Neighbor gets revenge on 'bratty' kids who keep throwing their garbage over fence.
"Children were playing 'let’s dump all our cr@p over the fence' for years. I joined and won."
I have lived in my neighbourhood for six years. I run daily and walk the dog daily, when it’s not -45C out, but since it’s a newer area there aren’t many paths. So I take basically the same sidewalks every single day.
About four years ago I noticed there’d always be a pile of crap on the sidewalk behind a specific home. We’re talking a basketball, pair of shoes, half of some plastic toy, an umbrella, etc. Really random groupings of everyday life detritus, always on the sidewalk, always behind this house.
I have a short dog and also I am aware enough of the world that I know this stuff can affect say, a mother with a stroller or someone in a wheelchair trying to navigate around it. So when I’d come across it I’d always move it onto the grass because I didn’t really know where it was coming from.
Eventually I’d see it get reported as litter on our local complaints app and the city would clean it up and that was that. Once or twice I took a garbage bag myself and threw it out. This happened for years.
I had to make a Facebook account for a job I took, and idly decided to join my local neighbourhood Facebook group. Scrolling back to read the drama, I came across a complaint about that house.
Someone commented “try being their neighbour, it’s like living by a dump.” By scouring the comments I found out these kids just do this constantly, the parents don’t care and have been talked to by the city and the neighbours, and the colour of the house of the culprits (confirming which house it was.) The kids just thought this was fun.
So I decided - why not just throw everything BACK IN? I began doing this in 2021.
Shoe? In their yard. Gatorade bottle? Yard. Dog poop bag? Yard. One time a whole Barbie was out there. I picked it up. Chucked it. See, the kids were never out when I was out. So no one really saw me throw it back in.
One time we threw the same shoe back and forth six times. Six runs, I saw that freaking glitter Velcro shoe. Six times, I tossed it back over their fence.
This whole thing baffled me because I can’t imagine the parents understood where all their sh*t was going. I saw a whole raincoat, big toys, adult sneakers. Like, these children were taking stuff from the house to do this! It always slowed down in the winter but once the snow melted… it came back.
One day I went for my run and one of those plastic tricycles was there. Something in me snapped. I moved it to the side and left it there. I ignored it for a few days. Then, I went for a walk with my dog. And I heard the kids in the yard.
I picked that sucker up, stepped far back, and with all my might, whaled that sh*t into their yard. I heard a shriek and the sound of breaking, and then silence. Then I walked up to the fence, and said “I better not see any of your garbage on this sidewalk ever again.”
And then kept walking with my dog. Because really, what were the kids gonna do? The fence was higher than they were, it was not gated nor close to a walking path, so if they wanted to see me they’d have to go down six houses to come out to the path I was on. Their parents clearly didn’t give a f*ck.
This was fall 2022. I’m happy to report I haven’t seen a single piece of garbage behind their house since. And yes, they still live there, their artwork is still proudly displayed in the windows.
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
A friend of mine learned a hard lesson as a child living in Ventura, California. Growing up with two dóbermans in the family, he was tasked with poop duty. For over a year he would pitch the turds over the back fence into the neighboring orchard.
One fine day, he came home from school and was informed by his mother that there was a project that required his attention in the back yard. Apparently the farmer who owned the property was a disgruntled by the accumulation of feces and used his tractor to dump the pile back over the fence.
My cousin did something similar and his face when he realised that he had to clean his piled up mess up after years of doing a half arsed job was great.
My nan looked him in the eye when telling him off and just added a bit of sugar on top when she ended it with 'when I said to work smarter, not harder, this was not what I meant. Pick it up and do it properly this time'
Had this with my friends' entitled neighbors. Year after year their neighbors threw their grass cuttings over the fence onto my friends' field. Year after year my friends watched it pile up. Then when my friends started to build their forever home, in the field, they asked the ground workers to please put it all back where it came from.... perfect revenge.
Good. Someone needed to teach those screeching little hellions a lesson. Glad you were able to educate them a little bit about the real world.
As a mom with a young one who goes on walks with a stroller, i am living vicariously through you with this lol.
I love my neighborhood but there's always people chatting in the middle of the sidewalk which means i have to fanagle my way around them (sometimes my daughter is asleep in the stroller so it makes having to recline the stroller back a bit to smoothly go over the curb/driveway a sure fire way to wake her up)
Or lately, i just stop and stare. just today while walking with my daughter, a house with two other young kids had their bikes, chalk and toys in the middle of the sidewalk. i always thought it was just me being petty but happy to see i'm not alone.