesting but are really just variants of various cooking herbs. Nothing special. I just like it when it looks pretty, too.

My ridiculous neighbor loves to make fun of me being “alternative” and a “wannabe witch”, but I just ignore him because he’s a really stupid and ignorant moron, and talking to him is just a waste of time.

We get new neighbors, and our moronic neighbour tries to get chummy with them at the fence to our garden. The moron lives on the opposite side of the street, and the new neighbors live at the house right next to us.

I go out to fetch some herbs for cooking. I’m wearing a normal T-shirt with little stars printed all over that looks a bit like a pyjama top, grey sweatpants, and neon green Crocs — absolutely nothing mythical to see here. 

But of course, he has to use the chance to show off his ultra “normal” and no-nonsense character.

Neighbour: “Oh, hey, look! It’s [My Name], the herbal witch, preparing one of her magical concoctions! Oh, no! I shouldn’t have said that! It is soooo negative and could cause bad vibes to hurt her aura! We wouldn’t want to taint her magical moonweed to cleanse her vegan body of negative energies!”

He said that in such a derisive tone that the new neighbor lifted his brow from the first few words on, and he accompanied his little speech with exaggerated gestures to make it clear he was putting a lunatic in her place. 

I got up from picking my herbs and looked him straight in the eyes.

Me: “Just to educate you, this is oregano, and I’m cooking pizza. It’s not my fault you can’t cook and never learned what fresh herbs look like and what they’re used for. But stop making assumptions based on your ignorance.”

I then introduced myself to the new neighbors and offered them some herbs for cooking if they wanted since I always have a surplus. We chatted nicely about gardening and cooking while ignoring the moron who tried to inject sarcastic comments about my supposed militant veganism and mysticism, which we just ignored. I’m not even vegan — not that it matters because I really fail to see how it’s his business what I eat — and it’s beyond me where he pulled the other ideas from.

Turned out the new neighbors are indeed vegetarians, though, and were looking forward to keeping their own chickens for cruelty-free eggs.

We came to an amicable agreement about fresh produce from my garden against fresh eggs from their chickens and I can just say: yay to new neighbors and their free-range organic eggs! Great times are coming!

No one in our neighborhood likes that moron, and I’m just happy he proceeded to show the new neighbors right away why that’s the case so they’ll know to avoid him. He pulls that crap with everyone, but usually, he keeps up the façade a bit longer.

Related:
Won’t You (Please, Please NOT) Be My Neighbor?

I was a substitute teacher during the school year, but in the summer, I didn’t have a regular job. I did do online tutoring, though, to make ends meet. I would work at my computer, which was at a built-in desk in my apartment near the front door.

One summer day, a group of bored pre-teens decided to play ding-dong-ditch — a game/prank where you ring someone’s doorbell and then run away. Since I was one of the few adults at home, my apartment was a target. The first couple of times were slightly amusing, but after that, I was just getting annoyed. They were ringing my doorbell about every five minutes, so after the fourth time, I made sure to stand next to the door.

When they rang, I almost immediately opened the door. I just saw scurrying feet running into the apartment diagonal from mine. I also heard the clattering of one boy’s cell phone, as it had dropped out of one of his pockets. (It turned out to belong to the boy who lived in the diagonal apartment.) I picked it up and went back into my apartment.

This occurred before phones typically had lock codes, so I could pull up the contacts. I called the one labeled “Dad” and told him the circumstances of why I had his son’s cell phone. He agreed to pick it up after he got home.

A couple of minutes later, I heard a polite knock on the door. I didn’t open it but talked through the door.

Me: “Hello?”

Kid: “Sir, did you find a cell phone on the floor out here?”

Me: “Yes. I contacted ‘Dad’, and he’ll be getting it this evening.”

Kid: *Sigh*