This is pretty nuts.
Marion Webster, a 78-year-old U.K. woman found guilty of tearing up flowers in her neighbor's garden, may have done it because she believed her own garden had been destroyed by a trained squirrel.
Webster, who has been dubbed a "neighbor from Hell," according to the Birmingham Mail, was found guilty last week of criminal damage and ordered by a judge to keep the peace for six months.
Prosecuting attorney Kaya Ball told Solihull Magistrates Court that the flowers were not "just an isolated incident." Since 2002, the West Midlands Police have received more than 40 complaints about Webster's behavior, a spokeswoman told the Birmingham Mail. Reported incidents have included allegations of Webster yelling and swearing at passers by with no provocation.
"She is very proud of her garden," one neighbor said, according to the Daily Mail, "and she got it into her head that someone had it in for her and was jealous of her flowers ... she became convinced a resident had trained a squirrel to enter her garden after dark and tear up her flowers."
We have plenty of bad neighbors on our side of the pond. In September, a Rhode Island woman was accused of training her pet cockatoo to cuss at her neighbors, who just happened to be her ex-husband and his new girlfriend.
And in November, a Louisiana woman put up Christmas lights shaped like a middle finger, claiming she had an ongoing dispute with her neighbors, and the profane display was "the only means I have to express myself to these people.”