I think I just had a Karen encounter! This was an older woman, in her late 70s or early 80s, but she had the demeanor and the haircut.
Was taking a nap after work. The doorbell rings and my wife answers it- we've been having some work done on our front and back yard, so we figured it was the landscaper. Instead, there's somebody making a scene outside.
I went outside and see this woman, who I have never seen before, screaming her head off at the landscaper. She looks at me and starts grilling me on who I am and if I am the owner and other things that really shouldn't matter. She's furious because I didn't introduce myself to her and she has no idea who lives in this house and how dare I have all this work done for "three months". (Note- we've lived here for two months. The landscapers were there two weeks ago, didn't come last week, then came today. We have had renovation done, but everything else was indoors and no noise was being made that would have bothered the neighbors.)
I just kind of stood there, half-asleep and half-amused, listening to her ranting and wondering what her problem was. Just when I did finally begin to get a bit angry, she stopped raving like a lunatic and began to have more normal conversation. She said I was like a total stranger and she's never seen me before. I told her that I'm outside several times a day and in the evenings and I've never seen her. I only knew that a man lived next door -have seen him twice- and didn't know he was married. I've never seen her before, my wife has never seen her before, and my father who's been over a lot helping with stuff has never seen her either. They also always have their lights off next door and it looks like nobody's home. Now I know differently.
When I told her what was going on work-wise and the landscaper cut in to tell her some things, she finally started to act somewhat normal. It turns out that some of the things that he improved and fixed were actually things for her side of the property so she was now happy about it. She didn't really apologize for her behavior, but she got much more calm and then said that she just wanted to know who We were. Coming into somebody's yard and screaming and hollering is definitely a great way to find that out. It ended with her telling me that she's really a nice person and she's not a witch.
Pretty sure the etiquette is that if someone moves in next door to you, you're the one who's supposed to go and introduce yourself not the other way around. The neighbors on the other side of me did this.
We think we may have been "targeted" by the HOA, too. My wife told me that some other lady pulled up in a car earlier today and was also talking to the landscaper while writing things down in a notebook. The current conspiracy theory is that crazy neighbor called the HOA lady who then drove out to take a look at the yard.