Everyone has had at least one strange neighbor who freaks people out a little bit. These are the major examples of that.
Keep An Eye On Your Cats
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“There was a guy down the street who told his 11-year-old son to ‘take care of’ the new family in the neighborhood’s cats if they ever wandered into his yard.
Well, eventually, they did, and the kid put over 10 pellets in one of them and stabbed the other one in the cheek until there was a gaping hole where you could see the inside of its mouth. Nothing but sadistic torturing.
In spite of receiving good care, both cats were dead within two weeks. It was a horrible welcome for the new family, and I’m still burning up about it.”
Talk About A Buzzkill
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“Back in my first year in college, I lived in a student house with three other friends. On the weekends, everyone would go home apart from me who worked in the town at a bar on Fridays and Saturdays.
After work on Fridays, around 2 am, I used to go round to another friend’s student house and get stoned. One Friday night, I was coming home from my friend’s place, high, and opened the door to my house, which was scary when dark. I immediately jumped into my room and locked my bedroom door. Something about being there on my own unnerved me; throw being baked into the mix and you have a recipe for paranoia.
As I laid in bed, I could hear noises of what sound like people moving about in my house, which was terrifying until I realized that it was actually someone next door moving around. Now, this was at 5am-ish. I remember thinking, ‘God, they’re up late aren’t they,’ before falling asleep.
The next day, I was woken up by someone furiously ringing the door. I answered all tired and groggy only to find two policemen asking me questions about next door. It turns out they got robbed. It was the robbers I heard. Imagine they’d been robbing my house when I came in stoned. My heart would have given out then and there.”
Well, That’s A Good Reason To Leave
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“My family and I used to live in a rough neighborhood when I was a kid.
One night, it was just my mom, my two siblings, and me at the house because my dad was gone on a business trip. That night around midnight, someone started knocking on our door. My mom woke up and went to the front door and asked who it was. No one answered. She thought that maybe it was some kids playing ding dong ditch, so she went back to bed.
About 30 minutes later, again, someone started knocking. She got up and peered through the side window to see if she could spot anyone out there, but nobody was there. She started to worry so she went back to the room and grabbed my dad’s long-barrel and sat in the living room in the dark waiting. Again, there was knocking. My mom began shouting at whoever it is that she was going to call the cops and that if anyone tried to come in, that she would shoot them.
At about 2 am, the police finally showed up and did a quick search outside of our house while we waited inside. After their search, they told my mom that they had found a piece of barbwire about four-feet-long next to the front door and asked if it belonged to my mom. She said that it wasn’t hers and asked why. The cop told her it belonged to whoever was knocking on the door. They said whoever was outside was probably planning on strangling my mom with the barbwire if she’d opened the door to see who was knocking. They said that she was very smart to not open the door to see who was there, otherwise, it could have cost her life. The cops said that they’d patrol the neighborhood until morning and do a thorough investigation once there was daylight.
That morning as they were searching around the house, they found footprints leading around to the back of the house leading up to my bedroom window. They had also found knicks in the window seal where the person was trying to pry open the window to break in but failed.
My mom always suspected it was this one neighbor because he would always stare at my mom through his curtains and wasn’t very friendly. He also knew when my dad wasn’t home since he knows what vehicle he drives. After that, we moved out of that house.”
No Joking Matter
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“A couple of friends and I were smoking a joint on his patio and listening to music when we heard two loud bangs.
My neighborhood is shaped in a way that sound travels easily, so we turned off the music to figure out what it was. We heard three more bangs, a pause, and then one more bang. We joked about it being a shooting and went back to smoking.
We later saw some police lights reflecting off the houses about 10 minutes later and knew something actually did happen. It turns out some guy in our neighborhood had a mental breakdown, shot and killed his mom before killing himself.
The rest of his family still lives in that house.”
No Wonder They Kept The Blinds Drawn
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“The neighbor next door at my old house would watch me sleep in my room while standing in the backyard. My mom once caught him staring. I kept the blinds closed from then on.
He also set his basement on fire with a Molotov so he could get a new dryer. When we moved, my older brother stayed in the house. This neighbor would break in and steal stuff while my brother was at work. My brother came home one day to find his dog in the bathroom, terrified.
He was caught by our other neighbor watching the house and even shoveling our yard. Eventually, he broke in again and used a blowtorch to steal some copper pipes, flooded the basement, and set the whole house on fire. All of the memories that we kept there were ruined. We were thankful that my brother’s dog was at his mom’s.
My dad found our shovel on the neighbor’s porch and our old computer monitor in the trash. The detective never came to catch him, so he got away with it.”
That’s Not Creepy At All
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“When I was about 11 or 12 years old, my mom was doing some repairs on our house. She had to keep going from the house to the cellar for tools, and the cellar only had external access.
After a while, she was coming back into the house and noticed a man on our deck looking in through the window. She shouted at him and he took off, so my mom chased him all the way to the woods on the next property and then shouted: ‘If I see you again, I’m getting my dog and I’m coming for you!’
She filed a police report and went about her business, fixing the house. By the next week, there were shutters and curtains on every window of the main floor; my mom got her concealed carry and she taught our German Shepherd to attack on command. I was not at home. My mom thought that word got around that ‘a woman and her two young daughters spent most of their time alone at the house and that the father works long hours.’
Yes, my mother knows it was dumb to chase the guy, but she was on adrenaline and a momma bear instinct rush.”
That Sounds A Lot Like A Cult…
“I live next door to a family of exclusive Brethren (pretty much hardcore Christians which aren’t allowed to use any technology). I live in a two-story house and my room overlooks the front yard with a clear view of their house. A few years ago, my brother from Germany came to visit us, and on his last day, I looked out of the window to see if he had finished loading the car. I noticed the Brethren lady watching from her window; every time my brother or dad turned to the direction of her house, she would duck under the window. She didn’t notice me watching, though, so it was pretty funny.
Anyway, she would constantly do this. When my dad was mowing the lawns, when I walked home from school, I would always catch a glimpse of her from the corner of my eye.
She would talk on the phone while staring at my family. Her husband cut the trees on OUR side if the fence, specifically so the family could watch us, which is illegal in my country.
Tacks, fishing hooks, nails and other sharp objects always ended up on our driveway, which led to a lot of punctured tires. My biggest worry was that my dogs would get hurt.
It’s so creepy. She took a photo of my boyfriend’s dad’s license plate when he was picking me up. A video camera was pointed at my house. Keep in mind, according to their religion, things like phones are banned.
The weirdest part is, my family is BORING. We just stay inside most of the time and keep to ourselves. I don’t know how or why this started but it gives me the chills. My parents find it hilarious.”
“Meow” Was Out To Get The Children
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“I had a neighbor that left for work early in the morning. He was a single father that had 12 little kids.
One day after he left for work, I heard screaming coming from next door. Knowing they were just kids, I ran to check on them, but they were nowhere to be found. I called the father and he came back immediately. He barged into his house and I followed. It turns out the kids had been locked in a closet against their will. When asked who did it, they said Meow did it and pulled down the skin under their eyes. I was freaked out and asked the dad what they meant. He didn’t know.
The same thing happened a couple of times after that. The cops were called twice. They eventually moved and the house was condemned. Before he moved, I asked the dad if he ever found out who Meow was and he answered. He said he pretended to leave work once, but stayed behind and peeked through the window. He had to vocally say he was leaving to trick Meow. Once he ‘left,’ a small old lady came out from the attic and started chasing around the kids to lock them up. He said she looked creepy. Old dress, long hair, and unhealthy looking eyes.
Anyway, they got so freaked out, they planned on moving. He called the cops, but they found no trace of the woman. But that wasn’t it. Meow told the kids if they moved, she’d follow them. Stuff was getting serious, especially since she was mad. He didn’t want to tell me the full story, he just wanted to leave. He threw a rock through the window and left. I got so scared, I had to sleep at a friend’s house and eventually moved as well.
That was a while ago. I saw him on Facebook and asked how he was doing. He said he was fine. He asked if I still lived there, and to his pleasure, I said no. I went by just to see my house and his. Nothing unusual. She’s probably dead by now. But it still creeps me out.”
He Was Terrified For Months That They’d Come Back For Him
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“When I was a little boy, my family lived on this really sketchy rural street.
A lot of things happened there, like police raids and people getting hit by cars; we also had a lot of creepers and trespassers, so it was a pretty messed up place.
Two things come to mind: the time when some guy crashed into our fence on his four-wheeler. I still have nightmares to this day. Then there was the time I accidentally stumbled across the people robbing the next door neighbor’s house. I tried telling my mom about the robbery but she didn’t believe me until the next day when a cop knocked on our door.
Regardless, for some reason, I was scared that they’d come back for me since I saw their faces. I hid my belongings in the most brilliant places and set up a stuffed animal to look like me in my bed, to throw them off, you know.”
They Still Don’t Know What Happened To The Children
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“When I was a kid, we had neighbors across the street that immediately felt ‘off.’ The parents both looked like speed freaks, their three kids were out of control, and their dog terrorized the neighborhood.
Their oldest son had a tendency to break into garages and set fires (I think there were three successful ones). The baby (less than 2 years old) was often out wandering the street alone in just a dirty diaper. I scooped her up from the middle of the street once right as a car came barreling around the corner and got yelled at by both the driver (until he realized that I was not actually babysitting the baby) and her mother.
Their German Shepherd roamed the streets freely and would attack anything that moved. He killed at least one little dog being walked on a leash down the street and injured multiple people. The dad had a habit of just standing in the driveway and hollering obscenities at whoever happened to be nearby. The mom once called social services after a fight with my mom and told them she had seen my dad violating me.
When they moved out, the police came to ensure that they had left, and ran out of the house shortly after entering. They were covered in fleas from the house. As in, their tan uniforms looked black from across the street in places. When they went back in, they found a bunch of weapons lying around, a hole in the roof over the baby’s crib (it didn’t cave in, someone cut/smashed the ceiling in), and a ton of child smut. Turned out the dad was wanted for a series of assaults, too.
We never did find out what happened to them, but for their kids’ sake, I hope the cops tracked them down.”
They Became Obsessed With Their Neighbor’s Antics
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“My significant other and I live in an apartment building and the units are close, so I can pretty much see inside my neighbor’s living room and bedroom.
There’s this obese and tall Hodor-like guy who I think has some kind of mental development issues because he screams a lot and doesn’t seem all there. He lives by himself but surrounds himself with a cast of interesting characters.
The thing is…there’s a constant stream of young and pretty girls going in and out of the apartment, wearing fashionable/alternative clothes. There are also random sketchy old dudes hanging around the apartment.
Usually, the main girl is picked and she spends a month there taking care of him like a caretaker, but at the same time, they seem to have a romantic relationship. Then she disappears and another one seems to move in.
Last month, they got a friend with dwarfism and they like to pick him up randomly and twirl around.
One day, we looked at the window and there were four EMS workers looking at the floor and shaking their heads. And Hodor guy and a girl were crying and screaming at each other, pointing blame. I legit thought someone had died, but the girl’s friend fell into a coma from so much drinking.
We are pretty sure they are producing an amateur adult movie or something like that.”
The Worst Neighbor Ever
“I used to live in a run-down apartment complex because it was all I could afford at the time. Neighbors came and go quite a bit. The people directly across from me ended up moving out sometime in the middle of the night. Most of the neighbors were a little off or odd; however, the creepiest was the guy who moved in towards the end of my time there.
He was a drinker. I don’t mind people drinking, but he went above and beyond in his drinking. When he was smashed, which was any time after 2pm, he would knock on my door asking for a smoke. I wouldn’t have minded that so much, if he wore clothes when knocking on my door. He’d tried to cover himself with a sheet, but it was so thin and worn out that it did nothing to hide his junk. He’d knock at various times of the day, as early as 5am and as late as midnight.
Thing is, he knew I had kids. At the time, they were young and clingy and curious. If there was a knock on the door, they would want to answer it with me. The first time it happened, he winked at my son, who was 4 at the time, and asked, ‘Like what you see?’
After the second time he did this, I stopped answering the door, but it did not stop him from trying.
Another thing that he did was walked over our elderly neighbor who knocked on his door, mid heart attack. Our elderly neighbor was trying to ask for help and the Creeper’s door was the closest. Rather than offer him help or call for an ambulance, he walked over my dying neighbor to go outside to smoke.
The elderly neighbor died in the apartment hallway, alone. It was early in the morning, and I couldn’t hear the hallway from the bedroom, so if he called for help I couldn’t hear it. I found him in the hallway, later in the morning, as I was going to do laundry. I found out what the creeper neighbor did from the landlord because the guy admitted to ignoring the dying man. I felt so horrible for the elderly guy and a little guilty for a while because he got no help.”
This Father/Daughter Duo Terrorized The Whole Block
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“Well, up until recently, my creepiest experience with neighbors was probably the creepy father and daughter a few doors down from me. They lived in this little complex of three studio apartments. I’ve been at my place for about five years and they were there for four of those years.
I have no idea what their living arrangements were, as the daughter was about 11-15 years old over the course of their being my neighbors – can’t imagine it’s much fun living with your dad in that kind of close quarters as a pubescent girl. Clearly, it wasn’t. In fact, because aside from dubious living arrangements, there was the screaming – usually about the little dog they had.
On many, many occasions I’d hear the girl’s incredibly shrill voice screaming at the top of her lungs things like, ‘You’re choking him! You’re killing him! How could you, you monster?’ because the dad was taking the dog out to the yard on a leash. That was all – I could see him, he wasn’t doing anything violent or questionable – just pulling the dog along when it wanted to go a different direction.
Worse was when the dad would get real brave and, say, grab his daughter’s arm because she was about to walk into oncoming traffic without thinking. Then the screaming would be, ‘YOU BROKE MY ARM! I’m going to die! Help me, help me, help me!’ or sometimes, if the stimulus was something else, just, ‘You ruined my life! I hate you!’ I know other people used to call the cops on them when she’d have outbursts like that, but I never did because I’d witnessed enough of them to realize that she was simply not well in her brain. Saw them at a grocery store earlier this week – I believe they’re both living in a camper with their dog now. Pretty sad.
Since they’ve moved out, it’s probably their neighbors two doors closer to me that are the creepiest. These winners are the reason the crazy father/daughter and several other tenants in that little complex have moved out over the last couple years since they arrived. I’m not sure if it’s uppers or downers or both that they’re on, but it’s something. They’ll go weeks without coming out of their house unless it’s the guy poking his head out at the slightest noise to see if someone is messing with their plants. Other times, they’ll be outside most of the day, doing little yard projects or fixing their bikes. In between these periods, there are usually a few days in which MASSIVE fights will take place that can be heard the length of the block. Usually lots of threats from the woman that she’ll call the cops on the man, usually because she thinks that he stole her computer, bike or some other high ticket item. I’m almost positive that, in reality, he didn’t so much ‘steal’ these things as he did ‘sell them for a fix’ and she’s so whacked out of her mind that she can’t remember why her stuff is gone.
Do I love city life or what.”
A Mother’s Presence In The Neighborhood
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“My ‘mother’ is almost certainly the creepiest person in her neighborhood.
It’s a heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, attached row houses, neatly manicured gardens, pretty upscale. Except for that one house, where the crazy people have been living since the 1950s. There’s a high wooden fence, half broken-down, around the tiny yard, and a tangle of overgrown greenery spilling out from the sides. My ‘mother’ will be the one pushing a rickety shopping cart and ranting at the top of her lungs about the JEWS who, she is convinced, have drilled holes in the wall to pump poison gas into her basement room. The reason she thinks so is because the place ‘smells funny,’ and she’s certain that the hoarder’s clutter, the non-working plumbing, and the infestation of mice and, I’m sure, roaches have nothing to do with it.
So, yeah, my ‘mother’s’ idea of a good time is going out on Friday night or Saturday, when everyone’s on their way to or from the synagogue, and yelling about the JEWS and how Hitler should’ve killed them all. Fun fact: she’s Jewish herself.
We don’t talk anymore. Strangely enough, what I just described is the least of the matter…”
What Was Going On In The Garage?
“My math teacher used to live down the street from me. He was the loner, nerd, 60-year-old, never slept with anyone type. I never saw anybody visit him and I never saw any other cars parked at his house. He was a nice guy and would talk with the neighbors when they were out working on lawns and what not, wave every time we drove by, but, other than that, he was alone as far as I could tell.
Anyway, I went over to his house one day as a freshman in college with a couple classmates because we couldn’t figure out a calculus problem. We went into his house and he helped us where he could. The place was tidy. He seemed happy to help (the two of us were former students of his).
Another evening, I went over there for some more help and rang his doorbell, but nobody answered. I saw the glow from some kind of screen from his living room. It could have been a laptop I suppose, but no other lights on. I figured he was busy and decided to try him later. So I went back an hour later and as I was walking past his garage towards the front door, I heard him, or someone, dragging what sounded like a plastic bag across the garage, and I heard him say, ‘The thing about these is, they are very, very hostile.’
I noped out of there. I never figured out who he was talking to or what was going on in the garage.”