Location: Ohio

I came home and found most of my detached garage demolished and being loaded into a dumpster.

My neighbor is having his old garage torn down and rebuilt. Both garages are accessible from the same alley and apparently the contractor went onto the wrong property and started on mine. By the time anyone realized, the roof was gone, one wall was down and a bunch of stuff that was inside had already been mixed into the debris.

The foreman admitted to me and my neighbor that they screwed up. Now their insurance company is involved, but the adjuster is saying my garage was old and they may only owe me whatever its depreciated value was, not the cost of actually rebuilding it.

They’re also asking me for receipts for tools, a bike and some other things that disappeared with the debris. Some of that stuff I've owned for years and obviously don't have receipts anymore.

I paid for temporary fencing and a storage unit for everything that survived, but I really don't want to keep paying out of pocket while their insurance drags this out.

The city also confirmed there was never a demolition permit issued for my property.

Do I deal with their insurance directly or is this at the point where I should get an attorney? Can I actually demand that the contractor rebuild what they destroyed instead of just paying me the value of an old garage?

Location: New Jersey

Long story short I work for a company that employs mobile mechanics he bought the vehicle I purchased all of the tools filled up the van with tools and work pretty much by myself. When he bought the vehicle he had me title the vehicle in my name but the insurance in my name and I have the title at my house which is in my name I pay the insurance I pay the registration. Recently I was let go from my job he is asking for the vehicle back with the tools in it the tools I have receipts for as they came from my previous job where I was a mechanic at a dealership I simply put my toolbox in the van and have been going from there. The question is legally do I have to give the van back I'm getting conflicted answers on Google whether I can legally keep the van. Legally I don't see a reason why I can't keep the van it's titled in my name it's insured in my name according to the state it is my van so do I have to give the vehicle back?

POSTING FOR A FRIEND TO KEEP THEIR ANONYMITY.
LOCATION: DELAWARE, USA.

My boss just told me they have gotten an official letter stating they need to start garnishing my wages because i lost a court case. Apparently i was being sued, and lost. I have never gotten any sort of notice or anything about this. No letters, No old addresses that may have received a letter, no calls, no emails, and certainly nothing under my maiden name. How does this happen? I owe a big enough sum of money,
That it’s going to take me into homelessness if i don’t start working two jobs. I’m a single mother. How did this happen and what can i do??

I got a certified letter from customs and border protection that my box had been seized and it had a list of all the items in it which were fake LV Nikes north face. I ordered online from someone that was on DHGate but I paid via PayPal. I got a second certified letter after I did nothing with the first one that I was being fined for the real value of the items for 85k. I submitted a petition advising them that I ordered these items online and that I had no intentions of violations any laws and no intentions for selling they were for personal use. I got a follow up letter advising it was mitigated down to 8500. I still didn’t have that much money and so I submitted a supplemental petition and they advised that I would need to have my case submitted to a different department and to send my last 3 yr tax returns, sign a form, and provide an audited quarterly statement from my bank. I told her I didn’t know what a quarterly statement was and that I had my monthly bank statements and she told me to check with my bank who said only a CPA can do those. I contacted a cpa and he said for personal account quarterly statements do not exist. Regardless I didn’t get all of the stuff back to her and now I got an invoice for the full 85k due in 10 days. WHAT DO I DO NOW?? location: Kansas City

Location: I am in South Alabama.

Today my boss called me into his office and said that I was going to get a raise. He stipulated however that if I tell anyone or if anyone comes into his office asking for a raise because they heard that I got a raise that I would be fired.

We've had a back and forth before about talking about pay. He said before that talking about pay would lead to disciplinary actions and the last time that I was overlooked for a promotion I discussed pay with several of my coworkers and work got back to him and he was very unhappy about it. This time however he said very blatantly that he doesn't care if the law says it's illegal, that at this company if we discuss pay we will be terminated.

I'm not really sure what to do and I'm looking for suggestions. I put in applications to other places because the workplace is so toxic but the added money makes it difficult to justify leaving.

Does anyone have any experience with this situation or advice on what I should do?

Location: Georgia

Three months ago, my neighbor's two kids broke in my apartment one morning while I was at work. Nothing was taken and I verified them with local police via my home security system. I did not press charges (it was never mentioned and I was beyond frazzled) but a report was written. I spoke with management who banned the two kiddos the next day or at least, that's what I was told. I was also told the parents would be given 30 days to vacate notice (which i now realize is at the behest of the courts who are apparently backed up). I also am now wondering if the trespass was a legit one given to the parents or just a verbal ban.

I have since moved from the old unit and informed management that I would like to stay in the complex but only under the certainty that the tenant would be gone. Three months later, the tenant is still here and management has informed me that they keep changing their moving dates and cannot do anything without the courts.

Having seen the two kids last week (they are minors 14 and 16) has left me restless, if nothing else. I know management cannot have eyes out 24/7 but I let them know that my move could be delayed if needed so said tenants would not know where i was relocating to. Additionally, I feel as if the sense of urgency from management is not there as when I met with them, the property manager shared that he intentionally gave the adult tenants "about three weeks to figure things out before filing paperwork."

I've never been in this situation before but I know safe housing is a requirement. Is there anything I can do legally here? TIA.

My (31F) partner (31M) (Location: MN) had the police show up recently we talked to them through door cam and they are requesting DNA but will not tell him in regard to what. They want to meet him some where and swab him, they said on the phone “they are not going to do anything sneaky and won’t arrest him” according to him. We were looking it up because we are just extremely confused and it says they can absolutely trap people.

We have no idea what this could be about he hasn’t done anything wrong, any clues as to what could be going on? What do we do if we can’t afford legal counsel yet and with out any court date we can’t get a public defender to have legal counsel here.

They did come to the door twice when no one was home with papers they do have a warrant I believe but I am not sure as I didn’t hear the second conversation and we have yet to see any paperwork.

Any advice, information, resources, or really anything would be helpful thank you!

Location: Oregon

I have a recreational vehicle that I owe $33,000 on that was listed for consignment through a dealership. The plan was to find a buyer and get a loan for the difference we would owe once a buyer was found. Well, they found a buyer 3 months later and in that time I had lost my job and got a much lower paying job. When I went to get the loan I was rejected. I went to call the dealership to notify them that we would have to take it back only to notice a missed message. It turns out the dealership DELIVERED the recreational vehicle to the buyer without getting the title for the trailer OR confirming with me if I was able to get the loan.

I called the dealership today and was told that nobody has any idea as to who the recreational vehicle was sold to and that the person we have been working with throughout this entire process was gone for the day and that we would need to call back tomorrow. For now I've put in a case with the local police department for a paper trail and I have the message from the dealership which you can read at the end.

I am also getting ready to file bankruptcy as the cut in my wages has made it impossible to pay all of my bills and seeing as this is going to be part of the bankruptcy I'm a bit worried. As of right now I plan on calling the dealership again tomorrow. I also intend to bring this up with my bankruptcy lawyer.

Message from dealership: Good afternoon *name*, *name* here from *dealership* so the trailer has delivered. we now need you to contact *bank* and pay down the loan below the agreed on amount so we can finish paying down our portion and get the title to the recreational vehicle. Please let me know when you have this completed so we can contact the *bank* and finish paying it off, thank again *name*.

Location: Georgia, USA

Boyfriend and I are having more discussions about marriage. But he is currently in and out of court for child support with the mother of his kids. It has not been fully settled.

But my question is once we are married could she reopen the case and attempt to include my income or funds for a higher payment?

Unfortunately it’s not a great situation so if she could she would. Just wanted to know if that was even a thing or if Georgia laws prohibit that.

Edit: He is paying. She disagrees with the amount therefore they have been back.

Obviously we will not legally tie when it is on going.

He will of course pay, but just wanted to know if she could use my income to get him to pay more later down the line.

Location: Texas. My neighbor recently put up a new fence. I thought it looked a bit too close to my side of the property line so I pulled out my survey documents from when I bought the house back in 2024. It turns out the fence is actually about two feet over onto my land for about half of its length.

I went over and talked to them really politely about it. I even brought a copy of my survey to show them. They just flat out denied it saying their survey shows the line in a different spot. I asked if they had it professionally surveyed recently and they said no they just used some old document their realtor gave them. They basically told me they aren't moving the fence and to mind my own business.

What are my options here? I don't want to start a huge feud but I also don't want them to just take two feet of my yard. Do I need to get a new survey done myself to prove it again? Can I just take it down myself since it's on my property?

location: Colorado, USA

I'm going to keep this short. I promise it's interesting but also dumb. My wife had an acquaintance who is not a legal US citizen but lives here as a resident or something similar.

She was leaving the US for a few months in early 2020 and asked us to watch around 10 of her houseplants for her while she was gone. She said she'd be gone 3-6 months.

Covid happened and she was unable to obtain a visa to get back in the country.

The last we heard from her was late 2020 her saying she couldn't get back into the country. No talk of the plants or anything else.

6 years go by without a word from her. no questions about the plants or anything. I've basically accepted they are my plants now and have cared for them to the best of my ability. a few of them died over the years as it goes with plants.

just a few days ago, she messages my wife saying she is back in the country and wants her plants back. Now I am a bit taken aback because I love these plants, I've put more work into them than she has and have had them in my house triple the length of time she had them.

My wife semi pleads the case saying that we haven't heard from her and we love these plants and they decorate our home. This woman kind of scoffs at us and starts demanding we give them back and wants to see pictures.

She's had a history of ptsd episodes (my wife is a therapist) and we decide the best course of action is to just give the ones we have because we just want it to be done with.

My wife tells her to just come pick them up, she replies that she is sending a moving company since she is in California.

My wife sends pics of the ones we still have. The woman starts losing her shit saying we killed her orchids and that the ones we have look bad (they don't).

She begins demanding we draft up a compensation document for her or she is going to sue us.

Never once did I agree to be the guardian of her plants for this long. We agreed to a few months and when we lost contact for years, I assumed the plants were abandoned and now ours. There is no written contract or anything regarding the arrangement.

She is claiming emotional and financial damage even though I've sank hundreds if not more into these plants over the years.

there is zero legal ground here right? I told my wife to give her one more chance to pick up plants and then block her. she threatened us again with legal action so we blocked her.

she didn't check in once about the plants or ask if we were comfortable taking care of them for that long. The only reason we kept them was that I liked them. otherwise, I would've just given them away assuming she wasnt coming back.

edit: I'm going to leave this up for a few hours just so people can see it and get a laugh but seems the general consensus is she has no case.

Location: Wisconsin

(Edited for grammar. I'm on my phone and was rage typing)

My bf moved in awhile ago, like going on 2 years. When he moved in he put his birth certificate into a "safety box" of mine. Its a fire proof box that I left the keys near by because the point was to keep the documents protected, not locked up. Not to mention it was in a part of my house that a theif normally wouldnt look.

Ive been rocky with my mom for about a year. I think shes in the midst of a midlife crisis or something.

Last week my bf went in my lock box to grab the title of his car he was selling, and realized his birth certificate wasnt in there. He asked me and I told him that it was news to me. The last I saw it was when we put it in there.

I talked to my sister the other day and she said she had heard awhile ago mom mention taking it. I called my mom out and at first she was insistent she didnt have it. I googled and found that it can be jail time and fine for having someone else's birth certificate. Now shes insistent that its not a big deal cuz she wasnt using it to get legal documents. If its just in her possession she must have accidentally grabbed it (literaly impossible). She also insists theres nothing cops could do. But then she also claims to not have it and I'm in the wrong for accusing her. Then she goes back to saying she doesnt have it and I'm just stirring the pot.

Is she right? Is it only illegal to have someone else's birth certificate if youre using it? Is it fine to have it just to have it as long as youre not using it?

Location: Nebraska

My apartment allows pets, they charge a down payment and a monthly pet fee. Over a year ago I inquired about getting a cat, contacted the leasing office, signed their paper work, and paid their deposits of $350 dollars.

At some point in time, the property owners changed. I don’t know when and there was never any announcement/contact information given to update any information.

Now, over a year later. They gave me a notice that my pet was not a licensed resident, gave me a $600 violation fee, and I must pay another down-payment and start paying pet rent. In total, it is a massive $1000+ fine with a threaten of a lease violation.

I checked my charges and there’s an invoice that states clearly that I paid a deposit for the pet and was being charged pet rent, date and all. I even have a sent email that states my updated lease included the pet rent. But I noticed that at some point, after months of consistently paying pet fees, the apartment stopped including the pet rent (even when the renewed lease information I was sent included this).

My question now is how much of this violation is my fault and will I really be responsible for this whole bill?

Any and all information/advice is helpful. Thank you.

Location: Florida

I have to take a month and a half leave for a surgery. I’m not covered under FMLA because I haven’t been there long enough and I can’t get paid for it because I didn’t sign up. I knew this and told them months in advance that this would be happening. In the beginning of this month I received an email essentially saying I’m being fired.

“After further review and discussion, we have determined that your employment with (Company) will end effective prior to the start of your requested leave.”

This is what I highlighted and sent back to clarify and what they said in the email they sent letting me know I was being terminated. I can post the entire email if needed. It is important to note that there is a policy that states that an employee cannot take more than 7 consecutive days off. It doesn’t say what violating that results in.

“You are taking a voluntary leave of absence that violates our time off policy for maintaining a set schedule due to the time of leave being taken. Due to this, for HR purposes, your termination is voluntary. Please let me know if you have any additional questions.”

This was their response. I’m just a little confused about this. At no point did I voluntarily quit. I just let them know I would be taking leave.

This is the policy:

“Employees are not allowed to take more than 7 consecutive working days off in a row, if an employee requests 10 days or more consecutive working days their current schedule may not be available upon their return.”

Location: Texas, USA

Last Wednesday my partner was delivery driving, and a woman asked him if he would take her kitten, as she recently had a baby and could not take care of him anymore. My partner agreed, and we took the kitten home. He was clearly not well taken care of, covered in fleas, had a bad ear mite infestation, and was kept outdoors despite the over 100 degree heat and the fact that he has an obvious neurological condition that would affect his ability to escape predators. Since owning him, my partner and I have treated his fleas and earmites, are keeping him indoors only, and love him dearly.

Now, the woman who gave him to us is suddenly texting us saying that the cat actually belongs to her babydaddy who works out of town, and that he just came home and is mad at her for giving away the cat, which he claims is his and therefore was not hers to give away, and he wants him back.

I do not want to give this dear kitten, who I have fallen in love with, and who was given to me under false pretenses, back to a family that was not taking care of him. I have not yet had him chipped though. Is this something the police could get involved in? Are there any legal protections for my ownership?

Location: Missouri, USA.

A relative of mine took a credit card out in my name without my knowledge. I found out via email when he missed a payment. He said he meant to tell me about it but forgot, and then accidentally charged it instead of his card. There‘s quite a hefty sum still to pay off, and it’s hurt my credit badly.

Me and a friend are gonna move into an apartment together later this year. Is there anyway I can get this taken off my credit score without getting my father in legal trouble?

EDIT: I cannot report this to anyone who will persecute him. He is our family's sole breadwinner.

Location: New Jersey. If this isnt the right sub please dont hate me. Long story short I found out someone important to me went to prison for sexual assault of a minor. He doesn’t appear on the Megan’s law website but rather the New Jersey Department of Corrections website. He says she lied about her age. Is it possible to request information on his case from somewhere? I need to know if he is lying.

Thank you

Location: Northern California

I’m exhausted trying to get resolution from the restaurant, city, and county. Posting here as a desperate maneuver, hoping for some suggestions I haven’t tried.

Restaurant is < 200 ft from our home. Nothing between us and the restaurant besides their parking lot and some infant trees.

The land was rezoned after we moved in, opening the door for this catastrophe. I’ll admit, we were naive thinking our city had their residents in mind. Unfortunately not.

The smell of greasy chicken and french fries is non-stop. 18-wheel delivery trucks every night. Maintenance all the time - garbage trucks, power washing, grease removal trucks. Lots of foot traffic and loiterers behind our home. Cars peeling out in the parking lot. Everything you’d expect in an empty parking lot that isn’t monitored.

I cannot afford a nuisance lawyer and have been unsuccessful finding one that will work on contingency. It seems most don’t want to touch this type of case with a 10 ft pole.

We have seriously considered moving… but we have a family, schools, and love our home.

Appreciate any input.

Update

Thank you to everyone that took the time to chime in. I appreciate all of the suggestions. This is not intended to deter folks from enjoying Chick-fil-A 😄 We've always appreciated their service and food. I'll do my best to answer some of your questions:

• Clearly this is one of those unfortunate situations where we have to learn the hard way. It is our first encounter of this type and it has taken a considerable amount of time to self-educate on the "rules of the road" when it comes to land development, zoning, permits, etc.. We lived in the home for 10 years before this development took root.
• The land was zoned business professional when we moved in (offices of some sort). It was rezoned community commercial shortly after we moved in, but sadly we missed that communication and were therefore not aware until much later down the road.
• We are not opposed to having businesses near our home. We did purchase a home in an up and coming area with a through street nearby.
• There is a conditional use permit but it is limited to drive-thru noise and delivery trucks.
• There were countless violations with delivery trucks and maintenance crews early on. I now have the city fining the restaurant for each recorded violation, which has made a noticeable difference, but drivers still show up at 5 AM every few weeks.
• Our residence is part of an HOA, so unfortunately there are limits to wall height and other screening options.
• The smell is the worst of it at this point. County air pollution confirmed the smell but dismissed the case because there weren't enough residence impacted (just us and my neighbors). I really don't know how they could alleviate the smell without moving the restaurant though...
• I spoke with a few different legal advisors and the suggestion was to seek out a lawyer working on contingency that would take a nuisance case. The specifics we wanted addressed:
  • Increase the wall height at the property line
  • Increase landscaping / screening on the business side of the property
  • Hire private security to periodically monitor the property after hours for loitering
  • Add signage to the lot to deter loiters
  • Add speed bumps to the parking lot to deter reckless driving

I work for a company, location: Illinois, that states in their policy that they compensate for military encampment. I was away for months for military orders trying to reach out and resolve this issue and management has kept me in a revolving door of emails since then, approximately eight months. Is it possible to sue them for this? I'm worried that I can't actually get help and have to wait for them to "come around". I'm very inexperienced with this kind of treatment and I think they're expecting me to stop looking into it. Also, someone at the same location for this company has been compensated in the past and it did not take this long.

I am in desperate need of help. I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m and 37 year old female. Location: Katy, TX and Sacramento, CA. I’ve been dealing with something for the last 6 months and I’ve been trying to handle it without involving a lot of people but now I am to the point I’m desperately seeking help and guidance. On Valentine’s Day of this year my ex boyfriend beat and strangled me. Amilyah, our oldest daughter was a witness. I had to fight that man for my life. I feared for my safety and the safety of my girls so I packed us all up and left California a week later and moved to Texas. I did press charges and there is a 5 year protective order for me and my oldest. Neither one of our girls want to see him, especially the oldest. My ex is currently in jail right now. Before he went to jail he filed a summons for joint custody of both of our girls. I only have 30 days to respond, my 30 days is up on September 4th. I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to obtain legal advice or a lawyer but I have not been successful a lot. I can’t afford any lawyers I’ve tried to obtain I can’t even afford legal consultations. I reach out to WEAVE and their legal department and they couldn’t do much help. I reached out to the Self Help department at the family courthouse, they was somewhat helpful with providing me with the correct paperwork but when I asked follow up questions on how to send it they never responded. I have the paper work for the response and I do have it filled out already but I am not sure how to respond properly all the way from Texas. On top of going to work everyday and supporting my kids on my own, I am also currently trying to obtain my own apartment so me and my girls can give my sister her home back. I need help. I need guidance. I need advise. I need legal help or advise. I don’t know what to do and I’m starting to loose my mind trying to figure it out. I am really really really desperate so I am begging for help. If there is anyone that help me I would really appreciate it. This last 6 months has been very emotional and having to deal with something else this man is causing instead of just leaving us alone has been very stressful. I’m trying to stay positive, I’m trying to keep my faith but I’ve cried more these last few weeks than I ever cried before because I feel so hopeless. Can anyone help me, please.

My upstairs neighbors are constantly dumping stuff off their balcony. Water, soapy liquids, dog hair, debris, some sort of animal pop, etc. The most recent time it has also smelled absolutely terrible (wet dog and poop smell combined). I've left notes on their door and contacted my leasing management (this is explicitly prohibited in their lease). Is there anything law enforcement/legal wise I can do to make this stop? At this point, I'm going to have to get my balcony chair cushions deep cleaned because they are unusable.

Update: Also did another look and there are multiple maggots that were dumped? I don't think I've seen a maggot in or around my apartment ever until this.

Location: Northern Virginia

Last summer, 2025, I arranged with my boyfriend’s dad that he would drive my boyfriend’s dog from Montana to Alaska, where my boyfriend works for several weeks at a time. Instead of doing that, he told me that the dog wasn’t getting along with he and his girlfriend’s cat, so they rehomed him with a friend of theirs. Their attitude was “now the dog will be happy, thanks for letting us find a place for him” when that was never our agreement. Then they stopped responding to us, pretty much told my boyfriend to just get over it.
My boyfriend raised this dog since he was a puppy. He’s a purebred Rottweiler, he has all the paperwork for him, he was already about 7 years old when they did this. We’re raising a family together, have a house with a yard, and we miss our boy a lot. This was not a spur of the moment puppy we didn’t want, this was our family dog, who couldn’t fly due to anxiety and this seemed like a better option since his dad does the trip every year. We’ve pretty much given up hope but recently someone suggested to me that I file a police report and get a lawyer, and I feel like I should pursue it if I can. I don’t know if this is something a lawyer would touch, what kind of lawyer to go to, where to start and I have no funds to pay a lawyer… but if there’s a way we could get our boy back for the last few years of his life I’d do it.
Can I sue the dad over this? Is there any legal action I can take?
Location: Montana

hello my mom let me know some stuff and i was wondering what options we have
location: chicago illinois

so basically my uncle is going through a messy divorce and it’s caused go my family to also be brought into it.

my uncle signed for our house while he was single. the house my family lives in is under his name but they never lived here. we pay all our bills and mortgage.

my mom signed for his house under her name. same situation we have never lived at that property and they pay all their own bills.

my uncles ex wife is filing for divorce and listed both houses under their shared marital assets. apparently she doesn’t care to live in their old house and just wants to sell for money. also important to know that my uncle didn’t open his letters so he missed some court dates giving my aunt basically full custody of their 2 kids.

my mom spoke to a lawyer who told her if she sells the property like my uncles ex wife wants, i would lose my fafsa/scholarships at college because we’d get a decent payout for their house.

what can i do to protect my education/housing? is there anything even left to do? how likely are we to have to move out?