Our neighbor treats everyone as if they were her servants – So I got mean and taught her a lesson in patience
Category: Interesting News
When a petty neighbor pressures a family, Gavin decides that the time has come to set an unforgettable limit. What begins as a normal day ends in a confrontation full of unexpected vulnerability, which shows that even small acts of rebellion can have a deeper echo than anyone expects.
My name is Gavin. I live on the second floor of a modest and almost quiet apartment building with my wife, Becca, and our two children. Liam, who is seven years old and is obsessed with dinosaurs, and Ava, who is five and lives in a constant state of spark.
Life here would be perfect if it weren’t for one thing. Or, more precisely, by a person.
Marge is the heavy old woman who makes our lives impossible. Marge, from Unit 3B, who somehow believes that our building is her personal realm, and we are nothing more than her personal reluctant. I could write a book about her and her antics, but no one has the energy for that.
Marge is the type of neighbor who leaves Post-it notes on your door because “your son made too much noise walking at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday.”
He once knocked on our door to scold Becca for shaking a towel on our own balcony, claiming that the wind could drag “dust particles” to his plants… plants that he keeps in our shared hallway as if it were his private glazed terrace.
There is an old rolling cart in the hallway, parked as if it were its place. Next to it is a broken box full of empty glass bottles and two mismatched plant supports, one always tilted to one side as if exhausted from pretending to be useful.
Marge treats that shared space as if it were a private extension of her apartment, a warehouse to which she is somehow entitled.
One afternoon, Ava stumbled on one of the supports while running to press the elevator button. She scratched the palm of her hand and tears jumped, and Becca, trying not to make the moment not too hard, told Marge in passing.
“I just wanted to let you know, Marge. My daughter has fallen on one of the pots out there,” he had told her softly. “Maybe you should move them to the other side, where no one can stumble upon them?”
“Well,” said the old woman, without blinking. “Maybe your daughter should learn to walk better. I’m not going to reorder anything, girl.”
I still remember how Becca’s smile hesitated, just a little. That was the first strike.
The second strike came a week later, when a notice appeared in our mailbox. Marge had filed an official complaint with the Owners Association.
That Liam rode his skateboard in the parking lot on a Saturday morning.
“Someone could get hurt,” he wrote on the form. “Or I could suffer discomfort and not be able to get to my car. At my age, that’s unacceptable.”
That comment hit me like a punch in the teeth. His comfort mattered more than our son’s joy.
The third blow was stronger.
One Tuesday, at 7:12 p.m., he knocked on the door with his fist up and demanded that we stop washing clothes. He said he could hear the washing machine buzzing through the walls.
And that’s when I realized that this woman was not only annoying. He believed with rights. Enough to treat each other as if we should be quiet. As if our family had to get smaller so that she was comfortable.
And I was already fed up with that.
The four of us had challenged the Saturday crowds to do some shopping for the back to school, those that always sound simpler in theory than they end up being. We had promised the children an excursion to the mall in exchange for their cooperation: trying on new shoes without a nervous breakdown, and there would be crackers and juices waiting.
The deal was maintained. But we were tired, the kind of tiredness that settles on the shoulders and doesn’t go away until you’ve slept well.
My arms were full of shopping bags, with the plastic handles biting my fingers as we crossed the parking lot. Becca did her usual magic, directing the two children to the car while answering overlapping questions.
Ava wanted to go back for bright colored pencils. Liam was still obsessed with the logic of whether a T. Rex would fit in our SUV.
“Maybe on the roof, Mom?” he asked. “We can put a blanket on it so it doesn’t slip.”
We finally got to the car, that sweet relief of being almost home. I loaded the bags into the trunk while Becca leaned in the back seat to fasten Ava’s seat belt. I heard her soft voice reassuring our daughter, who was down by sleep and murmured on pink pencils, while Liam climbed to her side, still half-said about the proportions of the dinosaurs’ limbs.
That’s when it happened. A sharp and aggressive horn strout the air.
I joined, startled. There was another horn before I located the source. I turned around and saw a beige sedan standing behind us, with the indicators flashing with impatient fury. The driver was stooched on the steering wheel like a bird of prey.
It took me a second longer than I should have to realize.
Becca didn’t miss the rhythm. He murmured in a low voice with the kind of silent fear that only prolonged exposure can foment.
I turned to Liam, keeping my voice firm. I helped him fasten his belt, smoot his shirt while putting it on. He was followed by another horn, this one longer, sharper.
“What’s going on?” Ava asked from the back seat.
I got up and looked at Marge in the rearview mirror. He waved his hand in impatient circles, muttering something.
I hadn’t sat in the driver’s seat yet.
“It’s too close, Gav,” Becca said from the co-pilot’s seat. “Anyway, you won’t be able to back down.”
I checked it and he was right. Marge had gotten so close to us that it was impossible to reverse without running the risk of colliding. His bumper practically kissed ours. I raised my hand and gestured for him to step back, giving him a simple and universal signal to make room for me.
He stared at me, blinked once and then deliberately did nothing.
Instead, he lowered the window with a dramatic buzz. His voice shot out like a slap.
“Oh, come on, Gavin! Why the hell are you taking so long? Step back at once.”
It wasn’t just what he said. It was the tone, cutting, with right and disgusted.
As if we were wasting his valuable time. It was as if the fact that we were a family, that we tried to accommodate our children in their seats and get home without a crisis, somehow did not consider it valid.
For her, we were not people. We were just in the way.
And something in me, silent and tired, and perhaps for a long time, exploded.
I looked at Becca, who was still holding Ava’s juice bag in one hand. He raised his eyebrows slightly when our eyes met, and the corners of his lips twitched as if he knew exactly what was going to happen. After nine years together, I knew how to read my moods better than I could name them.
“You won’t be…”, he began, smiling.
“Oh, I’m absolutely doing it,” I replied.
I turned to the car, closed the door with deliberate calm and pressed the lock button.
While I was doing it, I looked at Marge and nodded my head slightly, like someone who recognizes a last move in a game of chess.
Then I took Becca’s hand.
“Let’s go back in,” I said. “We’re going to carry the children and look for a restaurant for dinner early.”
“You’re kidding,” he whispered, although the spark in his eyes said otherwise.
Behind us, the car horn screamed again, a long and frustrated moan. We don’t flinch. We turned around, deliberately, together… and walked towards the entrance of the mall, with the children in tow.
“Where are we going?” Ava asked, with a small and puzzled voice. “Aren’t we going to the house?”
“We’re just going to stretch our legs, honey,” Becca said. “And to eat something so mom doesn’t have to cook.”
“Let’s look for something cheesy and messy,” I said, elbowing Liam on the shoulder. “How about a pizza?”
“Are you serious?” Marge swared. “Are you really doing this? Incredible! What a waste of time! This is not over, Gavin!”
We didn’t turn around. We didn’t even stop.
We turned the corner and found a free table in the food court. I went to get a pizza and left the children with Becca. They had received a second surge of energy and were impatient to sink their teeth into the greasy pizza.
“I think I love you a little more today,” Becca smiled, opening the box.
I got up, stretched as if I had just taken a nap and this time, when we got to the car, there were no impatient people waiting.
It wasn’t about the parking space. It was about the beginning.
It was about the years in which we have been told, subtly and constantly, that our family was too noisy, too messy, too uncomfortable for Marge’s perfect little world. That our joy, the laughter of our children, our washing cycles somehow disturbed the sanctity of their routine.
And you know what? Nothing else.
We got home that afternoon. I was waiting to see a new Post-it at our door, something scribbled in red ink with words like “irrespectful” or “immature”. But there was nothing.
For the first time in a long time, I felt… at peace.
And since that day? Marge no longer makes eye contact. He doesn’t complain about the hallway, nor about the clean clothes, nor about Liam’s skateboard. Now she’s quieter. Distant.
As if she had finally realized that she is not the owner of our lives. He has even put his cart inside.
Bothered? Maybe. Sometimes being mean is another way to set limits…
That parking lot was more than a space. It was a line in the sand. And finally, finally, we had traced ours.
But then, about two weeks later, I saw her again. Not from the other side of the parking lot, but just outside our building. I had just run out to pick up Liam’s forgotten lunch box from the car and, when I turned the corner towards the lobby, I saw her standing near the entrance.
Marge, slightly hunched over a brown paper bag with oil stains bleeding from the bottom.
A food delivery. Indian food, judging by the smell, tamarind and cardamom and something deliciously spicy that floated in the air.
At first he didn’t see me. I was holding the bag when I approached.
“Good night,” I told him.
She looked up, surprised. His face tensed for a moment, as if waiting for him to make fun of me. I didn’t do it.
“Do you know, Marge?” I said softly. “Your behavior that day at the mall… was not only rude. It was mean. My children were afraid. And they don’t forget things like that.”
He opened his mouth slightly, as if he had prepared a defense. But then he stopped. The tension left his shoulders in a slow and tired exhalation.
There was a moment of silence between us. His eyes turned to the paper bag he had in his hands.
“I feel lonely,” she finally said, in a voice softer than ever. “I asser Indian takeout.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. She just nodded silently, entered the elevator and let the doors close behind her.
I didn’t follow her. I stayed there for a moment, holding Liam’s lunch box, not knowing if what I felt was satisfaction or something a little sadder.
It was clear that Marge had done an examination of conscience… and she had not liked what she had found.
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This work is inspired by real facts and people, but has been fictionalized for creative purposes. Names, characters and details have been changed to protect intimacy and improve narration. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, or to real facts is pure coincidence and is not the author’s intention.
The author and the editor do not guarantee the accuracy of the events or the representation of the characters, and are not responsible for any misinterpretation. This story is provided “as is”, and the opinions expressed are those of the characters and do not reflect the views of the author or the editor.
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