July 1, 2025 at 12:15 pm

Local Artist’s Wealthy Neighbors Offered Him A Bigger Payment For His Artwork, But When He Refused They Found A Way To Pay Him More Anyway

by Mila Cardozo

Older couple hapilly drinking wine

Freepik/Reddit

Amazing things can happen when people appreciate each other.

In this wholesome story, two wealthy neighbors decided to reward an honest, dedicated local artist in an unexpected way.

He tried to refuse it, but they got him using “malicious” compliance.

Read the story and see how things played out.

Boomer got malicious compliance on me

I have a hobby that I turned into a small business, it’s not a lot of money but it’s kind of nice and it’s a thing that I enjoy doing.

Over the last 5 years or so I have developed a reputation as a man of my word, and someone who provides a great product at a fair price.

I live in an area that has a lot of vacation homes around a lake.

These homes are owned by people who have $500k or more to spend on having a place on the lake to go on weekends during the summer.

Very wealthy people with disposable income.

Mary and Steve were two of these people.

They own a couple of businesses, and they are known for treating people fairly, even people that they have fired tend to acknowledge that they had it coming.

Mary stopped by my shop back in September.

She wanted to hire me to do some work for them, for Steve’s Christmas gift.

I could do what she wanted me to do and I gave her a price tag of $5,500.

She agreed instantly.

Little did he know she would change her mind soon.

We shook hands and I went to work.

I got it finished up on December 20th, just in time.

I had to take a few days off from my regular job to make it happen.

Marry was thrilled at the results.

She went to get me a check and she wanted to write it out for $11,000.

Double what we agreed on.

I declined, telling her the $5,500 was what we agreed to, and that’s all I was going to take.

He didn’t want to take advantage of them. But that’s not how they felt about it.

December 26th rolls around, and Steve shows up thanking me for his Christmas gift, gushing over the craftsmanship, then complains I wouldn’t take the bonus money that I was offered.

I explained to him “Mary and I agreed on the price, and we shook hands on it. A deal is a deal.”

Steve says to me “Well, at least let me buy you and your girlfriend dinner… 21 times” He had a big grin on his face. I should have known he was up to something.

Declining again would just be rude at this point.

I thought about it, thinking local restaurants, and agreed.

Then he said: “My choice, any place I choose, all on my dime”. In hindsight, this should have clued me in to the fact that he had something up his sleeve.

I laughed and said ok.

The entire month of January went by, I didn’t hear anything from Steve and Mary, which is fine, we’re not exactly in the same social circles.

They were preparing a big surprise and he had no idea what it was yet.

At the end of January, all of a sudden my girlfriend just got super happy, like giddy.

I knew she had a secret she was keeping from me but I wasn’t sure what.

She told me to pack my bags for a Valentine’s day trip, we would be gone for 10 days, and bring my passport.

We would leave on the 10th of February, (19 days ago).

We got to the airport and who would you guess was there, Steve and Mary.

I was shocked.

He got him.

Steve said he had a “debt to pay,” and he “owed us 21 meals, at time and place of his choosing” and he chose Rome over Valentine’s Day.

I tried to say no, he threw my words back in my face, “A deal’s a deal”.

The 4 of us spent the next week in Rome, Italy.

Steve and Mary paid for our flights, hotel room and 21 meals.

All of our tours and transport were on us.

We got back home on the 22nd of February.

We had a great time.

I wish there were more stories like this one!

Faith in humanity restored.

Let’s read some Reddit comments.

Yup.

Screenshot 1 1fee56 Local Artists Wealthy Neighbors Offered Him A Bigger Payment For His Artwork, But When He Refused They Found A Way To Pay Him More Anyway

A compliment.

Screenshot 3 64cab1 Local Artists Wealthy Neighbors Offered Him A Bigger Payment For His Artwork, But When He Refused They Found A Way To Pay Him More Anyway

They all won!

Screenshot 5 5ef9f1 Local Artists Wealthy Neighbors Offered Him A Bigger Payment For His Artwork, But When He Refused They Found A Way To Pay Him More Anyway

21 meals.

Screenshot 6 ab32cb Local Artists Wealthy Neighbors Offered Him A Bigger Payment For His Artwork, But When He Refused They Found A Way To Pay Him More Anyway

Another compliment.

Screenshot 7 619c40 Local Artists Wealthy Neighbors Offered Him A Bigger Payment For His Artwork, But When He Refused They Found A Way To Pay Him More Anyway

This person has a different take.

Screenshot 8 b3d745 Local Artists Wealthy Neighbors Offered Him A Bigger Payment For His Artwork, But When He Refused They Found A Way To Pay Him More Anyway

Wholesome comment on a wholesome story.

Screenshot 9 1c62e1 Local Artists Wealthy Neighbors Offered Him A Bigger Payment For His Artwork, But When He Refused They Found A Way To Pay Him More Anyway

We need more of this in the world.

Screenshot 10 Local Artists Wealthy Neighbors Offered Him A Bigger Payment For His Artwork, But When He Refused They Found A Way To Pay Him More Anyway

How amazing!

This was like a Hallmark movie in real life.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.