People Next Door
Neighbors can be nightmares. After all, they’re just people and people can be inconsiderate. There are hundreds of articles and stories online about neighbors from hell but Melissa’s neighbors were something else.
Having moved to California from Kansas City, she soon discovered that her neighbors were jerks. The boulder blocked her driveway constantly. However, she was about to show them what it means to mess with a Geologist.
Bad Neighbors
There are many things you could do to annoy your neighbors or to upset the people who live in your neighborhood. Whether it is being rowdy late at night, being nosy and sticking their nose in where it doesn’t belong, most bad neighbors are simply rude and inconsiderate.
What makes it worse is that if no one takes a proper stand, these inconsiderate people will simply carry on doing what they do, even if people have spoken to them. However, it’s not always easy taking a stand, but sometimes it needs to be done.
Experienced
Melissa was no stranger to having problems with neighbors but when she moved into her home while studying, she didn’t expect any trouble. She was hard at work on her third degree when first and second-year students moved in next door.
She was worried about getting new neighbors. However, everything was fine. She and her roommates were relieved when they first started living next to the new neighbors. It seemed like there would be no problem. That changed, however, when they started to block their driveway.
A Good Arrangement
When finding her new roommates Melissa had been very fortunate indeed. She and her roommates respected each other, including their quirks, schedules, and personal spaces. This avoided conflicts about noise, chores, or any of the typical issues with roommates.
This was something they all realized and remarked upon more than once. All of them knew how lucky they were to have found such respectful and likeminded people. The arrangement worked so well they lived together for years.
Same Boat
Once a year their lease agreement came up and every year Melissa breathed a sigh of relief as all her roommates would renew their lease, happy to continue with the current arrangement. This led to them living together for three blissful years.
When a group of undergraduate students moved in next door, Melissa was understandably wary at first. However, it seemed that she’d been lucky yet again as everything was fine. What neither she nor her roommates knew was that this was simply the calm before the storm.
Party On
“I never really had any issue until about a week and a half ago,” Melissa wrote in a social media post. “This is actually the second time this has happened.” It is quite common for undergraduates to host raucous parties more often than graduate students do.
One of the reasons is that grad students have "gotten it out of their systems" and are more used to the freedoms of living alone. In her post, Melissa stated that “they’ve generally been pretty considerate with noise and keeping people out of our yard.” Then the boulder appeared.
Blocked In
One night, however, while her neighbors were having a party, Melissa noticed that one of her neighbor’s guests had blocked their driveway with their car. Melissa, not being unreasonable went over and politely asked that they didn’t block the driveway.
“I went over to ask that people stay out of our backyard,” Melissa wrote, “and noticed that a car was blocking us in, so I asked that it be moved by 7 am, and left a note.” When she got up the next morning, the car was no longer there. However, in its place was a huge boulder.
R&R
Melissa worked hard at her studies so at the end of the day she loved nothing more than some peace and quiet, reading a book. Sharing a neighborhood with many other noisy students was tricky but so far all had gone well.
Despite this challenge, Melissa managed to be studious and find time to relax in relative peace and quiet. It didn’t seem that anything was about to change that. However, she had no idea just what a rocky road lay ahead of her and her neighbors.
Boulder-dash
Melissa woke up early one morning, got ready to go out only to discover that once she reached her car there was a large boulder near her tire, blocking her in. However, as it would turn out, this wasn’t some random boulder.
It was clear that the neighbors had felt that the rock was in heir way so they decided to move it instead. However, they had chosen to move the rock to Melissa’s side of the fence. Needless to say, she immediately went to knock on her neighbor’s door but to no avail.
The Point
It was also not just some random stone either. Due to the nature of their parties, parking was often a problem for her neighbors. As a result, they were scared of someone damaging their fencing and causing them the need to pay for repairs.
As such, they used this boulder to put a buffer around the fence, hoping that this would protect it from not only bad drivers but also from those who struggled to park properly. This wasn’t a bad idea and so far there had been no problems.
Out of Place
While there had never been a problem with the rock before, today there was. By the look of it, someone had felt that the rock was in their way and had moved it to make their life simpler. However, they had caused a problem for Melissa.
Whoever had moved it didn’t seem concerned about the fact that it was on Melissa’s side of the fence and they had unthinkingly dumped it straight into Melissa’s path. To make it worse, they had all seemed quite happy to accommodate her when she’d asked them not to block her in the night before.
Immovable Object
The fact that she had been blocked in and couldn’t pull out her car was an annoyance, however, it would soon become clear that both the rock and the problem she was facing were much bigger than they thought.
Despite her most valiant efforts, Melissa simply could not remove the rock by herself. She went to the neighbor’s house and knocked on the door, hoping to get some help with this situation. Instead of being greeted by a friendly neighbor, she was greeted with nothing but silence.
Crazy Party
Eventually, Melissa got help to put the rock back in the proper place. But the whole situation would soon go from careless and inconsiderate to downright intolerable. Her rude neighbors had a crazy party one night.
She had gone over to ask them to make sure no cars would be blocking her driveway in the morning so she could leave for work. But when she woke up and went to her car, there was the boulder.
Getting Back at Her
This time, Melissa knew that the giant rock had definitely ended up there on purpose. Her rowdy neighbors had moved the boulder there to get back at her for simply asking them to make sure her car wasn’t blocked.
She knew that if she moved the boulder back to where it was supposed to be, it would eventually end up on her side of the fence again. But they had forgotten one very important fact about Melissa, and they were about to seriously regret it.
She's a Geologist
It turns out that Melissa’s neighbors had seriously underestimated her. She was a very petite person, so they might have thought they could get away with making her life inconvenient, and she wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.
But what they had failed to remember was that Melissa was, in fact, a geologist. And that means she had access to a professional auto-chipper, which had the power to drill through stone and pulverize it in a matter of minutes.
Say Hello the My Little Friend
Melissa was tired of being pushed around. She wanted to make sure that the neighbors next door got a very clear message to never underestimate her again. So she hauled out her extremely loud stone-drilling machine at 7:30 am, cranked it up to the highest setting, and proceeded to obliterate the pesky boulder into a pile of rubble.
Of course, she knew that the incredibly loud noise generated by the auto-chipper would make her neighbor’s post-party morning a living nightmare.
She Got To Work
And so, she got to work destroying the boulder like a total boss. Being a geology student pursuing her Ph.D., she had access to heavy machinery and used the skills she learned during her studies to solve the problem posed by her annoying neighbors.
Along with her protective gloves, earmuffs, and eye goggles, she was ready for action. Who said it would be impractical to pursue geology? Well, nobody is saying that now, especially not her neighbors!
Just a Pile of Rubble
Before long that pesky boulder was just a pile of rubble which she kindly swept over to her neighbors. Despite the size of it, Melissa successfully chipped away at it, and she did it with a satisfying smile.
She shared her updates on the story via Twitter and her tweet was shared over 10,000 times by the next morning and liked by more than 50,000 tweeters – it seemed her gratifying post was more relatable than she thought!
It Took Four Hours
Melissa is incredibly intelligent and knew that if she was going to cause so much noise had to do it within acceptable hours, as the noise ordinance stops at 7 am, she started at 07:30 and worked on the boulder for four hours.
“Give yourself a decent pair of headphones, pipe in some good music, fuel it with tiny person-passive aggressive rage, and you’d be surprised how quickly a large boulder can be demolished (four hours with minimum breaks),” she wrote.
All is Quiet
Melissa could have waited until later in the afternoon to create a huge noise so as not to wake her neighbors, but why not get back at them by blasting the rock to bits early in the morning as they’re trying to sleep off the effects of the previous night’s festivities?
Melissa could now sit up and relax while taking pride in her handiwork. “Update: All is quiet,” she wrote. “Neighbors have deserted the premises. I am thoroughly enjoying a cup of tea.”
A Mutual Understanding
Her pranksters probably didn’t think it would turn out like this for them, so after a job well done, we can only imagine how silly her neighbors must have felt, who after all, brought this upon themselves
“Neighbor update: I have made eye contact w/2 of the guys. One gave me a nod, and the other looked at me with wide eyes like I’m a madwoman. I’d like to think that we have reached a mutual understanding.”
Time For Some Tea
After Melissa destroyed the boulder and gave the boys an early morning wakeup call, she sat down to enjoy a cup of tea. However, what made things even sweeter was the fact that she was able to kick back and know that these rowdy students were going to think twice from now on.
Considering that this was the second time that Melissa’s car had been blocked in, she was happy to see that her neighbors might have finally gotten the hint.
Sharing Her Story
Knowing that this was a unique story, Melissa decided to do a live feed on her Twitter account about the entire thing. One thing was for sure, Melissa’s story was about to cause some serious buzz online and thousands of people were curious as to why the students decided to block her car in the first place.
But before the questions came flooding in, people online couldn’t help but retweet her updates and before she knew it, the story blew up…
Story Went Viral
Who knows if it was Melissa’s shameless attitude or her Tweets that made the story go viral. In any event, who doesn’t like to see a comical form of revenge? Being that Melissa is legitimately a volcanologist, she knows her way around her fair share of boulders. She also happens to have access to a “VERY loud auto-chipper at 7:30am.”
Melissa honestly had no issue with her neighbors until about a week and a half before this particular incident, when they blocked her car in because they didn’t want the boulder in their own driveway.
She Couldn’t Believe The Buzz She Got
According to Melissa herself, she “had absolutely no clue that everybody would find this so funny — I just thought a few of my geologist friends would get a chuckle out of it.” Her form of revenge was subtle yet loud; clever yet hilarious.
She specifically waited until 7:30 am to start up the noise because she’s “gotta stay within those legal bounds” and the noise ordinance doesn’t stop until 7 am, at least in Melissa’s case.
People Wanted to Know More
Everyone loves a good rivalry story so it wasn’t that surprising when people started tweeting at Melissa asking her questions about the incident. People were interested in the reasoning behind the boulder in Melissa’s parking lot.
They wanted to know why Melissa’s neighbors had done this in the first place, there had to be a good reason for the rock. “They got beef with you or what? I’ve never heard of somebody moving a rock in front of a random person’s car just for kicks before?” one person asked.
The Beef is Real
Surprisingly, Melissa answered most of the questions that were being asked. She responded to the tweets explaining why her neighbors had done what they had done, explaining sarcastically what a “horrible lady” she was.
“Sadly, yes. I am the evil lady who requests that if they have a party and people park in the driveway, that they move the cars by 7 am so I can get out. I’m a horrid [person],” she wrote.
A Working Class Hero
The praise Melissa received was unreal! “The only part I’m disappointed with is that you weren’t doing this at 5 am,” one person wrote. Melissa wasn’t expecting this response when she had originally posted the story.
She didn’t know that people would find it so funny, but the attention she received was overwhelming. She commented on how she had gained hundreds of followers since the story spread and hopes that she can serve as a role model for young girls to become scientists.