In a civil society, people should be able to settle some of their disagreements themselves. After all, the authorities cost taxpayers money. Unfortunately, not everyone seems to recognize this, leading to some truly absurd misunderstandings where emergency services are called over the smallest issues.

A thread on Quora has been inviting people to share the situations they were a part of which someone made a police matter out of the most ridiculous trivial reasons. And the number of replies has been criminally high! Below you will find the most memorable stories from the discussion.

#1

I was recently retired from a major police department and took a job as a police officer at a local university. That university had a large and busy hospital that younger officers didn’t like to work at because you were at a fixed post vs patrolling. One night the nurse at the desk had an issue that she summoned me for. I listened and explained to her that her issue was a non police matter basically telling her there was nothing I can do as a police officer. She looked at me with disbelief then dialed 911 right in front of me and reported same incident to the city dispatchers telling them I said I could do nothing. I was confident in my decision so decided to wait and didn’t object to her call. She might have assumed that since I was a recent hire that I was new to law enforcement so I kindly let her know I was a recent retiree of the department she called and she just smirked at me. Well not too long later the city police officers arrived and she told them exactly what she told me and they said there was nothing that they could do and turned around and left. I was taken aback when she called 911 in front of me like she was calling the police on me for not doing nothing but was exhonerated by the officers who arrived so I made a mental note to be careful around her moving forward.

Image credits: John Carter

#2

I was renting an apartment in the middle of town. I grew up with the chief of police and remained good friends. One day he and a few other policemen stopped by for lunch. The apartment adjacent to mine had a teacher living in who absolutely snored any noise and called the police to report a loud party at my place. It was really funny hearing about 5 police radios go off reporting that I was having a load and boisterous party when most of the police force were eating lunch in my apartment.

Image credits: Steven Wimsatt

#3

When my daughter was 5 years old I was walking to her school to collect both her and her classmate who lived next door to us. I brought my well-trained, friendly Golden Retriever dog along for the walk. He was very good with children and in fact had recently taken part in a talk to the youngest children in the same school about how to safely interact with dogs. That was on invitation from a teacher and approved by the head. On this day, I was standing outside my daughter’s classroom (outdoors, in the school playground), waiting for her and her friend to come out. My dog was on a lead and sat calmly at my side. The head teacher appeared and said that I was not allowed to have a dog within the grounds of the school and that I must remove the dog straight away. The children were due to appear at any moment so I explained that I could not leave as I was collecting two 5 year olds and if I wasn’t outside they would not know where to find me. The head said that if I didn’t leave he would call the police. I refused to leave, the children appeared and we walked home. Later that day the police turned up at our house. The head had called them. The officer who attended could only laugh when he realised that I had been reported for having a well behaved, friendly dog securely on a lead for just a few minutes outside my daughter’s school -with no complaints from other parents or children. No action was taken, needless to say.

Image credits: Goldmali

#4

Not me. My parents. I learned to swim literally before I could walk. We lived in south Florida, so of course water was everywhere. My parents would take me to the beach, carry me out a little ways, stand maybe 15 feet apart, and... throw me! I'd scream with delight until I hit the water, swim to the other parent... Someone called the police and said they were trying to drown me! Mind you, this was over 50 years ago. No cell phones. No 911. No touch tone dialing. They found a phone, looked up the number, and manually dialed seven digits, or bothered an operator. The officer walked out as far as he could on the sand, laughed, and called my parents over to tell them why he was there.

Image credits: Dave Baldwin

#5

A customer came to pick up a stained glass window I had repaired. He tried to talk me into lowering the price we had agreed on before I took on the job. When I refused to lower my price he threatened to call 911. Shaking my head in disbelief, I said “Go ahead.” Two cruisers pulled up to the store. It must have been a slow morning for them. After talking to us separately they told him to just pay the bill. He wanted to give me a credit card and I refused, insisting on cash only. So now he had to make a trip to the bank.

Image credits: Dick Baines

#6

One Christmas at the relatives’ house, with the whole extended family present, some of the over-active boys were playing in one of the lounge rooms. They decided to pick up the phone handset, dial “000” (the emergency number in Australia, equivalent to the American 911), and leave it off the hook while they ran around playing, yelling out things like “I’m gonna kill you” and so on — as overactive boys do sometimes at family gatherings. A little while later, two polite police officers knocked on the front door and enquired if everything was OK. We were all surprised as we were totally unaware of what the boys had done with the phone until the police turned up. The 000 staff did the right thing letting the police know about the phone call. It was the boys playing with the phone — and especially dialling that number and leaving the handset off the hook — that was stupid. At least the police didn’t find a crime scene at our family gathering.

Image credits: Ian MacKinnell

#7

Going back some years, I had just put my daughter to sleep when there was a knock on the door - probably 9PM. I answered and there were 2 police officers there, saying that they needed to speak with me. “Go ahead” I said. They indicated to come in but I stood firm and asked what this was about. “We’ve had a complaint, someone you know has filed for a DVO (Domestic Violence Order) against you”. “Read this” said one officer, holding out a piece of paper. Upon reading it, I wasn’t any more enlightened. Apparently, someone had been ringing this woman’s doorbell night and day and trying to access her unit. “You were just there again tonight”said an officer. “Really? When?” I asked. “About 30 minutes ago” said the other officer. I laughed. I did not own a car, the address was a long bus ride away, I certainly didn’t know the woman and I had been with my daughter all evening, which I explained to the cops. They looked at each other and said goodnight, then they left. Even they thought something was fishy. Turned out this woman was a friend of my ex, who wanted custody of our daughter after failing to attend the custody case in court (that court appearance is somewhere else on Quora). They were both charged with making a vexatious complaint and put on good behaviour bonds.

Image credits: Jonathan Point

#8

Me, me, me …. I've got this one. It was the year 2000, my youngest was celebrating his 6th birthday with family and a couple of neighbors, there were about 8 adults and 5 kids present at approximately 2pm. At the time we lived in the tourist part of Salem, MA, also know as the Witch City, due to the Salem Witch Trials. My son, the youngest of 3 boys loved music and to sing. At the time, I had a close friend who owned a karaoke company who offered to be the entertainment for the party. The everyone was having a blast, enjoying being outside on a beautiful spring day. Everyone there was watching the kids sing and a couple adults even gave it a go. At about 3pm, my mom, who was 72 at the time, came over to me and pointed to my neighbors driveway, at the 3 police officer's watching the kids singing. I approached them and offered them something to eat and a cold drink. At that time they informed me that they were there on business, not a social visit with my neighbor, who was also on the dept. and at the party. The officer's then informed me that someone called the police for a loud party with a lot of alcohol consumption and several intoxicated individuals. I couldn't help but start laughing, after all, it was a child's 6th birthday on a spring Saturday afternoon, with ZERO alcohol present, not even 1 beer. The officer's took a look around, some no one was drinking, than had a good laugh about it with us, one even sang karaoke. Who many kids can say there 6th birthday party was raided by police. To this day, we still tease him about it

Image credits: Pauline Hrubes

#9

Sleeping. In my own bed. At 2:00 in the morning. My youngest daughter was going through some behavioral issues during high school. She decided to skip school the last day before winter break and hang out at her friends house and smoke weed and drink all day. Fast forward a few days, I'm sleeping in my bed and I get woken up by a huge crashing noise and a bunch of yelling. I thought a car crashed into our house (we live on a sharp curve in the road, so it could happen), but it was about 7 or 8 cops busting in my front door and rushing my house in full battle gear, with guns drawn. It took them about 10 minutes to search my house and fully assess the situation before they told me anything. Apparently they had gotten a call from a “concerned citizen” that I was in the midst of a fit of rage and was beating the ever-loving sh*t out of my daughter. The cops saw, obviously, that that was not at all the case, and they left. Come to find out, it was the mother of the friend whose house my daughter skipped school at. She had called the cops on me because she was afraid that I was going to find out that she was the one that supplied the weed and alcohol for the school skipping party. She got wasted with a bunch of 13 and 14 year olds and called the cops on three other parents (me included) with false reports to try to cover it up. Because of all the stuff she did, she ended up losing custody of her kids, she tried to replace her kids with meth, she got fired from her job, her boyfriend left her, then she got evicted from her trailer. And she still to this day blames everyone but herself for the situation she is in.

Image credits: Beth Garcia

#10

Not the police but something that happened in court. My older sister was regularly beaten by her husband. For years it followed the same pattern. She left, he promised it would never happen again, she went back and he beat her. One evening my Mum and Dad came home after a night out and saw what they thought was a mannequin on our doorstep. It was my sister. She had been so badly beaten that she had only made it as far as our house and collapsed (it was mid winter). An ambulance was called and after a few days as an inpatient my Dad persuaded my sister to talk to the police. They arrested him, he denied assaulting her and the case went to court. He took the stand and claimed that she constantly provoked him into harming her. When asked to give an example he said that she didn’t iron his shirts correctly and that she taken in a stray cat without his permission. When he came out of jail 18 months later he attempted suicide. He wrote a letter to her from hospital demanding that she visited him every day as it was her fault but he was ready to forgive her and take her back. The last I heard about him was that he was back in prison again for doing the same thing to his second wife.

Image credits: Michael Anderson

#11

Someone called the police on me because they believed that an erotic letter, which they received from an anonymous sender, was from me. I am a happily married woman and have no interest in this man. The man in question is also married. Prior to the visit from the police this man's wife sent me a random message on Facebook with a picture of the letter, and told me to stay the hell away from her husband. I had no idea why he thought the letter was from me, I barely know him, and the last time I spoke to him we had had an argument on text. They threatened to call the police and I laughed it off, thinking that the police wouldn't come out over a love letter, which contained no malice of any sort. So I was stunned when the cops knocked on my door wanting “a word”. I explained that I hadn't written it, that I'm clueless as to why I was getting accused of this and the cop told me if he wanted to he could take fingerprints etc. HE WAS ASKED ON HIS WALKY TALKY THING IF HE COULD ATTEND TO AN EMERGENCY AND HE SAID NO!!! Oh yeah, obviously this ridiculous scenario was much more important than an emergency. Wow. Imagine your emergency not being dealt with because the police are too busy at someone's house trying to figure out who a letter is from. ?

Image credits: Jodie Hargreaves

#12

Some years ago I was living in rural Texas. My housemates decided to raise chickens. They thought it would be “fun.” Eventually, they got bored of the chickens, so I processed the chickens for future consumption in the front yard where the light was good. My neighbors called the local police and claimed I was conducting Satanic Rituals. Once again, this was rural Texas (no HOAs, large tracts of land with the Piney Woods for our backyards). All of these neighbors claimed to be descended from farmers and country people. They should have damn well recognized what cleaning a bunch of chickens looked like versus “Satanic Rituals.”

Image credits: Sophia Brumley

#13

We had a cheap kiddie swimming pool for the summer when our sons were small. They were having a wonderful time one hot summer day jumping in and out of the pool laughing and occasionally shrieking as they splashed other. At about 11:00am, a police car pulled up in front of the house and an officer walked into the back yard. The kids were very excited to see a policeman until he sternly started lecturing me about a noise complaint from my neighbor. I was furious (I still am 20 years later). I indignantly pointed out that the “noise complaint” was normal children’s play in the middle of the day when there were no noise restrictions. With a pompous tone, he told me to “keep it down” and he didn’t want to have to return. This launched 5 years of noise complaints from my neighbor when my sons played in the backyard. We didn’t have the money for a legal fight. I was often forced to keep my children indoors to play because she would complain whenever they were outside. The noise complaints ended when the kids complained to me that this neighbor was trying to scare them with her car while they were waiting for the school bus. We share a long driveway with a group of houses and all the kids wait for the bus at the entrance to the driveway. I talked with the other neighborhood children who said she yelled at them to get out of her way and drove her car very close to them to scare them to jump into the bushes. The next morning, I walked down the driveway with my sons to wait for the bus. Sure enough, as we were waiting on the side of the driveway where the bus stopped, the neighbor came whipping into the driveway at a high speed and drove within 6 inches of me. I pulled out my phone and dialed 911. I told the dispatcher that my children and I were being threatened by the driver of a motor vehicle while waiting for the bus. The police were there within minutes. The officers took my report with eager embellishment from the neighborhood children until the bus arrived. The officer tried to dismiss it as the long running neighbor dispute. I pointed out that this was a threat with a deadly weapon — a motor vehicle — and that a child could end up injured or dead. He have a small smile and said “I’ll talk to her.” He must have put the fear of god into her because we never had another complaint and she drives carefully whenever someone is walking in the driveway. I suspect the entire department was tired of her complaints. I think it helped that this was the first complaint I had ever made against her. But this did have long term consequences. On the good side, my sons were very careful about noise and parties as teens. Today as adults they are both highly skilled esports gamers. But on the negative side, they do not do any outdoor exercise except walking (which is pretty silent). My husband and love being outdoors and my sons do not.

Image credits: Jeanne Spellman

#14

Me me me me MEEEEEE! Let me preface this by saying I am deafened and take my CI bleat implant and hearing aid out when I sleep. So I can’t hear nothing at all! I have an alarm clock called a sonic bomb (some of you may see where I’m going here). The night before this incident it was the start of a heatwave so I opened my bedroom windows. I don’t recall setting my alarms but the next morning I woke up naturally at about 10am and saw my doorbell light (I have a red light on every room connected to the doorbell) was on. I stuck my head out of my curtains and saw a police van, 6 panicked police officers and one was holding the big red key (battering ram for those not in the UK). I shouted that I’ll be down in a second. Put my CI and HA on and oooh my sonic bomb is going off (on audible not vibrate … somehow I had it on audible setting). I go down toopen the door and explain I’m deaf … an irate neighbour said it had been going off for 2 hours and he thought I was dead! I told my deaf family and friends who all laughed and said “deaf problems”!

Image credits: Peter Culver

#15

My wife and I stayed in a small mobile home park with 2 of our children. We did not realize, (until after we had already moved in and settled down), that this particular park did not like bi racial relationships. I walked to the office to pay my rent,(as always), when the land lord gave me a look, of confusion and discust. As I handed her the rent envelope she said, there's a… “there's somebody in your yard”. I replied ,”yes mam! That's my wife.. and our children!. She proceeded to say,” she a….well how do I say this without getting in trouble. You're not going to be having any parties with people from Peoria are you?” And she said, “ you can't be having any d**g parties over here! Then the police started showing up out of the blue for no reason normally. One night they showed up and said they receive a call for gunshots. I said ,” office I have children here and there are no weapons in this home, you can come check! “ the officer said that he could hear the game I was playing so he kindof thought it was a bad call, but that he still had to come and check it out anyway. Couple hours later the police knock on the door again, for people fighting. I assured the office that there was no fight and that who ever was calling on us was living for some reason it seemed like somebody had it out for us, and we were the nicest people around, the only one who helped everyone and treated everyone with respect, as a human being.

Image credits: Ben Levi

#16

One chilly autumn day, I pulled up the old tomato plants that I'd planted in a vacant lot. The guy who owned that lot had given me permission to plant tomatoes there. I put the dead plants in my trunk. They didn't quite fit, so there were tomato branches hanging out the back. As I was driving away, a cop pulled me over and said they'd gotten a call about someone stealing plants. He asked me why there were plants sticking out of my trunk. I told him that I was cleaning up my tomato plants at the end of the season. I said I had the owner's permission. He asked to look in the trunk. I said sure. Yup, rotting tomato plants. The cop looked like he was trying not to smile. He asked me the name of the owner of the lot. I said I don't know his name, but he lives in that red house over there. He said, okay, you can go. I asked him who'd called. He hesitated a second and said, “Your neighbor drove by and thought you were stealing plants”. I figure it was the lady next door who was mad that I picked mulberries from her tree that hung into the alley.

Image credits: Sarah Meisels

#17

My boyfriend (now husband), myself and another couple were watching a movie called ‘Ever After’ a Cinderella story with Drew Barrymore. This group of 26 year olds watching a PG movie in our apartment on couch with front door open for air since we had no AC (landlord didn’t allow it) and the neighbors called police on us. Police come right to our open door look around and tell us who called in noise complaint on us. Then turn around and leave. Never told us to stop or turn down movie. Just chuckled and said carry on.

Image credits: Kieran Alcumbrac

#18

Ok, it was ME who had the cops called on them, it was my father. While he was mowing our yard (which bordered our neighbor’s yard), our neighbor came home and proceeded to yell at my father. He is hard of hearing (lucky him!), so he was unaware of her. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but I don’t engage in “white trash” yelling at people from my yard, in public. Next thing I know, three - yes 3 cops pulled up and started talking with my neighbor. My dad had finished mowing by this point. This neighbor is a renter (we have a good relationship with the actual owner of the property) and was confused and wrong about where “her” property lines are located.
We ended up needing the owner to come over and place markers to show her where the actual property lines are - instead of where she wanted them to be.

Image credits: Divinity Daley

#19

The father of my son called the police on me 5 times in a week while he was trying to manipulate the circumstances so he could find grounds to modify custody. He called saying I didn’t dress our 9-month-old son in cute enough clothes, I had expired tags (3 months expired), no insurance (I did have insurance), and that I wasn’t responding to his messages within 4 minutes. The officers came out to do a well-check the first night. They reported the child in great condition and comfortably sleeping in his crib. That didn’t fit his narrative so, he called the next day for another well-check… he did this every day for a week. After all, said and done, the police started calling me instead of showing up at my door. They saw me drive my expired car tags to drop my kids off at school and never once did they pull me over. They always gave friendly smile and wave. The responding officer said it best “I don’t think he knows how custody or well-checks work.”

Image credits: Paige Ivey

#20

For about 38 years, I didn’t drink or otherwise consume anything I knew contained caffeine. During that time, my morning hot beverage was Postum. Naturally I didn’t keep any coffee in my apartment. I had a couple of guests/friends who were visiting an staying the night at my apartment and both of them went out and came home pretty well inebriated. One of them was on the Atkins diet which prohibited carbohydrates. When they mentioned they wanted some coffee, I told them all I had was the Postum, but they were welcome to it. After drinking a number of cups of the stuff, the one doing the Atkins program decided to look at the nutrition label on the bottle of Postum. There weren’t many calories in it, but what there were were 100% carbohydrate. She had a conniption fit. She wanted to call the police about the injustice. I wouldn’t let her use my phone. Indignant, the two of them left out my front door, staggered down the street until they found a pay telephone, and apparently they did call the police. When they returned, they gave me all the details of what they had done. They told me about how the police didn’t give a damn about how many carbohydrates were in Postum, suggested that they use a different beverage to sober up, and went as far as say that they would come out an arrest them if they didn’t stop calling the emergency line. According to her, the Atkin’s lady did get the last word in. Before hanging up she said, “Well if this isn’t a crime, I don’t know what is!” I’m just glad I didn’t let them use my phone.

Image credits: Rocky Willson

#21

I was on holiday and visiting some relatives Interstate… I hadn’t shaved for a few days and I admit that I was wearing very casual clothes. I popped into a liquor store on the way to buy some wine to take for dinner and selected a couple of mid-priced bottles. It was a rather depressed area with lots of low income housing… Anyway I paid with my Platinum Amex Card and it seemed to process through the machine OK but the shop assistant said - “Oh I have to call Amex…” No big deal - I wasn’t in any hurry - so I went around the shop browsing at wines while - I assumed - he confirmed the online authorization with Amex. Next thing two cops come flying in through the door, grabbing me and demanding to know where I stole the Amex card from… After some explanation and providing additional ID - proving who I was and that the card was mine - they let me go BUT the f*****g shop assistant called the Police NOT Amex!

Image credits: Friday le Blanc

#22

Not me, but new neighbors. We’ve lived in a neighborhood with the same people for 30 years. Recently, one of the crowd had to move to assisted living. The house sold quickly, was flipped a couple times, remodeled and finally purchased by a family with 10 kids. We met them, they’re very nice folks, home schoolers, watch their kids, kids are very polite and don’t bother anyone, so far… New owners have a building/home remodeling company, so they spent a few weeks getting the house ready. they did a lot of work, had dumpsters and building supplies in the yard, but didn’t disturb the neighbors. When they finally moved in, they put their garbage cans out at the road a few days early. Not an issue for me. They’re new and will figure out the program. But No! One of the neighbors called the police, who showed up promptly to issue a written warning for garbage cans on the tree lawn before permitted. I can’t understand why the neighbor didn’t show up with a tray of cookies and be the Welcome Wagon person directing them to the info they need for the future. Really rude behavior on the neighbor’s part.

Image credits: Max Cady

#23

Sitting in my parked car, 100 ft from my rented house, reading. My company put me up in a cottage maybe 200 yards from the ocean in Connecticut while I bought a new house and sold my old one. It was in a pretty exclusive neighborhood, with $2M - $3M homes right on the water. The streets in this neighborhood were all labeled “private," although to this day, I still don't understand what that meant, since the roads were not gated and were clearly part of the town. One morning, I wanted a closer view of the water than I got from my driveway, while I read the Bible before work, so I parked on the street maybe two houses down from mine. I was pretty new there, and still had New York license plates, which is probably why I triggered the spidey-senses of a mildly hostile beachfront Karen. You know what happens next. She does her best white-lady-polite-yet-confrontational-what-are-you-doing-here-skeeezebag-neighborhood-watch-lady-routine. Not gonna lie, my people really have the thinly veiled, polite hostility-that's-not-hostility thing down to an art form. And it's SO obnoxiously repulsive. I apologize, I really do. For all of them. And me. I've done it. I'm really good at it actually. So Karen wants to know what I'm doing there, why I think that it's ok to park on this road that's clearly not that private, where I live, and who I am, and if she's not satisfied, she's cashing the cops, clearly. Nothing I said made any difference, so she disappeared in her house to call the cops, apparently, although my vibe was utterly destroyed, so I just went to work. Sheesh. White people. The rest of the 6 months I lived there, I would make sure to walk by her house with my family and wave like we were old friends. Because no matter what she thought about it, I did belong there as long as my lease was valid, and she could stuff it. I should have made her a Bundt cake.

Image credits: Arthur D. Dent

#24

During Covid I was decorating my house and was putting some things in my driveway for disposal. I had a small kitchen shelf and it was leaning against the fence that divides myself and my neighbours. The man made a comment to me about it which I dismissed. The next day I went shopping and I returned in a taxi to find two police officers standing outside my neighbours gate with the female occupant pointing to my house. I got out the taxi with my bags,bid good morning to the officers, entered my house, put my bags down and waited for the knock on the door, it never came. To call Police because I leaned a bit of wood against another piece of wood astounded me. What on earth did they think the police were going to do? This has to be one of the stupidest calls ever made in the history of the universe!

Image credits: Craig Mortimer

#25

Cooking dinner. I wish that I was joking here, but let me explain. I lived in a shared accommodation, so that means I have the unfortunate displeasure of dealing with roommates. Most of the time they're good, but there are some people whom I can tell are going to be a problem from the very start. This particular roommate, I can only refer to as an “Ultimate Nightmare Karen.” My story starts on a night when I am trying to make myself some dinner, and I happen to be using a small convection oven to make oven-fried chicken. WELL, “Karen” didn't like this because she kept complaining about “the smell it was putting out,” and how she “couldn't breathe” (it takes a lot of breath to shout as loud as she was shouting). Now, I am no timid flower by any stretch of the imagination, so I fire back at her, something along the lines of “How do you expect me to cook my dinner? Not everyone keeps a kitchen in their death-trap of a room like you do.” This was no exaggeration, by the way. From the times I had managed to see inside when she was going about her “business” in the common areas, her room was a death trap. C**p piled floor to ceiling! Anyways, she starts making threats of physical violence towards me (not the first time), so I stated that if she even took one step in a menacing manner towards me, I'd call the cops on her. Some time later, I hear a banging on the door. Two uniformed cops showed up and my roommate (who called them) let them in. They ask to talk to me, so I tell them EVERYTHING. They ask why I didn't answer the door, I said I have a policy of not answering the door unless I'm expecting somebody. Regardless, I explain to them that she has a history of making threats of violence towards me for no apparent reason, and that my landlords know about it. To sum up, I'm pretty sure they told her to stop calling 911 when there's no emergency.

Image credits: A. Somers.

#26

We used to have a neighbor about two houses down where we used to live. They had like three kids about the same age as mine, so they often played together. One day one of her kids fell off his bike on the street in front of our house and started crying. My wife went outside to see if he was OK, the kid says yes, then got on his bike and wobbled home. I got home about five minutes later, and suddenly two cop cars show up. They said they got a 911 call from the neighbor lady that my wife was upset that her kids were riding near our house, so she ran outside, pushed her kid off his bike, then ran back inside. I actually laughed at the absurdity of it all, but one said, “Assault on a minor is a serious matter, sir.” Anyway, they did some investigating, talked to her kids, and all of them said the same thing. No one pushed him off, he just FELL off. So they left. And for the next year, until she moved off, that woman hated us with the heat of 1,000 suns. She was CONVINCED my wife did that, and her kids just denied it because they were afraid of us. If she was outside when I got home, she’d invariably cuss me out. Every time. She tried to take out protective orders against me and my wife. She started taking her kids to school in her car because she didn’t want them riding the bus with our kids anymore. She tried filing a lawsuit against our homeowner’s insurance, but a letter from the insurance company lawyer shut that down. I was glad to see her go, because she was becoming so irrational I was afraid she’d show up with a gun one day and start shooting.

Image credits: Curtis W. Scissons

#27

I live in a semi rural area, and we do flood irrigation. A new family moved in and put their dogs in their fenced in yard. The only problem was the ditch that carried water to the rest of the neighborhood ran right across the front of their yard. Well irrigation time arrived, and I noticed they had put a grate in the ditch to keep the dogs in. I advised one of them that leaves and other debris came down the ditch and they should remove the grate as it dammed up the water. The wife exploded at me and said I better not tell them what to do and it was their property and blah, blah blah. Ok, by me. I never told them to remove it again. So every time the water ran, about every 2 weeks in the summer, her whole front yard would flood. She would walk around her yard takes movies and cussing me for all the water. And every time, she would call the cops on me because, I had “ caused the flooding”. It got to be kind of a joke. The cops would come to my door with the flooding complaint and that she said it wasn't their leaves and so it was my fault., and I would point out the dam created by her right at the edge of property that she refused to remove. I continued until they got a hired hand with some smarts. Lol.

Image credits: Kathy Hutcherson

#28

My daughter, then 25, was smoking on the back porch. My nosy neighbor sent the police sneaking around the house to only catch her with a cigarette (even if it were weed, she had a medical waiver). The police entered our screen porch to catch her in the act, and were annoyed when she asked if they had a warrant to enter our home. The same neighbor also spread the rumor that we were growing a cash crop in our backyard. I pointed to my struggling marigolds and asked my neighbors if they really thought I could do that. They all agreed that the chances were low.

Image credits: Peggy McHugh

#29

My neighbours called the police on my chickens. We live way out in the Scottish countryside. Apart from a few houses dotted around here, our nearest town is five miles away. We were keeping a few hens, and getting good eggs, and we wondered about getting some more. We’d had a bit of friction with the next-door neighbours, who didn’t want our birds wandering over the hard stand in front of their house and “devastating” their driveway. But, whatever. Then a friend gave us a cockerel she didn’t want, and now we had an alarm clock as well (and a few more eggs, which didn’t hurt). So we went away on holiday, asking a neighbour to keep any eye on the chickens, and to collect up the eggs. Which she didn’t, and we came back to 15 fertilised eggs and a very broody hen. Oh well, we wanted more hens: let’s let nature take its course. Which she did. We got 15 beautiful, cute, chicks, which grew up to be three grumpy hens and 12 noisy (and very fighty) cockerels. (To be fair, not that noisy: the crows were noisier!) We started receiving more nasty notes from the next-doors, complaining about how our birds were “devastating” their lives, and the middle of the country is supposed to be peaceful and no place to keep chickens, and then a couple of days later a couple of coppers arrived to deal more firmly with the “devastation”. (To be fair, nothing ever happens around here - a posse of police cars once spent two hours in hot pursuit of a tractor that some drunk had stolen, reaching speeds of nearly 20mph at times - and I suspect they were glad of something to do!) Basically, the neighbours were asking the police to arrest our chickens, take them away, and “do something” about them. What, asked Mr and Mr Plod, were we intending to do? So we explained: we were intending to kill the cockerels and eat them, but (being new at this game) we didn’t know how and were in the process of finding out. So, police finished their tea, and contacted the council, who sent out a team (a team , mind you!) from Environmental Health, who also asked us what we were going to do. We explained again that we were going to kill them and eat them. “That’s OK”, they said. “We’re not really bothered about your neighbours. Our primary concern is for the well-being of your chickens.” “Didn’t you hear what I said? We’re going to kill them and eat them. That’s not really about well-being. That’s about well-seasoned.” “OK. But make sure you don’t compromise their well-being when you do it. What have you got planned for the crows?” “The crows? Nothing”. “Good. Because crows are protected. You can’t even shoot them. You know that, right?” Once we got the hang of it, it didn’t take us long to dispatch all the cockerels. All that noise, all that fighting, all those feathers, and barely any chicken inside! We got a sandwich out of each one. Anyway, that’s the story of how the neighbours called the police on our chickens (and how the police actually did something about it). And the crows (who were the real villains of the piece) got away scot-free.

Image credits: Jules May

#30

When my daughter was in middle school, she and a friend were watching a show on TV, when her older brother called to say he was ready to be picked up from cross country practice. The school was literally across the street from our subdivision, so I called upstairs to the girls that I had to pick up Tyler, and that I would be right back. Less than 15 minutes later, I walk back in the house and my daughter is on the phone…..with 911! She had called the police to report me “missing”. Seems they didn’t hear me tell them I was leaving and they wanted a snack, so when they couldn’t find me, instead of calling my cell phone, they called emergency services. Luckily the 911 operator canceled the callout after speaking with me. My daughter now has three kids of her own and we still laugh about the time she called the cops on me for going missing!

Image credits: Lisa Smeltzer Carmichael

#31

This one is probably the most random one you’ll ever see. Me and my older brother decided to go to a restaurant together as a bonding trip since we didn’t really get along. Once we got our meals, we then sat down at the nearest table. 15 or 10 minutes in when we were almost done with our food, my brother and I were scrolling through Instagram. While I was scrolling away, I reached out for my cup of coke. I guess I was too focused on my phone because when I tried to grab my cup, I had accidentally knocked my cup over. The cap on my cup popped off and spilled coke almost entirely all over the table, and as I rose up from my seat to grab napkins and try to clean up the mess I made, this WOMAN appeared out of nowhere and yelled at me for committing “vandalism” and that she was gonna call the police on me. After like 5 minutes of me explaining that it was a mistake, she had enough of it, then whipped out her phone and started to dial 911. Me and my older brother stayed at the restaurant because we were pretty excited to see how this will blow over. After like a minute a cop was there. The cop asked the woman to show him where the vandalism happened, and she pointed at the table with coke all over it and said it was me who did it. The cop was annoyed that the woman wasted his time and he knew I didn’t commit vandalism, so he turned to the woman and said in a stern voice “It was unnecessary to make this false alarm call. Do it again and you will be detained. Understood?”. The woman nodded, rethinking the choices she made. My brother and I had enough and left the restaurant, but as we left, I gave the woman a smirk saying “nice try.” So there you have it, I got the cops called on me for spilling a drink.

#32

When my kids were little my wife and I decided we needed to do some shopping in the local arcade/mall. I proudly pushed the double buggy with my twin boys who were about 2 while my 4 yo daughter rode on the ‘step’ behind. Al was fine until my wife decided she wanted to check out a clothes shop. We decided that I would buy some cookies for them and wait for their mums return. I bought the cookies. As the boys were dutifully scoffing theirs down, my daughter decided that the lady had given her the wrong cookie. A massive tantrum ensued with screaming and crying and falling on the floor. I texted my wife and told her to meet us at the car, picked my struggling girl up and started to one handedly push the buggy towards the car park. I got lots of strange looks from women of a certain age. I hardly got to my car when I was surrounded by Mall security and2 police cars. I had no idea on me (not a requirement in the uk) and was only saved from arrest by the timely arrival of my wife. Apparently someone had reported me as a kidnapper.

#33

My stepdaughter is 18 and is an online gamer. She plays with a group (don’t ask what game) that has audio communication. She is pretty vocal. I can go out to the street to get my mail and hear her screaming at her other players. I kept telling her mother, “Someone walking their dog or exercising past our house is going to call the cops and say they hear a child being abused.” Sure enough, one evening, that’s precisely what happened. They treated it as a crime in progress. I laughed my a*s off.

#34

My neighbor called the police on me because I refused to allow her to drill screws into a fence I had paid for. She wanted to add a layer of deer fencing to protect her dogs from my dogs. But my hubby had already added deer fencing to our side. None of the dogs can fit through the metal 4 foot fence. She had a handyman drill into my fence after I explained to him that she had no right to damage my property. I stopped him after clearly explaining that he was now complicit in the destruction of private property. The next day, she called the police to complain that I wouldn't allow her to destroy something for which I paid. My hubby was removing the screws her handyman placed as she and the cop spoke. The cop never spoke to us and she didn't attempt to do that again. Come to think of it, I should get a copy of that report.

#35

Sitting. I wanted to sit somewhere not on our property (my parents didn't like certain things on their property) while I thought and worked. I decided to sit elsewhere, there was a church up the road, big parking lot, decent shade, ironically a church. Anyway I've got a backpack to hold a notepad. I'm just sitting there writing questions and answers on my religious views, suddenly the cops show up. I guess some hate crimes made the news recently because someone called the cops about the potential danger of a white guy sitting in front of a black church with a backpack that may have had explosives in it. So I get 4 wary guys with guns wanting to investigate my backpack, which was now empty because the only thing in it was in my lap.

#36

What was the stupidest thing someone has called the police on you for? I lived in a large apartment building, with lots of nosy neighbors. I was going to a work conference for a long weekend. My kids were teenagers, but I didn’t want to leave them alone. My (very able) mother was available, so I asked her to stay with them while I was gone. No big deal. (They watched out for her more than she did for them.) The very first night I was gone, the police showed up at my door. My daughter, (all six-foot-two of her) answered the door. The police were a little flummoxed (and shorter). They said they had a report that I had abandoned my kids. (Apparently, they were expecting little children.) My mother, who was very able-bodied, confronted the police. Let’s just say that my mother could teach a sailor how to curse, and she knew a version of the riot act that was applicable. The police didn’t come back. But the nosy neighbors certainly got an earful regarding their ill behavior. So did the manager of the apartment complex as there was a “police report” on me. He wrote a threatening letter to me. I filed a counter-complaint about harassment, and I wasn’t having it. Again, the riot act was applied. Children’s Protective Services were also called. And again, we had to have the confrontation. All of this drama because I was doing my job. My mistake was that I was seen carrying my suitcase to my car. I’ll never understand why some people are happily destructive requiring an overkill of drama, even if it’s not their own.

#37

When I was only 20 years old I had a part-time job delivering newspapers. Someone rang the police to complain I was throwing Newspapers into the neighbours yards and not hers. I was driving a delivery van covered in signage promoting various newspapers & magazines delivery deals. The cops came and asked me why didn’t throw a paper into the “KARENs” yard . I told mainly because she didn’t pay her bill. “oh, I thought they were free” she said.

#38

My ex-wife became convinced that I was hacking her home computer. (Well, technically it was my computer, but it was an older one I’d left for her use after I’d moved out - a long, unhappy story.) The main “stupid thing”: this was in the days of dial-up modems, where she could easily disconnect the computer from the internet. Hacking instantly prevented! And, at that time, I don’t think ’spy-ware’ of that type even existed. Also her son-in-law worked in IT, and could have easily installed standard security software for her. But I suspect he actually did that, and that she still thought she was being hacked. The sad reality of the story is that she suffered from mental health issues, and constantly thought people were “out to get” her. Neighbours, (ex-)friends, co-workers, fellow church-members, etc. Still, I was kind of surprised, 6 months after I’d moved out, when the police called to question me about “tampering” with her computer. They didn’t seem to give this much credibility, but I think they were obliged to follow-up, even though it was a waste of everyone’s time. The irony is SHE had previously hacked MY email account, because she thought I had a secret girlfriend on the side. Nope, sorry: I was faithful to the bitter end. (She also told people I was secretly gay - so which is it?)

#39

One time I was getting ready for work when there was a knock on the door. Three cops came and said there had been a noise complaint. I was confused as it was 6 a.m., I am not a party person, etc. Turns out that what had happened was that a few minutes before, I had accidentally dropped my coffee pot and it shattered and made a loud noise (and spilled coffee everywhere). Apparently this klutziness upset the downstairs neighbor. But instead of calling me to ask what had happened, or coming up to see me, she called the cops instead. Cops came and went in about two minutes after I explained what had happened. To this day I have no idea why my klutziness required a call to the cops anyway, or for the city to send three of them. Dropping your coffee is not a crime.

#40

It was 4:30 am. I was leaving my apartment to go to work. As I opened the door I nearly fell over backwards because two cops were standing just a foot away on the other side. They explained that they'd received a noise complaint for loud music coming from my apartment. They said that they hadn't heard anything and walked around the building trying to find another unit that it might be coming from. Since they found nothing, they were about to knock and ask me about it. I’d been asleep all night and hadn't heard anything, so we left the building together and I went to work. A week later, the same thing happened except this time the cops knocked on my door straight away. One of the cops was the same as last time. Again, I'd been asleep all night and hadn't heard anything. Later that day, my landlord called asking about me “blasting music all night long.” I explained how I had to open the restaurant at 5 am that day, so I was asleep by 9 pm the night before. Then I figured it out. My alarm clock - which was set to a talk-news radio station. I switch the alarm over to the beeper mode. The following week, another knock from the same cops. I told them what I thought was happening with the alarm clock. They asked about the alarm, how long I let it go on, etc. The cop said something like, “I'm not going to write you up for an alarm clock. I'll go talk to her.” Never heard from them again, although the landlord still received weekly complaints from that lady.

#41

One of my neighbours called the police on me in 2020 during the covid lockdown. My crime apparantly, was going to work at 5.30 am every morning. Why my neighbour was up and watching my house at that time every morning was weird in itself. If they had just been grassing on me for leaving the house I could have kind of understood it, but they actually told the police I was going to work. I was a keyworker so it’s not like I was working when I wasn’t supposed to be and neighbour knew that because they even told the police where I worked. The whole thing made no sense to me and I didn’t know why the police even bothered to come out.

#42

About twenty-five years ago when my husband and I lived in a small rural town in California’s Central Valley, our next door neighbor called the police on us. She was angry that we told her two boys to remove themselves from our front lawn—where they were busy lighting bottle rockets. Bottle rockets are illegal in California, so by calling the police on us our neighbor put herself at risk of a big fine. The officer heard our side of the story and assured us he’d take care of it. He went back next door to talk to our neighbor again and we didn’t hear any more from her after that. The boys still played on our lawn occasionally (which we didn’t mind), but they didn’t light any more bottle rockets under our tree.

#43

Not the cops, but everyone else and the kitchen sink. So a few years ago, I hauled some sanded gravel to use on a repair, in my backyard. Our home doesn't have a back alley as it backs into a city street, and it wouldve been a PITA to clean up the box in my driveway then end up with sand on the storm drain. So, i went to the yard, picked up the gravel in buckets, parked in front of my home, carried it by hand in the backyard for the project, and, after I finished, I drove across the street, where there's a back alley, that's unpaved, and has gravel on, to sweep the few pebbles and sand from my box that fell during transport. This was maybe a couple handfuls of gravel, being swept onto a gravel road. An annoying neighbor started to yell that we are dumping garbage. I politely explained, that it wasn't garbage, but just sand and pebbles, which are going on top of sand and pebbles, on the gravel back lane. He's been a nuisance ever since, always giving me the stink eye, and most recently walking his dog in front of our home, while for years he's never done that. This spring I got a call from the City, AMVIC, the local automotive regulatory agency, and AITA(Apprenticeship and Industry Training Alberta) who were all looking to “inspect ” and “investigate” my business, as they had a complaint. I asked if the complaint was from one of my clients, and they said it wasn't, but one of the neighbors complained about the decals on my vehicles, my website, and claiming I was working on vehicles out of my home (as a backyard mechanic doing unlicensed work). I had to politely explain to them, that while I do my own maintenance on our 3 vehicles, I do not do any mechanical work for hire, I don't deal with the end users, and, while I do work from home, and my work is technically in the Automotive industry, all my work is on a computer(software) and that bench work doesn't fall under their regulatory body, as I already inquired about it when I started doing tuning software full time, back in 2013. It is a PITA trying to prove you haven't done something, I work mostly with mechanic's shops troubleshooting issues that they can't, or troubleshooting their software and diagnostic tools, with the occasional afficionado that got referred by one of these shops, for something very specific, but these are people from all over the world, that call or email me, they're not walk or drop ins. I've had hundreds of vehicles over the years, but since I don't deal with the end user, I've never needed or had decals on any of my vehicles, until earlier this year, when we were one of the official sponsors at a charity event where we helped double the donations for the local charities and orphanage. The organizers needed our reputable name so they asked me to bring my vehicles, and if I could put decals or banners, since this was only their second annual event and we had outstanding reviews and a good reputation with car enthusiasts going back for over a decade. So I put decals on our 2 offroad rigs for the event, and, I don't even like factory badges, I would've taken them off, when the complaint happened. Except now I know they're upsetting my busy body neighbor, so they're never coming off, on a bet. I'm also a member of several car and offroad clubs, so every now and then someone stops by for a visit to show their new ride, or to pick my brain about things, but for any mechanical work we usually use one of the several shops I work with. This is our family home, my wife and I have 4 kids, so when I'm not in front of my laptops or on the phone with my clients, I'm Mr. Mom, cooking, grocery shopping, pucking or dropping off kids at school, etc, it's nothing like Dominic Toretto's house.. Had this happened 20-30 years ago, I probably would've paraded 100 supped up cars revving their engines in front of my neighbor's home, but I'm a 50 year old guy, I'll wait for a different opportunity to return the favor.. I've been doing tuning software for more than two decades, but my home is my family's safe space, if it wasn't for my decals nobody in the neighborhood would've even known what I do for a living, as my work involves just a home office and computer software, no different than anyone else's that works from home doing consulting or accounting for example.. there's no foot traffic or delivery vehicles other than the occasional Amazon delivery for something me or my wife bought online for our home. And, these are the famous decals that my neighbor complained about. Should I get new, bigger and louder ones?

#44

Being black. In the 80’s, I lived near a racist town named, Clark, NJ that had a population of about zero black people. The one black family that lived there was driven away a burning cross in their yard and the word “n****r” spray-painted on their house. I was 14 years old walking down the street at night with a friend (to meet his girlfriend) when the Clark police came speeding down the street, jumped out of their cars and pulled guns on me! It turns out that someone had called them on me. When the police talked to the people about why they had called 911, they said “He’s not from this neighborhood”. That was good enough for the police who took us down to the station, had our parents come pick us op, and advised us not to visit Clark again.

#45

Someone called the police on me while I was trying to help them when they called the police for help. Here is the set up… information I gathered during the investigation… Joyce had a protection order against Paul. Paul was at a bar enjoying a burger and a beer after helping the bar with some work. Joyce and her friends Bob and Jay had decided they might get burgers themselves. Originally Bob and Jay were going to go and they were going to bring Joyce’s burger back to her. Bob or Jay called Joyce and told her that Paul was there. Joyce, all of the sudden, decided it would be more awesome to go to the restaurant and enjoy the burger fresh rather than after it had been driven 20minutes to her home. Joyce arrived at the bar. Paul saw her. Paul wolfed down the rest of his burger and gulped down his beer as Joyce was calling police telling them Paul was in violation of the protection order. — I arrived after Paul had left. Joyce, Bob, and Jay were still on scene. As were the bar owner and the bar manager. After hearing Joyce’s story about Paul violating the protection order (but not the details about anything else) it felt odd to me. I talked to the bar owner and manager. Based on the fact they told me Paul was there BEFORE (WAY BEFORE) Joyce got there and that Paul left the “second” he saw Joyce…. I asked more questions. When I started asking more questions to ensure I had the story right (I talked to Bob and Jay first) Joyce got upset. She called my dispatch center and started to complain about how I wasn’t doing anything about the protection order violation. Dispatch connected her to a deputy with the sheriff’s office who knew what I was investigating. — After a complete and thorough investigation and hearing Joyce tell me how the district attorney and the victims’ advocate told her that Paul had to leave where ever she was, and dashing her dreams of that being true- at least where I was responsible for applying the law, she left in a huff. She was in more of a huff when I told her that any other calls like this would result in her being charged with false reporting. I told her to go back to the district attorney and to the vicitms’ advocates and ask them to set me right if I were, indeed, wrong about this case. She either never did OR she was def. wrong in what she told me they said.

#46

Not called on me, but a stupid thing I ended up calling them about, but luckily they understood. First important part of this story was my hubby was serving in Iraq. Second is a month before he left we moved from the apartments we were living in to a house because I was afraid to live in those apartments without a man in my home. They were not in a safe part of town. It was Halloween night (late) and my best friend found a bunch of kids causing trouble so she called the police (this isn't the stupid thing - they were a bit young to be wandering the neighborhood alone). Turns out they were having a sleepover and after the parents fell asleep decided to sneak out. Two days later someone slashed my garden hose. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened. I made the mistake of telling my hubby. We're warned about not telling stressful things to our deployed spouses when there's nothing they can do, but I wasn't worried about it. I kinda thought it was funny - hahaha, livin' in the 'berbs. My hubby lost his s**t. Made me promise to make a police report. I agreed, figuring I could just call them and do a report over the phone. THEY SENT SOMEONE OUT!!! I was so obviously embarrassed at wasting that poor man's time over something so stupid that he finally said, "ma'am, I don't understand why you called". I closed my eyes and said, real quiet (I didn't want to advertise, even in a nice neighborhood, that there was only women and children living in my house), "my husband is in Iraq". His eyebrows went up in understanding and he said, "Ohhh!" I explained the situation, how I thought it was funny and told him and his subsequent break from sanity. The officer assured me I wasn't the only spouse of a deployed soldier to have to call the police about something stupid, and I promised him I'd be careful about what I told him. My hubby's been separated from the army for 19 years now and is kinda embarrassed about making me call the police about something like that, but it's scary for them to be away from their family and more so for soldiers like him whose wife is disabled and has two special needs children.

#47

Because my mother gave a time-out to a little girl that had literally tried to *kill* me earlier in the day. The girl, Winter (name changed, age 6 at the time) and I (also 6) were “best friends “ and had been together almost our whole short lives. What I was far too young to realize, was that Winter was a budding sociopath, and her mother was a textbook Narcissist with heavy entitlement issues, and a horrific case of Intermittent Explosive Disorder. Earlier in the day, Winter and I (along with 5–6 other neighborhood kids) had been playing in the aboveground pool. Winter challenge everyone to an underwater handstand competition. She went first, but when it was my turn, she pushed me over by the legs when she thought she was going to lose. When I tried to come up for air, she grabbed me by hair and held me under! I panicked, and only got away (and to the surface) when I dug my fingernails into her arm and d**g downward, leaving three long, but shallow scratches on her forearm. Terrified, I immediately got out and ran to to tell my mother. You see, we had an inflatable raft (the kind someone rides while you pull it behind a boat at high speed.) Mom had intended to take all the kids for a couple rides each. But, thanks to Winters attempted drowning, Mom made her sit on our dock (with my mother) while my father took the other kids out on the boat. While watching, Winter asked if she could go inside and use the bathroom. Obviously, Mom agreed. Winter walked to the house, unaccompanied, and came back after a suspiciously long time. Later, Mom checked around to make sure she didn't damage/steal anything, but nothing had been touched. Less than an hour after Winters “bathroom break”, there were six police cruisers in our driveway. Apparently, when Winter had gone inside, she’d called her mother and whined about being left out of the fun. So Mama Crazy called the police and reported that my mother was: A.) Running an illegal daycare. (I legit have no idea why she thought this, but I suspect it was because my house was a hangout spot for kids) And B.) Violently beating and neglecting the children under her care. Officers quickly realized that every child present was there with a parent/guardian. And after examining Winters scratches, and confirming how it happened and who did it, they were only there for about 30min before they apologized and left. Needless to say, I wasn't allowed to play with Winter anymore after that. And I honestly really didn't want to. LOL. TLDR: Entitled brat gets punishedfor trying to drown me, her mother calls the police on my parents trying to claim abuse.

#48

My flatmate called the police because my other flatmate was “threatening her”. In reality she had turned off the internet router, located in her room, because I had changed the password after she had refused to pay her share of the bill. He banged on her door and yelled at her to turn it on. That's all. Police were NOT impressed and read her the riot act. She got mad at them and moaned and b**ched that we all hated her and were trying to evict her in a pandemic. They saw right through her drama.

#49

My husband and I were walking by a neighbor’s house and noticed our friends across the street from him were outside. We started talking to them from the sidewalk, then moved into the street in front of his house to continue talking away from his dozen cameras - some of them next to the sidewalk where he can eavesdrop on conversations. He came outside filming us with his phone and yelled at us to get off of his property and then started calling the other woman names. We yelled back that the street and sidewalk aren’t his, so he called the police as he often did. He subsequently filed for restraining orders against us to keep us from going on our daily walks on the sidewalk in front of his house. Of course, the judge threw out both cases along with the three cases he filed against the friends across the street from him. This is just one story of many about this guy.

#50

I was doing some work in a neighborhood, upper middle class white neighborhood. On a break I walked two blocks turned right,two blocks. . . ya know, to make a square. . . anyway, cops got called because I was “casing houses and peeking in windows” from the sidewalk obviously preparing to do some burglary because of my skin color and all. .. . So I got “pulled over” frisked (cuffed ya know for my protection) and interrogated (all my pockets turned out without consent) for taking a walk on a break.

#51

My kids were playing. It was mid covid lock down literally not allowed to go anywhere and we lived in an upstairs apartment. My neighbor called the cops at 4:25 in the afternoon because, and I quote, “those kids can't just be doing that you know!” When they pulled up I happened to be bringing my laundry in and I stood right there and laughed a big belly laugh and told the officer he'd have to follow me back inside if he wanted to speak with me so my kids weren't being left alone. He asked for my name, my phone number, and my birth date then turned mildly pink and said try to keep it down I guess? And left. She was the WORST.

#52

This was about 30 years ago when I was a teenager. My parents and sister and I were visiting with a neighbor a few houses away, in front of her house, when several cop cars came roaring up the street from both directions. One officer jumped out of his car and yelled at us all to keep our hands where they could see them and another asked where the weapons were. It turned out, someone had called the cops and said that there were about a dozen people in the street fighting and there were several weapons involved. We knew who did it, there was someone in the neighborhood who disliked all of us and was always trying to cause issues

#53

My neighbors call the police because I had mowed about 2 ft. of their yard. It was early spring and I hadn’t gotten my mower back from the shop yet. Grass got kinda high. When I did start mowing, the grass covered the markers I normally used to judge the property line. When the police showed up and asked me “what’s going on” I didn’t have a clue. The cop then stated my neighbors had called and said I had damaged their property. When all was settled, the police and I had a good laugh.

#54

My mother is getting quite old so needs help with doing her gardening. The Russian vine Bush (which the neighbours called bind weed lol). It is planted inside of my Mum's garden, but it grows very quickly and was planted well over 40 years ago, maybe about 30 years before the neighbours moved in next door to her. This particular day I could not reach the last half a dozen tentacles that had started growing towards the steps of next door's garden. Bearing in mind they had very steep steps and had a young child and also the postman etc must walk up and down these steps, I thought that it was a good idea to go around and cut them off so that no one could catch their feet on them and hurt themselves. I went next door with my secateurs and knocked on the door with no reply . I then knocked on the window and on the door a couple more times, again with no reply, but could see movement in the house. As there was no answer I decided to go back up the steps and proceeded to cut them off anyway as it would only take a couple of minutes maximum. As I was doing this the neighbour came out and started having a go at me saying that I should ask to go on their property. I told them that I had tried knocking on the door and window to ask if it was okay for me to do it, but got no reply. I told them our concerns of people getting injured and it would only take a minute and also save them a job of having to cut them off. ( they didn't do their gardening very often). The next day I continued with my Mum's garden as it is normally very well-maintained. This is when the police officers turned up and said that they had received a complaint that I had been trespassing on someone else's property. I explained what had happened and they could not believe it. They complemented on how good my mum's garden looked and how bad next door's looked and asked if I would be interested in doing their gardens. Also next door should be greatful that I was thinking of their safety, doing it for free saving them time, getting rid of the debris and being able to enjoy looking out onto such a nice garden lol! After this they are starting to strimmer theirs a bit more often.

#55

In the early 70s I shared a flat with 2 other guys. The woman in the flat below us was totally intolerant of any noise and regularly called the police who, knowing how intolerant she was, NEVER ticked us off over noise. On Saturday mornings I would go out to do my weekly shop and my mother usually dropped in about lunchtime for a coffee during her shopping. One Saturday I was a bit late and got home to find my mother and flatmates talking to a young policeman. The neighbour had called the police about noise after my flatmates had let my mother in. What was the source of this noise? My mother (a lightly built woman) had started to make my unmade bed!

#56

I used to run a newspaper route, late at night. I also was working temp work during the day while looking for a full-time job. If I got too tired while driving, I did the safe thing & pulled over somewhere for a nap. My route is in a very rural area, so most places are unlit (dark is nice for sleeping but not where there may be people OR bears & mountain lions around) and not many places to park out of the way, so I’d choose a safe spot, hopefully with some lighting, sometimes in my own driveway (because if I went in & climbed into bed I would *not* have woken up in time to finish on time no matter how many alarms I’d set! LOL) Someone saw me asleep in my car & called the cops on me. For sitting in my own driveway. It wasn’t a “welfare check” type call either, not “hey, my neighbor has been sitting in her car for an hour & I don’t know if she’s ok” but a “there’s someone sitting in a car in a driveway down the street and I don’t know why” type of thing. (Someone else had also called the cops on me another night for doing the same at the post office in the next town over. That one was a bit more understandable, but still ridiculous, as I did have legitimate business at the post office as that was one of my delivery stops.) Both cops understood & were sorry for waking me up when I was just trying to do the smart & safe thing rather than trying to keep driving when it wasn’t safe.

#57

I did once upon a time, have a pretty good relationship with my neighbour, they had this plant that was so important to them that they decided to plant it on the verge, Also they have another plant that they decided would be nice to plant also on the verge ( council property) Essentially blocking my vision as I reverse my car down the driveway,Mind you these most precious plants couldn’t be any further from their house if they tried, The rest of the garden is basically a sandpit Anyhow I went over to the neighbours and asked them to trim their plants explained the situation yada yada just asking they could trim the 7 foot tall plants so I can see, (nothing serious) (To them)) The response I got from them was ,You can see! I’m not going to trim my plants, It’s not going to happen’ so after that I was reversing my car and nearly hit a child running ahead of his parents! s**t!!! You think that the plants aint gonna be getting a trim??!! Any how after a bottle of red wine I decided to try out my hedge trimmer, Saw the three of them standing on their property and heard a voice behind me telling me to stop, I turned around and saw two police officers walking towards me, I told them it was a safety issue and that I thought the police should care about safety rather than two fkn plants They told me that I could not be doing that and if I didn’t stop they would charge me for destruction of property ( Same neighbours whose son has thrown things through my back fence and whose big dog loves to jump on the back fence causing the panels to break) But I digress anyway I asked them if they were going to arrest me and who was going to be pressing charges, I then told them that they better get someone from the council to come and press charges seeing that it was their property They looked at me and said Yeah you’re right neighbours went inside cops got in their car and I trimmed the rest of those plants

#58

The one that made us laugh the most was someone who dialled 999 to report a taxi driving around at night with no lights on. The only problem? It was a marked police car. Someone had reported a group of youths trying to break in to cars in the area, so we decided to drive around the garages behind a row of houses, but we turned off all our lights so they didn’t get alerted by the headlights - the houses were by a main road, so the engine noise wasn’t a problem. As we are driving along, probably no more that 4 or 5 mph so we can look at all the cars to see if any have been broken in to, we get a radio call that a lady had just called in to report a taxi driving behind her house with no lights on, and she found it suspicious. Given we had no trace of the youngsters, we turned the blue lights on and asked Control to check with the lady if the taxi had flashing blue lights on. Amazingly, it did. I can neither confirm nor deny that my colleague who was driving would get a few emails from Taxi Licensing asking when they were popping in to fill in the correct paperwork to be a taxi driver.

#59

Well to be fair, it was my fault. I had animal control called on me when I was twelve. What happened was that I was in the woods, near the brook, and took it into my head to practice wolf howls. A little while later I saw some police lights down the hill and went to investigate. I was just uphill of my neighbors down by the road, but still on family land. The lights were an animal control vehicle. The officer came up to find the scary wolf, I suppose. I spent about two hours stalking him through the woods.