“The Neighbors Were In My Pool”: Neighbors War Over Property Rights

Unless you decide to live in a cabin in the mountains off the grid, neighbors are a part of existing in modern society. Hopefully when you move into a new place you’re blessed with good ones, but there are times when you draw the short end of the neighbor stick, and this can lead to some truly baffling stories on the internet.

The Internet and its Opinions

One woman has taken to the subreddit with one such story. AITA is a thread where people can share stories from their lives and get the collective opinion of the internet on whether they were in the right or behaving badly, and some people have truly stunning real-life stories to share.

The story in question revolves around a woman, her neighbors, and her pool. The title of the thread is “AITA for not letting my neighbor and her kids swim in my pool?” which immediately sets the tone for the piece. But the details are even more stunning than the title would suggest.

Setting the Scene

In the thread, the OP (original poster) explains that she and her husband are young and childless, and they live in a fairly nice home that happens to have a pool. This is a nice perk, because according to OP, the temperature where they live can get quite hot in the summertime.

She then goes on to describe her neighbor, who is evidently a single mom who has three kids. She lives in a much smaller home than the OP, and her home does not have a pool. The OP explains that she will sometimes babysit for her neighbor for free, which is why she knows the details of the house.

A Friendly Neighborhood Relationship

The audience gets the impression from the post that the OP and her neighbor have a fairly friendly relationship. She and her husband babysit for the neighbor, after all. So she goes on to explain that recently, her husband left for work and she was home alone, when she heard noises coming from outside.

When OP went to go and investigate, she found that the neighbor and her children were using her private pool, on her property, both without notice or permission. The OP was shocked, and she went out to talk to her neighbor and find out what was going on.

The Neighbor Decided to “Borrow” the Pool

When OP went out to the neighbor, she asked what was going on, and the neighbor said that she had a day off of work and she wanted to do something nice for her kids. She then went on to say that she had decided – without asking first – to “borrow” the OP’s pool, because they didn’t seem to have much use for it since she and her husband don’t have kids.

OP was clearly stunned by this turn of events, and in the post, she explains that she then asked the neighbor to leave. She hadn’t asked for permission to come over and use the pool or even given advance warning that she was going to be there, and so OP reasonably asked the neighbor to vacate the property.

Neighbor Getting Defensive

The neighbor thought that OP was joking at first, but when OP held her ground against her neighbor, she then started to get nasty. OP explains that the neighbor started accusing her of being classist, and demanded “valid reasoning” why she and her kids couldn’t be there, using the OP’s private pool.

The OP did not give her a reason, but told her that if she didn’t leave the property that she would call the police and have her neighbor and her kids escorted off the property. She went further, telling the neighbor not to come onto the property without permission again, and the neighbor finally left, evidently cursing OP out.

Sympathy For The OP

Immediately, the audience has sympathy for the OP. Her neighbor was behaving incredibly entitled as well as trespassing, and when she was reasonable and nice about it, the neighbor got defensive. However, that is not the end of the story.

The OP goes on to explain that the neighbor was not happy about the situation and started badmouthing her to other people in the neighborhood. That’s frustrating, but not the end of the world, but the OP wanted to get a second opinion on the situation, so she talked to her husband and her parents about the situation.

OP’s Husband and Father Fully Supported Her

Evidently, her father and her husband were in total agreement with both what she said and did. The neighbor was trespassing, and it was a perfectly valid response to threaten to call the cops if the neighbor did not vacate their private property.

OP’s mother, on the other hand, had a different opinion. She apparently thought that OP was too harsh with the neighbor, and that she should have been kinder since the neighbor is a single mom with three children. The OP was not convinced by this argument, and the audience gets the impression that the difference in opinion caused a rift between her and her mother.

Absolutely NTA

As far as the Reddit audience, they were nearly unanimous in their thoughts on the situation. The consensus was that the OP was absolutely NTA, and many of the comments were stunned at the audacity of the neighbor.

The comments went further to suggest that the OP buy a fence and safety cameras to install around the pool, given the liability if something happened to someone else in their private pool. One comment suggested that this might not be the first time that the neighbor had pulled something like this, and warned the OP to be very cautious.

Hopefully a Lesson Was Learned

The OP responded after the fact, thanking the Reddit audience and agreeing that she and her husband had gone on to buy a camera and locks for their pool to prevent something like this from happening again. There was no word if the situation with the neighbor was ongoing, but the OP was entirely in the right.

Entitled neighbors can, unfortunately, be a part of life when you live in the suburbs, as OP and her husband do, but there are always ways to set boundaries. The OP did the right thing by threatening to call the cops, and hopefully the neighbor will ultimately walk away from the situation with a clearer understanding of both boundaries and consent.