I didn’t set out to be “that neighbor.” I just wanted my yard to survive the summer. After weeks of kneaded flower beds, torn mulch, and even a crumpled juice box stuffed in my mailbox, I finally walked next door and asked Tayo’s mom, Kendra, to please keep her seven-year-old on their side of the fence. She laughed. “He’s just a kid,” she said, like that made the tulip bulbs reappear.
Two days later, one of my path lights was in pieces.
I didn’t yell. I bought solar spotlights with motion sensors and tucked them along the garden border—bright enough to stop a raccoon, subtle enough not to start a war. The first night they triggered at 8:30. I peeked through the blinds and caught Tayo sprinting across my grass, giggling, his mother’s voice drifting behind him: “Tayo! Come back here!”
By morning, a light hung by its cord, cracked.
I started documenting. Photos. Receipts. Timestamps. No door-pounding, no confrontations—just a quiet log of trampled begonias and the chalk mural that crept across my front steps. Then a note appeared on my windshield, thick marker on lined paper: “STOP WATCHING MY SON OR ELSE.”
I brought it to the police. Without a pattern, there wasn’t much they could do, but they photographed the note and told me to keep a nuisance log. So I did.
One afternoon, Mr. Olufemi from two doors down paused by my hedge. “You’re not crazy,” he said. “Same thing with my roses last summer. My grandson saw the boy with scissors.” He shook his head. “They think everyone should tolerate it because he’s a child. He’s learning rules don’t matter.”
It escalated anyway. I came home to a plastic lawn flamingo rammed through my mailbox, skewering a stack of letters, including a utility bill. I installed a doorbell camera. The footage the next evening showed Tayo tossing small rocks at my porch light while Kendra chatted on her phone a few feet away.
I sent everything to the HOA and filed a formal complaint. They’d had “concerns” before, but never evidence. The warning letter went out.
Kendra arrived at my door with her phone recording. “Oh, you think you’re slick? Recording my kid like he’s a criminal? You’re sick!” I kept my voice even. “He’s damaged property. I’m documenting it.”
Two weeks later, I was served. Small claims court: “emotional distress” and “unauthorized filming of a minor.”
I sat at my dining table, hands shaking, and decided I was done playing defense. I printed the photos, compiled timestamps, clipped statements from neighbors willing to speak—one signed, two anonymous—and burned the footage to a drive.
In court, the judge was all business. Kendra spoke first: a single mom doing her best, a neighbor “spying on her child,” feeling “harassed” in her own community. When it was my turn, I handed over the file. The judge watched the clip of rocks pinging off my porch light while Kendra stood nearby. “Can you explain this?” he asked.
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