The people who lived next door set us up with our landlord so we could move in. We did what they asked.

Our new neighbors moved in next door (we share a landlord), and they’ve been looking around our property all the time since. I finally decided to talk to them when I saw them peering in our windows one time:

I: “Hi, neighbors!”

They’re: “Oh, boy, you scared us!”

I: “So, do you like the house?”

“Oh, a lot!” Did you ever think about moving?”

I laughed. While we changed the driveway, grew a beautiful garden, and bought a jacuzzi, their house was very dark.

I: “We put much effort into this one, and we love it, so no.”

They got mad and left, and after a week, our landlord told us we had to leave the house in seven days. The neighbors were upset about the smell and noise from our garden (they used a video from my birthday). I was yelling!

“Don’t cry, honey, I have a plan!” my husband told me.

People next door were already packing up to move in while we were moving out, and they had BIG GRINS on their faces. But after only 5 days, they called us yelling.

My husband and I were still getting used to our new home when we got the call. Karen, the neighbor, was there, and she was SO mad. I could barely understand what she was saying because she was yelling so loudly.

She yelled, “You lied to us!” “What did you do to this house?!”

When I gave my husband the phone, I couldn’t help but smile. He was much better at keeping a straight face than I was. I could hear everything because he put the phone on speaker.

“Karen,” he said softly, “I don’t get it.” The house was yours, and you got it. What does the trouble look like?”

At this point, she was almost yelling. “The pipes!” The leaks! There are bugs all over the garden, and it smells awful! There were mice in the basement, and there’s green slime all over the jacuzzi! “What the hell did you do before you left?”

I almost felt sorry for her. But then I remembered how they had set us up to get kicked out of the house, and I lost any sympathy I had for them.

“Ah, yes,” my husband said, even though his voice was still too calm. „The pipes and the garden. I guess I should explain.”

During a brief moment of silence on the line, I could almost hear Karen waiting, her anger barely contained. My husband went on.

“See, Karen, the plumbing wasn’t quite right when we moved in. We were able to get by with some short-term fixes, but it really should have been replaced. The landlord heard us a few times, but never did anything about it. In terms of the garden, the smell you’re smelling is probably from the compost pile we started. It was way back, away from the house, but I think it would be much stronger if it was moved in front of the house. Did you move anything by chance?”

Karen let out a loud, angry sigh. “We rearranged the garden, yes, but why would you leave a compost heap full of rotting things?!”

“That’s what compost is, Karen,” my husband said, and I could tell he was laughing so hard. “You might also want to watch out for that jacuzzi.” The water can get pretty gross if it isn’t cleaned often. We meant to have it serviced properly, but we just didn’t have time before we moved out.”

I was biting my lip to keep from laughing out loud at this point. Karen’s voice was very high and angry. “You meant to do this!” Thanks for leaving all this junk for us to deal with. Now we have to stay in this gross house! We’re going to call the landlord!”

“Please do,” my husband said, still being annoyingly polite. “I know he’ll be very interested in hearing about the changes you made to the house in the next few days. Since we lived there for years without any problems and made all those little changes to the house, didn’t we?”

I could almost see Karen’s face light up as she realized what was going on. They had told the landlord how bad we were, but now they were the ones destroying the property. The landlord was not going to be happy because he was very strict about keeping the property in good shape.

But my husband wasn’t done yet. “Oh, and Karen,” he said in a whisper filled with suspicion, “you might want to be extra careful around the back garden shed.” Once we found that… well, let’s just say there were some “creatures” that liked to live there, we sealed it up. I’m sure you’ll figure it out, but we didn’t have time to do it right before we left.

Karen’s voice broke. “What… what creatures?”

“I really shouldn’t say that,” my husband said, clearly having a good time. “But you know, lots of different things can get into old houses.” They need care the most when no one takes it.”

He hung up the phone before she could blow up again, which made us both laugh out loud. The shed didn’t really have any “creatures” in it, but we knew Karen was very paranoid, so we thought it would keep her on edge for a while.

We heard from the landlord over the next few weeks. Karen and her husband had been calling him almost every day to complain about how bad the house was. They even made him pay to fix things and clean up because they said we had left everything a mess.

However, my husband and I took the time to write down everything about the house before we moved out. When we left, we had pictures, videos, and even a signed list from the landlord to prove that everything was fine. When Karen tried to say that we were to blame, the landlord had a very different story.

Finally, Karen and her husband had to take care of everything on their own. It was their responsibility to fix the plumbing, clean up the garden, and take care of the jacuzzi, and the landlord wasn’t doing anything to help. They worked so hard to get us out because they thought they could take over the house we had worked so hard on, but they didn’t know what they were getting into.

We heard through the grapevine a few months later that Karen and her husband were looking to move again and were desperate to find someone to buy their house. It looked like they finally understood that taking over someone else’s life and home isn’t as simple as they thought it would be.

As for us, we got used to our new home without any problems. We were happy with it, even though it wasn’t as fancy as our old house. As a joke, every once in a while we’d look at pictures of the spotless house we left behind and picture Karen’s face when she realized that getting what she wanted didn’t mean she was getting what she expected.