Relationships between neighbors can sometimes be fraught with tension, and people tend to take their property and the rules they have pretty seriously. Recently, one woman started a huge debate online after she posted to Reddit about a problem she's having with her neighbor (and her neighbor's kids).
The woman starts by saying that she and her husband, both 26, live in their "starter home" across the street from a woman who has four children under 10. She and her husband have a pretty big yard, but her neighbors don't — the neighbor has a huge driveway that takes up a lot of the yard.
The woman and her husband went out of town recently and came back to evidence that the kids had been in their yard.
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"A couple weeks ago my husband and I went hiking over the weekend. When we got home Sunday, I saw the neighbors kids playing in my yard. They were riding their bikes in the driveway and seemed like they'd been playing in the yard since some toys were there. I told them to leave and brought the toys in the yard to my neighbor, and asked her to make sure the kids didn't play in my yard again. She apologized and said sorry, she had just been happy for them to get out of the house while she cleaned. I thought no problem, end of story."
However, it seems that it didn't stop there.
"Well, last week when I was in my garden my neighbor (kid's mom) came and said hi. She asked if it would be okay if the kids could use my pool since it doesn't seem like it gets used much anyways. She said she'd supervise but the kids have been wanting to go swimming but they can't cause of [virus] restrictions. I told her I wasn't comfortable with that, even if my husband and I were home at the time. She seemed to understand and she let it go."
Again, the woman thought it was over … until she got on Facebook that night, and saw her neighbor had posted to a neighborhood group. The woman says her neighbor (the mom of the children) had posted about the situation:
"I'm really disappointed in the disrespect for parents. It takes a village to raise kids, and we should support each other in this troubling time. Children need places to play and grow! When I first moved here I hoped this to be a neighborhood for young growing families. I'm just overall disappointed in how some members of this community aren't keen on being friendly to children."
While the mom didn't name names, the woman felt targeted and decided to leave a comment of her own. She wrote, "Maybe you should have gotten a house with a bigger yard if your kids want to play."
The woman's neighbor texted her a few hours later, saying that she was hurt. The woman asked her neighbor to leave her alone. Ouch!
The woman also says that her husband thinks she was in the right to refuse to let the kids come over, but that she probably never should have left the rude comment on Facebook. Both the woman and her husband think the neighbor shouldn't let the kids play in their yard. And they make one good point: They live in the United States, and if one of the kids got hurt at their home, they could be held legally responsible.
The woman was surprised by the huge debate that she ignited. People who responded to her post seem to be totally split: Either you think the neighbor is an entitled mom who should have never asked to use the pool or you think the woman who posted the problem is being classist, and that she doesn't really understand what it means to be a neighbor.
One person suggested that perhaps the woman and her husband didn't consider everything that their neighbor might be thinking. "Maybe they couldn't afford a house with a lot of land and maybe they had to make a compromise with the house they bought. It also probably makes them feel like [expletive] parents for not having a 'good enough' house for their children."
However … is it really up to the woman to open up her pool and yard because of someone else's feelings?
Many people believe that, ideally, the woman would have handled the Facebook post without piling on additional drama. One person wrote: "She could have mentioned that she didn't want strangers using her pool or potentially damaging her yard and felt it wasn't right to be shamed for wanting privacy. Instead she just said something mean for the sake of it. The other neighbor is entitled for sure, but this woman doesn't sound like a prize herself. At the very least she definitely lacks tact."
One person also mentioned that it's possible the mom asked about the pool because she's lived in neighborhoods where that's what people just did. "I actually think it is ok for the mom to ask about the kids using the pool, especially since she offered to supervise. She may have come from a neighborhood where this kind of interaction was normal. No harm in asking. But she also needs to accept 'no' as a totally reasonable [response]."
Ultimately, it seems most people feel that the woman who originally posted ended up making the situation way worse by posting her petty comment on Facebook. One person asked: "Why? What good did that do? Did it make you feel better? Because now you have made yourself the villain in a situation in which you were 100% in the right."
For what it's worth, the woman did address some of the feedback. She edited her post to add: "I've come to realize my comment was rude and I shouldn't have said anything. I didn't mean for it to sound classist. Some people are saying I insulted her wealth and home. This might not matter but her home is way bigger than my own but the yard is smaller based on how it was built. That's all my comment meant, I wasn't calling her poor. And I'm not filthy rich either, so it's not like I'm looking down at her for money."
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
