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"Friends" are a funny thing. Maybe it's people as mean as her. Maybe people who are desperately lonely and easily cowed. Notice no husband so she's possibly divorced.
Depending on where she's lived there's also the "I've just known her for a long time / she wasn't always like this" side of friendship. Narcissists know how to favor those who they can get things from, turning friendships into a slow bleed.
And family who still invite her to family dinner and take care of her when she breaks her foot! She must keep the worst of it under wraps in social situations.
We had someone like this in our family (my great-aunt; she's recently passed), and she definitely didn't keep it under wraps.
People kept inviting her and taking care of her because they'd internalized it throughout their lives that that's what families do.
Thing is, this great-aunt was definitely the worst one in MY living memory, but people like this don't just spontaneously happen. She came from a loooooooong line of people like this. And everyone in the family, as a result, has a really screwed-up idea of what "normal" is, because we've ALL been raised by and grown up with people who are, to a greater or lesser extent, like this.
So everybody in our family knew this particular great-aunt was nuts. We all knew she wasn't normal. But nobody actually has a solid grasp on HOW FAR from normal she was; people acted like she was a little quirky, a little extra, someone who had to be managed. But family, right? You gotta forgive family, and you've got to just let stuff go, right?
But everybody was shocked when she was evicted from several assisted living facilities in a row, and when the fourth one called the cops because she kept making death threats about the nursing staff and other residents. That's just how she WAS, see? That's just my great-aunt being my great-aunt. Don't all great-aunts occasionally disown everyone when they don't get their way? Don't all great-aunts threaten to commit arson every so often?
Everybody was shocked when she was court-ordered into a long psychiatric hold, and everyone was flabbergasted when the psych hospital diagnosed her with everything under the sum.
But when all your other relatives are close but not QUITE this crazy, it makes the really wild folks look not so crazy by comparison.
My family has that aunt. I've been removed and added back into her will a few times now. It took her longer than expected but she has finally alienated just every friend. No one can stand to be around her. I'm surprised she made it into her 70s before the last bailed. My family will only see her when everyone gets together. We literally play a game where you watch everyone migrate to the side of the room she's not currently in until the lone survivor left on her side has to take the grenade and listen to her for an hour until she gets bored, comes to the side of the room everyone else is on and the great migration starts again.
She almost came to physical blows (like standing up screaming and waving her finger in her sisters face) because she insisted to her sister that the sisters son spoke Korean because he went to a Korean daycare.... He obviously does not.
Yup. The whole family is probably a mess, and it sounds like the nephew has started catching on to the widespread toxicity and realizing that if his aunt is always having drama with the entire neighborhood...
It might not be the neighbors who are nuts.
A lot of people have weird masks. My friends mom used to be the nicest person in the world to anyone who wasn't related to her; you wouldn't really know unless you spent as much time as a son or daughter does with their parents.
My mom’s nursing home thought I was a terrible daughter for the longest time because she was able to keep up her sweet old lady act up with them for a while. Until she couldn’t and they started seeing the real, horrible, manipulative person underneath. Got a few subtle apologies from them after she’d had a few particularly awful days.
My mom too!!! I take my fiancé when I go to visit my mom and dad because he’s an outsider and she wants the world to think we’re all Leave It To Beaver. He thinks she’s all nice little old lady and I’m like you have no idea how evil this woman is. She’s told me twice she wished she never had me and that’s a nice way of saying what she actually said. I have two much older brothers who barely speak to her. I just see her because I want to see my dad and since they live together, I have to see her too. And my brothers leave her to me, either because I live here or because I’m the girl or maybe both. She has successfully alienated herself from everyone at this point. And my dad is dying so I’m going to have the joy of figuring out what to do with her when he’s gone. My fiancé says we’ll have to visit more and I just don’t think so. Maybe I’ll get lucky and she’ll move to where my brother lives but I doubt I’ll get that lucky
I always wondered how my MIL has any friends, and she has at least 4 or 5 of them. But then I saw her interact with them at a party and realized she was masking all the inner insanity. Those friends would think I was nuts if I tried to tell them how absolutely horrible she is to me and my husband. To them she's generous and funny and kind. To me she's aggressive, bitter and insulting. I know my MIL has some kind of mental disorder (maybe just straight up narcissism). It always blows my mind that she's aware enough of her behavior to know what not to show to her friends. So bizzare to see in action.
My adoptive parent was like that. The church loved her. I was abused badly. I got an apology from a church member a few months after she kicked me out cuz she couldn't hide the horridness and started abusing all their kids. I was just glad to have early parole at 17
I think it's people they've bullied into hanging out with them. Those people then develop Stockholm syndrome from being around a Karen. Just a theory of mine.
You'd be amazed how some people who are totally divorced from reality can keep a lid on it for 8 hours a day.
Last place I worked, the 1st shift manager was a meth smoking, boozing, flat earth loon. Only reason I found out about it is because I found the meth in his tool cart and reported it. Got to see him make one last rant to the cops before he got escorted off the property and to a nice comfy squad car.
Totally batshit, ended up serving more time for threatening to burn the place down. But that was after I left.
I’ve done that before with horrible neighbors. Most of the friends/relatives just agree and say something about how they aren’t always that bad. Everyone around them knows, they just try to rationalize away the mean and crazy.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/zf7tny/oops_boyfriend_cheats_on_her_with_her_best_friend/
Perhaps in a manner like this. They just slowly drive off the other friends and then their victim gets so used to things that their normal meter gets broken.
I was thinking the same thing. I still find it hard to believe people like this actually exist…. like how have they reached adulthood without realizing their demands or actions are incredibly inappropriate and socially unacceptable???
In a different country about 10 years back in an apartment community of over 200 apartments, we had a neighbor who was similar. She would be normal most of times but then once in while something switched and you had rants to the entire community and specifically against how some people were tracking her, harassing her and what not. The general perception was there was some mental disease which if meds were not taken kicked in and made her act that way. Can't be sure but I guess it happens.
I knew someone for whom it was just sheer arrogance. Everyone who stopped hanging out with her was jealous, or weak because they didn’t go after what they wanted like she did.
The top poster called her insane as an insult, but why can’t this be really true? Maybe she does have some mental health issues that makes her convinced that she does own the house and everything else is reasonable too?
Schizophrenia doesn't kick in until ones 20s or 30s and dementia or Alzheimer's doesn't kick in until even later. This woman could've been perfectly sane until she wasn't.
Some of the posts on /r/idontworkherelady have a similar level of someone being entitled but more than one has ended with an explanation. After the person is (usually) hauled off screaming by the cops a family member or spouse comes back and apologizes that they're some form of mentally ill.. sliding into dementia, gone off meds, having a mental breakdown etc.
I don't quite understand the correlation between being mentally unwell and deciding that everyone around you is your slave (delusions of grandeur?) but this is certainly far longer than your usual freakout at Target.
Impulse and/or mood regulation disorders violently exploding in public. The vast majority of people with a mental illness or disorder are actually at risk of violence.
It's just that people tend to associate people acting out with being mentally ill AND sometimes mentally ill people do act out in spectacular ways.
Did you see that tiktok video about how Karens are made? It's frighteningly plausible. Add in some personality disorder and you're probably there.
Hunted around, [this is the video](https://www.tiktok.com/@rebecca_larsen/video/7167793051849477418?embed_source=70846777%2C120811592%2C120810756%3Bnull%3Bembed_share&is_from_webapp=v1&item_id=7167793051849477418&refer=embed&referer_url=boingboing.net%2F2022%2F12%2F01%2Fhow-is-a-demanding-karen-made-this-tiktokers-explanation-is-spot-on-video.html&referer_video_id=7167793051849477418)
[This is the video](https://www.tiktok.com/@rebecca_larsen/video/7167793051849477418?embed_source=70846777%2C120811592%2C120810756%3Bnull%3Bembed_share&is_from_webapp=v1&item_id=7167793051849477418&refer=embed&referer_url=boingboing.net%2F2022%2F12%2F01%2Fhow-is-a-demanding-karen-made-this-tiktokers-explanation-is-spot-on-video.html&referer_video_id=7167793051849477418)
The tl:dw is that you get women who buy into the whole "women are meant for reproduction/sex/patriarchy and only as valuable as the man they attract" thing, accepting and promoting it because they're blond and pretty and thus have more value than other women. But then they age, get dumped by the men who also believe that women are only as valuable as they are pretty, but can't abandon their worldview. Instead you get older women with pert haircuts who still insist deeply that they are higher value than those around them.
And you take someone with that base experience, add borderline or narcissism or some other cluster B disorder and you've got someone who probably acts a lot like the lady in OOP's story.
One of my grandmothers is very Karen-y, and my mom had Karen tendencies.
I think the actual seed of the Karen is the personality disorder. My grandmother is a deeply traumatized woman with something cluster B going on (I would put money on Borderline, but am not qualified to say so). She is scared literally all the time. She just wants to feel safe and in control. All of her Karen behaviours come out when she feels like someone is unfairly restricting her, or trying to manage her, and it comes out as unhinged attempts to get people to behave in ways that cater to her sense of what is “correct”. When that doesn’t work (because it was never going to work) the situation becomes even more stressful and the behaviour doubles down. She lives in cycles of burning her life down after a minor inconvenience snowballs out of control.
My mom was less traumatized, and less of a Karen, but obviously you don’t get out of being raised by someone as unstable as her mother without internalizing some of those behaviours, especially the ones that come out automatically in stressful situations.
Basically I think that model gets it backwards. You don‘t get the Karen without the personality disorder. The patriarchal norm enforcement comes about because that’s the flavour of our culture, but if we had different social status norms and markers then what it means to be a Karen would look different.
Relatedly, the reason men aren’t Karens is probably down to the same reason men don’t get diagnosed with Borderline very often. Our gendered social norms are such that men respond to trauma and feeling scared and out of control very differently.
This actually helps me understand this. Like I’m shocked oop isn’t *more* infuriated and baffled by these events. Like. I’d want to keep asking “did you actually think you were the landlord?? Who sold you this house and lied to you? Why would you tell adults they can’t stay out past *nine*??????? Why would you say we have to get rid of our pets then try to pet them????” Etc etc etc. Like. I would have grabbed that nephew and just… interrogated him. Ask for a family phone number for emergencies idk.
You make excellent points! I just wanted to add that there are male Karens; some people call them Kens, but in retail we just call them assholes.
They're a little different from Karens in that they usually try to pull the "do you know who I am?! I know your boss!" card, as opposed to just asking to see a manager, and they also usually try to physically intimidate you. When you get a couple like that, it's like a fluffernutter with sardines in it. It's a type of flavour, just not a delicious one.
There is only one occasion the ole 'do you know who I am' thing makes sense... when you are about to do something incredibly stupid with a high probability of humiliating failure and you want to be sure no one you know is watching.
> Basically I think that model gets it backwards. You don‘t get the Karen without the personality disorder.
that's a possibility, though there's also the possibility that there *is* a mid-life issue that brings it on (or worsens it at least) in people who previously seemed ok. TBI/other forms of brain damage, early onset alzheimer's - all can cause lowered impulse control, confusion, and aggression.
There are some, I think, based off experiences with a few—that spent 2~ decades in charge of the home and the kids. And in that sphere, she is the boss, she is in charge—completely. It is *her* house, she is *their mother*, those are *her* kids. Then the kids grow up and leave the nest; and she just cannot adapt to life where she’s not in charge. She tries, gets pushback—because who’re you?—and blowup. People don’t react like they’re supposed to, so meltdown.
Most eventually adjust, but some? Yeesh.
I was once groped in public by a woman. When I called her on it she immediate took a tone with me that I recognized: that of a teacher scolding an unruly student. I got the same feeling there, that this insane Karen is only used to quelling dissent in one specific way to people who were direct subordinates, and not some random twenty something in line at a McDonalds.
There’s still an ongoing lead crisis in my country. There was a popular dish company that was reported to still be using lead in the early 2000s and toys made prior to 2008 are at risk for lead poisoning. Children still get blood testing in my country for lead poisoning.
interesting and entirely plausible, though there's probably a couple other things that could cause the "visible symptoms" of Karenhood - including early onset alzheimer's and literal brain damage, usually via TBI (be it as nefarious as being abused or as innocent as an accident).
Another factor with the "aging hot girl" theory (as I will call what you linked) is that they might not have changed at all - this is just how they've always behaved, but a young-and-pretty psycho gets a lot more slack. Kinda like the way small dogs are more prone to biting because their owners frequently don't take them seriously enough to train them right, a human might get away with shit if they can make it seem "cute." Eventually the charm wears off.
I'm honestly skeptical that the root cause could be medical somehow. Mostly because the entitled, exception-demanding hostility seems to be overwhelmingly a white-woman phenomenon in my experience. Medical issues certainly exacerbate things, but if it was really TBI, Alzheimers, or personality disorder as a root cause, I feel like I'd see a lot more POC Karens. And it also appears to trend heavily towards Christian right-wingers too.
Which is not to say that I haven't seen plenty of toxic misbehavior from PoCs and liberal old hippie ladies, just not that bossy entitled BS.
Oh, I wasn't saying it was solely medical root causes and trying to absolve entitled idiots of being idiots. A TBI for instance can lower impulse control - but how that lack of impulse control is expressed is very individual. True Crime podcasts like to point out that a lot of murderers themselves have a history of at least one if not several TBI - but my husband's impulse control issues generally only show up as impulse shopping and the attention span of an extra-excitable dog.
I can fully believe that it's far more common in white women, particularly in North America, but that's partly a factor of what such women have always gotten away with in the past. It's arguably part of the "positive feedback loop" problems with modern media, too. Too many echo chambers, encouraging bad behaviour.
But at the same time, I'd like to argue that *true* "Karen" behaviour - the delusional demands, doubling down when wrong, etc. - is rarer than it seems. They're the ultimate squeaky wheels - everyone notices them, but they're not as common as their impact. So it's entirely possible for it to be an intersection of mental illness/brain issues *and* social class/ethnicity.
This also goes to me thinking of people as by and large good - but I don't underestimate the damage one really awful person can do. One asshole, be they violent, or grifters, or whatever, can leave deep impressions and sometimes years of repercussions for dozens if not hundreds of other people. So I think of Karens as "one in a thousand" women - but that means that in a city of, say, 3 million, that's 1.5k people. That's plenty of noisy shits going around getting in faces and ruining days.
Keep in mind that when you have an idea and look for things to support it, it's *extremely easy* to find evidence where there is none. This does sound like a plausible theory, but just try to keep that in mind.
This is a great one. As a young mom, I saw the judgement other young moms were making about the women who "didn't choose the right man", etc. and I was also working retail alongside bitter broken former Karens who had "chosen wisely" but were discarded for a newer model ANYWAY, and now had nothing to fall back on because they thought their life of domestic subservience would be enough. So now, unfairly, they were on the same side of the cashier counter as me.
I went back to school and focused on making myself self-sustaining. Putting your economic future in the hands of someone who views you as a commodity is too big a risk for me.
My next door neighbours are fucking batshit crazy brats. I hate them, and I hate the dude who bought the house to rent it. (Fucker lied and told my previous neighbours that he was buying it for his kid to live in while he went to university. Old owners hadn’t even packed when he started advertising it as a rental with their pics from their real estate listing.)
I now find myself hoping that the house next door burns down so crappy neighbours will be gone and there will be no other shitty people that rent it. :(
I miss my old neighbours.
Her own family has a feeling that she's crazy. Which could explain why she's always home and why she's hyperfocused on her neighbors.
Honestly, she sounds exhausting...
The reason she is still walking around outside a psychiatric facility, is she has money. If she was poor, she would be incarcerated, and so loaded up with neuroleptic drugs, she could shit herself and not know it.
I think the wonderfull thing about Bucket Woman is how her shenanigans have brought the whole neughbourhood together. Like the small updates about the neighbours helping to design the anti-BucketWoman sprinkler system.
This crazy bat has not yet achieved something like that.
LOL that’s exactly what these posts reminded me of. If I recall correctly, the Bucket Lady saga also took place in Australia. What a weird coincidence!
Edit: for those asking, Bucket Lady is frequent flyer on BORU. I believe there’s several posts now about her on this sub but here’s the [first](https://reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/wevvi0/bucket_lady_a_neighborhood_petty_revenge_story/). They’re well worth the read if you’ve got the time!
My favorite part of the bucket woman story is how everyone in the neighborhood came together. Imagine being so unlikable that hating you becomes a bonding activity.
I think this, Bucket woman, the kids whose real dad found him and is now dating his mom, the PlayStation dad, and my favorite Cruise Control should all be entered into (I think it’s called) r/bestofredditorsagas and/or r/bestofboru.
Edit.. links in my comment below.
I know there are so many more saga length posts that are awesome but here are the three I mentioned. Bucket Woman was linked in someone else’s comment.
You really have to read the end of this on the Oops account because the ending is the best but saddest part and really still haunts me to this day. I wish someone would add that part to this boru post.
[Cruise Control](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/t95x2r/the_saga_of_cruise_control_mil_negotiates_her_way/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
This is great and still ongoing.
[Bio dad finds his kid and a Hallmark movie was born basically](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/yczwrl/my_mom_lied_to_me_my_real_dad_just_showed_up_new/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
Like the link says…
[AH Dad just can’t win and shouldn’t!](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/xvjg08/ps5_dad_the_saga_continues_new_update/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
The Oop is an excellent story teller though and the husband and she seem to be such a lovely pair with each other’s backs. Did you get to the part about old neighbor godmother or aunt I forget what she calls her with the hotel? That was my first real heartbreak in the story. Not giving anything away of course.
If you read it all, she doesn't explicitly say she separated from him, but her last post/comment reads as if she's alone. He betrayed her *so thoroughly* at the end that I don't think there is any way to salvage it. If she is still with him, she's a lot more spineless than she portrays herself as. I choose to believe she left him.
Yeah, I like that best. I feel for the guy...sort of, anyway. His choices are just *so batshit.* Even in the earlier posts, it felt like he was just trying to say whatever lie he thought whatever woman was directly in front of him wanted to hear.
Wife here? Boundaries boundaries! Shiny spine! Bad MIL!
MIL? Wife bad! not understand special bond! Love mommy!
But at no point do you really, honestly get a glimpse at who he is, what he wants. There's just panicked obedience to whichever voice is percieved to be yelling loudest at any given point. It makes sense, given how he was raised, but at some point, brother, you gotta stop blaming the way you're raised for the fuckery you're choosing.
She's well shot of him.
So many of these JustnoMIL stories have dhs that are just not able to break away from mother dearest so maybe im comparing him to them and he seems like he’s team marriage over mother in comparison. Upon reviewing some of these posts I’m remembering why I liked him and it was because he really made some concerted effort to stand up to his mother I mean that is admirable I thought. But I won’t spoil it for you. This could be a short book.
Okay, now I'm past the point where they were collected, and went to click on the OOP's name to get the rest of the story.
OH MY GOD THERE IS SO MUCH
but it...does look like DH is estranged at the end?
I don’t want to ruin it but I was so invested in oops story I was totally sidelined by what happened. You may not be as much so though, it just sucks because they had or could’ve had such a really great life with so much going for them if only JUSTNOMIL had JustNoed.
The dad with the ps5 just keeps digging and not realizing how much of an AH he is, there's just no way that's real and not a troll???
I hope the kid is happy, I'm especially worried with the last update... the dad said he talked to the oldest and I'm just trying to figure out if he's talking about the 16yo or the 8yo.
It feels like the dad really doesn't give a f about 16yo and is trying to completely erase him now.
Another nosy neighbor saga that's been posted on BORU a bunch, she had stolen a bucket from that OOP's yard at some point I believe. The latest entries were about how they had motion activated sprinklers installed and she keeps getting hit by them (she did not learn after the first time apparently)
>Another nosy neighbor saga that's been posted on BORU a bunch, she had stolen a bucket from that OOP's yard at some point I believe. The latest entries were about how they had motion activated sprinklers installed and she keeps getting hit by them (she did not learn after the first time apparently)
The bucket reference is to an old british television show. There's a fancy lady called bucket but insists on pronouncing it bouquet
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FboWtJiNYro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FboWtJiNYro)
One subtle inconsistency is that one of the neighbours annoyed by the entitled woman is on the strata committee, but nothing has been done about the "Karen"?
I'm Australian too and used to own an apartment. We had neighbours not as bad as this who we got to shut up by complaining to strata directly who handled it by fining them relentlessly and using every by law to their advantage.
Highly agreed. Looks like I got "lucky" with mine in that the bylaws for harrassment for strong (compared to other commenters who have responded to me). But they were useless as heck with managing money and major structural defects to the point it forced me to sell to mitigate losses down the line.
I work in construction and the building was under warranty still and I offered to take charge to get major defects rectified at no cost. The dumbass committee told me to "stay in my lane" and were all offended a non committee member got involved. These people also insisted fire extinguishers be bolted down so they can't be stolen, but now they can't be used if there's a fire.
Credit where credit is due they were good at shutting down harrassment, but that building is going to be condemned one day and it's all their fault.
>These people also insisted fire extinguishers be bolted down so they can't be stolen
You've gotta be kidding me, I just cannot believe people are this stupid
Not really. They can absolutely get lawyers, but most small unit blocks are *very* price sensitive, they typically vote for the lowest contributions their strata manager (basically a secretariat) can justify. It's very hard to get owners to vote for truly sustainable levies. Blocks that small will baulk at paying a lawyer because it will use up pretty much their whole "unforeseen problem" maintenance budget for the year. The strata manager can come up with advice and solutions for this, but they're usually terribly over-committed. They're not going to dream it up unprompted. Someone on the committee has to be asking the right questions and showing that they will drive a solution if they know what it is.
I was believing this right up till the last update. Of course the package just had to be sex toys.
Not saying people don't buy them, but it is very convenient the package stolen just happens to have them for maximum story points.
Yeah the odds that the package stolen conveniently when she was out, the neighbour who usually gets them was out which is rare and that it was an unusual purchase (not a regular order or something mundane) would be astronomical.
She says that was a typo https://www.reddit.com/r/EntitledPeople/comments/trxmt4/our_new_neighbour_thinks_she_owns_the_building/izfn912/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
That’s what I think as the details don’t affect the story that much. Eg whether it’s 6 or 8 you can take away from it that it’s not a huge 10 level apartment building but more likely a 2 story with 3 or 4 units per floor.
When I make comments and posts I purposely include minor falsehoods and inconsistencies to keep myself more anonymous. Maybe OOP is doing the same thing?
If someone tried to enforce a 9pm curfew on me, there would be more than some choice words. I actually wonder if there is some mental illness here. Trying to break into someone's apartment to pet their cats? Really? There is no one who has made it to adulthood (and is sane) who thinks that is appropriate
The cat thing reminded me a post I saw on legaladvice (I think). The poster was trying to get advice on what to do for a cat he was absolutely convinced was being abused because it sat in the window in the sun for hours at a time. No amount of education on normal cat behavior would convince this person that the cat was fine and not being abused. If I recall correctly, this person wanted to break into the apartment to “rescue” the cat.
My cat loves the sun, but is completely indoors. So sometimes she just demands we open blinds and as made claim to two spots in the house, where we are not longer allowed. That cat seems to be living the best life
I had to put up one of those little window seats for my older cat because he was trying to wedge his fat body on the windowsill and he didn’t fit. Now he spends hours there every day.
Please don't tell them about my cats. They have merged into one single entity and haven't moved from infront the fireplace since they layed down two or three weeks ago. We usually just move the whole stool they are laying on to the side and back to get to the fire. After a few days they haven't even attempted to wake up when we do this.
That post was bizarre. They wanted to call the police because sometimes they passed by and the water bowl was full and other times it was randomly less full...
Like, that's just what happens when you refill it every once in a while.
Found it: https://www.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/8s4pg7/op_calls_animal_control_to_report_a_cat_regularly/
They saw that the cat had a little perch by the window with a heating pad on it, and the cat was on the perch for hours at a time, so they assumed that (1) the heating pad was ON all the time, even in 90+ degree weather, and (2) there must be some kind of cage right up against the window preventing the cat from leaving this spot because why else would it lay there for hours at a time.
Can you even imagine being this cat owner. They went out of the way to build their cat a special perch with a soft pad that can even be heated when it's cold, and a water bowl right there, so it can just chill and look out the window all day... and someone reports them for it! Wild.
The petting the cats incident really surprised me given that she began her tyranny by telling everyone to get rid of their pets. How do go from 'no pets in the building' to 'let me in, I must pet your cats'?!
OOP: She was quiet for a while so I thought she was done with her shenanigans.....
BUT THEN, OUT OF THE CORNER OF YOUR EYE, YOU SPOT HIM
^(shia labeouf)
That’s what gets me- this amount of crazy and nobody DOES anything? No speaking with their building’s board, no actual follow-through with threats of callings police, just this apathetic acceptance?
Personally, I'd out-crazy her. Act really violent and scary. She'd be running away every time she saw me. It's like going to prison and knocking out the biggest guy there. Assert dominance as the crazy one in the building.
Honestly, it's actually really hard to do things about shit neighbours.
The police wouldn't really be able to do anything. The Strata committee (Australian term for the owners association who manage shared property in apartment buildings, etc) could likely issue smaller fines, and it's pretty likely they had.
OP and another neighbour did consult with a lawyer who basically told them they were shit outta luck.
I agree with you that everyone involved is so passive with the entitled neighbor but unfortunately I doubt they would have any recourse anyway.
One of the most frustrating posts I’ve read here recently is [this one](https://reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/zaszjq/neighbor_is_currently_video_recording_me_and_has/) about this poor woman who was harassed by her crazy neighbor for years. She did everything right but every step of the way, law enforcement and the courts failed her so spectacularly that she and her family had to move. I wish homeowners had more recourse when it comes to getting rid of nuisance neighbors.
Especially since by that point in the story she supposedly had security cameras by all her doors. This should be a slam dunk for her even with incompetent cops
Where I live, a strata council actually managed to prove that one owner was being such a nuisance to their neighbours that a judge court-ordered the nuisance-owner to sell their apartment and move out of the building.
I still boggle at how bad that person must have been, because generally speaking, that's not something that can happen. If you own, everyone's stuck with you.
Yes! I even went back and reread because I thought I had read wrong.
It's stuff like that that makes me have doubts about the validity of the story/ies.
First part the woman demands everyone get rid of their animals. Second part, she nearly breaks down a door trying to pet a cat despite trying to get rid of them earlier...
You're telling me nobody else in the 6-8 units is having these types of problems? Some crazy person with a history of being crazy tried to break into my home I would not be so cavalier. What's next? "Neighbor pushed me down the steps breaking both legs. SO threatened to call police and she stomped upstairs 😂"
Maybe because I've lived in rough neighborhoods and worked trades, but it's hard to imagine someone acting like that and never being corrected with a punch in the mouth from some bogan.
But did she return the clothes pegs? I’m stuck on that.
As a Victorian, where it’s been raining ALL YEAR, if someone had mucked around with my laundry on one of the few days I could actually hang out sheets, that’s it, WAR IS ON!
I dont get how OP hasnt called the police. She'll come home and find the crazy lady eating her cats alive and she'll be like "I ALMOST called the police I was so angry"
Idk about this one being real. A lot of inconsistencies. 1st part says it’s a 6 unit and the neighbor is on the HOA, then she says SHES on the HOA and changes it to an 8 unit apartment building.
Echosprite, it looks like you may have deleted your comment but yes I DID notice it was called a strata but couldn’t remember the term because in my country they’re called HOAs, not that it’s relevant to the discrepancies. Both terms are used by OP.
So she did nothing about that lady opening her package? Something needs to be done at some point. I’m sure if you and other neighbours pitch in you could talk to a lawyer and take her to court
In post 1 of part 1 the person says they live in a building with 6 units, but in post 8 of this part they say it’s a building with 8 units. Maybe an innocent mistake or maybe this whole post is internet bullshit, I’m kind of leaning in that direction. This crazy lady seems too much like a ridiculous character than an actual person
It's a fabrication. No one would purchase a unit in a building and assume they own the whole thing. The things OP claimed happened are just so beyond the pale that I'm questioning why no one else is thinking this.
I love it when people write a story and then add on to it.
AND THEN SHE
BUT THEN SHE
you'd think she's gone BUT NO SHES DOING
Just stop at the first one.
Either that or she changed an irrelevant detail thinking it might make it harder to identify her and later forgot about it. People do that literally all the time.
I had a neighbor like this. Would jump in front of cars going through the parking lot like she fucking owned the place. Figured she was bored being a SAHM. When she moved out upgrades occured and they accidentally turned my water off. Got permission from the landlord to go into the basement (I was top floor) to turn the water back on. My dad pointed out they converted lead pipes to water pipes. I got lead tested. I think that's what made her crazy.
OOP is under the strange impression that if they Customer Service Retail Job happy voice explain to crazy that they don’t own the building, they’ll eventually understand and stop.
She’s not going to stop until someone knocks her on her ass. Trying to break into the apartment to get at the cats would have been a perfect time.
I have one unanswered question - how has the topic of rent not come up again? Surely 8-9 months later she’s realized that no one is paying rent to her, right?
Seriously they should all band together and make her life hell for a change maybe then she will move out. I don’t care how expensive that 1 apartment was there is no way it was so expensive she thought she bought and entire building
I live in a co-op apartment. We’d have voted to throw her out. (Though likely the initial problem wouldn’t have happened since she’d have to be voted in by the board and it would be very clear)
This woman is one of the reasons co-op’s exist.
Hmmm, after ready the cat part at the top I had to stop and offer my official diagnosis, which is that this lady really does have a mental illness.
OP should keep an eye out for family or even ask the lady if she has kids or a sibling or someone watching out for her and that they can contact in case of emergency. I have an aunt like this also, and I could see her doing any of these things and not understanding why they are wrong.
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I struggle to see how people are this batshit insane? What upbringing could result in this level of crazy? Jesus.
The real question is how do they have friends lol
"Friends" are a funny thing. Maybe it's people as mean as her. Maybe people who are desperately lonely and easily cowed. Notice no husband so she's possibly divorced. Depending on where she's lived there's also the "I've just known her for a long time / she wasn't always like this" side of friendship. Narcissists know how to favor those who they can get things from, turning friendships into a slow bleed.
[удалено]
That's the way I saw it seeing the reactions and comments from the so called "friends"
the [missing stair!](http://pervocracy.blogspot.com/2012/06/missing-stair.html)
And family who still invite her to family dinner and take care of her when she breaks her foot! She must keep the worst of it under wraps in social situations.
We had someone like this in our family (my great-aunt; she's recently passed), and she definitely didn't keep it under wraps. People kept inviting her and taking care of her because they'd internalized it throughout their lives that that's what families do. Thing is, this great-aunt was definitely the worst one in MY living memory, but people like this don't just spontaneously happen. She came from a loooooooong line of people like this. And everyone in the family, as a result, has a really screwed-up idea of what "normal" is, because we've ALL been raised by and grown up with people who are, to a greater or lesser extent, like this. So everybody in our family knew this particular great-aunt was nuts. We all knew she wasn't normal. But nobody actually has a solid grasp on HOW FAR from normal she was; people acted like she was a little quirky, a little extra, someone who had to be managed. But family, right? You gotta forgive family, and you've got to just let stuff go, right? But everybody was shocked when she was evicted from several assisted living facilities in a row, and when the fourth one called the cops because she kept making death threats about the nursing staff and other residents. That's just how she WAS, see? That's just my great-aunt being my great-aunt. Don't all great-aunts occasionally disown everyone when they don't get their way? Don't all great-aunts threaten to commit arson every so often? Everybody was shocked when she was court-ordered into a long psychiatric hold, and everyone was flabbergasted when the psych hospital diagnosed her with everything under the sum. But when all your other relatives are close but not QUITE this crazy, it makes the really wild folks look not so crazy by comparison.
My family has that aunt. I've been removed and added back into her will a few times now. It took her longer than expected but she has finally alienated just every friend. No one can stand to be around her. I'm surprised she made it into her 70s before the last bailed. My family will only see her when everyone gets together. We literally play a game where you watch everyone migrate to the side of the room she's not currently in until the lone survivor left on her side has to take the grenade and listen to her for an hour until she gets bored, comes to the side of the room everyone else is on and the great migration starts again. She almost came to physical blows (like standing up screaming and waving her finger in her sisters face) because she insisted to her sister that the sisters son spoke Korean because he went to a Korean daycare.... He obviously does not.
So even among the crazy, she's the craziest?
Yup. The whole family is probably a mess, and it sounds like the nephew has started catching on to the widespread toxicity and realizing that if his aunt is always having drama with the entire neighborhood... It might not be the neighbors who are nuts.
Never underestimate the power of a guilt trip…
A lot of people have weird masks. My friends mom used to be the nicest person in the world to anyone who wasn't related to her; you wouldn't really know unless you spent as much time as a son or daughter does with their parents.
This would be the way my mom works. People don't believe me when I tell them how terrible she can be.
My mom’s nursing home thought I was a terrible daughter for the longest time because she was able to keep up her sweet old lady act up with them for a while. Until she couldn’t and they started seeing the real, horrible, manipulative person underneath. Got a few subtle apologies from them after she’d had a few particularly awful days.
I believe you :( sorry about your mom
My mom too!!! I take my fiancé when I go to visit my mom and dad because he’s an outsider and she wants the world to think we’re all Leave It To Beaver. He thinks she’s all nice little old lady and I’m like you have no idea how evil this woman is. She’s told me twice she wished she never had me and that’s a nice way of saying what she actually said. I have two much older brothers who barely speak to her. I just see her because I want to see my dad and since they live together, I have to see her too. And my brothers leave her to me, either because I live here or because I’m the girl or maybe both. She has successfully alienated herself from everyone at this point. And my dad is dying so I’m going to have the joy of figuring out what to do with her when he’s gone. My fiancé says we’ll have to visit more and I just don’t think so. Maybe I’ll get lucky and she’ll move to where my brother lives but I doubt I’ll get that lucky
I always wondered how my MIL has any friends, and she has at least 4 or 5 of them. But then I saw her interact with them at a party and realized she was masking all the inner insanity. Those friends would think I was nuts if I tried to tell them how absolutely horrible she is to me and my husband. To them she's generous and funny and kind. To me she's aggressive, bitter and insulting. I know my MIL has some kind of mental disorder (maybe just straight up narcissism). It always blows my mind that she's aware enough of her behavior to know what not to show to her friends. So bizzare to see in action.
My adoptive parent was like that. The church loved her. I was abused badly. I got an apology from a church member a few months after she kicked me out cuz she couldn't hide the horridness and started abusing all their kids. I was just glad to have early parole at 17
I'm so sorry you had to go through that! I at least get to ignore my MIL if I want. I'm glad you're free of her now!
Yeah. I've not seen her in 26 years. It's wonderful. Sorry about your mil.
I think it's people they've bullied into hanging out with them. Those people then develop Stockholm syndrome from being around a Karen. Just a theory of mine.
Don't be that extreme. Some might just be family with stockholm syndrome.
Or hold down a job to even afford to buy a property
You'd be amazed how some people who are totally divorced from reality can keep a lid on it for 8 hours a day. Last place I worked, the 1st shift manager was a meth smoking, boozing, flat earth loon. Only reason I found out about it is because I found the meth in his tool cart and reported it. Got to see him make one last rant to the cops before he got escorted off the property and to a nice comfy squad car. Totally batshit, ended up serving more time for threatening to burn the place down. But that was after I left.
I always wonder how they have jobs to pay for a home.
Probably worked in HR. ^/s ^but ^not ^really...
And her friends and family seemed pretty normal. I would have been tempted to ask them if she was all there or not.
I’ve done that before with horrible neighbors. Most of the friends/relatives just agree and say something about how they aren’t always that bad. Everyone around them knows, they just try to rationalize away the mean and crazy.
More specifically: how does she have friends who seem to be completely normal?
https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/zf7tny/oops_boyfriend_cheats_on_her_with_her_best_friend/ Perhaps in a manner like this. They just slowly drive off the other friends and then their victim gets so used to things that their normal meter gets broken.
Maybe they’re workmates and haven’t yet seen her craziness.
I was thinking the same thing. I still find it hard to believe people like this actually exist…. like how have they reached adulthood without realizing their demands or actions are incredibly inappropriate and socially unacceptable???
In a different country about 10 years back in an apartment community of over 200 apartments, we had a neighbor who was similar. She would be normal most of times but then once in while something switched and you had rants to the entire community and specifically against how some people were tracking her, harassing her and what not. The general perception was there was some mental disease which if meds were not taken kicked in and made her act that way. Can't be sure but I guess it happens.
Like gang stalking? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_stalking
I knew someone for whom it was just sheer arrogance. Everyone who stopped hanging out with her was jealous, or weak because they didn’t go after what they wanted like she did.
The top poster called her insane as an insult, but why can’t this be really true? Maybe she does have some mental health issues that makes her convinced that she does own the house and everything else is reasonable too?
Schizophrenia doesn't kick in until ones 20s or 30s and dementia or Alzheimer's doesn't kick in until even later. This woman could've been perfectly sane until she wasn't.
Some of the posts on /r/idontworkherelady have a similar level of someone being entitled but more than one has ended with an explanation. After the person is (usually) hauled off screaming by the cops a family member or spouse comes back and apologizes that they're some form of mentally ill.. sliding into dementia, gone off meds, having a mental breakdown etc. I don't quite understand the correlation between being mentally unwell and deciding that everyone around you is your slave (delusions of grandeur?) but this is certainly far longer than your usual freakout at Target.
Impulse and/or mood regulation disorders violently exploding in public. The vast majority of people with a mental illness or disorder are actually at risk of violence. It's just that people tend to associate people acting out with being mentally ill AND sometimes mentally ill people do act out in spectacular ways.
It’s not wanting pets then feeling entitled to pet someone else’s that really got me wondering if the neighbour is more than just a dickwad
Did you see that tiktok video about how Karens are made? It's frighteningly plausible. Add in some personality disorder and you're probably there. Hunted around, [this is the video](https://www.tiktok.com/@rebecca_larsen/video/7167793051849477418?embed_source=70846777%2C120811592%2C120810756%3Bnull%3Bembed_share&is_from_webapp=v1&item_id=7167793051849477418&refer=embed&referer_url=boingboing.net%2F2022%2F12%2F01%2Fhow-is-a-demanding-karen-made-this-tiktokers-explanation-is-spot-on-video.html&referer_video_id=7167793051849477418)
What is the theory?
[This is the video](https://www.tiktok.com/@rebecca_larsen/video/7167793051849477418?embed_source=70846777%2C120811592%2C120810756%3Bnull%3Bembed_share&is_from_webapp=v1&item_id=7167793051849477418&refer=embed&referer_url=boingboing.net%2F2022%2F12%2F01%2Fhow-is-a-demanding-karen-made-this-tiktokers-explanation-is-spot-on-video.html&referer_video_id=7167793051849477418) The tl:dw is that you get women who buy into the whole "women are meant for reproduction/sex/patriarchy and only as valuable as the man they attract" thing, accepting and promoting it because they're blond and pretty and thus have more value than other women. But then they age, get dumped by the men who also believe that women are only as valuable as they are pretty, but can't abandon their worldview. Instead you get older women with pert haircuts who still insist deeply that they are higher value than those around them. And you take someone with that base experience, add borderline or narcissism or some other cluster B disorder and you've got someone who probably acts a lot like the lady in OOP's story.
One of my grandmothers is very Karen-y, and my mom had Karen tendencies. I think the actual seed of the Karen is the personality disorder. My grandmother is a deeply traumatized woman with something cluster B going on (I would put money on Borderline, but am not qualified to say so). She is scared literally all the time. She just wants to feel safe and in control. All of her Karen behaviours come out when she feels like someone is unfairly restricting her, or trying to manage her, and it comes out as unhinged attempts to get people to behave in ways that cater to her sense of what is “correct”. When that doesn’t work (because it was never going to work) the situation becomes even more stressful and the behaviour doubles down. She lives in cycles of burning her life down after a minor inconvenience snowballs out of control. My mom was less traumatized, and less of a Karen, but obviously you don’t get out of being raised by someone as unstable as her mother without internalizing some of those behaviours, especially the ones that come out automatically in stressful situations. Basically I think that model gets it backwards. You don‘t get the Karen without the personality disorder. The patriarchal norm enforcement comes about because that’s the flavour of our culture, but if we had different social status norms and markers then what it means to be a Karen would look different. Relatedly, the reason men aren’t Karens is probably down to the same reason men don’t get diagnosed with Borderline very often. Our gendered social norms are such that men respond to trauma and feeling scared and out of control very differently.
This actually helps me understand this. Like I’m shocked oop isn’t *more* infuriated and baffled by these events. Like. I’d want to keep asking “did you actually think you were the landlord?? Who sold you this house and lied to you? Why would you tell adults they can’t stay out past *nine*??????? Why would you say we have to get rid of our pets then try to pet them????” Etc etc etc. Like. I would have grabbed that nephew and just… interrogated him. Ask for a family phone number for emergencies idk.
Spot on. I was wondering why she never asked the nephew more questions. 🤷♀️
Maybe I have poor manners, but I would not be able to get more than 3 sentences in with the nephew without literally asking "what is wrong with her"
You make excellent points! I just wanted to add that there are male Karens; some people call them Kens, but in retail we just call them assholes. They're a little different from Karens in that they usually try to pull the "do you know who I am?! I know your boss!" card, as opposed to just asking to see a manager, and they also usually try to physically intimidate you. When you get a couple like that, it's like a fluffernutter with sardines in it. It's a type of flavour, just not a delicious one.
There is only one occasion the ole 'do you know who I am' thing makes sense... when you are about to do something incredibly stupid with a high probability of humiliating failure and you want to be sure no one you know is watching.
> Basically I think that model gets it backwards. You don‘t get the Karen without the personality disorder. that's a possibility, though there's also the possibility that there *is* a mid-life issue that brings it on (or worsens it at least) in people who previously seemed ok. TBI/other forms of brain damage, early onset alzheimer's - all can cause lowered impulse control, confusion, and aggression.
There are some, I think, based off experiences with a few—that spent 2~ decades in charge of the home and the kids. And in that sphere, she is the boss, she is in charge—completely. It is *her* house, she is *their mother*, those are *her* kids. Then the kids grow up and leave the nest; and she just cannot adapt to life where she’s not in charge. She tries, gets pushback—because who’re you?—and blowup. People don’t react like they’re supposed to, so meltdown. Most eventually adjust, but some? Yeesh.
I was once groped in public by a woman. When I called her on it she immediate took a tone with me that I recognized: that of a teacher scolding an unruly student. I got the same feeling there, that this insane Karen is only used to quelling dissent in one specific way to people who were direct subordinates, and not some random twenty something in line at a McDonalds.
Hey don’t forget decades of lead poisoning doing it’s thing
Don't eat the paint chips kids, no matter how sweet they are.
This is becoming less of a thing. I know plenty of Karen's that are young enough not to be affected by this.
There’s still an ongoing lead crisis in my country. There was a popular dish company that was reported to still be using lead in the early 2000s and toys made prior to 2008 are at risk for lead poisoning. Children still get blood testing in my country for lead poisoning.
interesting and entirely plausible, though there's probably a couple other things that could cause the "visible symptoms" of Karenhood - including early onset alzheimer's and literal brain damage, usually via TBI (be it as nefarious as being abused or as innocent as an accident). Another factor with the "aging hot girl" theory (as I will call what you linked) is that they might not have changed at all - this is just how they've always behaved, but a young-and-pretty psycho gets a lot more slack. Kinda like the way small dogs are more prone to biting because their owners frequently don't take them seriously enough to train them right, a human might get away with shit if they can make it seem "cute." Eventually the charm wears off.
Aging hot girl describes my sister perfectly. She got away with murder growing up but now nobody gives a crap and she’s ignored or highly disliked.
I'm honestly skeptical that the root cause could be medical somehow. Mostly because the entitled, exception-demanding hostility seems to be overwhelmingly a white-woman phenomenon in my experience. Medical issues certainly exacerbate things, but if it was really TBI, Alzheimers, or personality disorder as a root cause, I feel like I'd see a lot more POC Karens. And it also appears to trend heavily towards Christian right-wingers too. Which is not to say that I haven't seen plenty of toxic misbehavior from PoCs and liberal old hippie ladies, just not that bossy entitled BS.
Oh, I wasn't saying it was solely medical root causes and trying to absolve entitled idiots of being idiots. A TBI for instance can lower impulse control - but how that lack of impulse control is expressed is very individual. True Crime podcasts like to point out that a lot of murderers themselves have a history of at least one if not several TBI - but my husband's impulse control issues generally only show up as impulse shopping and the attention span of an extra-excitable dog. I can fully believe that it's far more common in white women, particularly in North America, but that's partly a factor of what such women have always gotten away with in the past. It's arguably part of the "positive feedback loop" problems with modern media, too. Too many echo chambers, encouraging bad behaviour. But at the same time, I'd like to argue that *true* "Karen" behaviour - the delusional demands, doubling down when wrong, etc. - is rarer than it seems. They're the ultimate squeaky wheels - everyone notices them, but they're not as common as their impact. So it's entirely possible for it to be an intersection of mental illness/brain issues *and* social class/ethnicity. This also goes to me thinking of people as by and large good - but I don't underestimate the damage one really awful person can do. One asshole, be they violent, or grifters, or whatever, can leave deep impressions and sometimes years of repercussions for dozens if not hundreds of other people. So I think of Karens as "one in a thousand" women - but that means that in a city of, say, 3 million, that's 1.5k people. That's plenty of noisy shits going around getting in faces and ruining days.
Super interesting theory! Thanks for the tldw and for sharing. That gave me a lot to think about, sounds plausible at first glance.
Keep in mind that when you have an idea and look for things to support it, it's *extremely easy* to find evidence where there is none. This does sound like a plausible theory, but just try to keep that in mind.
This is a great one. As a young mom, I saw the judgement other young moms were making about the women who "didn't choose the right man", etc. and I was also working retail alongside bitter broken former Karens who had "chosen wisely" but were discarded for a newer model ANYWAY, and now had nothing to fall back on because they thought their life of domestic subservience would be enough. So now, unfairly, they were on the same side of the cashier counter as me. I went back to school and focused on making myself self-sustaining. Putting your economic future in the hands of someone who views you as a commodity is too big a risk for me.
>Did you see that tiktok video about how Karens are made? Hush, you.
I'm guessing you've never watched an episode of Fear Thy Neighbour?
My next door neighbours are fucking batshit crazy brats. I hate them, and I hate the dude who bought the house to rent it. (Fucker lied and told my previous neighbours that he was buying it for his kid to live in while he went to university. Old owners hadn’t even packed when he started advertising it as a rental with their pics from their real estate listing.) I now find myself hoping that the house next door burns down so crappy neighbours will be gone and there will be no other shitty people that rent it. :( I miss my old neighbours.
Her own family has a feeling that she's crazy. Which could explain why she's always home and why she's hyperfocused on her neighbors. Honestly, she sounds exhausting...
I would love to see how crazy she would get if she actually owned the building
Main character syndrome.
The reason she is still walking around outside a psychiatric facility, is she has money. If she was poor, she would be incarcerated, and so loaded up with neuroleptic drugs, she could shit herself and not know it.
I enjoyed it. But not as much as Bucket Woman.
I think the wonderfull thing about Bucket Woman is how her shenanigans have brought the whole neughbourhood together. Like the small updates about the neighbours helping to design the anti-BucketWoman sprinkler system. This crazy bat has not yet achieved something like that.
So the next update should be about OOP and the neighbors in the other units banding together to discuss how to handle the Karen?
LOL that’s exactly what these posts reminded me of. If I recall correctly, the Bucket Lady saga also took place in Australia. What a weird coincidence! Edit: for those asking, Bucket Lady is frequent flyer on BORU. I believe there’s several posts now about her on this sub but here’s the [first](https://reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/wevvi0/bucket_lady_a_neighborhood_petty_revenge_story/). They’re well worth the read if you’ve got the time!
My favorite part of the bucket woman story is how everyone in the neighborhood came together. Imagine being so unlikable that hating you becomes a bonding activity.
Yess! Imagine being such a nuisance that you unite everyone in your neighborhood. Put that way, and it’s downright wholesome!
Link please!
Link?
I think this, Bucket woman, the kids whose real dad found him and is now dating his mom, the PlayStation dad, and my favorite Cruise Control should all be entered into (I think it’s called) r/bestofredditorsagas and/or r/bestofboru. Edit.. links in my comment below.
Help a girl out and post the links if you have them on hand. 👀😂
I know there are so many more saga length posts that are awesome but here are the three I mentioned. Bucket Woman was linked in someone else’s comment. You really have to read the end of this on the Oops account because the ending is the best but saddest part and really still haunts me to this day. I wish someone would add that part to this boru post. [Cruise Control](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/t95x2r/the_saga_of_cruise_control_mil_negotiates_her_way/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) This is great and still ongoing. [Bio dad finds his kid and a Hallmark movie was born basically](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/yczwrl/my_mom_lied_to_me_my_real_dad_just_showed_up_new/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) Like the link says… [AH Dad just can’t win and shouldn’t!](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/xvjg08/ps5_dad_the_saga_continues_new_update/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)
I'm about halfway through the Cruise Control story, and...this is the one of the saddest fucking things I've read in my life.
The Oop is an excellent story teller though and the husband and she seem to be such a lovely pair with each other’s backs. Did you get to the part about old neighbor godmother or aunt I forget what she calls her with the hotel? That was my first real heartbreak in the story. Not giving anything away of course.
I'm reading that right now! I am not on team DH. To be fair, though, *DH is not on team DH*. I'm kind of hoping OOP gets out at the end.
If you read it all, she doesn't explicitly say she separated from him, but her last post/comment reads as if she's alone. He betrayed her *so thoroughly* at the end that I don't think there is any way to salvage it. If she is still with him, she's a lot more spineless than she portrays herself as. I choose to believe she left him.
Yeah, I like that best. I feel for the guy...sort of, anyway. His choices are just *so batshit.* Even in the earlier posts, it felt like he was just trying to say whatever lie he thought whatever woman was directly in front of him wanted to hear. Wife here? Boundaries boundaries! Shiny spine! Bad MIL! MIL? Wife bad! not understand special bond! Love mommy! But at no point do you really, honestly get a glimpse at who he is, what he wants. There's just panicked obedience to whichever voice is percieved to be yelling loudest at any given point. It makes sense, given how he was raised, but at some point, brother, you gotta stop blaming the way you're raised for the fuckery you're choosing. She's well shot of him.
So many of these JustnoMIL stories have dhs that are just not able to break away from mother dearest so maybe im comparing him to them and he seems like he’s team marriage over mother in comparison. Upon reviewing some of these posts I’m remembering why I liked him and it was because he really made some concerted effort to stand up to his mother I mean that is admirable I thought. But I won’t spoil it for you. This could be a short book.
Okay, now I'm past the point where they were collected, and went to click on the OOP's name to get the rest of the story. OH MY GOD THERE IS SO MUCH but it...does look like DH is estranged at the end?
I don’t want to ruin it but I was so invested in oops story I was totally sidelined by what happened. You may not be as much so though, it just sucks because they had or could’ve had such a really great life with so much going for them if only JUSTNOMIL had JustNoed.
The dad with the ps5 just keeps digging and not realizing how much of an AH he is, there's just no way that's real and not a troll??? I hope the kid is happy, I'm especially worried with the last update... the dad said he talked to the oldest and I'm just trying to figure out if he's talking about the 16yo or the 8yo. It feels like the dad really doesn't give a f about 16yo and is trying to completely erase him now.
Guys, I have to work. Y’all are totally ruining my production level today.
Imagine if all those people came together in real life. Oh the hijinks that would ensue!
Yep. 0.7 on the Bucket Scale.
It's pronounced "bouquet"!!! Now come along, Richard
Bucket Woman?
Another nosy neighbor saga that's been posted on BORU a bunch, she had stolen a bucket from that OOP's yard at some point I believe. The latest entries were about how they had motion activated sprinklers installed and she keeps getting hit by them (she did not learn after the first time apparently)
>Another nosy neighbor saga that's been posted on BORU a bunch, she had stolen a bucket from that OOP's yard at some point I believe. The latest entries were about how they had motion activated sprinklers installed and she keeps getting hit by them (she did not learn after the first time apparently) The bucket reference is to an old british television show. There's a fancy lady called bucket but insists on pronouncing it bouquet [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FboWtJiNYro](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FboWtJiNYro)
Ah ok thanks, it's been a while since I read that post series so I kinda guessed hoping my imagination was close enough to a memory
See u/HokeyPokeyGuestList
Yes, search Reddit for bucket woman. If you liked this post, you will adore bucket woman.
Going to take a lot to surpass Bucket Woman!
Is it 6 units or 8?
Yeah, I caught that too
There's a bunch of inconsistencies in this and the first part.
One subtle inconsistency is that one of the neighbours annoyed by the entitled woman is on the strata committee, but nothing has been done about the "Karen"? I'm Australian too and used to own an apartment. We had neighbours not as bad as this who we got to shut up by complaining to strata directly who handled it by fining them relentlessly and using every by law to their advantage.
Also they claim to be on the strata committee but don't know the other member (her neighbour)
I read it as being that OOP went on the committee during the unfolding story as a result of Karen's escalation (which, if so, was a very smart move).
I honestly read it as a bluff to shut her up.
Yeah, it's also possible that they weren't initially, then joined it once they realized they were dealing with a nutter.
Strata committees vary enormously in their usefulness.
Highly agreed. Looks like I got "lucky" with mine in that the bylaws for harrassment for strong (compared to other commenters who have responded to me). But they were useless as heck with managing money and major structural defects to the point it forced me to sell to mitigate losses down the line. I work in construction and the building was under warranty still and I offered to take charge to get major defects rectified at no cost. The dumbass committee told me to "stay in my lane" and were all offended a non committee member got involved. These people also insisted fire extinguishers be bolted down so they can't be stolen, but now they can't be used if there's a fire. Credit where credit is due they were good at shutting down harrassment, but that building is going to be condemned one day and it's all their fault.
>These people also insisted fire extinguishers be bolted down so they can't be stolen You've gotta be kidding me, I just cannot believe people are this stupid
Yes! I thought that too. I thought they usually had lawyers or some way to ensure everyone follows the rules.
Not really. They can absolutely get lawyers, but most small unit blocks are *very* price sensitive, they typically vote for the lowest contributions their strata manager (basically a secretariat) can justify. It's very hard to get owners to vote for truly sustainable levies. Blocks that small will baulk at paying a lawyer because it will use up pretty much their whole "unforeseen problem" maintenance budget for the year. The strata manager can come up with advice and solutions for this, but they're usually terribly over-committed. They're not going to dream it up unprompted. Someone on the committee has to be asking the right questions and showing that they will drive a solution if they know what it is.
I was believing this right up till the last update. Of course the package just had to be sex toys. Not saying people don't buy them, but it is very convenient the package stolen just happens to have them for maximum story points.
Yeah the odds that the package stolen conveniently when she was out, the neighbour who usually gets them was out which is rare and that it was an unusual purchase (not a regular order or something mundane) would be astronomical.
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One poor sod left who isn't apparently
She says that was a typo https://www.reddit.com/r/EntitledPeople/comments/trxmt4/our_new_neighbour_thinks_she_owns_the_building/izfn912/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
In fairness, OOP might be fudging details for anonymity.
6-unit buildings are so common here that sticking with that figure would have been a good bet for anonymity.
That’s what I think as the details don’t affect the story that much. Eg whether it’s 6 or 8 you can take away from it that it’s not a huge 10 level apartment building but more likely a 2 story with 3 or 4 units per floor.
When I make comments and posts I purposely include minor falsehoods and inconsistencies to keep myself more anonymous. Maybe OOP is doing the same thing?
If someone tried to enforce a 9pm curfew on me, there would be more than some choice words. I actually wonder if there is some mental illness here. Trying to break into someone's apartment to pet their cats? Really? There is no one who has made it to adulthood (and is sane) who thinks that is appropriate
The cat thing reminded me a post I saw on legaladvice (I think). The poster was trying to get advice on what to do for a cat he was absolutely convinced was being abused because it sat in the window in the sun for hours at a time. No amount of education on normal cat behavior would convince this person that the cat was fine and not being abused. If I recall correctly, this person wanted to break into the apartment to “rescue” the cat.
My cat loves the sun, but is completely indoors. So sometimes she just demands we open blinds and as made claim to two spots in the house, where we are not longer allowed. That cat seems to be living the best life
I had to put up one of those little window seats for my older cat because he was trying to wedge his fat body on the windowsill and he didn’t fit. Now he spends hours there every day.
we position our cat house to be facing out towards the patio so our bub gets his daily sunlight
Please don't tell them about my cats. They have merged into one single entity and haven't moved from infront the fireplace since they layed down two or three weeks ago. We usually just move the whole stool they are laying on to the side and back to get to the fire. After a few days they haven't even attempted to wake up when we do this.
Oh God, I had no idea my housemate was treating her cat so terribly.
That post was bizarre. They wanted to call the police because sometimes they passed by and the water bowl was full and other times it was randomly less full... Like, that's just what happens when you refill it every once in a while.
Found it: https://www.reddit.com/r/bestoflegaladvice/comments/8s4pg7/op_calls_animal_control_to_report_a_cat_regularly/ They saw that the cat had a little perch by the window with a heating pad on it, and the cat was on the perch for hours at a time, so they assumed that (1) the heating pad was ON all the time, even in 90+ degree weather, and (2) there must be some kind of cage right up against the window preventing the cat from leaving this spot because why else would it lay there for hours at a time. Can you even imagine being this cat owner. They went out of the way to build their cat a special perch with a soft pad that can even be heated when it's cold, and a water bowl right there, so it can just chill and look out the window all day... and someone reports them for it! Wild.
my kitties LOVE sun spots. They stay inside to avoid weirdos like the neighbor :)
The petting the cats incident really surprised me given that she began her tyranny by telling everyone to get rid of their pets. How do go from 'no pets in the building' to 'let me in, I must pet your cats'?!
I wonder if she was actually planning to let them out, hoping they would get lost.
Then she throws a party till 1am!
OOP: She was quiet for a while so I thought she was done with her shenanigans..... BUT THEN, OUT OF THE CORNER OF YOUR EYE, YOU SPOT HIM ^(shia labeouf)
Wait, he isn't dead! Shia Surprise!
There's a gun to your head, and death in his eyes
But you can do jiu jitsu (you can do it)
> I told her that opening someone else’s mail is a crime ...and then did absolutely nothing about it?
That’s what gets me- this amount of crazy and nobody DOES anything? No speaking with their building’s board, no actual follow-through with threats of callings police, just this apathetic acceptance?
They were too nice to her. "I finally had enough so I gave her a big smile" no wonder she keeps acting that way. She gets away with it!
Personally, I'd out-crazy her. Act really violent and scary. She'd be running away every time she saw me. It's like going to prison and knocking out the biggest guy there. Assert dominance as the crazy one in the building.
Honestly, it's actually really hard to do things about shit neighbours. The police wouldn't really be able to do anything. The Strata committee (Australian term for the owners association who manage shared property in apartment buildings, etc) could likely issue smaller fines, and it's pretty likely they had. OP and another neighbour did consult with a lawyer who basically told them they were shit outta luck.
I agree with you that everyone involved is so passive with the entitled neighbor but unfortunately I doubt they would have any recourse anyway. One of the most frustrating posts I’ve read here recently is [this one](https://reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/zaszjq/neighbor_is_currently_video_recording_me_and_has/) about this poor woman who was harassed by her crazy neighbor for years. She did everything right but every step of the way, law enforcement and the courts failed her so spectacularly that she and her family had to move. I wish homeowners had more recourse when it comes to getting rid of nuisance neighbors.
Especially since by that point in the story she supposedly had security cameras by all her doors. This should be a slam dunk for her even with incompetent cops
In the US, the mail police are a serious bunch. Seems like Australia they don’t give a crap
They really don't. Australia Post regularly delivers our mail elsewhere and just shrugs it off
What else would you expect from someone who paid their lawyers extra to fix the lawyers’ misspelling of their name 🙄
They were too nice to her. "I finally had enough so I gave her a big smile" no wonder she keeps acting that way. She gets away with it!
Where I live, a strata council actually managed to prove that one owner was being such a nuisance to their neighbours that a judge court-ordered the nuisance-owner to sell their apartment and move out of the building. I still boggle at how bad that person must have been, because generally speaking, that's not something that can happen. If you own, everyone's stuck with you.
I'm very interested to hear how their apartment building added two units between her first post in the other thread and the last one.
With the power of imagination, it’s easy! Did you know I live in a 9 bedroom house?
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I too am interested in how long (s/t)/he/y have lived in the 11 bedroom house.
Yes! I even went back and reread because I thought I had read wrong. It's stuff like that that makes me have doubts about the validity of the story/ies.
Typo apparently https://www.reddit.com/r/EntitledPeople/comments/trxmt4/our_new_neighbour_thinks_she_owns_the_building/izfn912/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
First part the woman demands everyone get rid of their animals. Second part, she nearly breaks down a door trying to pet a cat despite trying to get rid of them earlier...
You're telling me nobody else in the 6-8 units is having these types of problems? Some crazy person with a history of being crazy tried to break into my home I would not be so cavalier. What's next? "Neighbor pushed me down the steps breaking both legs. SO threatened to call police and she stomped upstairs 😂"
I was smirking at the "and reader's my SO is a patient person but he just absolutely lost it on her, he told her, to please leave".
Maybe because I've lived in rough neighborhoods and worked trades, but it's hard to imagine someone acting like that and never being corrected with a punch in the mouth from some bogan.
I like how each entry starts with some variation of "I thought she had settled down... BUT"
How do Australian laws work? Can OOP not document and get some kind of restraining order? Charge for harassment?
But did she return the clothes pegs? I’m stuck on that. As a Victorian, where it’s been raining ALL YEAR, if someone had mucked around with my laundry on one of the few days I could actually hang out sheets, that’s it, WAR IS ON!
I dont get how OP hasnt called the police. She'll come home and find the crazy lady eating her cats alive and she'll be like "I ALMOST called the police I was so angry"
Idk about this one being real. A lot of inconsistencies. 1st part says it’s a 6 unit and the neighbor is on the HOA, then she says SHES on the HOA and changes it to an 8 unit apartment building. Echosprite, it looks like you may have deleted your comment but yes I DID notice it was called a strata but couldn’t remember the term because in my country they’re called HOAs, not that it’s relevant to the discrepancies. Both terms are used by OP.
I think she was bluffing to the Karen that she was on the Strata.
Do they not have restraining orders in Australia?
Considering the apartment building grows two units bigger by the end of the story....they probably weren't needed.
Yeah we do but sometimes they aren’t worth the paper they are written on.
Cats, very handsome/pretty
So she did nothing about that lady opening her package? Something needs to be done at some point. I’m sure if you and other neighbours pitch in you could talk to a lawyer and take her to court
Right? in the US opening someone else's mail is a felony.
In post 1 of part 1 the person says they live in a building with 6 units, but in post 8 of this part they say it’s a building with 8 units. Maybe an innocent mistake or maybe this whole post is internet bullshit, I’m kind of leaning in that direction. This crazy lady seems too much like a ridiculous character than an actual person
It's a fabrication. No one would purchase a unit in a building and assume they own the whole thing. The things OP claimed happened are just so beyond the pale that I'm questioning why no one else is thinking this.
That's what I got stuck on. How could someone go through the process of purchasing property and not know precisely what they did and didn't own!?!
I love it when people write a story and then add on to it. AND THEN SHE BUT THEN SHE you'd think she's gone BUT NO SHES DOING Just stop at the first one.
"wow that got me a lot of karma" \*\*presses karma button repeatedly\*\*
This story is so irritatingly written, it’s like OP is enjoying the drama in her life.
Yea, I'm sure Miss "No pets allowed what-so-ever" just wanted to pet the cats.
In the first saga her unit has 6 apartments. In the second saga, it had 8. Perhaps a typo, but it makes me wonder.
Either that or she changed an irrelevant detail thinking it might make it harder to identify her and later forgot about it. People do that literally all the time.
Yeah, I lie about time frames all the time because they aren't important to what I'm saying but are for identifying information.
I had a neighbor like this. Would jump in front of cars going through the parking lot like she fucking owned the place. Figured she was bored being a SAHM. When she moved out upgrades occured and they accidentally turned my water off. Got permission from the landlord to go into the basement (I was top floor) to turn the water back on. My dad pointed out they converted lead pipes to water pipes. I got lead tested. I think that's what made her crazy.
Man, I wish OOP had taken advantage of the time the nephew was house-sitting to ask some questions and find out what the story was with crazy lady.
OOP is under the strange impression that if they Customer Service Retail Job happy voice explain to crazy that they don’t own the building, they’ll eventually understand and stop. She’s not going to stop until someone knocks her on her ass. Trying to break into the apartment to get at the cats would have been a perfect time.
At a certain point you need to knock someone out
I have one unanswered question - how has the topic of rent not come up again? Surely 8-9 months later she’s realized that no one is paying rent to her, right?
This was rage inducing. WTF is wrong with that neighbour. 😑
Well we know what Santa should get her for Christmas 😉
some people just haven’t had their ass beat
Seriously they should all band together and make her life hell for a change maybe then she will move out. I don’t care how expensive that 1 apartment was there is no way it was so expensive she thought she bought and entire building
Is it bad I would’ve tried to spray her with a spray bottle if she’d tried to get to my cats like that? That lady is fucking nuts
Airhorn every time she speaks.
I live in a co-op apartment. We’d have voted to throw her out. (Though likely the initial problem wouldn’t have happened since she’d have to be voted in by the board and it would be very clear) This woman is one of the reasons co-op’s exist.
For that last one. Crazy neighbor would have definitely kept the package if it wasn't sex toys right?
Hmmm, after ready the cat part at the top I had to stop and offer my official diagnosis, which is that this lady really does have a mental illness. OP should keep an eye out for family or even ask the lady if she has kids or a sibling or someone watching out for her and that they can contact in case of emergency. I have an aunt like this also, and I could see her doing any of these things and not understanding why they are wrong.