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Suggestions for clever practical jokes or pranks to play on my neighbour

Skengman

Skengman

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 29, 2008
78
1
Essex/London
I am in the midst of a practical joke war with my neighbours and I need some help on coming up with something clever.

I live in a sixth floor flat with my girlfriend, and we are good friends with a couple who live opposite us.
We have an indoor car park, and every morning my girlfriend would walk past his car on the way to hers, and flick his windscreen wipers up as a little running joke. Every evening my neighbour would get home from work and eventually notice his car, and flick our cars wipers up in return.

This was all fine and dandy, until last week sometime, we recieved an ominous text message - 'we have upped the stakes, 1 - 0 to us'.

My girlfriend went to check the car and they had ripped pages from a copy of FRONT (UK "men's" magazine, google it if you don't get the subtle hint as to the content) and taped them to her car.

In retaliation, we decided to cover their entire front door in heart-shaped post it notes. A semi-weak comeback I know, but we were under pressure to come up with something at short notice.

We didn't hear anything for a week, in which time we have been over for dinner, out to the cinema etc. as a group, and so I had sort of assumed that this was over, until last night.

Our neighbours knocked at our door and asked if we needed anything as they were going to the local 24 hour garage. My girlfriend asked if they could pick up some tin-foil, and they went on their way.
Half an hour later, she got a text message saying 'we had to run straight out, left the tinfoil under your car'.

She went down to the car park to discover that they had covered our entire car with tin foil and duck tape, complete with racing stripes and 2 - 1 written on the windscreen.

We need to come up with something to retaliate. Nothing nasty or disgusting, I want them to laugh, but I also want it to be mildly irritating and as original as possible, I don't want to do something that they have already thought of.

So I put it to you, MacRumorers, all suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
 
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92jlee

macrumors 6502
Sep 11, 2009
277
0
Cardiff, Wales, UK
Skengman said:
I am in the midst of a practical joke war with my neighbours and I need some help on coming up with something clever.

I live in a sixth floor flat with my girlfriend, and we are good friends with a couple who live opposite us.
We have an indoor car park, and every morning my girlfriend would walk past his car on the way to hers, and flick his windscreen wipers up as a little running joke. Every evening my neighbour would get home from work and eventually notice his car, and flick our cars wipers up in return.

This was all fine and dandy, until last week sometime, we recieved an ominous text message - 'we have upped the stakes, 1 - 0 to us'.

My girlfriend went to check the car and they had ripped pages from a copy of FRONT (UK "men's" magazine, google it if you don't get the subtle hint as to the content) and taped them to her car.

In retaliation, we decided to cover their entire front door in heart-shaped post it notes. A semi-weak comeback I know, but we were under pressure to come up with something at short notice.

We didn't hear anything for a week, in which time we have been over for dinner, out to the cinema etc. as a group, and so I had sort of assumed that this was over, until last night.

Our neighbours knocked at our door and asked if we needed anything as they were going to the local 24 hour garage. My girlfriend asked if they could pick up some tin-foil, and they went on their way.
Half an hour later, she got a text message saying 'we had to run straight out, left the tinfoil under your car'.

She went down to the car park to discover that they had covered our entire car with tin foil and duck tape, complete with racing stripes and 2 - 1 written on the windscreen.

We need to come up with something to retaliate. Nothing nasty or disgusting, I want them to laugh, but I also want it to be mildly irritating and as original as possible, I don't want to do something that they have already thought of.

So I put it to you, MacRumorers, all suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...



Cling film (saran wrap) the doors so they cant open them. Or get the keys somehow and put confetti in the air vent things and turn off the car but set the AC to really high so when they turn the car on it goes everywhere.


they sound like funny neighbours!

J
 
Skengman

Skengman

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 29, 2008
78
1
Essex/London
They are great neighbours but I must admit, I am a bit worried as to how far this could escalate :D

I will post pics of the tin-foiled car when I get home from work.
 
Melrose

Melrose

Suspended
Dec 12, 2007
7,806
399
Fill a water balloon with black ink and throw it at him when he's going to work for an important meeting. Ha ha ha!


*please detect my sarcasm*
 
rdowns

rdowns

macrumors Penryn
Jul 11, 2003
27,397
12,521
Draw a chalk outline of a dead body outside their front door and get some police tape.


close-up-of-chalk-outline-of-body-b.jpg
 
AppleMatt

AppleMatt

macrumors 68000
Mar 17, 2003
1,784
25
UK
I'm not being facetious, but try searching 'prank' on break.com in their videos section. There are literally hundreds of hilarious pranks running from harmless to outright dangerous.

I wouldn't retaliate until you've got a really good one; they're well in the lead now, you don't want to discourage them by doing a weak one.

Update this thread with how your war goes!

AppleMatt
 
iBlue

iBlue

macrumors Core
Mar 17, 2005
19,180
15
London, England
Tie something safely and discreetly under the bumper so it's not noticed until they drive off and have it trailing behind them. Pick something odd, like a tickle me Elmo or something. (or like I did: a rubber chicken.)

You might want to consider how far you all want to take this though. I've been in car prank wars with friends and it escalated to the point of not being funny any more. The last one was me climbing into my friend's jeep, pulling off the vent plates and putting little overfilled boxes full of baby power in all of them. I put the plates back on carefully, cleaned up the mess I'd made trying to get them in there, and turned his ventilation fans onto full so when he started it... POOOOF! It wasn't long after we had to call it quits.
 
wvuwhat

wvuwhat

macrumors 65816
Sep 26, 2007
1,157
37
I'm glad some neighbors can have fun. In college, all of my neighbors just stayed inside 24/7, it was depressing for me, I can't imagine what they were going through.
 
Skengman

Skengman

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 29, 2008
78
1
Essex/London
I've been racking my brains all day trying to think of something good enough.

I was thinking of buying some plywood and screws and building a box around the entire car. Then gift wrapping it and texting them saying 'left you a present in the car park'.

I don't think it would take all that long but could be quite expensive to buy the wood. Maybe I'll save it for later, in case it goes far enough that I need a finishing move.

I'm also half tempted to jack it up and take one of the wheels off, but again that may be a bit extreme for this early in the game.

I can think of hundreds of things I could do if I had access to the inside of the car, but that could be difficult to get.

I will definitely update the thread with how things go, and pics.

Thanks for the suggestions, keep them coming.

iJohnHenry said:
Are you "key buddies"?? This would open up all sorts of nastiness. :eek:

If you can, you could put some sardines on the car exhaust manifold.
Click to expand...

No, were not 'key buddies' and I think this little prank war has ruined our chances of every becoming that, but they are going away for 10 days in the next few weeks and have asked us to look after their cat.

I'm thinking that maybe I could use this to convince them that we will need a key while they're away, in case they forget to give us anything that we need for her.
 
L

littleman23408

macrumors 6502
Jun 18, 2009
285
0
iBlue said:
^ Use cardboard.
Click to expand...

Subscribed...
Agreed, you can use the cardboard boxes that reams of paper come in (if you happen to work at an office they should be laying around somewhere), or go to your local chain stores and ask them for all their cardboard boxes to box in the car!
 
mscriv

mscriv

macrumors 601
Aug 14, 2008
4,923
602
Dallas, Texas
If you do get that key, then you could try a prank that was done to me in college. Some friends nuked, and I mean nuked, a bag of microwave popcorn until it was more than charred. If you've never smelled burned popcorn then you have no idea how bad it smells. They then put the burned bag right inside the air conditioner vent so that the smell was circulated all throughout our room by the central heat and air. It took us a long time to find the source of the smell and boy was it terrible without being damaging to any of our stuff.

You could do it just before they are scheduled to come back home.

I have to say it's one of the best pranks that's ever been played on me. :D

If you want to stick with the car motif then you could watermelon their driving tires (front or back). Basically you take a large watermelon and cut it in half. Then you raise the car and place the driving tires (the ones the drive train spins) in the watermelon half so that the car can not move. The tires will simply spin inside the slick watermelon. The driver has to literally sit in the car with their foot on the accelerator until the tires eventually burn/cut all the way through the watermelon. In college we did this to a fraternity brother on his wedding day. It was quite funny watching them run out to the car to make their escape only to find out they couldn't get away.

I know some other simple car pranks if you're interested.
 
Last edited:
notjustjay

notjustjay

macrumors 603
Sep 19, 2003
6,056
167
Canada, eh?
Fun!

I would be very very careful however if you expect to stay friends. It sounds obvious, but always ask yourself "if someone did this to YOU, would YOU laugh? Would YOU be OK with cleaning up the mess?" Some of the pranks suggested in this thread are obviously a little over the top, and some are simply not a good idea. Baby powder in the car vent would be a pain to clean up. Burnt popcorn smell, really? I would be very upset at you if you did that to my house and the smell took a long time to go away. Taking off a wheel, even if nothing was damaged, would simply be a hassle to fix.

One thing I tried with a church youth group when the pastor went away was to fill his office with balloons. However, we quickly learned that this task is more difficult (and expensive!) than it seemed, and we only managed to get a layer about 3 feet high before we gave up (ran out of balloons and lung power). You wouldn't want to try this to an entire apartment -- but maybe the bathroom?

I like the boxes around the car idea, but you might be surprised to learn just how much wood (or cardboard) would be required, and if you use wood, be very careful that nothing sags and scratches the car!

I have one friend who recently bought himself a new Mini Cooper and another friend who thought it would be funny to jump up on the rear bumper and bounce up and down a few times when he first saw it. Unfortunately he had a pebble stuck in the bottom of his shoe and his little antic left a big scratch, something that the owner of the Mini still hasn't quite forgiven him for.
 
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shmeaty

macrumors member
Sep 23, 2010
32
0
Bakersfield
Skengman said:
No, were not 'key buddies' and I think this little prank war has ruined our chances of every becoming that, but they are going away for 10 days in the next few weeks and have asked us to look after their cat.

I'm thinking that maybe I could use this to convince them that we will need a key while they're away, in case they forget to give us anything that we need for her.
Click to expand...

Shave their cat. pwnd
 
Intell

Intell

macrumors P6
Jan 24, 2010
18,955
509
Inside
shmeaty said:
Shave their cat.
Click to expand...

And make the cat suffer? I think that's a bit cruel.

Packing peanuts are another fun thing to use. But remember they stick to everything and are hard to clean up sometimes. I'd suggest that if you do use packing peanuts, you leave a note offering your help in cleaning them up.
 
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Tomorrow

Tomorrow

macrumors 604
Mar 2, 2008
7,160
1,364
Always a day away
Put rocks or crushed soda cans inside their hubcaps. The grinding noise will drive them nuts, and it'll be hard to find.

Squirt a thin line of baby oil on their windshield wiper blades.

Put some firecracker snappers under their tires.
 
Skengman

Skengman

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 29, 2008
78
1
Essex/London
Update: I got home from work and my girlfriend had taken it upon herself to completely shrink wrap my neighbours car.

Wouldn't have been my own personal choice, but it was still very funny seeing his face as he walked into the car park.

It is now officially 2 - 2, so I'm trying to think of something quick and powerful to get in before them and make it so we are 3 - 2 up.

Images of our mini cooper tin-foiled and their (much bigger) vauxhall vectra shrink-wrapped are below....
 

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Angelo95210

Angelo95210

macrumors 6502a
Jan 7, 2009
972
15
Paris, France
Skengman said:
Update: I got home from work and my girlfriend had taken it upon herself to completely shrink wrap my neighbours car.

Wouldn't have been my own personal choice, but it was still very funny seeing his face as he walked into the car park.

It is now officially 2 - 2, so I'm trying to think of something quick and powerful to get in before them and make it so we are 3 - 2 up.

Images of our mini cooper tin-foiled and their (much bigger) vauxhall vectra shrink-wrapped are below....
Click to expand...

Excellent I love this. I would love to live by you guys ! :D
 
Don't panic

Don't panic

macrumors 603
Jan 30, 2004
5,541
697
having a drink at Milliways
Skengman said:
Update: I got home from work and my girlfriend had taken it upon herself to completely shrink wrap my neighbours car.

Wouldn't have been my own personal choice, but it was still very funny seeing his face as he walked into the car park.

It is now officially 2 - 2, so I'm trying to think of something quick and powerful to get in before them and make it so we are 3 - 2 up.

Images of our mini cooper tin-foiled and their (much bigger) vauxhall vectra shrink-wrapped are below....
Click to expand...

that's pretty funny.
i wonder what the rest of the neighbors think, and if they'll join in escalating into an all-versus-all

if you can enroll a few big friends, you can move their car so its 'parked' between walls/columns/cars so that it is impossible to get in and/or will take 200 parking moves to get out. and you can leave an envelope with a can opener on the windshield.
 
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