Living in a tight-knit community can be great, but it can also mean that big changes really disrupt life.

So, what do you do when a new neighbor proposes a major renovation that could impact the entire community?

In the following story, a homeowner voted against the proposal, but the fallout is bringing a lot of drama.

Here’s how they handled it.

AITA for voting against my neighbor adding another story to their house

Here to get some outsider’s opinions!

We have an awesome little HOA composed of 8 houses, mostly homeowners (and 2 owned by people who rent out the homes).

It’s not your typical HOA. it’s cheap ($50 a month per house, but that includes trash and snow removal).

We have a community garden. We’re all friendly, and some of us hang out from time to time.

Overall, it is just a happy living situation for all.

It’s nothing at all like your typical HOA; we don’t give a **** about what you do with your home or yard.

Well… typically, until our new neighbor moved in.

Last year a single mom with 3 kids, and 3 dogs (important) purchased the two bed/two bath house next to my husband and I. She was stoked to be part of the HOA, and we welcomed her.

Fast forward to a few months ago, and at a meeting (we do 2 or 3 a year, very lax), she tells everyone she’s going to add an additional story to her home.

Here’s where the problems begin.

We’re all feeling uneasy about this… for starters our driveways are not built to accommodate more than 2/3 cars max, all the homes are 2 bed 2 bath.

The thought of loud banging, construction vehicles… and everything that comes along with a project of that magnitude sounds terrible to everyone else living here!

I propose that we all think on it and have a meeting in a little while to vote whether we should allow this or not.

Maybe understandably she has started being really rude to us, telling my husband and I we need to take our Halloween decorations down the day after Halloween (we had two carved pumpkins…), making a fuss about our greenhouse?? Weird stuff like this.

We’ve lived in this home for 10 years and everyone in our HOA has coexisted very harmoniously up until now.

Bad news for the single mother.

Today, we voted on her home expansion plans and the verdict was a hard, resounding NO from all members except for her.

She began to cry and yell at us because she has her 3 kids living in one room and there’s no room for her three dogs.

I do feel sorry for her in that aspect, but I feel like it would maybe cost the same to just move to a bigger home rather than add a story to her current home and disrupt everyone else’s living situation!

AITA?

Yikes! That’s an uncomfortable situation.

Let’s see what Reddit readers had to say about it.

This person is right – the whole thing sounds like a nightmare.

Here are some great points!

So true; she should’ve bought a bigger house to start with.

According to this person, the mother sounds entitled.

She didn’t think this through very well.

It would be a hard ‘NO’ for most people.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.