NARRATOR: Little Egg, New Jersey is a small, laid back township
on the Atlantic Ocean where Eliza
and Brad Rhodes relocated from the city with Brad's parents.
ELIZA RHOADES: Brad and I and Brad's parents
all moved down together.
It was a new start living on the water.
It's a small shore town, so people have lived here
generation after generation.
We thought this was the perfect neighborhood until we
met our next door neighbors.
Our neighbors are an older couple who have
lived here for over 40 years.
NARRATOR: According to Eliza the first warning sign
is when the neighbors make an unusual complaint.
ELIZA RHOADES: They didn't like the smell of our dryer sheets
because our vent faces the side of their house.
So we went out and bought dryer balls
because we're trying to accommodate because we're
the new family in town.
And then whatever it, was they would pick out the next thing.
NARRATOR: In the following months,
the neighbors become more antisocial,
so Eliza and Brad start to record them
and it only adds to the weirdness
when the neighbor starts cackling at them.
[cackling]
Even though the neighbor's taking
pictures of Brad and Eliza, she is annoyed
that they are recording her.
So one day when Brad is in the front yard her husband
launches a verbal attack.
You will?
Stalker.
What's the matter?
Stalker!
That's you, you [bleep]
You're crazy. You're crazy.
Yeah, you're crazy.
Then what are you doing with the phone?
Get the [bleep] phone out of here.
Now you hit me.
Yeah, I hit you, you piece of [bleep]
ELIZA RHOADES: When it became physical,
it took it to a whole other level.
Once that line was crossed, we were afraid.
We didn't know where the next step was going to go.
NARRATOR: What happens next is worse than Eliza
and Brad could ever imagine.
Eliza Rhodes is shocked that her neighbors have gone online,
discovers she has a criminal record from years
ago for buying and possessing drugs,
and are using this information to harass her.
ELIZA RHOADES: I was a heroin addict,
and I did whatever I had to do to get the next one.
And then got sober, met Brad, got sober.
NARRATOR: Eliza has now been drug and alcohol
free for eight years.
And works to help others in recovery,
so she finds her neighbor's taunts tough to take.
ELIZA RHOADES: I feel very judged.
I'm actually tearing up.
It was actually really hard to hear,
every single day all of these horrific things
I had done in my addiction.
NARRATOR: And the insults only get worse.
ELIZA RHOADES: It would be daily.
They would yell constantly.
Are you drunk? Are you high?
Shut up. [bleep] you.
[bleep] you.
Incestuous.
NARRATOR: Eliza and Brad report their neighbors to the police.
.
But the neighbors also call the cops with wild claims
of their own that are untrue.
ELIZA RHOADES: We got investigated
for running a meth house.
Elder abuse.
Holding someone hostage in the house.
And literally the cops were on this street every single day.
NARRATOR: But just as Eliza and Brad
are in the process of taking the neighbors to court,
suddenly everything changes.
After three and a half difficult years--
They get the welcome news that their neighbors--
--are relocating to a different state.
They don't know why, but they're just happy that they're gone.
NARRATOR: Since our neighbors have moved,
Brad and I will go out back and sit in the hammock at night
and look at the stars, and we couldn't do that before.
Couldn't enjoy the yard.
Couldn't enjoy the water.
Today, we can.
If you're stupid, you belong in the nursing home
because you got dementia.
ELIZA RHOADES: If I could say anything to my neighbors,
I would say one, you report yourself.
Two, karma.
The third thing I would say is, we didn't give up as a family,
and we won.