People Disclose Their Intriguing Revenge Stories
11. Hateful Mom Had To Face My Random Pranks
“To start with, my mother has several irrational fears we never could explain. She hates and actively avoids things like garden gnomes and clowns. But the gnomes especially for some reason. If she were a vampire, they’d be a silver cross covered in garlic to her. And she’s also pretty superstitious. And at this time Dad was staying in a motel because he outed mom for having an affair, and then he filed for divorce.
And my mother was not taking it well because he was also blackmailing her with a few forms of fraud she’d committed in his name. So her mental health at the time made her easily screwed with.
My first choice of weapon was to find some garden gnomes. I hit paydirt at a nearby garage sale a couple of streets over, run by an elderly couple.
They were retiring to Florida and selling just about everything. The lady liked gnomes. And she had a whole bunch from big to small. And I bought all of them super cheap. They were nearly free when I explained what I was gonna do with them.
My first act was to put the bigger gnomes in the yards of neighbors on either side and in front of our house.
And yes, I did get their permission to put them there. They did and still do hate my mother. She’d threatened multiple neighbors with HOA violations even though there hasn’t been an HOA on the street since the early 90s. She even wanted to reestablish the HOA in 1999, but no one, not even my father signed her petitions. So needless to say I found it easy to find volunteers for my cause.
She saw the gnomes in the morning when getting ready to leave for work. I was watching from my bedroom window. And she looked noticeably uncomfortable as I’d aimed them to all stare right at her when standing by her car.
The next place I targeted was my mom’s work. I was acquainted with a coworker of hers that absolutely despised my mother. Let’s call this person Wendy.
I talked to Wendy the previous day about my mom’s gnome paranoia. Well, suddenly Wendy’s desk and several others in the building were adorned with tiny gnomes that all were pointed to stare at my mom’s workstation. Wendy even got a little gnome puppet to make jokes within the office.
Then over the next few days, I went outside in the middle of the night and moved the gnomes in the neighbor’s yards a bit closer each night.
And I had a few with angry faces painted on them that I mixed in. And they were holding pitchforks. Eventually, I placed several of them to look like they were rallying toward my mom’s car. That made her start parking on the street to avoid looking at them. So I put one of the angry ones in the neighbor’s back yard in such a way that its head was poking over the fence in view of the window in the master bedroom.
I heard her freak out in the morning from seeing it. And then she knocked it down with a rake.
Then for a different prank, I got two random guys from my high school to carry a large mirror outside of my mom’s work like they were moving it. I got the mirror at a garage sale too. And I paid the guys ten bucks each to intentionally bump into my mother in a way that’d make her look like she was at fault the moment she exited the building.
And one of them said ‘Oh God, lady! That’s seven years bad luck!’ I watched from around a corner and the color drained from her face. It was priceless. I knew when she was coming out because Wendy called me on my cell the moment she was leaving the office, and I gave the two guys the signal to start moving. My mother ended up screaming at them and cussing them out, so they just booked it and were gone in a flash.
And I hopped on my bike and beat her home by cutting through a back road. (Thank you bicycle engine!)
Next, there was a little person in town that worked part-time as part of a clown group for children’s parties. I called his number from an ad and asked if he would do something for me. Best $40 I’d spent in a long time. My mom just came home from work after the broken mirror incident, and as she was getting out of her car there was a little man in a gnome costume riding a child’s tricycle down the street and waving to her with a menacing grin.
(I tipped the guy an extra five bucks for that performance). My mother ran into the house in a complete panic and actually called the police that there were gnomes out to get her. The police ended up doing a wellness check on her.
Before long my mother was complaining to the neighbors about the gnomes and threatening to call the HOA. But they all just reminded her there hadn’t been an HOA in years.
And there was no law against having the gnomes. Mom did not like that and went full Karen crazy. She took a claw hammer from Dad’s tools and started destroying one of the gnomes with it. But the neighbor’s stopped her by threatening to call the police. And someone mentioned aloud that she shouldn’t have hit the gnome, because now they were REALLY mad!
That night I took a whole bunch of the gnomes and set them up outside of the front door to look like an angry mob.
And in front of the pack, I placed the gnome she’d attacked. Half its face was gone, and I had to superglue part of its head back together. But it looked mean. And then for good measure, I added a few spiders that were some old Halloween decorations from a neighbor in with the gnomes. They looked realistic enough to be creepy at first glance.
I also added a plastic Smurf I found just to be funny. The resulting morning freakout was glorious. Mom refused to leave the house and wanted to call the cops again. I talked her down and said it was probably just a cruel prank by the neighbors. Then I moved all the gnomes and spiders out of the yard so she’d leave and go to work.
She’s a terrible driver when she’s in a bad mood. So she sped off the moment she left the driveway. And there was a cop just down at the end of the street that pulled her over and ticketed her for speeding in a residential area. Apparently, he’d gotten an anonymous tip the previous day about a reckless driver from a payphone to wait down at the end of that particular street in the early morning.
Hmm, I wonder who did that?
I stopped moving the big gnomes around and just left them poised in the neighbor’s yards until I moved out to live with my dad. And one of the neighbors I kept in contact with said the gnomes were all still there for years. In fact, it became a running gag in the neighborhood that keeping gnomes in your yard would keep my mother away.
So a whole bunch of the neighbors got in on it and put them everywhere. Last I drove through the neighborhood over two months ago there were still a good few of them around. I even put a few gnomes in my front yard after my mother broke several of my windows throwing rocks at my house.
The pranks didn’t end here either. I had a few more in store.
She deserved all of that. Why? She blatantly favored my sister to the point of letting her get away with anything she did to me unless my father got involved, spanked me as hard as she could to the point I couldn’t even sit down for no reason on several occasions, would snap her fingers and order me around like a dog, let my sister steal what I earned from doing chores and odd jobs around the area and took her on shopping sprees with said amount, tried to send me to military school behind my father’s back when I refused to let her beat me anymore, and more recently tried to force me to give the house I inherited from my now deceased father to my pregnant sister.”
10. I Put My First Job Out Of Business After 8 Years Working There
“Okay, so I live in a relatively small city in North Carolina and started working at the young age of 14 as a dishwasher, soon working my way up through the restaurant over 2 years.
The original owner of the restaurant/bar, a 50+-year-old woman, had grown interested in selling the restaurant, after 10 years of great reviews, and honestly, it became the best place in town to go to.
A younger male walked in one day through the kitchen door. At the start, I thought he was a new employee. Finding out later that night he was the one interested in buying the restaurant, and the sale went smoothly.
Fast forward a year, and the new owner, let’s call him Herb, denied the only time I had ever asked for a raise; the $7.50 an hour I started on was not a living wage.
He told me I didn’t work hard enough, when I had gone as far as to wait on tables, and cook, as well as do much of the cleanup, maintenance, on top of MY job of being their dishwasher. Thankfully for me, my manager at the time, who had listened through the office door, called him out on the nonsense. She GOT me my raise.
Nonetheless a few months into it, Herb let several coolers which held meat break down and refused to fix them or get a new one. My nice manager couldn’t take getting the backlash of always being blamed for things breaking down. Herb’s the owner, it was his money, he HAD to approve anything we did. So on the night we celebrated her 10 year anniversary of working there, she ate the cake my sister and I made her.
Then also proceeded to quit on the spot right after. The responsibility of management fell onto my sister, and she was forced to take the promotion with no raise or anything.
She managed for 9 months, only to feel unheard for any issue she brought up with equipment or workers. She would always be told, “No we cannot do that.” After she had had enough trying to convince him on repairs, we were left without a manager for a period of time and he was forced to drive the 3 hours to come and manage the restaurant himself.
A few weeks after a new manager was hired, and another man was hired to be my help in the kitchen, and me being the head cook at this point in time, I taught him the ups and downs of the kitchen, and this man, he was kind and caring at FIRST. But he kissed butt so much that I WAS overlooked for the kitchen manager position.
The guy that I loved to watch football with in the kitchen on my phone, using my speaker on slow Sundays, changed into a brutal jerk. He would cuss at the waitresses and try to physically fight me on the daily. He and I were there to open the kitchen alone and would be joined by wait staff an hour later.
He went as far as to buck up to try to fight one of the waitresses one day.
When she mentioned she had heard everything he said to me, before she walked in she said, “I am done with your nonsense, you can either apologize or you can get the HECK out, OP has been here A LOT LONGER THAN YOU, and YOU were trained by him, and yet you think you can disrespect him, HECKKK NOOO.” As the man raised his hand to try to smack her, I punched him in his face and, in return got slammed into the already broken coolers.
You do not hit a woman, EVER.
Fast forward a few months later and after EVERYONE sees this side of him they realize I wasn’t playing about him being a grade-A jerk. Many of us had tried to tell Herb about his actions, but were met with “It can’t be that bad, he’s so nice.” Finally, after not being heard or listened to for so long, I began planning how to quit.
I had it all planned out and when we had the meeting, I walked in wearing a suit, already having found a place with at that time my fiancee, and a new job far from home. Everyone knew I was overdressed and had questions, and I filled them in on the walkout plan, yet the mean manager was nowhere in sight.
After enjoying the meeting and being called on for my opinions on how to boost sales, and better the restaurant, I looked at Herb and answered sarcastically “Oh me?
NOW you want to hear what I have to say?” Getting in a serious tone now, I stand up, and tell him, “Why would I help a business, much less the OWNER of this business better themselves when I have been blown off for months. ANYTHING I had to tell you, I was bullied for months and when I mentioned it, I was brushed off.
Have a GREAT freaking day Herb, because you quite literally don’t have a cook now, today is moving day, and I’m moving over 4 hours away, to a better job, one with an owner who WILL listen and respect their workers, and not force us to TRY AND COOK GREEN, SLIMY CHICKEN PAST ITS EXPIRATION DATE, I QUIT.”
He begged for me to stay because he had FINALLY fired the mean manager, he said “Is there ANY possible way I can get you to stay?” I looked at him and repeated the words he always told us when we mentioned equipment needed to be repaired or replaced, in his exact customer support accent “Noooo, we can’t do that.” As I walked out he followed begging me to stay, and said he finally did what was needed of him.
I simply told him, “Too little, WAYYYY too late,” and proceeded to walk out, and what followed was all the coworkers on my side stood up and left too.
This is not where it ends, he had purposefully not given me my w-2 forms for taxes, and after a few days of harassing him for my tax papers, I got them. Then, I received a letter from the IRS, saying there was a problem with my tax forms, therefore I couldn’t receive my tax refund.
Calling up the IRS I found he had not submitted any of the forms he was supposed to as our employer, and when contacting him to rectify the situation, he proceeded to say “Hmmm, I don’t recall employing ANY of you this year, after all, you ALL left with no reason or RIGHT.” Little did he know I record every conversation on my phone, and I reported him to the IRS.
Attached to the email, I sent in the voice recording in an mp3 format, and I also sent in photocopies of my check stubs, and copies of my w-2s, along with informing my coworkers having issues with their taxes to do the same. Herb has since lost his business, his business license, his wife left him and took their kids after finding out about his fraud.
Herb is now facing upwards to 60 years in prison now for multiple counts of tax fraud, it turns out we were not the only business he owned, and refused to pay taxes, or file the correct tax forms when needed. He had WITHHELD the safety precaution pay and used ALL of it to “fix” the restaurant. He screwed up and I get to sit back happily typing this with a smile knowing this jerk got what was coming to him.
For all of you wondering whether I ever got my taxes and my payment, YES, I finally did as of yesterday.”
9. He Scoffed At Me, So I Got Him Fired And Sent Back To His Country
“I started my first full-time job when I was 20, fresh off college and ready to take on the world. I resided in a middle eastern country, where people got brought in frequently by employers, and one mistake could cost them everything. I was outside this because I was a resident of the place despite not being from there.
Anyways, when I first started, I got along very well with my coworker despite the fact that he came off badly to me.
We tried hanging out, but the more I got to know him, the more disgusted I became. He was discriminatory, a purist of his religion where he believes the execution of certain people should be allowed, and he was extremely homophobic. Nonetheless, I tried making friends with him, because I was open to anything.
In our office, we have portable wifi that he took with him every day (free internet), and I never commented on this because I have my own, I can afford it – and so can he (more on this later). The closer I got to him, the more he opened up, but in the worst ways. He would send me lewd images of women while we’re in the office, talk about substance use, and sometimes disappear from work for hours on end while I man the office.
As I said, I was 20, I was still young and naive, and I tried my best to seem calm and friendly, I wanted to make an impression. This man, however, was the opposite. He was several years older than me and acted like he was above me through every step. But I ignored it because I wanted to be civil. Sometimes I would help him with his work – until eventually, his work became mine.
He would just expect me to do it, without even lending a hand. I didn’t say anything, I just did it.
His missing from the office became more frequent, sometimes he would only be at work for a measly 2 hours out of 9 hours, popping in and out, and the office manager was too chicken to say anything to the General Manager. Then there’s the lateness, where I would come in on time every day, and he’d come an hour late.
Still, I kept my mouth shut. It escalated to him adjusting attendance records so it seemed like he was not absent, even though his absences were frequent – unfortunately, he was put in charge of that too.
I remained quiet throughout all of this, remained civil – until finally, I spoke to the General Manager about pursuing a different line of work. I was always into graphic design, and they needed to get some work done so I offered to do it.
But during this time, I couldn’t afford many things anymore because I had to help pay for bills for my parents, so I usually just walked to work back and forth every day and limited my eating to once a day – meaning the wifi was no longer something I could afford.
So, as an agreement, I could take the office wifi with me and work on designs from home.
However, my coworker didn’t agree to this, and pretty much attacked me with a barrage of insults; he scoffed at the fact that I needed the wifi to do design work and said I was a joke.
I’ve suppressed the majority of what the conversation held, but it went something like this:
Me: I just need it tonight, you can have the wifi tomorrow.
Him: Why?
It’s not yours.
Me: I need to do some design work.
Him: Yeah, me too. I need to do that too. So, leave it here.
I couldn’t remember much of what else he said, but there was a scoff after he said that. And he said that my designs sucked and that I should just stop while I’m ahead.
My b***d boiled and I reached a point of no return.
I immediately phoned the office manager and talked about the situation and how if I don’t get the wifi, I’ll complain to the General Manager who did give me his blessing, unlike this turd.
He immediately called my coworker and told him to give me the wifi, which he did, and that was that.
EXCEPT, I’m a petty person, and I’m not about to let some jerk get off with a slap on the wrist.
The next day, I went to the Head Office and had a meeting with the General Manager. I spoke to him about all the misconducts this guy had, how he’s always late, never in the office, changes his absences, steals sometimes, etc. I spilled my heart out on all his wrongdoings, showing the messages and photos I was sent during a shift that I never asked for, and how I’m doing all of his work.
It escalated to a point where he got brought into the main office for a meeting, where I proceeded to berate him in front of the manager, and he could only try to defend himself, but I was prepared. It turns out the office manager never even spoke to the General Manager about his misconduct. Afterward, he was brought back to the office having been yelled at by both me and the General Manager.
And I could say that’s where it ends – except it’s not.
After he left, the General Manager realized if I had been doing all the work, then why didn’t I say anything. I responded that I was simply there to work and to help. However, with what just happened (and the fact that this guy was getting paid more than me), I’ve decided that if he’s here, then I won’t be staying in the company.
I gave him a choice, me, or this guy. The answer was obvious because by the next day he was handed a termination letter and another letter that states he’s been booked a ticket and he has to head back to his home country within a month – and he’s barred from entering the country for several years due to his public misconduct that was reported by a certain someone to the local authorities.
I COULD SAY that’s the end, but okay, this is the last one I swear.
See, he had a significant other back home, a fiancé more like – whom he has been lying to. Funny enough, he added me on social media when we first met, and she proceeded to add me too because he talks about me to her. Well, our messages weren’t just inappropriate, it showed details of him being unfaithful to her, with me questioning him if that’s a good idea.
Every screenshot was sent. All the photos of the women he’s been with, sent. She was livid, and I kept apologizing for keeping her in the dark, but that I thought she deserved to know at least. I haven’t spoken to her since, but judging from the fact that her social media status no longer states she’s engaged to him, is enough of a confirmation.
I sent him one last thing before blocking him on every social media we’ve been connected in: ‘You deserved this, jerkhead.’
It’s been several months since then, and I’m thriving at work. I got a raise, I have better coworkers, and I’m getting a promotion. As for him, well he’s out there somewhere in the world, who knows, and who cares right? We’re no longer in the same country, so whatever else happens to him no longer fazes me.
Though, he did once send me a photo of his fake Italian ID, because he was planning on illegally migrating there next year. I’m on the fence if I should send it to the authorities in Italy or not, just as a precaution, I might consider migrating there at some point.”
8. Make Me Quit? Get Reported For Your Illegal Company Practices
“At one point in my life, I found myself bored. I needed spending cash, but at the same time, like any typical college student; I needed a job that would work around my class hours.
Enter C-Corp (not the real name). C-Corp was a locally owned chain of gas stations in the southeastern part of Georgia, and parts of Florida. I forget the total number of stations, but it was under 50 if that matters. I applied and was given a simple clerking position, where I would work weekends and two nights a week. For a total of about 32 hours a week, on average.
(sometimes more, sometimes less).
I worked there for about a year when I was offered a position to help re-open a store (renovated after a fire), with the promotion to assistant manager. My hours were going to obviously change, but by the same token, I gained better pay and a new day shift which would help things out. To be quite honest, I even debated taking some time off from school to concentrate on the job, as it was entirely possible I would be promoted to manager of my store before long.
There were veiled hints and suggestions of that very thing happening in a few months as it were. I never got that far, but I’m getting ahead of myself here.
It didn’t take long for me to start noticing some issues with the store, and the company as a whole. Issues which I did my level best to correct. We were nearing hunting season (turkey and then deer), and in an effort to cater to this, the stores started getting in several pallets of ammunition.
So, now we had to figure out how to display the various types of shotgun shells, and rifle bullets; while also doing our level best to ensure things didn’t get in the way. It was around this time that I found myself speaking with the store manager, having been ‘called on the carpet’ (as the saying goes) for refusing to sell ammunition to a customer.
I explained to the manager that I had attempted to check ID on the customer, who refused to give it. So, I told the manager that I knew full well this was illegal, as ID was required by state law, and furthermore, you had to be 18 to buy them. That started me on the path that would lead to my termination a few weeks later.
I started noticing company memos popping up in the office, all that dealt with ‘company’ practices regarding ammunition. One even went so far as to say that it was a terminable offense to refuse a sale of shotgun shells to a customer, regardless of age. That one actually vanished a few days after it went up, with me suspecting someone in the legal department realized the trouble they could get into with it.
However, the flow of ammo didn’t stop.
A week before my termination, things got worse. The state in question has the lottery, of which the lion’s share is ‘scratch off’ tickets. You know the type, pay a buck, scratch off and hope you win something. Now, the lottery states on the back of every single ticket, that the retailer who sold it must pay up to 599 dollars in winnings.
Anything above that has to be claimed at the central lottery office in the state’s capital. Retailers are warned, that should they refuse to pay this (there are instructions on how to do this with a money order), then they can be fined by the lottery commission, or worse. Imagine my surprise then when I’m written up for following the lottery commission policy and paying out on a 300 dollar win for a customer.
I was told, point-blank, that company policy was ‘not’ to pay out anything more than 100 dollars. Regardless of what the lottery commission said.
The final straw, before my eventual termination (though honestly, I quit, they still listed me as terminated) came when training another cashier. The very next day, the count came up short by exactly 100 dollars. I refused to sign the write-up, which meant the company would HAVE to investigate it, or so I thought.
The same day, the district manager called the store and made some veiled threats about calling the police over this, and left me with the note that ‘If the count comes up 100 dollars over today… he won’t say anything.’ Oh no he didn’t. I waited till the manager returned from her meeting, dropped all my keys on the counter, and told her directly ‘I’m done.’ I walked out and didn’t really look back.
I was annoyed. Annoyed at the treatment I’d been given over my time working there, annoyed at being called a thief, annoyed at what I knew the company was doing to my little community… and annoyed that as far as I could tell, they’d get away with it. That’s when I hatched a plan of revenge.
First and foremost, I needed to talk with a friend.
One of my college buddies also worked for the county’s sheriff’s office. So I plied him over with some good BBQ and a few beers, and then asked him, ‘hypothetically speaking’ what would happen to a company if it was found they were doing something illegal. Like, oh, selling ammunition when they shouldn’t be, or something like that. He knew I’d recently left C-Corp, and the circumstances of why I left, so it didn’t take long for him to ask just what was going on.
So I spilled the beans, even including the reported ‘theft’ I had been accused of. He was on the edge of his seat, even going so far as to note that the district manager’s actions itself were illegal, and told me to come to meet with my friend’s boss the next day to give a statement.
So I did just that. I laid out everything, told about the memo about not refusing sales (against state law), and then gave detailed information about the DM’s call, the incident itself, and other things I had witnessed regarding illegal practices by the company, though not mentioned here.
It took the better part of four hours to get everything told and typed out. By the way, the Detective acted, I got the impression I had either given him one great caseload or broken some case right open. Fun fun. However, I wasn’t done yet. I had one more call to make. That one would prove pretty simple and short, and involved me calling the lottery commission and telling them about the company’s policy which went against the lottery agreement.
I was assured they’d look into things, and that my information would be kept secret. I just had to sit back and wait.
Two or three weeks later, our local paper ran a story on the front page, talking about a multiple department sting that happened in our area. The sting was investigating illegal sales of weapons, booze, and ammunition to minors. In that raid, C-Corp had been hit hard, with several of their stores being shut, and several managers and district managers being arrested on various charges tied to this illegal activity.
The company itself was facing SEVERE (in the 7 figure range) fines from the state, and it was being called into question whether or not they had the proper licenses to sell ammunition and firearms in the first place. The only mention about what the DM had said to me, came in the form of one of the investigating officers noting that the company had resorted to blackmail in an attempt to silence anyone who dared question the company policies or practices.
The stores did remain open, but you could tell that the managers were seriously nervous about what the future held. Sales of ammunition and guns stopped completely, and overnight though.
About a week after the raid by the police, lottery tickets of all kinds simply vanished from the stores. Big signs out front simply read ‘We do not sell Lotto’. The validation machines were gone, the scratch-off ticket areas lay empty.
The lottery was not in the building. I can only guess what happened in that case, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the lottery commission sent people in with winning tickets only to have those people turned away. The fact that they lost their lottery sales, would point to it being a serious issue at the very least, that or the lottery commission decided to distance themselves from the company which was already under federal investigation.
Yes, the ammunition and guns thing… went federal.
Ultimately, the company was a shell of its former self. About half the gas stations ended up closing due to no longer being profitable, and what stations didn’t close were just shells of their former selves. The company eventually declared bankruptcy after a final scandal brought them another round of state and federal fines. In that case, they were busted for price-gouging after raising the gas price per gallon to about 6 dollars a gallon in cities where they had no other competition.
This happened just before a pending tropical storm.
It’s been close to fifteen years since this all went down. C-Corp doesn’t exist any longer. After declaring bankruptcy, most of the stores were sold off to a competitor, who ended up losing all but five or six of the stores due to redundancies. A whole host of, honestly, innocent people ended up out of work simply because the store decided to screw over one guy who wanted to do the right thing by the law, and state policies.
Several of the corporate staff were given 2 and 3 years suspended sentences, while others ended up paying personal fines on top of what the company was facing. The company has become something of a warning to others, about what not to do when an employee voices a concern; and above and beyond that, why it’s a good idea to follow the letter of the law exactly as it’s written; regardless of if it hinders your bottom line, or not.
I sometimes think back on the whole affair and wonder, just what they hoped to achieve with that blackmail attempt. Some part of me thinks that the DM honestly thought it was the best option and may have even been trying to help out an employee he liked. That was something that always bugs me, looking back. Every interaction I had with the guy was a good one.
Right up to him grooming me to be another store manager. So maybe he was trying to protect me. Then again, he could have just been the jerk I assumed, and that was him showing his true colors. I guess we’ll never know. He moved out of the area a few years later, and I am really sure I wasn’t about to talk to him again.
Not after everything that had happened.”
7. Don't Want To Pay Me What I'm Worth? Let's See How That Works Out For You
“So years ago, I was working for a laboratory that did a lot of testing for the military. It was a terrible job for a number of reasons. Despite having enormous responsibility, they never gave me credit for anything. In meetings with the department head (DH), they frequently blamed me for problems that they had caused — but I had solved and they could not.
They also hired consultants to come in and tell me I was wrong only to have the consultants say I was right (and the consultants would get paid 1/4 of my yearly salary for one day’s worth of work!) I only stayed as long as I did because it was my first real job and I honestly didn’t know better. But before I left…
By their standards, I was severely underpaid.
HR agreed. They claimed there was nothing that could be done. Meanwhile, other people were given off-schedule raises.
Well, I wasn’t the only one that was underpaid. There were a number of others as well. But none of them were critical to the operation of the laboratory. Eventually, the DH went to the director with a list of all the underpaid people. I found out that my name was on the top of the list as the most underpaid person (not surprising).
Using this list, the DH got permission from the director for one-time raises. An announcement was made.
Well, guess who didn’t get a raise? This even though I had made massive improvements in some of their processes that easily saved them millions per year (and their budget was just over 10 million dollars.)
I was livid. I had enough and decided to leave. They hired two people to replace me at more than double my salary.
One of them had just graduated two weeks before. From what I understand, they had a lot of difficulties. That would have been enough for most people and maybe even for me for most of my life. But it wasn’t enough for me then. I wanted revenge for what they had done to me.
So, I arranged a meeting with one of the project managers (PM) from the department of the military that we had done our tests for.
I ‘casually’ mentioned to him that I had left my old job. He was shocked. Remember how I said they never gave me credit for anything? Well, the military PMs considered me an invaluable expert and could not understand why the lab had driven me away. They immediately pulled several million dollars worth of work from the lab and gave it to the competition (several labs were involved) because they had no confidence that the lab could do the work anymore.
When I ran into one of the lab managers (the only half-decent guy there), I ‘casually’ mentioned my meeting with the PM and I could tell he figured out how the military knew I had left.
It took them years to recover — and honestly, I don’t know if they ever really did. The last time I checked their web page, it hadn’t been updated in at least 12 years.
I would have been happy with a $20K raise. Ecstatic even. But they weren’t willing to spend $20K and lost $2 million to start and more in the long run.
I started my own business and now make at least 5 times what I would if I had stayed there until now (and more than 10 times what I was making when I left).”
6. Little Jerk Thought He Was Anonymous But He Was Wrong
“One morning after a big party, I got on my phone to check if anyone has texted me overnight. To my surprise, I got a message from someone, who was not on my friend’s list. So I checked it out and there was just a single line of text: ‘Is (my mother’s name) your mother?’
I was like ‘what?’ because this kid (let’s call him Silly Boy) was like 14 or something and he lived on the other side of the country.
I texted him back confirming and asked why he asked that and he just went on a rampage. Silly Boy called my mother something like a fat big jerk, stupid cow, ugly, you know the drill. Before doing anything else, I called her to check what it was all about. After saying his name, she immediately asked why I was asking and I explained the situation.
She. Was. Mad
She told me that Silly Boy replied to one of her comments on some post on social media, where she was giving her opinion (I know, a huge mistake) about something connected to the sun’s influence on health (she owns a couple of sunbathing studios/solariums, which is kinda relevant to the story), and he went ballistic on her. Then he started messaging her on her DMs, where she tried to argue as politely as she could, but to no avail (what a shocker).
After seeing the pointlessness of the conversation, she just stopped replying. But now that he was reaching out to her friends and family, it was the last straw, and she said she will do something about it.
I was angry at this kid cause of all the stuff he said, but for the sake of it (and due to still not being fully sober and just waking up) I decided to try to argue back with him for a couple of minutes.
Casual two idiots arguing on the internet (I was like 17 at the time or something). Eventually I just blocked him, after laughing at his replies with some friends (at that moment I didn’t know how useful this whole trash-talking would be in a couple of hours.)
After a couple of minutes, my mom called me asking to verify something for her. She told me to go to this kid’s social media account and check if I could find some information about him that would lead her to his actual location etc. I personally couldn’t imagine my mother driving to his house and shouting at him, cause, first of all, total time waste, second of all, a true Karen move.
But I told her I will see what I could find.
Silly Boy had a PUBLIC PROFILE with all the cells filled up. I got his address and found his relatives (which was what I went there for), but what is more, I found his SCHOOL NAME and address. With a smile, I picked up my phone and called my mother.
I told my mother that there is no point in calling/contacting his parents, as he will get away with a shake of the head of disapproval. Especially since it was like 12 o’clock and he will be at school.
I told her to call his school and verify that he was actually studying there. After that, she told the office lady what happened, and she got transferred to the principal. After listening to the whole story, the principal said that he was very sorry and that he will do something about it. We thought nothing of it, maybe the kid will get a talk with his parents, and that’s it.
Oh, were we wrong there.
I mentioned how the trash talk would come into play, right? Well, I sent the screenshots of the conversation (my replies were mostly like ‘what’s wrong with you’ and ‘are you ok?’, cause I just wanted to taunt him) to my mother, and she emailed them to the school’s principal.
Now is a good time to say something more about the insults themself.
Well, I’m from Poland and we do not go easy on those. The casual curses just aren’t enough for us. So when I say that there were some curses, that kids at his age shouldn’t even know, I mean it. But swear words are just words. It’s what he actually said, that knocked him down.
Firstly, he said that he will mess with my mother’s corpse after he gets rid of her.
But the best part was when I tried to talk back, asking what his parents think of his behavior. I don’t know what was in this kid’s head, but he said:
‘My parents were killed in an accident half a year ago, and I made it my duty to stop people from telling lies and your stupid mother was saying (insert opinion) about sunbathing, which killed my aunt cause she passed away from cancer.’
Before you say that maybe the kid was suffering from trauma, during the conversation, he said multiple times that his parents are ‘skin doctors’ and say he is right and support all the comments. So I knew he was lying to me.
So now, imagine all this and screenshots from my mother sitting at the principal’s desk. This was already satisfying.
After a couple of days, my mother called me again, telling me the following aftermath of our actions.
It. Was. Glorious
The very same day he texted me, Silly Boy was taken out of his classroom mid-lesson and brought to the principal’s office, without knowing what was about to happen. In the office, there were his parents, disgusted and angry, and also the SCHOOL PSYCHIATRIST, waiting to talk to him. He had to explain to her why he said that his parents and aunt were deceased (he had been pretty graphic with the details), then he had to listen to the principal talk about how this behavior is unacceptable and that he has embarrassed the school.
Only after, he was taken home to have a ‘talk’ with his parents. The cherry on top is that his actions led to the school organizing a lecture for the whole school about cyberbullying and cybersecurity, with the example of ‘anonymous student’s’ behavior (he was like a top-class student with no problems in the past, so they took it seriously). He also had to attend the school psychiatrist weekly until the end of the school year (it was November), due to his drastic comments.
Well, it’s been like 4 years already, but imagining his face when he realized that my message ‘you will regret saying all this’ wasn’t a bluff and that his actions indeed did have consequences still put a smile on my face. My mother got a bouquet with a formal apology (we agreed that it is ok for him to apologize by phone, with no need to make a public post on his social media and humiliate him online), and he got a valuable lesson to not mess with people online, cause you may get burnt.”
5. Put My Job In Jeopardy? I'll Make You Lose Your Diplomatic Immunity
“As the title suggests this story is about a person with diplomatic immunity. Before I dive into the story first a little something to note about these diplomats;
Yes, they do have immunity but to an extent. They can’t be prosecuted in the hosting country unless their home country waives the immunity. For example, they can drive over the speed limit, and when they get a ticket, nothing happens.
However, they need to respect the host country’s laws and regulations.
They are not exempted from any security check. When they want to enter a building where a security check is mandatory before entering, they have to undergo that check or they’re refused access. (this is important for the story)
Only their diplomatic luggage is exempted from any security check, this luggage is sealed with an official stamp and the diplomat needs to have the correct documents with them signed and stamped by their embassy.
Also for the sake of the story to make sense: Some of these diplomats are in the possession of an airport badge in order for them to have access to some parts of the airport (To collect someone from the gate or guide someone to their gate) without having to buy a ticket to gain access. They have a different color (green/blueish in my airport) than the regular airport badge (white).
Long intro I know, but here we go:
This happened in January 2020. I was already working as a supervisor. I sat behind my desk doing my admin work when my fellow supervisor said there was a long queue at our staff lane. We were very busy at that moment, and I didn’t have anyone available to help out so I went out there and supported my colleagues at the staff lane.
I positioned myself as 3d person at our WTMD (walk-through metal detector). Every staff member needs to show me their airport badge when they pass the WTMD, I just check the details on there, and then they can continue their way. Things went smoothly and we were almost through most of the queue after about 10 minutes.
Cue our above-mentioned diplomat. It’s only fitting to call her Karen.
I spotted her skipping the queue and walking straight towards us. Her green/blueish badge at the ready. I stood in front of her and said: ‘Good afternoon madam! How may help you today?’
Without looking at me she just waved her badge in my face and tried to continue her way. My colleague blocked the entrance of the WTMD and asks the same thing.
Karen then said, still waving her badge: ‘Move out of my way you idiot! I’m a diplomat.’
Colleague: ‘Can’t do madame, you need put all your belongings in a tray first and have them go through the scanner. Then you need to walk through this gate,’ pointing at the WTMD, ‘so you can continue your way.’
Karen: ‘Are you deaf? I – am – a – diplomat!
Get me your supervisor NOW!’
My colleague pointed at me, and all I did was smile and wave. (Madagascar anyone? no? Nevermind..)
Karen: ‘Tell this idiot he needs to let me through NOW! I’m a diplomat, I am exempted from ANY security check!’
Me: ‘First of all, you are NOT exempted in any way shape, or form. You’re supposed to know this. Secondly, you are also not exempted from following the queue.
And lastly, my colleague is not an idiot, if this is the way you’re going to treat me or any of my colleagues, you will be refused access.’ I then point my hand towards the back of the queue. (Keep that in mind)
Karen starts screaming: ‘SO YOU’RE AN IDIOT AS WELL? I’M A DIPLOMAT DUMMY!’ She then took a deep breath and looked up to the ceiling and back at me with a smirk and says: ‘I’ll get you, and that fat freak (nods her head to my colleague) just you wait.
You haven’t seen the last of me!’ She then screamed: ‘HOW DARE YOU TREAT ME THIS WAY??’ She didn’t scream it in an angry matter but more in an emotional way. (also important later) I thought maybe she has a bad day and didn’t say anything from that point forward as she walks away crying.
Later that day my Operational manager (OM) called me in his office.
He told me there was a complaint against me. Wonder who it’s from? He said that Karen told the airport I treated her poorly and threatened to physically remove her from the airport if she didn’t get out of my sight. Now I know why she started crying. OM then showed me the CCTV footage which kind of confirmed her story in a way.
When the footage showed me pointing my hand to the queue, OM said: ‘This is where she said you threatened to assault her.’ I laughed and shook my head. I told my side of the story, even commentating live while we rewatched the CCTV. OM said he believes me but that the airport never received my side of the story as I didn’t write a report.
I also didn’t notify my Security Inspector of the incident, which made me look suspicious to the airport. The airport wanted OM to sanction me in a way he deemed fit. They wanted to take away my airport badge at first because the complaint came from the embassy itself (she probably left out the fact she tried to bypass security). But OM said that I probably hadn’t had the time to write a report yet.
Which was true of course, and that he would “deal with me”. He told me he would keep a close eye on me and I should report everything from here on out.
So yeah, I almost lost my job because of this Karen… great.
Now the revenge.
When I was passing through the staff lane not long after that, I saw her again. She was on her way to the staff entrance again.
I avoided eye contact and I walked through the WTMD and then thought, screw it. I wasn’t in the wrong here. So I described her to my colleague (Ben) as he was verifying my badge and said that she’s a troublemaker so to just let her come through the WTMD, greet her, ask for her badge and tap me on the shoulder. He said: ‘Sure thing chief!’ She walks toward the WTMD bag and all and passes through.
Meanwhile, I was standing over my tray getting my wallet and keys, etc. Not once looking at my surroundings. Ben then tapped me on the shoulder and said: ‘OP can you look at this?’ I took the badge and turned around facing my colleague.
Me: ‘Is she standing to the side?’ When Ben turned around to verify, I quickly ripped off the hologram sticker, without this, the badge is invalid.
I looked at Karen. I put my hand on Ben’s shoulder and thanked him.
Me: ‘Hello again madam, welcome! I just need to verify your badge if you don’t mind so you can be on your way in just a sec.’
Karen tasted victory: ‘Finally, you’ve learned some manners.’
Me: ‘Oh dear oh dear… I’m sorry but your badge is invalid.’
Karen: ‘Excuse me?’
Me: ‘Yes, look. Your hologram is completely gone.’ I then looked up to her and then quickly turned my head back and forth between her and the WTMD several times. I then turned my head around to look at the back of our checkpoint and then back at her.
Karen: ‘What are you doing?’
I pointed behind my back to the end of the checkpoint saying: ‘Did you just come from over there?’
Karen shouts: ‘No dummy!! I came from over there!!’ points at the entrance.
Me: ‘Can you please calm down madame?’ I lifted my hands and took a step back. ‘I can sort this out for you, do you mind standing to the side there?’ She complied and I asked for her diplomatic passport. Said I needed it to go run it through my system to validate.
She handed it over and told me to hurry up. I told Ben to watch her as I went to my desk. According to our SOP (Standard operation procedures), the only options I had was either;
A. Refuse access myself. (Like I did before)
B. to go to my inspector, explain the situation, and be done with it, he would send Karen back for a new badge, and probably would’ve forced her to go through security, or escort her out.
Problem solved.
However, I already had a plan. And it was already set in motion. I first called airport PD and said that I have a female here who’s refusing to be checked, claiming to be a diplomat. They asked if the inspector was around and I said I haven’t seen him. They would send out a patrol immediately. Great!
Another colleague, who returned from her break was waiting to be put to work.
So I ordered her to replace Ben and send him to my desk. A minute or so later Ben came to me, saying that Karen was getting frustrated, and he asked me what was going on. I briefly told him what happened before and I informed him of my plan. Now Ben was a new guy, recently just started, but he was a cool guy, He was a bouncer before he came to the airport so, he knows how these Karens can be.
He liked the plan and said: ‘You know what chief, I wasn’t sure if a diplomat was exempted from a security check or not. Honest mistake.. Sorry.’ He winked at smirked at me. I told him to start typing up his incident report as I headed back to Karen. Meanwhile, the police arrived and I handed over the passport and badge.
Me: ‘This lady refuses to go through security, she threatened me for the second time today saying I would lose my job!
She also gave a false statement to the airport about me, risking me to lose my job!’ I was speaking in my language, so Karen didn’t understand a word.
Me: ‘If you rewatch the CCTV footage from this hour, you’ll see that she aggressively came at me after pointing out her badge was invalid. I also didn’t see where she came from, and when I asked if she passed security, she started freaking out.’
Officer1: ‘Okay, we’ll take her with us and explain what’s going on.’
Officer2 informs Karen that she needs to come with them and she just gasped at the officer and looked at me in disbelief.
Me: ‘Great, thank you, oh btw, I want to press charges against her for slandering me.’
Officer1: ‘Sure, just follow us.’
Karen started to get frustrated but had no option than to follow us, as we had all her documents.
I radioed my fellow SPV saying I’m going with the police, and it would take a while.
When I returned a few moments later, Ben showed me his report, it was perfect! I typed up mine and sent both reports to OM. I informed him that I did file a complaint against her with the police. I returned home smiling. OM’s response the next day was that he heard of the incident and he notified corporate who in turn filed a complaint through their legal team against Karen.
Result:
I never saw Karen again at the airport. A few months ago (May), OM informed me that our complaints were noted by the court and had been sent to Karen’s home country. Charges were: Slander, and attempting to enter a Security Restricted Area and bypassing the security. Turns out Karen was just an assistant, specifically a driver for some higher-ranked diplomats. Basically meaning that she didn’t even have the same privileges or immunities as a real diplomat has.
She lost her diplomatic passport (persona non-grata) and has been sent back to her country. The airport also apologized to me (not personal)
OM only said that I had to follow the SOP and go to the inspector first, to which I just replied: ‘Hey,’ holds up hands, ‘you just said I needed to report everything, and I did! The inspector was on the phone at that moment and it looked important (lie).’ OM just shook his head and we still laugh about it ’till this day.”
4. A Story Of Unending Revenge Cycles
“This story happened in the late 70s. My dad was a young man striking out on his own for the first time. He lived alone in a really bad part of town while attending college and working at a gas station as a steady job. But the area had lots of violence. There was a group of guys he knew from high school that just loved to mess with him.
The first thing they did was spray paint graffiti all over his car (A 68 Chevy Nova). Then they started harassing him every night he was coming home from work or class because they were always hanging around his building. The leader of the gang was a big guy dad referred to as Ted. (Don’t know if this was his real name or not.)
Ted was a relentless bully to several other kids in school.
He beat up my dad many times over the years. But in high school in particular he hated my dad because Ted failed and dropped out during senior year since they wouldn’t let him play football with his failing grades anymore. My dad on the other hand finished with some pretty decent grades and got a partial scholarship to a local community college. So to say Ted resented my dad was putting it mildly.
And one day when my dad was going into his apartment, Ted and his gang ambushed him and beat him terribly in a back alley.
My dad was found in the morning by an old lady walking her dog and she called for help. He was in the hospital for months. And this caused him to lose out on a lot of his college classes and he had to retake them.
Of course, he told police it was Ted and his cronies that beat him up. But the police weren’t very good at their jobs. And claimed they had no evidence that Ted did it because he and his friends all supposedly had alibis and there were no other witnesses. Well, that didn’t sit well with my dad. He spent some time in physical recovery after getting out of the hospital and then moved to a new apartment with a friend as a roommate.
And together they plotted his revenge on Ted. My dad told me that back then if the police failed you, you took payback into your own hands.
Now a thing of note is that my grandfather on my dad’s side worked at the city dump. And he was always bringing things home to collect, donate, fix, resell, etc. My dad helped him out with this a lot.
So he learned a lot about fixing and making things. And while with his father at work he found ways of sneaking into the dump at n*ght. And as a teenager, he would sneak in there at n*ght with friends to find stuff they used to build a hidden fort in the woods nearby. My dad said the fort was so well made that it even had a makeshift wood stove that they made out of recycled bricks and a metal barrel to use in winter to keep the foot warm.
This is important later.
So over a few n*ghts, my dad and his friend snuck into the dump just like they used to in order to look around for things they could use. Bit by bit they found some old stinky clothes, shoes, and some old wooden baseball bats, and a few other useful things for the revenge. The dump also had an assortment of used tools the employees found in the trash and set aside to be used on-site, but were also regularly borrowed. So no one really kept track of them.
My dad and his friend kept all of the stuff they were going to use hidden at the old fort they made as teenagers near the dump. So they had a perfect place to build the tools of their revenge.
Next, they made sure they had as solid of an alibi as they could make. My dad and his friend were living on the top floor in an old three-story apartment building and were already well-liked in the building for being handy and fixing a few things for his neighbors.
The walls between apartments were kinda thin, so neighbors often heard the comings and goings of people on the same floor. They’d come out to greet my dad and his friend when they came home in the evening. And apparently, the building had no fire escape. So the doors were typically the only way in or out. And the main door of the building was generally locked at n*ght with a clerk sitting watch the entire time.
They came home, checked in with the clerk, said their good evenings to several neighbors, and then locked themselves in their apartment.
They waited till midnight and then used a knotted rope found at the dump to climb down 3 stories from their apartment window. Which coincidentally was right above the dumpsters in the side alley. They hid part of the hanging rope behind a gutter pipe and then hoofed it a few miles to the old fort where they’d hidden what dad referred to as ‘Revenge-Cycles’.
He told me they were bicycles that they’d pieced together from junk parts found in the dump that was built and modified using the borrowed tools to have mounts for carrying the baseball bats and a few other things they couldn’t fit in backpacks that they needed at the ready without making much noise or bogging them down.
They rode the Revenge-Cycles to the bungalow in an old neighborhood where Ted was living with his friends.
Though squatting may be a better word. Dad said it was a house for illegal activities where dealing was regularly done. Which was good in a way because that meant they wouldn’t call the police unless they wanted to risk exposing their operation. They scouted the area for a few nights to plan their attack, then waited for the perfect opportunity.
First, my dad and his friend put on Halloween masks to cover their faces and took a tire iron that they’d brought and quietly removed the lug nuts from two of the wheels that were on Ted’s trashy van.
Then they spray-painted an insignia that was used by another gang from the area on the side of the van to make it look like this was a rival gang dispute. My dad and his friend then spied on Ted and his gang for hours from the windows using homemade periscopes that were painted dull black so they wouldn’t be seen. Ted and his cronies spent some time getting wasted until Ted got so wasted he went to bed.
My dad and his friend waited patiently for Ted to start snoring and quietly snuck into the house through the window of the room he was sleeping in, locked the door from the inside, and bolstered it with a chair. Then in unison, did what had to be done to Ted.
Ted’s cronies couldn’t get into the room before my dad and his friend were out of there.
They ducked into another yard and rode off on the Revenge-Cycles from a different street before anyone saw them. But they heard from other people in the area that Ted’s cronies tried to load him into his van to take him to the hospital. But as they got going the wheels on one side of the van came off and they had to call an ambulance.
Doctors said he’d never fully recover and would have to walk with a cane for years.
As for Ted’s cronies. A few of them got arrested. Police came to the hospital to take a statement from Ted and noticed a couple of them didn’t look so good. They asked them a few questions, then searched them. They ended up in the slammer for substance possession.
Which prompted police to search the bungalow they were living in, but some of the other guys were smart enough to move all of the illegal substances to another location when they thought a rival gang was after them. So the cops didn’t find much.
Ted’s remaining cronies later got cornered by my dad and his friend the next night when they followed them in their disguises on the Revenge-Cycles to a back alley where they’d been known to regularly hang out and sell illegal substances.
And this time they brought a gun to hold them, hostage, with. My dad’s friend held the gun while my dad disarmed them all of some knives they were carrying and then beat them up with a bat. After the beatings were over my dad and his friend claimed to be with a rival gang and told Ted’s cronies that if they didn’t leave town, they’d get something a lot worse than a simple beating.
And for some added incentive, did other things that caused the guy to freak out and kick his flaming shoes off. This seemed to work as all of them were gone from the city not long after that.
My dad and his friend hid the Revenge-Cycles and dropped the knotted rope from the window into the dumpster below, where they later retrieved it in the morning while taking the trash out and disposed of it.
Police of course did eventually come to talk to my dad and his roommate. But they claimed no involvement in what happened to Ted. And neighbors and apartment clerks all told them that they never left the building after getting home on those days. My dad and his roommate then let the police come into their apartment to search the place. But they didn’t find anything that could be considered evidence, as they had already disposed of the stuff they used by taking apart the Revenge-Cycles, and at night burned the baseball bats, masks, the shoes and clothes they wore, and the knotted rope in the fort’s barrel stove till there was nothing left but ash.
As for the gun, well my dad said it was never real. But was instead a very realistic metal toy gun revolver that looked real enough in the dark to hold up someone. And they got rid of it by tossing it into the dump. The cops were satisfied in the belief my dad had nothing to do with the incident and just bid them a good day.
Dad never told anyone else but me and his younger brother that he and his friend did all of that. As for Ted. Dad said he never really bothered anyone again. And he ended up eventually leaving town some years later because he was convinced another gang was still out to get him. What happened to him after that dad didn’t know. I could tell he felt some measure of guilt for what he did back then.
But also seemed to feel fairly justified in it as well since Ted had badly hurt many people around town just like what he’d done to my dad. So I suppose it was well deserved on some level. But my dad adamantly told me to never try anything like what he did. And I can’t say I blame him.”
3. Landlord And Neighbor Paid 14k For Harassing Me
“So I travel a lot, and I live in an RV mostly full-time.
I’ve stayed at the same park however for the last 9 months. I’ve had issues here, they have called the police on me for arguing. (not joking). They will ignore me in the office. All because there was a small mistake on the paperwork when I stayed here overnight 9 months ago. Something happened and they tried to use that to kick me out however the owner said it didn’t matter and all info is pulled from the registration so blaming the paperwork for being off by one year on the RV as a cause for eviction was far fetched. There were a few other incidents but I just figured it’s cheap here and I can pay my rent over the phone, who cares… and don’t really plan on going anywhere, as where I am, all the parks are full for snowbird season plus I got a new job here.
Anyways we had a miserable neighbor. We could tell from day 1. We also have 2 cats. They hang out on our porch mostly all the time. Occasionally they stray but they’re older and don’t go far.
So around 6 weeks ago (after 9 months of being my neighbor and never saying a word) he started acting very erratic. Randomly approached my wife as she was washing the car outside and got in her face and started screaming saying that he dug cat poop out of the dirt behind his 1979 bus on bricks, and now he was going to put traps out and poison.
Somehow management had heard the commotion or he had told them to come but they pulled up and quickly pulled him to the side to talk to him privately. Refusing to even listen to us. We were very weirded out. Calling him baby, sweetheart, etc.
So they said, ‘It’s his space he can trap all he wants. If your animals are going onto his property then that’s your fault.’
Now, this park is known to have SO many cats they keep feeders by the front office. I warned them what they were doing was illegal but they said: we’ve been doing this a long time we know exactly what we’re doing. Call animal control if you don’t believe me. I said okay but he threatened to poison them. So I’m making a police report in case anything happens.
I want him to be on record as having threatened them. They came, took the report, and oh man did that make him mad.
Still, at this point I hadn’t figured out how to get my revenge… animal control said it was legal and didn’t do anything. We immediately got the cats microchipped and went to Lowes to buy cat traps to teach our cats what a trap is and how to NOT go into one.
(the easiest trick I’ve ever taught an animal, took one try now they’re terrified of anything resembling a trap.) We were stumped. The cats were going stir crazy.
Then 5 days later, management leaves a letter on my door, a self-help eviction saying I have no choice but to leave immediately and they were turning off the power on X day. I told them if they did I would call the local police as that’s a self-help eviction and you’ve already demonstrated malice by calling the police on me for asking you a question you don’t like.
Assisting in the trapping of my cats while encouraging other cats to stay. At one point they refused my CDC declaration letter and I have all these things recorded on video. On top of all this, they said my neighbor needed to start his Harley and let it run for 45 minutes to ‘warm-up’ even if he’s not riding. ‘That’s what Harleys need’ 2 ft from my bedroom window when he knows I work nights and I’m asleep.
Essentially trying to force me out. Saying my dummy camera isn’t allowed however his real camera pointed at my space is… I was VERY prepared for an eviction threat as these guys get away with so much being that they can threaten eviction and people will just roll out in their RVs. Not me… no no… not me.
After the manager finally spoke to the owner they realized they had dug themselves into a hole and now couldn’t evict me unless I had not paid rent as they had refused to show me a contract or any rules the entire time I’ve been here (they don’t like to have written rules so they can change them as they need).
The manager told me I was never allowed into the office unless to get mail and I must pay rent over the phone with a card. Still, though I wasn’t comfortable because my neighbor had now put out around 4 different traps. Some as close as 1 ft from my property line. He still hadn’t caught anything. So by chance, I ran into a property manager while out shopping for my trap and he told me some interesting things.
I did a little research and found out that trapping in Nevada is illegal without a permit. Too many protected species.
So I knew the cats would never go into a trap, we did about 5 sessions with them and they got to the point when they even saw the trap they’d just hide. So I told the landlord ‘It’s fine he can keep the traps!’ I had heard from a neighbor that he saw the manager opening up the storage room and loading his truck with animal traps.
But he didn’t know about our situation so he was confused.
This is when I put my plan together. I knew the longer he saw he wasn’t getting his way, the more traps he would put out, and the more erratic he would become. He started revving his Harley for 45 minutes about 3 times a day while sitting inside with the radio on blast, then he got a chop saw and cut lumber into as small of pieces as he could and then stood 10feet back and launched them into a steel trailer.
I had around 2 GB of video from my cell phone, so I only actually caught about half of it. I knew he was losing it. I put a dummy camera facing his front door and that’s what did it. He got too close and pushed my wife on camera. I had successfully driven him nuts and had what I needed for a civil harassment suit.
And I just let him stew. Every few days I’d notice a new trap. Finally, when he got up to 14 traps (his tiny RV space looked like a landmine of cat traps, my cats were and probably are still traumatized from the site.) My next move was to call the Nevada Fish and Wildlife. I emailed the picture of the traps. They finally showed up today and found his 14 traps… the fine is $1000 per trap.
These people also are cops that don’t get to EVER bust anyone so they took it very seriously. They confiscated his traps and hit the park with 14k in fines.
Afterward, management called me asking me why would I do that, I informed her I’m not done and that I’m building a case against her and her little friend for harassment.
I’ve since been moved to one of the best spots on the property near the million-dollar RVs next to the pool and hot tub with a bar and pizza about a 200ft walk and yes.
I BEGGED for a new spot to end this from day 1 but she said ‘we’re booked up full all winter. We won’t have even one spot until after Christmas.'”
2. HOA President Wants Me To Join But Ends Up Wanting To Leave The Country
“A million years ago my property was part of a large farm. I bought it about 30 years ago, long after the farm was broken up, but before there was any development near it. The piece of land I got was near the back entrance that joined into a dirt road that ran past. The more expensive plots were near the tarred road in the front.
I originally bought a large chunk of the land intending to do some farming, but that never happened. About 20 years ago some of the owners got organized (We’ll call them the Organised Owners – OO) and had the area designated as a municipal suburb. The municipality agreed to put in tarred roads, water and electricity if a certain percentage of the properties were developed. A construction company (linked to the OO) went around contacting the owners who had land but no buildings offering to build houses for us at a very (very) reasonable price – contingent on them getting a certain minimum amount of people signing up.
While this was happening, one of the OOs approached me and offered to buy half of my property. I agreed, and the money I got for the sale (which was about 4 x what I’d paid for the entire chunk of land 10 years prior) combined with a small loan from the bank gave me what I needed to pay for a house to be built, and it was a fairly large and nice house too.
I stayed in the house for a few years, and my mom moved in with me. I had decided to subdivide the property again and build her a house next to mine, but unfortunately, an un-diagnosed tumor took her before the house could even be started (well, it was diagnosed, but too late to do anything).
Soon after she died, we moved out of the house and started renting it out.
About a few weeks before we moved out, the OO I’d sold the land to started talking about starting an HOA. I wasn’t interested and left soon after. About two years later, the neighbor OO contacted me. There were two roads entering the area these days – the original tarred road that was near where the farmhouse had been and was entered from a fairly busy main road and my ‘dirt road back entrance’ which was now a tarred entrance from a wide but not very busy municipal road.
The HOA was trying to get the old farm road blocked off to improve security and decrease traffic and wanted the road next to my property to be the main (and only) entrance to the HOA community. And they were pressuring me to join.
I said no, and I was adamant, and eventually, they accepted that but told me they wanted to have a sign near the road welcoming people to the neighborhood, and the only practical place to put it was on the edge of my property.
They also wanted to build a little guard hut and have a security guard permanently monitoring who went in and came out, and they wanted to build his shed on my property. We came to an agreement whereby they would mow the lawn and pay the equivalent of about $35 per month in exchange for the land they needed. I was very happy with this arrangement, since the property was fairly large, and it didn’t really cost them anything since they already had a full-time gardening service servicing the HOA.
This all happened over a decade ago. They eventually got the other main road blocked off, and the HOA is paying for rent-a-cop to be permanently stationed close to my property, as well as mowing my lawn and paying me enough for takeaways for the family each month. I’m occasionally contacted by members of the HOA to get me to sign up, but I’m really not interested. My property has been rented to the same tenant for all these years and everything there is going well for me.
Until about 3 years ago, when someone scared the life out of my tenant’s young daughter by making strange noises and shooting a gun close to her bedroom window three or four times over about a month. This scared my tenant and I guessed it scared the HOA because they AND my tenant contacted me with a proposal – I join the HOA and they give me exclusions from the HOA rules, including exclusions from paying the monthly fees, and in addition, they will build a wall around the ENTIRE HOA neighborhood, including electric fencing and security cameras.
They told me they had wanted to do this for a while but were unwilling to build the wall on a property that was not in the HOA.
I couldn’t see the downside, and so agreed.
It took a little over a year to build the wall and get everything completed, which is quite fast. And then a month to the day after everything was done, my tenant got an HOA warning about his dogs barking.
He told the HOA that while the property was in the HOA, it was exempt from the rules. The HOA told him that they had canceled the exemptions and that he had 30 days to comply. He contacted me, and I opened some mail I’d gotten from the HOA (I’d ignored it since I was supposed to be exempt from the rules and fees).
Man, did I get a surprise.
They had retroactively canceled the exemptions, and were claiming:
- That I pay late fees going back over a year.
- That the easement agreement had been canceled, and that they were retroactively canceling it a year back because the HOA contract allowed them to use “small unused portions” of HOA members land for the common good for free.
- That I refund them what they had paid for the easement over that period.
- That I owed them for the garden service mowing the large lawn.
- That I would be fined for each infraction my tenant failed to remedy.
This started an expensive process involving lawyers and the court system, which ended with a judge telling me that what the HOA had done was mostly legal – they had the right to revoke the exemptions, but that they had to give me 30 days notice.
As I was walking to my car the neighbor OO (the one who bought half my land so many years ago) told me that I was stupid to have refused to join when the HOA started, as I could have been a founder member (whatever that means), and that next time I should be sure to understand the documents I sign before signing them.
Neighbour OO was right, I should have read the contract (better).
Also, I was interested in what it meant to be a ‘Founding Member’ (spoiler: Nothing), and so when I got home I grabbed the HOA contract I’d signed, as well as all the other documentation they had provided me with, and started reading. I was determined to break every rule I could find a loophole to break.
I didn’t get past the first page.
While the street address of the property is used to identify it for all practical purposes, in the city records it has a unique property number that has to be used on legal records.
When my mom moved in, I’d subdivided the remaining property but hadn’t yet started building on it. And when I gave the HOA the easement all those years ago it had been on the property I’d sliced off for my mom. And when the HOA set up the contract, they had simply used the property number from the easement.
The next afternoon the neighbor OO delivered (and had me sign for) two documents – one telling me that my exemptions would expire in 30 days, and one letting me know that the easement would no longer be required after 30 days.
I think he was being a bit malicious here, because I lived about an hour away from the property, and he drove out himself.
EXACTLY 30 days TO THE HOUR after the HOA had given me the 30 days notice, I knocked on the neighbor OO’s door (did I mention he was the president of the HOA?) and had him sign for two documents. The first was that I planned to build a house on my HOA property (which confused him) and the second noticed that they had 30 days to remove from the property the guard shed, the parts of the electric boom that were on my property, as well as the sign.
He tried to engage me but I ignored him, climbed into my car, and drove off.
Early the next morning I got a call from the HOA lawyer who explained to me that their junk would be staying on my property since it was in an ‘unused’ part of my land. I explained that I was building a house there and that the land would not be unused anymore.
I could hear the smirk as he told me that building a second house to be spiteful would not be accepted by the courts. I sure hope he could hear the smirk in my voice when I told him that the property in question did not have a house, and was, in fact, barely large enough for a house to be built and would not be large enough for any extraneous buildings.
I then told him to go look up the property in question and call me back. (I had sliced off just enough to be legal, which was just enough to build a small house).
It took them just under 5 days to get back to me. Their lawyer told me that the terms of the easement meant that I could not cancel without their permission, so I emailed him a photo of the document they sent to me canceling the easement.
That afternoon Neighbour OO invited me to lunch (his treat) to discuss the problem. I said ‘No thanks.’ He extended the offer again two days later, and again I said ‘No thanks.’ Others of the original OO contacted me to try to talk. Some sounded aggressive, some sounded sympathetic. I said, ‘No thanks’ to each of them.
Eventually, the lawyer phoned and asked if we could come to some sort of arrangement.
I asked what he had in mind, and he told me that he was prepared to discuss exclusions in exchange for access to my property. So I said ‘No thanks, and please don’t call me again.’
About 9 days before their 30 days was up I got a call from a different lawyer. He said he wanted to ‘negotiate a surrender’ (his words, not mine). I agreed to meet him at his office the next day.
I’d already had documents drawn up, and the meeting was as simple as me giving him the documents and him reading them over. My new easement offer:
- Included everything offered by the old easement offer.
- I changed the line ‘mow the lawn’ to ‘get the property to HOA standards and keep it there’ since it was now in the HOA.
- Would cost them about $500 per month instead of ~$35.
- This amount would be increased with inflation (the previous contract didn’t include that bit).
- When canceled, for whatever reason, the HOA would have to pay me a cancellation fee of around $7500.
- The contract automatically terminated 30 days after any disciplinary action was taken against me, my tenant, or the property (‘the property’), any complaints were levied by the HOA against the property, any legal action was taken against the property by anyone in the HOA.
- That (lawyer who had offered to negotiate surrender) would be allowed to mediate any disputes between us, at HOAs expense, and that
- The HOA would pay all my legal fees if any legal action was taken against me.
I’d deliberately left some insane things in there so that I could appear to ‘concede’ some points or be negotiated down when the HOA got indignant about the points I actually cared about.
The lawyer didn’t look happy. He said that my proposal sounded unfair, but that he’d have the HOA president look at them. I reminded him that in 8 days I’d be setting a group of men armed with sledgehammers and anger management issues loose on whatever of theirs was still on my property.
That evening I got an irate call from the HOA president. He told me he was never going to sign the new contract.
I said ‘OK’. He then told me I was charging too much per month, and that it should be at the same rate as the previous contract. I pointed out that when I signed the previous contract the area was under development, and there was at least one other road leading in and out, but that now there was only mine. And besides, mine was now developed with everything they needed. He told me that I was forcing them to sign a document they didn’t want to sign.
I told him that he was free to not sign it. He whined about everything he could think of. And then eventually told me I’d be hearing from his lawyer.
The next morning Surrender Lawyer called to ask if I’d be willing to come to their offices to sign the contract. I agreed. When I got there that afternoon I learned that Surrender Lawyer was not a lawyer, but a Paralegal. He handed me the contract and asked me to sign it.
He laughed when I told him I’d have to read through it first to make sure nothing was changed and mumbled something that sounded like ‘I’m sure you would’.
I read the contract. Nothing had been changed. NOT A SINGLE THING. And the HOA president had signed it, with the Surrender Paralegal signing as witness. I looked at him and said ‘Why did he sign this?
It was stupid to sign it!’ and the paralegal looked at me and said ‘I started telling him that signing it would be a bad decision, but he told me I wasn’t being paid to think or give legal advice, and to shut up. So I shut up.’ I said, ‘Do you understand what he’s signed here?’ He looks at me and nods.
He said he asked him if he should have one of the lawyers look at it before giving it to me, and he told him that they had already billed enough for this and that he’d sign it and sue me after their easement was safe.
This happened about a year and a half ago. It took 6 months for the HOA to find out how screwed they were.
They wanted to sue me, but their lawyers explained to them that there was no way to win. Even if the court sided with them, all they would get is the easement contract voided, and they did not think that the court would side with them. The lawyers were adamant about one thing – the HOA could not live with the ‘HOA pays my legal fees if legal action was taken against me’ since it didn’t limit the people taking legal action against me to the HOA – as worded, the HOA would be forced to pay for my legal fees if ANYONE took legal action against me.
They argued that the courts would probably not enforce that, since the context of the agreement was to do with the HOA, and I told them I was prepared to find out since the HOA would definitely be the ones taking action against me if they challenged it. I eventually signed an addendum to the contract that said that the neighbor OO (HOA President) would personally pay all my legal fees unless he held no position at all in the HOA and that the HOA would pay all legal fees if the HOA took legal action against me.
He resigned from the HOA at the end of that meeting. I politely told him in front of everyone that he should not sign documents unless he understands what he’s signing. He didn’t look pleased.
It came out during the mediation (you cannot imagine how happy the lawyers were that their paralegal was mediating) that without the ability to control access to the HOA neighborhood through the security boom (partially) on my property (the HOA had become a ‘gated community’ a number of years back) the HOA would be in breach of their own articles and would be dissolved. I also learned (should have been obvious to me) that all the security cameras were wired, and all terminate in the guardhouse/guard shed. So basically, it was my way or the end of the HOA.
That first mediation was really quite funny. My paralegal looked more than a little glum as we assembled and he called everyone to order. I suspected that he had been told to work against me, so I took the initiative. I reminded everyone there that I had agreed to let the Paralegal mediate, but that I had agreed to no arbitration at all. If I didn’t feel like the proceedings were fair I’d leave and they could go ahead and sue.
The paralegal brightened up and things actually went quite well.
I’m writing this after getting home from the latest mediation. I built a ‘paddling pool’ for the neighborhood dogs. As in I made it myself. I dug a hole, packed it with stone, and added a concrete finish. It was my first attempt, and if I say so myself, it looked… well, terrible. The HOA called for a mediation meeting (what they do now instead of taking official action.
I’ve declined their mediation requests in the past) in which they told me, as nicely as they could, that the paddling pool was an eyesore right at the entrance of the HOA. I asked them to create a list of what needed to be fixed and how it needed to be fixed to give to me the next meeting. The list was extensive. It basically required the pool to be rebuilt from scratch, I asked them if there was any way to reduce costs on the work they needed to get it up to HOA standards, and they assured me there was not.
I thanked them, pulled out a copy of the agreement where they had agreed to ‘get the property to HOA standards’ (which I’d highlighted), and handed it to them with the list. I told them the HOA usually preferred if these things were dealt with within 30 days. They started arguing until the mediator reminded them that they could not force me to comply without causing the easement to end.
I should mention that their lawyers usually no longer attend these things. They said they would get it done.
I also learned a lot about neighbor OO today:
I found out that Neighbour OO sold his property about 3 months back, and is apparently leaving the country for Australia.
I found out that the HOA had successfully sued him for what they had lost to his mismanagement as part of his vendetta against me.
I also learned that he had a vendetta against me. I have no idea what I did to upset him.
I’m not sure if I will screw with the HOA anymore. I already think I’m so close to breaking them the only thing stopping them from canceling the contract is the massive financial loss if they do. I guess a lot depends on how they treat me and my tenants going forward.
Also, I do like the monthly payments, though, so I’m motivated to play nice.”
1. Steal My Meds? Enjoy Divorce, Jail, Joblessness, And Sleeping In Your Car
“16 years ago, I made a friend one day on the bus.
Up until about a year ago, I considered this guy a member of my family. Let’s call this guy Joel.
So, I keep a crystal bowl on the mantle above my fireplace, full of my medicinal substances.
I started noticing that after poker night, my bowl seemed a lot emptier than it should. So I set up a camera, to see which one of my guests was helping themselves when my back was turned.
Next poker night, once everyone is gone, I pull up the video. There Joel was, plain as day, stuffing like $60 worth of my medication into his pocket.
I sent him the video and told him he had to return my medication or pay for it, and I told him that if he chose to do neither, he should no longer consider me a friend.
HE DENIED IT.
Even with the video staring him in the face, he said he hadn’t taken anything. He even had the nerve to act offended by the fact that I accused him.
So I decided to ruin his life.
Over the years, he had told me a LOT of things he didn’t want his wife to know. Affairs, shady things he did with their joint funds, substances issues, terrible things he said about her, her mother, and her sister.
I went back through all of our messages and took screenshots of EVERYTHING ‘secret’ he had ever said to me. There were over 70 pics.
I sent her the screenshots.
Here are some examples of the kind of stuff that was in the screenshots:
He admitted to two-timing her with 8 different women over the course of our friendship. Taking funds they were saving for a car and using it to buy substances.
The fact that he was continuing to do these things after he promised her he was clean and sober.
Some of the things he’s said about her and her family:
She’s a vile disgusting woman, and the reason they never sleep together is that he can’t stand the way she smells. He also said he was pretty sure she was abusing her niece. He said that all of her friends only pretend to like her so they can get nice stuff off her.
Also, I just remembered that he said he wanted to get one of his side chicks pregnant because he’d always resented his wife for being infertile.
Her sister is an insane harpy. Her sister abuses her kids (this is not true, but he said it). Her sister is ‘faking’ her autoimmune disease for attention.
Her mom is a fat lazy cow, who doesn’t actually need to be in a wheelchair, she just likes not having to stand up or bathe herself, so she’s malingering.
There were more things, but that’s what came to mind without me having to dig through the screenshots I sent.
She filed for divorce and reported him to the police for the illegal substances he had in their house. While he was doing his 8 months in jail for the substances (THAT HE STOLE FROM ME), his boss filled his position, and he lost his job.
His (now ex) wife won’t let him in her house.
Now he lives in a car, and showers at truckstops.
I found out about the aftermath in parts. Some came from his ex-wife, she told me about the divorce, kicking him out, and getting him arrested. Some came from a guy Joel and I used to both be friends with, who works at the place Joel used to work.
He told me about the job loss, car living, and the truck stop thing. I’m still on good terms with his ex-wife, I even sent her some enchiladas the other day for Cinco de Mayo.
I also sent the video to all of our mutual friends, so he lost 90% of his social circle. I cut that other 10% out of my own life since they want to associate with known thieves.
Birds of a feather.”
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