Not as petty as other posts here, but I can aspire to improve.

My neighbors to my left have been hellish old crazies since I moved here 5 years ago. We were cordial up until last summer when the 70-75 year old husband did the jerking off motion to my partner (for the second time, mind you) because his friend had parked in front of the guys’ house for 24 hours (bachelor trip). Note: even with our friend parked there, both the husband and wife neighbors could also park their huge truck & jeep. So, there’s tons of room especially since the house on the other side of them doesn’t have cars so they can park in front of her place too. But, whatever, keep peace and all so we don’t park in front of their house if we can help it just because they aren’t worth our time. But I knew I was done pretending to be nice.

Yesterday, MLK day, I heard a knock on our door at 8am but it was a holiday and I was off work so I kept sleeping. Later, when my partner left for therapy, the neighbor approached him and said “yeah we called the cops on you because you guys keep parking too close to our car. He was going to ticket you, but I said I’d talk to you first.” My partner, always one to avoid drama just shrugged and went to therapy. When he told me 4 hours later when he got home, I was skeptical. 1). I wasn’t parked illegally nor was I close to the car. I was eye-estimating about 2 feet of space between us. I was also parked in front of my own house 2). If I was \*going\* to be ticketed for that, I would have. Or they would have left a note at my door.

So, the shit stirrer I am, I went outside and bumped my car a little closer so now there was only 1 foot between us. As I closed my car door, I even got some pageantry and threw up a peace sign and left hip lean towards their house (they have cameras covering every square inch and the one our front also covers my entire lawn so they saw). I also called the non emergency line and asked to speak with the officer who came to my residence. Told him the story and he laughed and sighed saying that he was never going to ticket me and when he told our neighbor he was grumpy and pissed off. They even offered to do house checks for us since we leave for our honeymoon soon.

Neat, right?

So a few hours pass and suddenly there’s a cop car in front of the neighbor’s. He called once again and showed the video to the cop (but he tried telling him I was flipping him off vs. doing a peace sign, thankfully the cop is smart and knew the difference).

Cop comes to our house, I let him in and tell him about the numerous threats, fear mongering (aka how he also tried lying that this guy was going to ticket me) and how he has acted so disrespectfully and immature to us that I was done pandering to these old people. Our neighbor to the right has also had issues with them (more racially as our asshole neighbor is a racist and they are brown) so we are on the same page. I explained that I know the cop is an innocent in this and is playing middle man, but since I am doing nothing illegal or morally wrong, I will continue to park how I want. The cop alluded to continue doing what I was doing and make sure to avoid anything illegal and I agreed and thanked him.

Not super petty, I know, but this is the start I bet. I’m going to keep parking 1 foot from their jeep’s behind in front of my house (also over our apron to our nonexistent driveway) and let him raise his blood pressure. Can’t be good for his health in the long term. Also, if cops keep being called on me for legal doings, I will stop opening the door and be sure to file a harassment/restraining order. The cops know these people WELL since they call many times for other nonsense and our neighbor to the right had to call them on the other neighbors because they were threatening them and their kids.

Not all neighbors are like this, right? We plan to move in 1-2 years anyway, but I wfh and take joy in stirring pots as you see.