If ever there was a good example of “no good deed goes unpunished” it’s this one, where a man tries his best to be neighborly and gets absolutely reamed for it – in public, no less.

OP lives in a cold climate, and since he works a second shift, he always puts his wife’s windshield wipers up on the car in the winter so that they’re not frozen in the morning.

I (59M) live in a major city in Ontario, Canada. I live in a small subdivision and have 5 neighbors total on my street.

For the past few years during the winter when we’re getting a lot of snow or a bad storms, as I’m leaving for my overnight shift at around 8-9pm I’ll put my wifes windshield wipers up on her car and do a quick walk around to my other 5 neighbors and put their windshield wipers up on their cars (obviously not if they’re outside or something, but if it looks like they’re in for the night).

At some point he started doing the same for his neighbors if he knows they’re in for the night, and they will return the favor if he forgets.

Many of them forget to do this, as many of them have children and it typically slips their mind, and their wipers will be frozen to their car in the morning.

It’s just something nice I like to do to look out for my neighbors. They’re all always grateful of this and thank me for it. Many of them started doing it too and there will be nights where I’ll forget to put mind and my wifes up, and in the morning one of the neighbors has done it for us.

When a family with young children moved in, OP hadn’t hadn’t had a chance to do more than introduce himself when the first bad weather was to blow in. He wondered whether or not to do their wipers but decided to go for it.

Anyway recently one of our neighbor’s moved and a new family moved in as of last week. It’s a young couple and their two young children. The other night I was leaving for my overnight shift at around 9pm. It was snowing really heavy and we were supposed to be getting almost 30cm of snow and it was FREEZING out. So I put my wifes wipers up and do my usual quick walk around to the other neighbors.

I was hesitant when I reached my new neighbors house, as I’ve only introduced myself once, but did it anyway.

Both the husband and the wife came out screaming at him to get away from their things, and even when he – and a few neighbors who heard the commotion – explained what he was doing, they told him not to touch their things.

As I was putting the second wiper up on their pick up truck the husband came charging out of his front door yelling “HEY WHAT THE F**K ARE YOU DOING TO MY TRUCK?” I tried to explain to him I was just putting his wipers up to help him.

He continued to scream at me to “get the hell off my property and don’t touch my s*%t AGAIN!”. The wife then came out and started yelling at me too.

I apologized and started walking away. Some of my other neighbors heard the commotion and came outside to see what was happening. They tried explaining to him too that it’s just something we do, both of them wasn’t having it.

A few mornings later he saw the wife struggling with her frozen wipers while trying to get the kids to school. She asked for help, but OP told her he was never to touch their things.

Fast forward to this morning, I’m arriving home from my overnight shift and as I’m walking in I see the wife of this couple struggling outside to break the ice off the windshield wipers of the truck. Guess she was trying to take her kids to school and the wipers were frozen solid on the car.

She sees me and yells over “Hey there! Do you mind giving me a hand please?” I look over to her and yell back “No sorry, thought I was to never touch your shit again ma’am” and walked back inside. She yelled back at me “wow AH!”.

She called him an a$$hole and his wife thinks he should have helped since she was just trying to get her kids to school.

Told my wife about this, she thinks I should’ve helped her because she was just trying to get her kids to school. I disagree as I was just following what they told me.

AITA?

Should he have let bygones be bygones? I think Reddit is going to have some opinions!

The top comment says OP is not wrong, and maybe the neighbors will learn something in this whole process.

This person says that her reaction the second time just proves he was right to give them their space.

They say the neighbors are likely to regret this in the not-so-distant future.

This commenter feels confident in claiming these are not nice people.

This person thinks natural consequences are good for everyone, not just children.

This definitely seems to be a case of not enjoying lying in the bed you’ve made.

That’s life, though. Chumps.