It’s great to have friends and neighbors you can count on.
But where’s the line between accepting help and taking advantage?
For instance, how long can you ask someone to keep a literally boat at their house for you?
AITA for telling my neighbor they need to get their boat out of our yard or it’s getting set out by the road?
There’s a boat in the yard by the street near the house with the boat at the bottom of the sea…
My husband (35M) and I (30F) have lived next door to a family since 2016.
I had babysat their son since he was 5 months old and he is now 3.
Whenever they needed a date night or had something going on which was about every other weekend.
They had another baby a year ago so I also watched him.
They would invite us over a lot and have dinner, share some of their edibles/smoke, drinks and just hang out and talk.
We became pretty close after living next to each other for years.
We’d have each other’s backs and look out for another if any sketchy things took place on the neighborhood.
Then came the “big” move.
Well, about 4 months ago they moved 5 minutes down the road.
While they were in the moving process, I offered to help them out by asking if they’d want me to watch their boys so they can move things.
They asked if they could leave their boat in our yard just for a few days until they settled in their house and would come get.
We were like oh yeah of course.
Well there’s your problem right there.
Boats go on water, dummy.
So a week went by, a month, 2 months and we didn’t say anything at all about the boat still being there and also hadn’t heard anything about the plan for them to pick up??
So we messaged, hey are you planning on getting the boat?
He replies oh yeah we’ll get this weekend.
No message saying he will come get and didn’t hear anything for another week.
Asked again pretty irritated, and he comes to pick it up.
Well the boat needs a new tire, so now he’s gotta leave and buy a new tire to haul it home.
So we’re right back where we started.
It’s been a week almost 2 weeks and he hasn’t even communicated about coming to get the boat.
We are not only so over having this boat here in our yard, but also feel disrespected as we let them borrow our space/our property for a while now.
So my husband told them if they weren’t coming to pick up, he was going to set out by the road for someone to pick up.
Are we the [jerks] for saying this?
Let’s check in with the comments:
What do you think this is, storage wars?
Gotta send a clear message.
Sorry, your free trial has ended.
Here’s hoping a great relationship doesn’t have to end over a boat in a yard.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.