My Neighbor Has Been Stealing Water From My Supply So I RUINED Him r/Relationships

[00:00:01] Hey Waffle Gang, I do hope you're well. My name is Mark and today we're checking out some more Reddit Stories. And if you do love a Reddit Story, why not consider hitting that like, subscribe, maybe that notification bell too. And let's crack on with today's first story. Much love guys. Now, I've had a couple of requests for this story over time. I've had it listed but now we're getting to it. It's from the ProRevenge subreddit from TheMusicFella who says,

[00:00:29] Neighbor was stealing water from my supply. So, I ruined him. I live in Asia and just purchased a new house. Now, the previous owners were family friends who needed cash urgently and have been living in my country for nearly three years. So, I got it for a great price in the middle of the capital city. The sale was finalized at the start of this month and I moved in right after.

[00:00:54] The house was definitely a fixer-upper. As the previous owners had left mid-renovation and the main door was locked with just a padlock. Not even a door lock. The house had no gate, meaning anyone could just walk right on in. The first day I moved in, someone's bike was parked in the garage. I just parked it on the road on the same day, had a gate installed.

[00:01:17] An angry man was knocking on my gate later and I didn't bother answering, but through my window I could see him giving up and taking the bike after 15 minutes. So, already, I wasn't digging the neighborhood, but I didn't have any incidents after that, aside from people not knowing that this was no longer an abandoned house. So, my gate was blocked more often than never, but a no-parking sign on my gate fixed that issue.

[00:01:42] Last week, I was having a shower in my bathroom and noticed my water pressure was lower than usual. I also heard my next-door neighbor's water pump going. Now, this neighbor, an old guy, lived in a three-story house, the first being the lowest and the one he lived in. The other two floors were rented out to tenants. This guy wasn't happy about the house being sold and voiced many concerns to my friends and the previous owners.

[00:02:08] He was super angry about it and my friends did warn me, but I'm a six-foot guy with three dogs. No way he was doing anything. And yep, he didn't. So, with this living situation, a water pump is needed to pump water to the tanks on the roof, since the public supplies pressure is not enough to get it up three stories. Now, I heard the water pump going and immediately was suspicious. Sure, coincidence exists, but it wouldn't hurt to check it out.

[00:02:36] I waited till his pump turned off and then turned off different taps in the house. Sure enough, the pressure was back to normal. This made me even more suspicious. But if he was stealing water, it also made sense. The water bills had been going up over the years this house wasn't lived in, but the house also had some water leaks. So, it was chalked up to that, even if the bills were too high to be just caused by the leaks. Now, it's starting to make sense.

[00:03:04] At some point in the last three years, this old miser thought he could save the cost of paying for water and waltzed into the property and is siphoning water from my lines. I couldn't find where exactly he was siphoning water from, but after checking my pressure multiple times, I was pretty sure. So, I sat on it for a few days, thinking if I should confront him, go the legal path or just let it be. Now, water in my country is very cheap.

[00:03:31] My total bill, even with washing three animals, a car every week, and water in my garden only costs like $5 a month. Even with the neighbor also stealing some of it. But it wasn't about how much I was paying or who was paying for it. It's about entitled old people who think that they're deserving of using other people's resources without paying for it and then getting away with it. It didn't sit right with me and I really wanted to teach him a lesson. What I did was really simple.

[00:04:00] I just turned off my water from the mains. I wouldn't have to break into his property, nor would I be breaking any laws. It was the best way of getting back at him without needing to even lift a muscle. So, on Monday, just four days ago, I waited till the pump flicked on and turned off the supply. Now, the way the household tanks work in my country is that there's a bore valve in the tank which detects the water level and turns on the pump.

[00:04:25] If the level doesn't increase, the valve stays open which electronically sends a signal to the pump to stay on until the level gets to the point at which the valve closes and shuts off the pump. However, the level wasn't increasing and anyone knows that starving a pump of water isn't a good idea. This way, my expectation was that I'd burn out his pump and cause issues with his tenants. What I didn't account for is that his pump running constantly would mess up the fuses

[00:04:53] by constantly drawing power overnight and absolutely destroy his wiring. If he decided to upgrade his household wiring to a more modern standard, this would have been prevented. This house clearly still had 90s-era wiring. At around 3am, I heard all residents in the house waking up and talking in hushed voices about why just their house in the neighborhood doesn't have power or water. I found out about the power part because the tenants devolved into shouting at their landlord.

[00:05:22] Our tenant protection laws are very important and our power and water of class is essential even on a state level. Cutting those services are grounds for lawsuits unless due to weather or some other unavoidable reason. In this case, the landlord is responsible for keeping the house wiring up to date and in good condition alongside the supply of water. So the tenants were not happy and one of them immediately moved out two days later when it was informed that water and power will not be returning the very same day this happened.

[00:05:52] Both tenants in the two floors lodged a complaint with the police and if a person is in clear breach of laws, the police have the authority to fine or penalize the person without a court judgment. It can be challenged in court if the person thinks that they were unfairly penalized. But they still have to pay the fines and will only be refunded if and when the court finds the fines unlawful. So now the landlord lost both tenants and has to pay a fine of $500 which is a lot of money in our country.

[00:06:20] He also has to refund the security deposits of both tenants and cannot rent out until both issues are fixed which will cost him more money. As of right now, he's moving out on Sunday to his daughter's place since he cannot afford to live alone. The tenants were his only source of income and he's a retired mechanic so he has no other income. He did find out why the motor kept drawing power, overloaded the wiring and burned out. He came to my gate and asked me if I turned off my water

[00:06:49] and I said, oh yeah, my tank had a new leak on a pipe and I turned it off until the next day until the plumber came by to fix the issue. Y'all, the look on his face. He kept the straight one but I just knew he was holding back. He just said, oh, okay. I went back inside. Not sure if he knows I know, but I don't care because he can't do anything. I'm getting a plumber down next week to correct my plumbing and remove any pipes that leave my property.

[00:07:17] So I got rid of my water issue and the neighbor who could potentially be a pain in the ass by simply flicking a tap off. Two birds, one stoner, I'd say. Oh, that was a lovely revenge. I enjoyed that one. Such a simple thing to do as well. Turn off the tap. You know, real petty me was thinking. You know, just flicking that water back on, letting it all go back to normal for a little bit, letting new tenants move in and then do it all again. I know it's not fair on the tenants and, you know, this is just, you know, petty me talking.

[00:07:46] So not real, not really. But the thought of it sounds interesting. But what do you guys make of this one? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below. But now we're going to jump to our very own subreddit, Mark Narrations with OKTwist1984, who says, My neighbor cut down our shared privacy fence to prove a point. I, female 39, and my husband, 43 male, bought a house 10 years ago.

[00:08:14] We had one child at the time, now 15 non-binary. Our nightmare neighbor next door was there before we were. Our neighbor isn't an HOA and not a good one at all. But that's a story for another day, setting the scene for the mind-boggling display that is to come. The neighbor was difficult from the start. We're not really social and my neighbors aren't either. So there was no meet and greet cookie swap with any of them. The first time I met this man, early 50s maybe,

[00:08:44] was when he showed up on my porch about a month after moving in to tell me he'd seen my five-year-old child step onto a corner of his yard and I needed to keep my child off his grass. No introductions. Told me his message and turned around and walked off before I could even acknowledge what he said. After that, I told my child to make sure they stayed on our property and considered the matter closed. The first time a ball went over the fence, I walked over to his house, carefully staying off the grass, and requested the ball back.

[00:09:14] The second time it happened, I wasn't home. I drove up to a passive-aggressive note on my door and the ball on my porch. The note stated that this would be the last time. If it happened again, not to come over as he would destroy the item. The two incidents were not close together. My child was very careful with their toys, but apparently this was too much for him. This is just a sample of the things we dealt with from day one.

[00:09:40] When COVID hits, my husband got sick within the first month. I closely followed as I was his caregiver, and though I was careful, I still got it. It turned into long COVID for both of us, and we're still suffering side effects years later. We happened to get sick on our lawn mowing week, so our poor lawn wasn't tended for almost a month. The grass got higher and higher, though not to an extreme. My pit bull didn't disappear into the yard or anything. It was a long recovery and thankfully my in-laws took our child.

[00:10:10] But they were unwilling to help with anything else, inside or out, around our home. As though even our grass had the plague. I didn't blame them. We were grateful for the help we did receive. Three days before our plan to try and tackle the yard together, I received an email with a picture of our backyard and the overgrown grass from our HOA with a complaint and demanded to immediately mow the lawn or be prepared to be fined. I was bewildered as to how this photo could exist.

[00:10:38] It had a six-foot wooden privacy fence, and the angle was from an elevated height. It could have only been taken from my bad neighbor's yard. I trekked into my backyard with my trusty pit bull to fight off any wild animals in my obviously overgrown yard. Sarcasm. Sure enough, part of my fence had been cut and pulled down. About a four-foot long section. And he had nailed two small boards up to keep the fence in place so we wouldn't notice.

[00:11:06] So we ended up mowing the grass as originally planned. And the smug look on his face the next time I saw him really irked me. I ended up filing a complaint with the HOA and showed pictures on the cut fence and that it was a safety hazard to our dog. It deliberately cut through beams so it couldn't be repaired. And he was forced to replace the entire side of the fence he shared with our yard. He tried to fight it and say our yard was affecting his and he was forced to drastic action.

[00:11:33] But that in itself ended up being an admission of what he did. I sure hope it was all worth it to him. Sorry this ended up being so long. Every time I look at his house, I'm reminded of this incident. And we didn't have any more problems after that. Thankfully. Gee whiz. The threats of the ball being destroyed brought me back to my youth when we used to play in the car park outside like of our flats. You know, car park's not an ideal place to be playing ball games.

[00:12:02] I totally agree with you. But it's what used to happen. We was considerate for the most part about people's property of course. But behind the car park were a bunch of gardens as well. That sort of there was one big fence that lined and there were several attached houses all along the back of it. And occasionally our ball would go over the garden. And there was this one neighbor who would come out, chuck the ball back over, say don't do it again. I think it was on the third time he come out and just stuck a knife in it in front of everyone.

[00:12:29] Because whilst there was a fence up, they had little gaps in it that you could see through. And now this next part, I just need to tell you that I don't agree with the way that this was dealt with. It's just what happened. And I think as a kid, it was a curiosity of what was going to happen. And it's just absolute madness. The kid who owned this ball is the son of someone I've talked about in the past. It was the guy who comes out with nunchucks in the middle of the street and is just freaking, you know, just whipping them around. Like proper over the shoulder, all that type of stuff you see in the movies.

[00:12:59] Later in life, we also found out he was a dealer at the same time. So he's just a fucking madman. Not someone that you want to mess with, let me tell you. So a few hours passed because this guy wasn't home at the time. But he comes home. Kid tells dad what happened. And dad immediately goes round to his house, knocks on his front door. There's a whole gang of kids who's followed him round to the front because obviously it's around the other side of the house. And in front of the house, there's this like hill that people all stood on and you could see.

[00:13:27] But all you could see from the side view, there's like you couldn't see inside the house. You could just see like the dude knocking on the door. You could just see the door open. And then he grabbed him from inside the house and pulled him out into the bushes in his front garden and just pummeled him. Now, again, I don't agree with that. I think that's fucking, I think that's mad. But I think the guy should have stabbed the football. No. But that's just what happened at that moment. And it's just like that dude is crazy.

[00:13:56] He's also one of these guys that if you're on his good side, he will do absolutely anything for you. It's such a conflicting thing here in my head, you know, trying to deal with it these days. Trying to just thinking, bloody hell, what happened? I think I probably should get some therapy to deal with all these sort of memories and the conflicting situations. Conflicting in my brain anyway. Bloody hell, Mark, you've gone off again. Anyway, what do you guys make of that one? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below.

[00:14:25] And let's move on to another story. This one's from Fluffy Supermarket. Again, from the Pro Revenge subreddit. And it says, fired from my job. But received a year's worth of pay and got my boss fired. This happened in the early 2010s. Before the advancement of technology and video editing and content creation. I was hired as a content creator for a university that wanted to leverage YouTube to kickstart their branding campaign.

[00:14:55] The pay was low. Roughly $2,200 USD. And in those days, there were not that many video content creators around. And the process usually took a long time from start to finish. I was hired. On my second day, my manager presented my KPI of 85. 3-10 minute videos in 52 weeks. Which was impossible for a one-man team in those days.

[00:15:20] This meant I had to do the scripting, producing, casting talents, shooting videos, composing music. They were too cheap to pay for a royalty-free music subscription and editing. All of which I had to use my own equipment and software. Because their cameras and computers were so old. They simply couldn't handle the strain of even doing things in 720p. Much less 1080p. I tried to let my manager know. But she just smiled encouragingly. Telling me to give it a try.

[00:15:49] Assuring me if the videos were good. The quantity would not be what she focused on. Hearing this, I agreed to give it a try. My manager treated me well in the first month. However, one day when she found out I was a smoker, her attitude changed overnight. A colleague had actually done a facepalm when I told her about it. And she let me know that the manager hated smokers. And often advocated to get them fired. She started nitpicking on me on everything. From smelling like cigarette smoke after my breaks.

[00:16:19] Coming in 5-10 minutes late despite doing more than 4 hours of overtime daily. Not being contactable during break times. The list goes on. But I soldiered on because I just wanted to do the work and do it well. 5 months in, I was called into the director's office where I saw my manager putting on her best, displeased but gleeful face. And I found my stomach drop. The director told me that she was disappointed because she had heard that I was falling behind on my work.

[00:16:48] And it was already halfway through the year. And I had only completed 30 out of my 85 videos. I tried to explain that I had been working my butt off on these videos. I literally worked 6 days out of the week. Over 60 hours just to do what needed to be done. And that being a one man army made things impossible. Also the fact that the videos I had put up grossed the highest views ever on their YouTube page. I also recounted how my manager said that she was looking for quality videos over quantity.

[00:17:17] The director dismissed this and stated that the KPI was simply 85 videos in a year. And since it was almost half a year in with my numbers at less than half. She felt it prudent to cut the cord early. I asked how would they even meet the KPI if they were to fire me now. And my manager snorted saying. We'll find a professional production house to finish your work. The director had given her an odd look. But nodded in her support nonetheless.

[00:17:46] Telling me you don't need to worry. Manager will get the job done. That was when a light bulb went off in my head. Seeing as I was the content professional in the office. One of my jobs was to keep a database of production houses. To use in the event we needed to do a shoot that required more resources. And as I was sure they would be using the production houses in my database. As my manager had no contacts in the production industry. So I changed the contact numbers. And messed up all the emails on all of the entries.

[00:18:15] Except one. The one I had a friend working as. As a junior director. Not as an assistant director. But a director assigned to smaller video projects. I gave him a call and told him of my plan. And sure enough within two days. They were called to come into pitch. I told him that I had a plan. That was a win-win for us. It would instantly help him. And put him on a fast track to a director position. By bringing in that much business to his production house. And it would also benefit me financially.

[00:18:44] I'll teach him exactly how to pitch to win over the boss. And the director. And in turn. His company would pay me a standard finder's fee of 15%. He agreed instantly. And immediately put me on the line with his general manager. Who upon realizing this was to be six months of work. For a high six digit payout. Instantly agreed. And drew up a contract. As it turns out. After I gave them a metaphorical. Step-by-step playbook. They were the perfect fit.

[00:19:11] Somehow understanding the needs and style of the university. As well as the sorts of themes the university wanted to feature. The director and my former boss were amazed. That my friend's production house was so familiar with their content. That they signed them up on the spot. Now. Even back then. Using a production house back then was not cheap. Each video that they produced cost double to triple my monthly salary. Given that they had specialized people for each function. Producer. Director. Director of photography. Gaffer.

[00:19:41] Sound person. Video editor. Assistant director. Production assistants. Etc. But this meant that they could complete a video every two to three days. So yes. They produced 50 videos in a span of four months. For over 100 months of my salary. And I sat back and collected the healthy 15%. Which was about 15 months of my salary. This allowed me to put money aside for a holiday. And the rest to further my studies. With a respected film school overseas. I thought my plan ended here.

[00:20:10] And I had gotten back at my former bosses. But to my surprise. I received a call from my colleague. While I was on holiday. In Bali one day. This was the same colleague. Who had facepalmed. When I told her. That my manager had found out. That I was a smoker. She told me that my former manager. Had been fired. And my director. Given a massive blasting. By the chancellor of the university. The content creation project. Which I was hired for. Was only given a budget. Equating to about a year and a half. Half of my salary. And they had exceeded that budget.

[00:20:39] By over 10 times. My former manager. Was so desperate. To ensure that a content creation project. Could be completed. That she had thrown caution to the wind. Paying anything to get the job done. So that she could show my director. That she had completed the project. And had approved the massive spend. Without getting consent from the director. So that is how I got my friend. A super fast promotion. To a full director. In his production house. And a year of pay. After getting unfairly fired. From my job. And OP confirmed.

[00:21:09] In one of their comments. That they also stopped smoking. As well. But what do you guys make. Of this situation. Pretty spicy right. Let us know your thoughts down. In the comments below. And just a huge thank you. For being here today. Getting involved in the stories. Your love. Your support. Your time. It always means the absolute world to me. So thank you so so much. And hopefully. I'll see you in the next one. Take care. And much love.