Current Events > Just had a hostile interaction with my neighbor out of the blue... what the hell

(+) Yeah! (+)

tl;dr: My neighbor accused me of sending some shady salesperson over to his house, and said he saw me on camera talking to some white woman that handed me something while we were standing in his front yard. Neither one of these things happened.

Just prior to the incident:

I went to a supercharger that's by a grocery store to charge my car up. I can't put my car in my driveway right now because Tesla has a bunch of equipment in my driveway and in my garage while they're working on my roof. I got back home at about 8:15 - 8:20. I noticed he had his basketball goal out and (I'm assuming) his grandkids were playing basketball in the street. I drove around the other way so they wouldn't have to stop playing.

I parked on the street and brought my groceries inside. I forgot a pen in the car, so I went back to get that. I stood outside for a bit to find the opportunity to strike up a conversation with them just to be friendly. My neighbor came over to talk to me, and I thought he was gonna ask about my roof or what the deal was with all the stuff that was in my driveway. Nope.

Incident:

He was a bit angry. He said "a while back," I had sent someone over to his house who mentioned my name and tried to sell him some stuff. He said he had seen me on camera in his front yard talking to a white lady and being handed something. He... we'll say assertively... told me not to do that. "We're not cool like that," he said.

I've never referred any salesperson to anyone in this neighborhood at all. I've lived here for a little over a year and I mostly keep to myself. I've met this neighbor before, but our interactions were always very brief. Outside of random salespeople trying to sell ME stuff, I've had exactly 4 people in my house. My mom, a friend from my old job who came to help me move my washer/dryer, my boss, and my boss's cousin who was visiting from India. I've never talked to any white lady in this neighborhood at all except for talking to one of those Kirby vacuum salespeople who offer to vacuum an area of your house while trying to sell you a Kirby vacuum cleaner. I definitely have not been handed something from this mystery white lady while standing in his front yard.

He was essentially saying I was lying and that he had me on camera. I asked him to show me the video, and he said he would bring it up. I was concerned because if there was someone who does know me and they were going around the neighborhood selling stuff, then I need to tell them to stop. However, the vast majority of my friends live in Austin. There are exactly two people I know as long term friends in San Antonio outside of work, and neither of them is a white woman.

I moved to San Antonio a few months before the pandemic started, so I haven't been going many places at all. I was a member of a crossfit gym about 25 miles from here when I lived in an apartment, but nobody from there knew where I lived even when I was across the street. Certainly, none of them know where I live now on the other side of town.

So I asked him to show me the video. I was so confused. He pulled out his phone and showed me standing on his grass when Tesla was bringing stuff to my house. I apologized for that, but reiterated the fact that I haven't interacted with any white woman in his front yard. His family was standing outside looking at me while he was accusing me of all this stuff. His wife went in the house to find the video, but she came back out and said she couldn't find it. He couldn't find this video clip, either.

Eventually, he relented and said not to worry about it, but he was still 100% convinced he was correct. I extended my hand to shake his, but he just looked at me and shook his head.

So I just went back and stood in my own driveway just extremely confused and bewildered. I decided to sit down on my driveway and just write this incident down in my phone to 1) keep a record of this incident and 2) calm my nerves a bit.

After about 30 minutes, he came over to apologize. He explained that he used to live in another house in the neighborhood, literally right down the street. He said he had bad blood with someone who lived in the house next to him, said they were two-faced, and he got so fed up that he sold that house and moved... maybe about 30 yards away to the house next to mine. He said he didn't want bad blood or negativity going on between him and another neighbor. I said maybe I told my name to some random salesperson who tried to sell to me, and then they went to his house trying to sell to him as if they really knew me or something. He seemed to accept that as a plausible explanation.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/4/7/AABjoOAADYij.jpg

Yellow = what he says was his old house
Blue = my house
Red = his current house

I'm kinda confused about how it got so bad that he decided to sell his house and move away, but then he only moved a stone's throw away. I would think you'd move to an entirely different neighborhood if things got that bad, but I don't know. He didn't seem to want to go into details on that. I wasn't in the mood to ask him any more about it.

He ended it by saying if I need anything from him, don't hesitate to ask and that he hopes I would reciprocate, and we can call this incident water under the bridge. I agreed.

I'm probably not gonna go out of my way to interact with him for the time being, though. Holy shit.

Who knows, welcome to S.A. smh

Gee I wonder why his other neighbor didn't like him.

At least the situation resolved itself eventually. Dude seems a little nutty to do a move like that over some neighbor shit. But I guess that neighbor shit could have been pretty bad. Still, moving around the corner to get away from a bad neighbor seems crazy.

Nice houses tho

And that child's name was Albert Einstein.

I deal with these types of people on my mail route all the time, Id definitely avoid him as best you can without making it too obvious thats what youre doing.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Yeah, I'm just gonna continue keeping to myself. I'll let him approach me with some favor. I hope I never need anything from him at this point. I'm definitely not going anywhere any time soon.

There's a better than average chance the salesperson just lied and dropped your name because they thought it would help them somehow.

Kim_Seong-a posted...

There's a better than average chance the salesperson just lied and dropped your name because they thought it would help them somehow.

Yeah. When he came over to apologize, I tried telling him that I don't work in sales. I work in IT as a network engineer, so I have no reason to refer any random salesperson to anyone in this neighborhood.

I hate sales in general. I've had a few sales related jobs and I hated all of them. It's just not my thing.

Thats sketchy regardless. Either way, I would oddly view this as a good thing because the issue was resolved and you kept your cool when being accused of something you didnt do.