You may have read my original take on this event when I answered a similar question back in December 2019 about something that led to an ENTIRE neighborhood to band together in Terry Lo's answer to What was the best revenge you've ever gotten?

I’m going to summarize here what was happening with the missed add-on bits of information that I had to answer in the comments of that original answer. This would give a better idea on what we did.

The neighborhood way back in the early ’90s had a brand-new neighbor who had bought a home from a family. My neighborhood in Montreal’s West End was a nice little family area, where everyone’s kids played with each other, and the neighbors actually did stuff together. Needless to say, back then, we were a pretty tightly knit community.

He mostly kept to himself and worked early shifts, but there was an issue that came up literally in the first week after he moved in.

You see, it was a car like this, a CLASSIC beauty, that was his daily driver: a ’69 Ford Mustang GT 500. And I’ll put it mildly, the car was LOUD.

(from Out of the Dust: 1969 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 Found after 40 Years)

Every morning, at 5 AM, the guy would bolt out of his driveway and drive through the neighborhood like a bat out of hell. Everyone could not only hear the car, but would see this lunatic driving 2 1/2 blocks down the street at FULL ACCELERATION.

In the first month, pretty much everyone in the neighborhood at one time or another paid him a friendly visit and asked him to please drive safely and not rev up his car as the neighborhood speed limit was 30 km/h. He would answer with lip service, apologize, and then do it all over again the following morning.

In the second month, we were all making calls to complain to the police. He would get warning after warning from the police, but again, it didn’t mean anything. The cops didn’t fine him. They didn’t come around at 5 AM so they could catch him in the act. And the entire neighborhood was now wondering when will this lunatic kill someone unlucky one fine morning.

This went on through the Fall, and then came the winter. Complaints to our Town Hall and our local MP didn’t work either. We all thought that he would put away the car (I mean, who drives a classic car in the winter?), only to find out that it was his daily driver. We still made complaints and so on, but the cops just didn’t show any interest in the matter. With the cold and snow coming, all any of us needed was this loon wiping out on the main street and flipping or spinning his car on the ice into our own cars or even our homes.

In the end, it just got to be too much. Between the recklessness and the noise, a group of us got together over a few weeks and went through all sorts of options on what to do. We knew it was only a matter of time before someone was killed, and we all agreed on a plan of action, and spent the time recruiting other like-minded neighbors. Strangely enough, we were all inspired on what to do while setting up the neighborhood skating rink for the kids while putting up the boards.

(from cmd

A deep freeze hit the city, and Montreal’s deep freezes are legendary as it can easily hit -20 C or lower. And around midnight one such night, a whole bunch of us came out… and turned his car into one huge ICE CUBE.

(from ABC News)

No, we didn’t exactly do this (though it was suggested). What we did was used the rink boards to surround the car, and then made snow walls all around his car, leaving some space between the walls and the car. Then the next door neighbors came out with extended hoses from their garages and quickly watered down the walls so they would freeze solid. Once that was done, the space in between the frozen walls and the car itself was filled with snow. Needless to say, it was now impossible to just jump into the car.

Around 3 AM, we were all done, and we all went back to sleep… for all of two hours. That’s when we all heard someone screaming the most god-awful language demanding who did this to him and threatening revenge. In the morning, life went on though those of us who could steer clear of him did.

That afternoon, cops were going door to door asking if anyone saw what was going on. The neighbor was with them, and by the time they came to me, they obviously were pretty annoyed with him. He had apparently demanded to be there so he can see the faces of each of the other neighbors, so he can see who was responsible. He ended up threatening several of the houses, and was practically seething and silent when they reached me. If looks could kill…

(from EW

Well, the crazy driving ended, once he got his car free from the ice walls and snow coverage. Apparently he had threatened one too many neighbors, and even tried to punch one, so he was warned that if anything happened to any neighbor in the area, he would be the main suspect immediately. Luckily, we all kept the party line saying we had no idea what was going on. Considering the number of complaints and how outright crazy that guy was acting, the cops probably already figured out 2+2 and knew who was the real menace of the area. There was a “sort of” warning saying that if ANY vandalism occurs in the future, they would be looking at some people and left it at that.

By the following spring, he sold the house and moved away. A new family took the house, and life returned back to normal.

Oh, and apparently our town hall had decided to FINALLY do something that Spring. They installed a number of speed bumps all over the neighborhood.

Footnotes