The older we get, the more we learn how hard it can be to get along with our neighbors. There are simply too many types of personalities in the world, and when it comes to who moves in next to us, we just get no say most of the time.
This woman learned the hard way what happens when things go sour, and honestly, I feel pretty badly for her going forward.
It began when she moved to a new city and rented an apartment while she looked for one to buy – which turned out to be a got-blessing, because the owner of her apartment decided to sell it to her in short order.
Unfortunately, she learned too late that the family that lives below her was planning to make an offer on it, too.
Still, she tried her best to be neighborly.
When I moved cities a few months ago I rented an apartment on a monthly contract while looking for another one to buy.
A couple months in the owner told me that she will be putting it on the market so she will be needing my schedule to arrange showings.
I offered to buy it and not even 2 weeks later I was the owner of my own apartment.
I live in the second floor, the first floor is owned by a family (father, mother and two teen boys). The ground floor is two garages for cars, one for each owner. And finally the roof is split into two roofs with a 8ft wall and separate doors off of the landing.
When I bought my house I wanted to redo the kitchen and bathroom, so I took some cookies and knocked on my neighbors house to ask for their schedule. I didn’t want to do work while they were at home to avoid bothering them.
That day I was in my balcony and heard the husband complaining about me buying the apartment, apparently they were planning to do so but I beat them to it.
She settled in and even turned her portion of the rooftop into a comfortable garden space with flowers, vegetable beds, and furniture to help her enjoy the fresh air.
One day, at their request, she showed the space to her neighbor and her two teenaged sons.
All was quiet…for awhile.
Now fast forward a couple of months, and I have turned my roof into a garden, with raised beds for my veggies, pots for flowers, some garden furniture and an area with some wooden outside tiles.
While coming out one day I met my neighbor and she asked to see the garden with her sons, I showed it off and thought that was the end of it.
That is until I started noticing how some of my flowers were cut, the furniture was moved…etc.
She installed some cameras and caught the boys using her garden when she wasn’t home.
OP spoke with the parents and asked them to have their kids stop for personal and also safety reasons.
So I installed a camera and saw that her sons jump over the dividing wall along with some friends and spend their time there.
I told the parents, and asked them to tell their kids to stop, that most of the time I am not at home and if something happened there is no way to open the door to help them (metal door with a huge padlock)
The kids did not stop, and began destroying some of her plants for good measure.
So, OP gave the parents an ultimatum, saying that the next time she caught them there she would be calling the police…
They said ok but the kids continued to do so, they even started destroying my plants for telling on them.
So I gave their mother an ultimatum, they either stop or I will be calling the police. She scoffed and called me an entitled b*%ch.
…which she did the next time they invaded her space.
One of the kids got away but the other one ended up at the station. Their father demanded she go down and drop the charges but OP was done and went to bed instead.
The next time I got an alert on my phone I called the cops and said someone broke into my rooftop garden. they came pretty fast and only one kid managed to escape, the other was caught red handed and taken to the precinct.
Their father almost broke my door and started screaming at me to come and drop the charges. I just threatened to call the police on him as well and went to bed.
She did drop the charges the next morning, feeling that the kids (and parents) needed to realize there were consequences, but some of her friends and family felt that she’d gone too far.
This morning I went to the precinct and dropped the charges so he spent the night in their jail with, according to his mom, drug dealers and thugs.
I was so sure of my decision, that I was teaching him the consequences of his actions. But my mom said that I was too harsh, she said that I punished the parents not that I taught the kid a lesson.
So reddit, AITA?
I have a feeling I know what side Reddit is going to come down on here, but let’s hear them out below!
The top comment points out that they basically left her no other choice but to stand up for herself after they blew her off.
Image Credit: Reddit
There was lots of advice about not communicating with them in the future unless an attorney is present.
Image Credit: Reddit
Plenty of commenters suggested that perhaps dad could have benefitted from a night cooling his heels as well.
Image Credit: Reddit
Everyone is feeling badly for OP going forward, because she was so happy with her apartment and now it’s likely to be a source of stress.
Image Credit: Reddit
Perhaps something more than cameras are in order to really put a stop to it.
Image Credit: Reddit
Y’all, Reddit nailed it here and OP so not wrong – I feel badly for her, too.
How would you have handled this in her situation? Let’s discuss in the comments!
