Good fences make good neighbors. However, sometimes, fences simply aren’t enough and you have to get a keypad lock for your backyard to maintain the peace and protect your own sanity.
Internet user u/Accurate-Outside-962 went massively viral on the r/AITAH online community after spilling the tea about his unruly, disruptive, and obsessively controlling neighbor. According to the author, he had to prohibit the woman’s access to his swimming pool after she started ignoring all of his boundaries.
Read on for the full story, a couple of updates, as well as how the internet reacted to the whole neighborhood drama. Bored Panda reached out to the author via Reddit, and we’ll update the article once we hear back from him.
Having a swimming pool can make you very popular in your local area. However, some people can try to take advantage of your goodness
Image credits: KoolShooters / pexels (not the actual photo)
A man turned to the internet for some impartial advice after forbidding a very entitled neighbor from using his pool anymore
Image credits: Andrew Malone / flickr (not the actual photo)
The author of the viral story later shared a couple of important updates
Image credits: Accurate-Outside-962
The pool owner could have ended up with a tragedy on his hands if his neighbor continued swimming with her kids any time she wanted
The redditor’s story made huge waves on the internet. At the time of writing, his online post already had 21k upvotes and received over 3k comments. A lot of internet users were heavily invested in the story.
One of the scariest things about this story is the fact that the neighbor kept taking her kids to use the swimming pool without informing the owner of the property.
This could easily turn into a horror story if the woman didn’t pay close enough attention to them while they were splashing about. Meanwhile, the owner of the pool might end up being taken to court if someone were to get hurt or worse on his property.
This is why it’s such a good decision for him to start locking his backyard fence. If the author’s neighbor and her kids can’t access the pool while he’s away, their risk of getting hurt decreases dramatically. Let’s just hope nobody decides to jump the fence.
Drowning can occur in as little as 20 to 60 seconds. Every year, there are between 3.5k to 4k drowning deaths in the United States, or around 10 per day, according to the organization ‘Stop Drowning Now.’ Globally, the number of people who drown each year reaches around 320k.
Fences with locks are a good idea because they help reduce the number of potential drownings
Image credits: Bich Tran / pexels (not the actual photo)
Some of the most effective ways to reduce the number of drowning-related accidents are to learn how to swim, to keep an eye on the kids while they’re swimming, and to have barriers around pools.
‘Stop Drowning Now’ reports that 23% of child drownings occur during family gatherings near a pool, while 87% of drownings happen in home pools or hot tubs for children younger than 5. Older kids are more likely to drown in natural bodies of water, for example, lakes or ponds.
Kids aged 1 to 4 are the most at-risk group for drowning, followed by children between 5 and 9. Learning to swim during formal lessons reduces the risk of drowning for kids aged 1 to 4 by a whopping 88%. So, swimming lessons should be a priority.
Aside from that, parents should constantly supervise their children while they’re swimming, without getting distracted even for a moment. They need your undivided attention, so even taking a phone call or answering a text message isn’t advised.
Parents can also encourage their kids to wear life jackets around bodies of water. Meanwhile, isolation fences with self-closing and self-latching gates around backyard pools are a good way to prevent people from swimming unsupervised.
Unfortunately, not all neighbors are willing to respect other people’s boundaries
Image credits: Marvin Meyer / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Learning to live alongside people who are different than you is, to a large extent, unavoidable (unless you have a mansion somewhere deep in the woods with massive walls around it). Whenever people interact frequently, you get some social friction, with all the pros and cons. In some cases, it’ll lead to friendships. Other times, you’ll find that your patience is being tested… time and time again.
When it comes to disruptive neighbors, there are no easy solutions. If a couple of firm but friendly chats with them don’t help, you might have to enforce some healthy boundaries in other ways. For example, you could reach out to your local neighborhood association to mediate the tense citation.
Alternatively, if someone is intentionally malicious, ignores your boundaries, spreads lies, and trespasses on your property, the safest thing for you to do may be to get in touch with the authorities.
Collect some evidence, note down the exact times your neighbor did what, and gather some testimonials from the other neighbors. If the police can’t help, your only other choice may be to take your disruptive neighbor to court.
What do you think of the way that the pool owner handled the entire situation, Pandas? What would you have done if a neighbor of yours started using your pool without asking, and demanding that you follow a bunch of random rules? What’s the most bizarre drama you’ve ever had with your own neighbors? We’d love to hear your thoughts on everything, so grab a cup of coffee or a mug of tea, and share yours in the comments.
Many readers were wildly supportive of the pool owner. Here’s the advice they gave him
