10 Neighbors From Hell
10.
Alan Markovitz
59-year-old strip club owner Alan Markovitz was going through a separation with his wife,
Lea Tuohy.
Tuohy had been cheating on him, and after their separation she moved in with the man
she had been having the affair with.
Markovitz was of course upset, but rather than taking it like a mature adult by picking
up the pieces of his broken heart and moving on with his life he lashed out like an angry
teenager with way too much money.
Markovitz moved next door to his ex and her new boyfriend.
He spent $7000 to build a 12-foot bronze statue in the shape of a middle finger and stuck
it in his backyard directly facing his ex’s house.
He claims he’s over his ex and the middle finger is directed at her new boyfriend.
Sure, buddy.
Sure.
9.
Lynne Taylor and Christopher Levasseur
One of the more unusual cases of neighbor harassment comes from Warwick, Rhode Island,
where Craig Fontaine and Kathleen Melker lived beside Lynne Taylor and Christopher Levasseur.
Problems arose in August and September 2011, when Fontaine and Melker claimed their neighbors
fired BB pellets at their car and kayak.
Taylor and Levasseur also tried to kill the other couple’s cat by locking it in the
trunk of their car on a hot day.
A restraining order was put in place against them, because attempted pet murder is, to
use the legal term, “cuckoo crazy.”
The strangest claim was that Taylor and Levasseur trained their cockatoo to insult Fontaine
and Melker.
The bird would swear at them loudly throughout the day, but when Fontaine and Melker called
the police to complain, the police said Taylor and Levasseur were not violating the restraining
order because the bird was the one making the comments, not the couple.
8.
Felice and Ralph Scala
Canadians are famous for being nice, polite and neighborly.
But there are exceptions to every rule, as demonstrated by father Felice and son Ralph
Scala.
The Scalas lived in the Junction neighborhood in Toronto, Ontario.
The Junction is a small community where a lot of houses are crammed together.
While most people find this quaint, the neighbors of the Scalas thought it was hell.
Take 87 year old widow Carmela Canino, who had been living in the neighborhood since
1958.
Felice Scala was having problems with some criminal charges, so he asked Canino for a
character reference and she chose not to give him one.
Scala was so offended that she wouldn’t defend his character he had her windows smashed,
had broken tire spokes placed in her lawn and threw dead animals on her property.
When she was cleaning up the mess he’d stand outside and laugh.
7.
Lori Christensen
In 1998, Greg and Kim Hoffman moved into a home in White Bear, Minnesota.
Three years later, Lori Christensen and her daughter moved in next door.
At first, things were good between the neighbors.
That was until about 2009, when Christensen’s daughter poured nail polish on one of the
Hoffman children.
Kim Hoffman went over to talk to Christensen about the incident.
Christensen didn’t like the accusation and told Hoffman that she should take care of
her own children.
While this should have been just a simple spat between neighbors, it was actually the
start of a campaign of terror against the Hoffman family that would last for five years.
Christensen constantly harassed the Hoffmans, often mocking Kim because she was struggling
with alcoholism.
The Hoffmans got a restraining order, which Christensen violated.
In 2012, she was given five years of probation, 50 hours of community service and fined $50.
6.
Mitchell Igelko
There are two different stories about how the feud between Mitchell Igelko and his neighbors
began.
According to his neighbors, it started when they fired Igelko’s company from doing maintenance
on their lawns.
Igelko’s wife claims it stems from a time when his beloved dog was discovered badly
beaten and bleeding.
Regardless of the origins, Igelko started terrorizing his neighbors in his Southwest
Miami-Dade neighborhood.
Some of the highlights include murder threats, egging houses and poisoning the neighbor’s
lawn so bad that the soil had to be replaced.
He also dropped nails on driveways and the road in front of houses and smashed car windows.
The neighbors installed video surveillance, which caught Igelko in the act.
He was arrested and originally given five years of probation.
5.
The O’Briens
Lea Hall is an area in the city of Birmingham, England.
It was the home of the O’Brien family, who were well known for trying to control the
neighborhood through harassment and violence.
Police were called to their home at least 40 times for serious incidents.
What’s really disturbing is that this went on for 10 years.
Things finally came to a head in 2012 when the O’Briens and a few other people were
brawling in the streets and police responded.
An officer had part of his nose bitten off by a dog, and while it was thankfully re-attached
it was the end of the line for the O’Briens, who were evicted from their home.
4.
Jeanne Wilding
Bottomley is a small hamlet between Leeds and Manchester and is made up primarily of
four expensive estates for people commuting to the two major cities.
It was a peaceful, idyllic little spot until 57 year old retired businesswoman Jeanne Wilding
moved there in 2002.
One neighbor said that there was a problem with Wilding almost every day for 16 months.
Between July 2004 and November 2005 there was an astounding 259 incidents that the court
heard about, including throwing broken glass and nails onto driveways, pouring oil onto
their lawns, throwing dead animals onto their properties and vandalizing cars.
15 people and organizations brought charges against Wilding and she was given an anti-social
behavior order (ASBO) citation.
3.
Michael Carroll
Your neighbors are usually in a similar socioeconomic situation to you, but then there’s the case
of Michael Carroll.
In 2002, Michael Carroll was a 19-year-old garbage man living in Norfolk, England.
Then he won £9.7 million ($15.4 million USD) in the National Lottery.
So started the nightmare of people in Swaffham, Norfolk, where Carroll bought a mansion called
the Grange.
He started years of partying, during which he apparently spent over £1 million ($1.6
million USD) on prostitutes and drugs.
He also turned his yard into a demolition derby that went on for 24 hours a day.
It covered the neighborhood in dust and at any time, day or night, there could be a car
crash that led to visits from ambulances and fire trucks.
His behavior was so bad that the police set up a hotline for his neighbors to call if
Carroll was getting out of hand.
By 2010, Carroll had lost all his money and was forced to sell the Grange.
2.
Barry Ardolf
Children like to explore their surroundings, and Matt and Bethany Kostolnik’s four year
old son was no different.
Shortly after moving into their home in the Minnesota suburb of Blaine, the boy wandered
into 46 year old Barry Ardolf’s backyard.
Ardolf, a computer technician and father of two, scooped up the boy and brought him back
to his parents, where he kissed the young boy on the lips upon dropping him off.
Naturally, this weirded out the Kostolniks, so they called the police.
Ardolf was quite upset that the police would pay a visit over something like that, so he
decided fair payback was ruining Matt Kostolnik’s life.
Ardolf downloaded a hacking program and hijacked the Kostolniks’ Wi-Fi.
Ardolf then posted pictures of child pornography and emailed Matt’s co-workers and bosses
at his law firm with those pictures.
He also started sending threatening emails to various politicians, including Vice President
Joe Biden.
This led to the secret service visiting Kostolnik.
This continued for two years.
Matt’s law firm hired an investigator and they discovered that Ardolf had been messing
with the Kostolniks’ network.
The FBI was notified and Ardolf was arrested and given an 18 year prison sentence.
1.
Ken McElroy
Everyone in Skidmore, Missouri knew who Ken McElroy was.
He was charged 21 different times, but each time he managed to avoid prosecution.
It helped that he would threaten or bully witnesses until the charges were dropped.
Things finally reached a boiling point in 1980 when one of McElroy’s 10 children was
accused of stealing from the town’s grocery store.
McElroy showed up with a shotgun and got into an argument with the 70 year old owner.
McElroy shot the elderly grocer, who thankfully survived.
McElroy was arrested and this time he was actually convicted of assault, but was released
on bail until sentencing.
While on bail McElroy continued his bullish ways, carrying a rifle and threatening the
life of the grocer he shot.
The town was so upset and terrified of McElroy that that on July 10, 1981, they held a town
meeting about what to do with him.
While everyone was at the meeting, McElroy went to the town bar.
The concerned citizens heard he was at the bar and ventured over to it.
McElroy was leaving the bar with his 15 year old wife Trena, and while sitting in his truck
he was shot twice by two different guns.
No one called an ambulance and the 47 year old town bully died from his wounds.
There were dozens of witnesses and the killing took place in broad daylight, but only Trena
claimed to identify a shooter.
So no one was ever been charged with the murder and almost everyone in the town seems to be
satisfied with that.