A dad has gone viral on the internet after gaining more than three million views after recording a prank on his neighbour.
Adrian Heaton, 40, has become a surprise TikTok star after posting a video of him blasting a confetti cannon into his neighbour’s garden.
Adrian says the opportunity came about after his partner saw neighbour Gareth Jones, 39, cleaning up his garden in the morning after having a few friends over the night before.
Adrian, who was still in bed at the time, crept into his garden before letting the cannon loose over the fence. “Gazza has a bar installed in his garden and a few of us went round for a drink on Friday night,” Adrian told the Manchester Evening News.
“The idea for the prank came about while I was still in bed when my missus saw that he was cleaning up. We’ve had a few birthday parties at our house and we had a few of the confetti cannons spare.
“I quickly grabbed one, ran downstairs in my boxers and thought that would be the perfect opportunity. He looks up to see me and as he turns off the hoover to say hello, I let off the confetti cannon.
“He has a tendency to spit the dummy out and I think Gaz’s reaction is just brilliant as he throws a bit of a hissy fit. Thankfully, he saw the funny side.
"By the time he got to the house, he was laughing about it. He came over and gave me a handshake and said ‘well done, I’d have done that too’.”
Adrian, from Standish, who is a director of a construction company, said he decided to post the video on TikTok after only becoming acquainted with the platform a week earlier.
He said: “I had downloaded the app because my daughter is on it and I wanted to do a bit of safeguarding. I was just playing with it.
“But when I posted it, it was a bit of a surprise to see the numbers going up. Once it hit 20,000 views, I was saying to Gazza that it might hit 50k and he said he reckoned it’d do more than that. I woke up the following morning and saw that it had over 700,000 views.
“By tea time, it was at two million views and we’re now at 3.6 million. I still have no clue what any of it really means. My daughter is a little bit jealous of the TikTok fame to be honest, but she’s loving it.
“She’s gone to school and told everyone that her dad is famous, which is a little bit ambitious but it’s great. If I had a pound for everyone who’s viewed it, I’d be a very happy man.”
Adrian said he and Gareth have become close mates after both moving into the new build estate at a similar time. Adrian moved in to his Standish house in December 2020 while funeral director Gareth moved in next door in February 2021.
“He has the bar at the back of his garden and we have a trampoline,” Adrian explains. “Over the summer, he puts the pool up, we’ve both got kids so we have a good laugh. We’ve forged a nice friendship.
“We are quite close neighbours now. With the bar, we do have some late nights and parties. Everyone gets on so well, it’s just a jovial place and the whole neighbourhood is really friendly. It’s often like an episode of Neighbours here.”
Adrian says Gareth has already plotted his revenge. In a second clip, Gareth creeps up on Adrian and his wife as they sit outside their front garden. Hiding behind a car, he then lets off a confetti cannon in their faces.
With their new-found fame, Adrian says that it’s likely the pair will continue to up the ante with the pranks. “We’ve done a few pranks in the past,” he adds.
“I was barbecuing in his garden once and he just picked me up and threw me in the pool fully clothed. If he’s had a few too many, he’ll throw things at my bedroom window and give me a late night rendition.
“Now that he’s already got me back, I’m going to have to get my thinking cap on to see how I can better it. But I think the plan is to let the dust - or the confetti - settle first and get him when he least expects it.”
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