They say karma comes back to bite you, but I never expected to witness it through my phone screen while on vacation. Our neighbor “borrowed” our grill without permission, and what happened next was both shocking and strangely satisfying.
An aerial view of a neighborhood | Source: Pexels
After years in our cramped apartment downtown, Richard and I had finally found the perfect place to raise our two children, Lily and Max.
“This is it,” Richard had whispered on moving day, squeezing my hand as we watched the kids race up and down the driveway. “Our forever home.”
And it was perfect… until we met Oliver.
At first glance, Oliver seemed like any other neighbor. He showed up the day after we moved in with a plate of store-bought cookies.
A man holding a plate of cookies | Source: Midjourney
“Welcome to the neighborhood,” he said. “Nice place. Previous owners never did much with it.”
I thanked him for the cookies and introduced myself and Richard, who was wrestling with a bookshelf in the hallway.
“I’m right next door,” Oliver pointed. “Been here 15 years. I know everything about this neighborhood.”
Something in his tone made me uneasy, but I chalked it up to new-neighbor jitters. We were all adults here, right?
Wrong.
About two weeks after we moved in, I was watering our new flower beds when I spotted Oliver strolling into our neighbor Linda’s backyard across the street.
A man standing in a backyard | Source: Midjourney
Linda and her husband weren’t home. I knew because she’d mentioned they were visiting their daughter in college that weekend.
Yet there was Oliver, casually opening their gate and walking around their property like he owned it.
When Richard saw him later that day and asked about it, Oliver shrugged.
“Just wanted to check something,” he said vaguely. “Jim wouldn’t mind.”
Richard and I exchanged glances but didn’t push it. We were new here, after all.
Then came the BBQ incident. We invited the neighbors over for a housewarming cookout on a warm Saturday in April.
A barbecue grill | Source: Pexels
Richard was proud of the high-end gas grill he’d saved up for. It was a gleaming stainless-steel Weber with all the bells and whistles.
“This baby can cook thirty burgers at once,” he boasted as our guests gathered around.
I noticed Oliver hanging back, eyeing the grill with an intensity that made me uncomfortable.
“Nice setup,” he finally said, running his hand along the side panel. “Must have cost a fortune.”
Richard beamed. “It was worth every penny. We love to entertain.”
A man standing outdoors | Source: Midjourney
“Man, that beast puts mine to shame. You guys don’t even use it that much. Seems like a waste, honestly.”
An awkward silence followed. Richard laughed it off, but I saw the way Oliver kept glancing at the grill throughout the evening, like a kid eyeing a toy he couldn’t have.
As the weeks passed, Oliver’s behavior grew increasingly bizarre. He’d appear in our driveway unannounced, asking to borrow tools Richard had mentioned once in passing. He’d comment on packages delivered to our door before we’d even brought them inside.
A package at a doorstep | Source: Pexels
“That looks like the patio set I was looking at online,” he said one afternoon as Richard carried in a large box. “Amazon had it on sale last week, right? Bet I could’ve found it cheaper, though.”
Richard shot me a look that said, How did he know what we ordered?
The final straw came when Oliver decided our property line was more of a suggestion than a boundary. I came home from grocery shopping to find him planting hostas along our side of the fence.
A close-up shot of leaves | Source: Pexels
“What are you doing?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level.
“Oh, hey Melanie!” he said cheerfully. “Just ran out of space in my yard. This spot gets the perfect amount of shade. You don’t mind, right?”
I did mind.
Richard minded even more when he got home. But by then, the plants were already in the ground, and confronting Oliver seemed more trouble than it was worth.
“We should’ve set boundaries from day one,” Richard muttered that night. “The guy obviously doesn’t understand the concept of personal property.”
A man standing in his house | Source: Midjourney
Little did we know then just how right Richard was. Or that our expensive grill would soon become the center of Oliver’s most outrageous boundary violation yet.
***
As time went by, Oliver’s behavior only grew worse. He kept interfering in our lives.
We wanted to confront him again, but somehow, that conversation never happened. Life got busy, and dealing with Oliver required energy we didn’t have.
Instead, we started taking precautions. We installed a doorbell camera and kept our curtains closed when he was outside.
Closed curtains | Source: Pexels
May arrived, and with it, plans for our first family vacation since moving in. The kids had been begging to visit the beach, just two hours away.
“Can we stay in a hotel with a pool?” Max asked, bouncing in his seat at breakfast.
“And build sandcastles?” seven-year-old Lily added.
Richard winked at me across the table. “I think we can make that happen. How about next weekend?”
A sandcastle | Source: Pexels
“Should we move this into the garage?” I asked, glancing toward Oliver’s house.
Just yesterday, I’d caught him watching Richard use the grill, his face pressed against his kitchen window.
Richard frowned. “It’s too heavy, and we’d have to disconnect the gas line. Let’s just cover it and lock the wheels.”
A barbecue grill | Source: Midjourney
“And lock the gate,” I added. “And maybe we should tell him we’re having someone check on the house while we’re gone.”
“I don’t know.” I sighed. “But he clearly has a thing for this grill. Remember at your birthday cookout last month? He spent half an hour asking about the temperature controls.”
“True.” Richard secured the padlock through the grill cover’s grommets and around the frame. “There. Not even Oliver would be bold enough to break a lock.”
A man talking | Source: Midjourney
The morning of our departure, we triple-checked everything. Doors locked. Windows secured. Security system activated.
The kids were buzzing with excitement, already wearing their beach hats in the car.
“Did you set the cameras?” I asked Richard as he loaded the last suitcase.
“All set. We can check them from the app anytime.”
***
The beach was everything we needed. Our resort had both ocean views and the pool the kids had asked for. By the second day, I felt my shoulders finally relaxing, the tension of the past months melting away with each wave that crashed on the shore.
An aerial view of a beach | Source: Pexels
Richard and I were spread out on beach towels while the kids were building an elaborate sand fortress. At that point, I decided to check our home cameras.
Just a quick peek to ease my mind.
I opened the app and selected the backyard camera. For a moment, I thought the app was frozen. The grill cover was gone.
I refreshed the screen.
That’s when I saw it. Or rather, didn’t see it.
Our grill was missing.
A woman using her phone | Source: Pexels
“Hey, Richard,” I nudged him awake. “You have to look at this.”
He squinted at my phone screen, then sat up straight. “What the hell?”
I scrolled back through the footage and paused at the point where Oliver was wheeling our grill across our yard and into his backyard. It was 7:30 in the morning.
He had broken the padlock with bolt cutters.
“Is he serious right now?” Richard’s face flushed with anger. “He stole our grill!”
A serious man sitting at a beach | Source: Midjourney
I tried calling Oliver’s number, but of course, there was no answer.
We watched, helpless and furious, as the recorded footage showed him setting up our grill on his patio, cleaning it, and attaching a new propane tank.
“He’s having a party,” Richard realized as the footage continued, showing Oliver arranging chairs and tables in his backyard. “He stole our grill for a party!”
Furniture in a backyard | Source: Pexels
“Should we call the police?” I asked.
Richard hesitated. “Let’s see what happens first. We have proof now.”
But we didn’t need to call anyone. Because that’s when karma stepped in.
The camera caught it all. Oliver, proudly showing off “his” new grill to his friends, throwing burgers on the flames with dramatic flair. He’d draped a decorative tablecloth over the side shelf, apparently trying to make the cooking station look fancy.
A man in his backyard | Source: Midjourney
When he closed the lid, he didn’t notice that he’d trapped the edge of the tablecloth under it.
Within minutes, smoke began billowing from the sides. The tablecloth had caught fire.
“Oh my God,” I gasped.
Oliver didn’t notice at first because he was too busy mixing drinks. By the time someone shouted and pointed, the flames had already spread to his wooden pergola.
The fire escalated with frightening speed, engulfing his patio furniture and potted plants. Guests scattered, running for safety. Our beautiful grill was at the center of an inferno.
Firefighters arrived within minutes, but by then, the damage was done.
A fire truck | Source: Pexels
“Well,” Richard said after a long silence. “I guess that saves us a confrontation.”
I couldn’t help but laugh, though part of me felt terrible. No one had been hurt, which was what mattered most.
We spent the rest of our vacation enjoying our family time, filing an insurance claim remotely, and marveling at how quickly justice had been served.
When we returned home, Oliver’s house was quiet.
A house | Source: Pexels
His backyard remained a blackened mess. He didn’t come out to greet us or apologize. In fact, we’ve barely seen him since.
A sad man | Source: Midjourney
Sometimes I look out at our new grill and think about how differently things might have gone if Oliver had simply asked to borrow ours, or better yet, respected our property in the first place.
They say karma comes when you least expect it. In Oliver’s case, it arrived with flames and a valuable lesson: what goes around really does come around.