Me and Karen: A Love Story

Just kidding. Karen is a total bitch, but buckle up because here is my novel.

My husband and I are in our late 30s and childfree. Some people on childfree said I should post here too, so enjoy the saga.

My husband and I had been saving up for almost a decade to move to a tropical paradise. About two years ago, we bit the bullet and moved to our dream location! Housing here is SUPER expensive (like Hawaii prices), so all we could afford was half of a duplex. It is beautiful and on the water with places for our boat. Unfortunately, Karen, BillyBob (the boyfriend), and her three gremlins live in the other unit.

Setup:

There is some period of time we just went for a week here and there, but we live here fulltime now. The entire duplex was owned by an older gentlemen who rented out both sides. The sides do not match at all. One side is a 5-bedroom, 3 bath. The other side of the duplex is a 2-bedroom, 1 bath. We bought the 5-bedroom. On our side of the property, we have 90% of the backyard, a gazebo, and dockage (about 150' since it is on a corner). The other side has a small backyard, patio, and maybe 15' of dockage.

The rental leases say the renters are entitled to their specific backyards, but the were no fences or anything, so all the renters shared the entire backyard. After we bought the house, Karen immediately tried to throw her weight around that they expected to continue with that privilege.I told her if she asked politely, we would try to accommodate her. She thought this meant she could use our backyard whenever she wanted.

Party Incident:

One day my husband and I are enjoying some drinks outside when a delivery truck shows to setup a giant blowup thing in our backyard. I asked Karen wtf she thought she was doing and she said it was her kid's birthday. Then she had the gall to say it was a family and friends only event, so we had to stay inside our house! Not wanting to be a total asshole and ruin some little girl's birthday, I told Karen after this she had no access to our backward, period. Karen shrugged and kept setting up for the party.

During the party, a drunk adult wandered into our house which shocked us all. I said Karen's house is the otherside and he said, "Oh, Karen said she owned the whole property and to use whichever bathroom was available." I directed him to Karen's bathroom and soon after she came STORMING into our house, screaming about how dare we make her look bad to her friends and how selfish we are we couldn't even spare one bathroom. She said we didn't deserve all this space with just us. I told Karen to get the hell out of my house or I would be calling the cops. She finally left and the party wrapped up shortly after.

Backyard Remodel:

After the party incident, we decided we needed to clearly define the backyard and build a fence. While we were spending the money, we decided to update the patio, put in a fire pit, and an outdoor kitchen.

While the contractor was onsite, nosy Karen had to come investigate. Since the fence would be the last thing built, I was vague and just stuck to telling her about the patio update. You could see her face light up because of course in her mind, what's ours is hers.

When the workers started on the fence, Karen came out SCREAMING for the work to stop. I went outside and told the workers to keep working and told Karen to butt out. Of course in true Karen fashion...SHE CALLED THE COPS. What happened next was hilarity on my part after explaining to the cop that we were building a fence on OUR property and the landlord, of which Karen was NOT, knew about it. When the cop gave Karen a stern lecture, I thought her head was going to explode. She went back into her house and slammed the sliding door so hard it sounded like something cracked.

We got our fence and I thought that would be in the end, but of course not.

The Boat Incident:

One day, BillyBob entered the picture and he was as much a terrible neighbor as Karen. He would throw cigarette butts and empty beer cans over our fence for "disrespecting his woman". I didn't know paradise had trailer trash, but BillyBob is the epitome of the stereotype.

BillyBob has a boat. A 30' fishing boat to be precise. Of course, that side of the duplex only has 15' of dockage. Since we have so much dockage and only one boat, we rent out the other dockage spots as month-to-month. People come and go, so if we don't receive rent from them by the end of the month and the boat disappears, we think nothing of it.

We had a renter who tied up their boat on the property line, but BillyBob wanted to park his boat and needed that space. Karen and BilliyBob posed as us (we were out of town), told the renters to be gone at the end of the month, and then parked BillyBob's boat on the dockage.

I only found out about it weeks later because the renter left a nasty review on the rental site we use. They said we were rude and went back on the verbal agreement to let them stay for 3 more months. I was like "what the fuck is all this?" After a phone call, I quickly put 2 and 2 together.

I called the cops who told Karen and BillyBob they need to move their boat or it would be "towed" (the equivalent of it anyway). Karen and BillyBob started screaming the boat is fully on their property (it isn't), then changed to no one can own the water (true, but a seawall is deeded), that we are liars, and at some point BillyBob punched a cop and went to jail (I felt bad for the cops, so took them all snacks the next day with a note apologizing for neighbor drama). I ended up winning my small claims suit against them for lost rental income, but if course haven't seen a dime. I eventually convinced the dockage renters to come back and gave them a few months free as compensation.

Final Revenge:

If you've made it this far, congratulations! Get ready for a juicy justice boner.

So with the collapsing market, we were trying to figure out what to do with our savings when a perfect opportunity opened up. The landlord who owned both properties was in desperate need of some cash and was tired of managing the property from 2000 miles away (because of course Karen is a Karen and called him weekly for every little thing). His only stipulation was we let the "poor single mom who has been his renter for 8 years" finish her lease, which is up in July.

Since we just have money we were trying to reinvest and because now we get to control our neighbors, heck yeah we jumped on that! Since we didn't need a realtor or mortgage and an inspection had been done just a year ago for the old landlord to refinance, everything closed in just under two weeks.

Karen was aware of a change of ownership (we registered the property under an LLC)], but didn't know who...until 8 days ago. I went over to Karen's house and knocked on the door. Karen answered with a "what the fuck do you want, cunt?" I smiled, handed her our landlord information, and sweetly reminded her rent was due by Friday, but she could just hand me the check if that was easier. I've always heard descriptions of people's faces turning white, but this was the first time I have actually seen it!

I told Karen that we are honoring her lease until the end of July, but afterwards she had better make plans to move because we instead to remodel it before these next tenants moved in.

Bye Bitch.

Edit: A lot of people misunderstood the beginning. Let's call our side of the duplex, Duplex OP. The other duplex is Duplex Karen.

We purchased Duplex OP. After we bought it, Duplex OP was no longer a rental. Both Duplex OP and Duplex Karen were for sale independently, but we only had the money to buy Duplex OP. Duplex Karen is still a rental because it has never sold.

Now we own both Duplex OP and Duplex Karen. Duplex Karen is still a rental. Duplex OP is still not a rental. When we made property improvements to Duplex OP, it was ours and not a rental.

UPDATE #1: Not much to update, folks. Karen and family's lease isn't up until the end of July. Rent has been paid on time. As far as I know, she doesn't have a new place lined up. We've served her 30 day notice we will not be renewing the lease. We also offered in writing that we will pro-rate July and waive the termination fee if they want to leave before the end of the lease.

Beyond the near weekly loud parties and having to call ther police because the kids were throwing lit fireworks at our boat, not much beyond the norm.

UPDATE #2 Aug 2020: Long story short, Karen and family is still in the place and not paying any rent. They were served with eviction, but due to COVID stuff we can't actually do anything about it. At least Karen and BillyBob had a GIANT FIGHT which ended up in him being arrested and he hasn't returned.

I've been told by our lawyer, once some laws are changed/removed in September, we can have the police escort them off the property that day since we've already filed the eviction. It's just a shitshow right now.

Karen is being extra smug. She tried to pushing her bounds and kept coming over to our property. A talk with the cops set her straight, but she's playing music loud and just tossing her trash everywhere.

We really wanted to move our elderly parents in after a quick remodel because dad needs shoulder surgery badly and mom now needs a walker. They need more care and it's getting harder driving two hours a day to do that. Our parents want their own space though and won't live on our side with us. My husband and I are trying not to be angry and make things worse with Karen, but we are both exhausted. Things just suck.

UPDATE #3 Dec 2020: Life is weird.

Karen is still here. Since we couldn't evict her, my partner went to stay with their parents for a few months so in-laws could get the surgery/care they needed. They are doing better now which is great.

Here's the weird part though. In October, Karen's mother, Susan, came to live with her since Susan's landlord chose not to renew her lease.

SUSAN IS AN ANGEL! Susan was MORTIFIED at Karen's and the kid's behavior. Susan is a tough one and has been cleaning house (both figuratively and literally). The kids are so much better behaved and Karen stomps around like a sullen child.

Susan and I share drinks every few days in the backyard. We bake together too every weekend. For Thanksgiving and Christmas since no one was traveling for the holidays, we made a big feast and set it up outside with some backyard games. It was a great time and even Karen was being pleasant.

I tried to tell Susan not to worry about rent until they find another place, but she insisted on paying. I lied about how much the rent was so it's only a half payment, but it just covers the taxes/insurance. We drew up another lease that is month-to-month.

Susan wants to move back home at some point and take her daughter with her. Karen I think it's ready for a change too, but obviously with COVID it might take some time. It's pretty pleasant right now though, so I'm in no hurry for them to leave.