"Mind your own business": after this rebuke, a grandfather does not warn his neighbor that the police are impounding his car

It is not easy to deal with neighbors, especially if they are unfriendly or hostile, but you cannot force people to get along. Problems can arise from almost anything: the color of the fence, noise late at night, music that is too loud, the dogs barking at all hours, etc. Buying a house, or even renting, is always a challenge when it come to peaceful coexistence with a neighborhood. A user on Reddit recounted an episode that happened to his grandfather some time ago, in which his neighbor had adopted hostile and grumpy attitude towards the grandfather. Fortunately, karma intervened to restore balance (and justice) to the situation.

via Reddit

Wikimedia / not the actual photo

The grandfather had moved to a sort of elderly care center comprised of single houses, in an area considered to be a nature reserve. It can be said that this man's grandfather did not have a courtyard - his outdoor space was too small to be called a courtyard. His neighbor, however, could boast of having a beautiful courtyard which was over two and a half meters bigger than the grandfather's space. The grandfather didn't care about this too much and from his first day in residence, he tried to be friendly with all of his neighbors. One day, his grandfather saw that his neighbor was tidying up his yard, and in particular he was laying expensive outdoor paving slabs on the ground, which stretched from his back door to the old fence posts that marked the boundary of the nature reserve. Without a care in the world, the neighbor had removed three fence posts on the border and moved them back a meter (3 feet) to make room for his new, paved driveway. In a nutshell, the neighbor was intending to illegally claim the nature reserve's land for himself.

The grandfather, who had worked for the National Park Services as a young man, thought it best to warn his neighbor about the consequences of his actions. This concern, however, was not well received by the neighbor, who immediately became defensive: "You're new here, I've been living there for 10 years," the rude neighbor stated. And he also added: "Mind your own business". At this point, Grandpa decided he wouldn't pursue the matter any further.

Pixabay / Not the actual photo

The consequences for the neighbor were not immediate, but they did come and they were disastrous for him. The following year, the area had been largely vacated for the summer holidays and grandfather's neighbor was also away from his home. During this period, the local authorities came to check that everything was still in order and that the nature reserve had been properly preserved. For a few days, the grandfather saw these people taking pictures and taking measurements outside his neighbor's house.  And the man's illegal activities were discovered - it was confirmed that the neighbor had illegally expanded the space of his courtyard, paving it to be able to park his golf cart and a sports car. The authorities left several notices and the grandfather read them all: The neighbor had traspassed onto a protected piece of land and now had 30 days to move his car, remove the driveway paving, and pay a $ 11,000 fine for damage to the park, endangering protected species and a trespassing fine. Failure to act within 30 days, would lead to the  confiscation his golf cart and car, the destruction the paving (which would be taken away at his expense), and the trespassing fine would be increased daily.

Flickr / Inventorchris / Not the actual photo

The 30 days passed without the neighbor doing anything, as he was out of town. The dismantled his driveway and took the cars away - just as they said they would in their notifications. You can imagine how furious the neighbor was once he got home and found out what had happened. One day, he bumped into the grandfather and ripped into him of not having warned him of what was happening while he was out of town: "Why didn't you call me when you saw them putting up notices on my door? You had my number!". With a wry smile and a glint in his eye, the grandfather couldn't help but answer his irate neighbor with the following words: "I thought I'd warn you, you know, but then I remembered that you told me a while ago to just mind my own business!".