'Chainsaw Karen' from Toronto makes international headlines after viral videos
Chainsaw Karen may sound like the title of a new horror flick, but it's actually something far more dramatic and closer to home: a moniker wrongly given to a woman involved in an ongoing dispute between Toronto neighbours that has gone absolutely viral on TikTok.
Repeated confrontations between two families over property lines and a wooden fence dividing them have been shared to the platform in recent days, with resident Tiffany Mraj claiming in one caption that the woman next door to her parents "has taken our fence down without any papers, has threatened our contractors and has caused chaos in the neighbourhood."
In the initial footage, a woman and her husband can be seen sawing the top off of a backyard fence, with both groups yelling at one another from either side throughout the ordeal.
At one point, the woman urges the filmers to call the police and their lawyers, while both sides demand one another's land surveys for proof of whose property the fence is actually on (all involved believe it to be their own). One tense recording even ends in a physical scuffle.
As the clips showing Mraj's side of the story rack up views online, the battle has made headlines abroad, with coverage from the Daily Mail, Inside Edition and Newsbreak, among others.
But it seems that though the articles (and the videos they're based on) target the woman tampering with the fence, many online are actually siding with her after learning more.
Toronto Neighbour wars over a fence. I am with Fence Lady on this one. #toronto pic.twitter.com/2MziB25kKZ
— Justice_Queen 🏗🏙🚇⚖️ (@RE_MarketWatch) August 22, 2023
The star of the posts has apparently received enough backlash to film some monologues defending herself, which have now also been posted to TikTok from her own account, @fencelady6.
"Hello everyone, I am the Fence Lady. There have been a couple of videos regarding me cutting my fence," she says in her first post, which then cuts to footage filmed in her backyard.
"This fence was blocking the pathway. There is an AC [unit] here," she says, pointing toward the side of her house, which the wooden fence is nearly touching, seen only inches away from the brick.
"I want to remove the AC, but I can't because the fence is in the way." She then shows an earlier photo from when the fence was even closer to her home, leaning against her wall, which prompted the conflict.
"This has caused me a lot of pain. I've tried to communicate with them many times. According to the survey from the government, this fence is on my property. I have the right to remove it. Even so, I tried to peacefully resolve the issue," she continues, explaining that she wrote a letter asking that the fence be moved so she could access her exterior wall.
Not only did the neighbours not do anything about the offending barrier in response, but they ended up threatening to take the woman to court for harassment. Ironically, in the midst of filming her own video, the woman is herself harassed by Mraj's sister, who sprays her with a hose.
While Mraj's TikTok account has now been made private, Chainsaw Karen a.k.a. Fence Lady has garnered one million views combined on her two videos sharing her account of events in the last few days.
@fencelady6 Thank you so much everyone #fencelady #neighborfromhell #toronto @Tiffanymraj @that lawyer says ♬ original sound - fencelady
As one person said on Twitter, aptly describing the general consensus online today: "Now that we have context from both sides in this situation, the original TikToker and her sister are starting to look more like the real 'Karens' here."
Many are expressing their sympathies for the woman, who they feel was gravely misrepresented in the "smear campaign" of original TikTok posts.
"I was suspicious when I saw the fence so close to the drainage on her side. I'm glad she was able to provide her side of the story later on," one person wrote in a Reddit thread on the subject.
"I wonder if she can sue for the damage done to her reputation. Does this social media campaign to damage her character qualify as slander?" another added.
The chatter has also caused many to divulge their own traumatic stories of bad neighbours in and around Toronto, which are far more terrifying and drawn-out than any 90-minute horror flick.
Tiffany Mraj/TikTok
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