The saga of the old man and the drone, or how I may have inadvertently led to the demise of my dad's NFH
This is a long one so buckle up. My dad(70s) has had many vocations including air force service, car sales, acting in hollywood, CFO of a company and ultimately "retired" into residential development buying worn down houses with big lots remodeling the main house and partitioning them into separate lots, sometimes building houses or selling the lots outright. He does most of the work himself and lives in the houses with my stepmom while he is working on them.
He found a great opportunity to turn two old houses owned by the same family into many lots by extending a road and got it approved by the city. This was to be the final project before true retirement and they spent every last dollar and line of credit to get it going that they had.
During the purchase and survey it was discovered that half of the dirt driveway for one of the neighbors(80s m) on one side was actually part of dad's property. It wasn't a big deal at all and he offered to give the land to the existing fence, which was set back from the road quite a bit, including the half of the driveway to the neighbor as a gesture of goodwill.
For some reason this incensed the neighbor, he didn't agree about the current boundaries and hired his own survey, which completely agreed with ours. He still didn't want to take the land because he thought he should somehow get more of their yard. He was also quite upset about the new road which was not connected to his property at all and went through the middle of the two houses my dad had purchased.
My parents were living in the house next to his while remodeling it when this was all going on and he made it his life's mission to harass them and be as annoying as possible. He would wake up at 6 am and make noise in the yard right next to their bedroom window on the land that he would have been gifted if he had just agreed to get free land. Leaf blowers, chain saws, riding mower etc.
They just dealt with it and didn't escalate or try to get him in trouble. He spread nasty rumors around the neighborhood and tried to start group to challenge the new road. He had his biker son ride his loud bike around, and at one point the son threatened my dad. Whenever they were working in the yard he would just stand out there and stare at them and flip them off or make noise. He would also watch my stepmom in through the bathroom window while she showered and they had to add a hedge for privacy.
I was laid off around when covid hit and ended up moving into the second house in the middle of all of this drama. I was concerned about the crazy old man next door to them but they just continued to ignore him.
They finally got the road built and he escalated. He would drive up and down the new road multiple times a day at like 5 mph and just stare at the houses flipping off anyone who saw him. He called city code enforcement so much they stopped responding to the calls and my dad was on a first name basis will all the inspectors.
My parents were still of the opinion that while he was annoying he was just and old man with nothing better to do and not a real threat so they continued to put up with the harassment. Then one day he had his sons come over to the property and threatens to assault us for our "harassment" of him. He had been lying to them about what was going on and it nearly got physical until the police were involved. Nobody was charged but they recommended we get cameras to document the harassment and move forward legally.
I set up multiple cameras watching the road, the front of the houses and the part of the yard he would make noise in. The behavior continued to escalate and I ended up with lots of videos of him slowly driving, flipping us off and just being a menace. He started to park along side of one of the houses by some bushes and just watch it for hours at a time. He might have been doing this since the road was built and we didn't notice until the cameras were set up and I saw his car go back as that area was not covered by a camera. He often had something black in his hand while driving but I never got a clear picture of it, it may have been a firearm and I didn't want to get too close to get a better picture.
This pattern of slowly driving down the road and observing the house from the side continued and I think he thought he was being sneaky since we didn't react but I put another camera hidden there and was just building up more evidence of the harassment.
One day I was just sick of it and thought I'm gonna show you that we can see you there you're not being sneaky at all. I had a drone, a black one which looked kinda like something batman would use, and I flew it over to his car to take pics. When I saw him looking at it I tuned it from side to side like it was shaking its head no. He freaked out and sped off, for the next two weeks he wasn't seen driving down the road at all.
Afterwards we see the son's cleaning out the house and getting it ready to sell. We weren't sure if he had moved or what until a neighbor confirmed that he had died. I can't say for certain the drone scared the life out of him but it probably didn't help. His sons ended up selling and the new owners gladly took the gift of the land. They sold some of the lots, the house next to his and are almost finished with construction of their final home, the project was a major success and they can retire in peace.
TL:DR Angry old man hides in bushes to spy, until a drone makes his spirit fly.