When someone comes to your house, they should knock at the door and wait for you to answer it before coming in.

What would you do if someone would always ring the doorbell, and then let themselves into the entryway while waiting for you to come to the door?

That is what the landlord in this story is experiencing, and she’s wondering if she was out of line.

Let’s read all the details.

AITA for politely asking my dad’s tenant to wait for one of us to open the door to our house?

The title pretty much sums up the situation.

My father owns a rental property, which we live in, and the remaining 2 units are rented out.

Tenant #2, who we will call Mary, drops off her rental check in our mail box.

If she is on vacation, or otherwise going away for an extended period of time, she’ll give her rent before she leaves.

Sometimes, her brother will bring the rent by to us on her behalf when she is away.

It always gets dropped off in our mailbox.

Another tenant likes to drop off checks in person.

Tenant #1, who we will call Juan, does not like to use our mailbox to drop off his rent check.

He insists on dropping off his rent in person to whoever is home.

If no one is home, or we don’t get back until really late, then he will try again the next day.

We’ve told him the mailbox is fine, but he insists on in-person delivery, as he is afraid of check theft/check washing.

This is really weird.

This would be fine except he doesn’t wait for us to open the door.

He knocks, rings the doorbell, and when I get to the top of the stairs and look down, he already has the door open and is waiting by the bottom of the stairs.

We live on the top floor.

The door to our house opens up to a staircase, which leads up to the kitchen to one side and the hallway to the family room on the other side.

Unless we lock the door, which we don’t necessarily do during the daytime when we are home, he just opens the door and lets himself in (never going further than the landing at the bottom of the stairs).

Juan seemed confused.

Today, he came by to drop off the rent.

As expected, he rang the doorbell and was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, having let himself in.

I asked him -painfully polite as I am terrified of confrontation- “Hi Juan! Next time, can you please wait for one of us to open the door?”

He looked like I cursed his ancestors and spat in his face.

He said “You don’t want me to open the door?”

I said we would prefer if he waited for one of us to open the door for him.

It seems that he means no harm, but he shouldn’t be doing this.

He said he opens the door because he doesn’t know if our doorbell works.

I assured him, with a smile on my face, that it does work, and that we hear it loud and clear whenever he rings it.

He said okay and left, visibly upset.

Guys, I cannot emphasize enough how much I hate confrontation, and what a people pleaser I am. I was smiling the entire time, asked him how he and his family were doing, and was pleasant the entire time.

He looked at me like I spoke some unimaginable horror.

Juan’s reaction is making this person wonder what’s right and what’s wrong.

Am I crazy?

Is it wrong of me to have asked Juan to wait by the door to our home until one of us opens it?

I feel like not wanting someone to let themselves into your home isn’t a big ask, but he looked so offended, that I am going crazy questioning myself over it.

I leave it to you guys to pass judgment.

AITA?

She is not in the wrong at all, and Juan should respect her wishes.

Let’s see what the people in the comments on Reddit think about this.

It is pretty crazy.

I would have been locking my door as well.

This person says to not read too much into how he looked.

This person does make a good point.

This person also says to just lock the door.

She needs to lock her door.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.