Sharing a fence with neighbors is a sensitive situation to be in. Things can change really fast.

In this man’s case, his neighbors liked getting some free fruit that fell from his tree. So when he bought a net to stop it from happening, they were upset.

What would you do in this situation? Would you remove the net, give them some fruit, or tell them to get used to it?

Let’s see what he did.

AITA for putting a tree net to stop any fruits from going onto my neighbor’s yard?

Hi. I inherited a house from my dad after his passing a few years ago. His house came with a guava tree in the yard.

The tree has been there for a good portion of my teen years and is special to me.

My wife and I were one day thinking of ways for extra income and realized we could literally sell off the fruit.

Got the permit and started to prepare guava in different ways.

For reference, I sell the fruit whole, splice and put into cups, candied, etc.

We realized that while the branches weren’t exactly hanging over our neighbor’s lawn, sometimes guava would either fall over or buck against the fence at the right angle and end up over there.

A good amount of fruit was going “to waste”.

We had a medical bill come up and needed to work on paying it off.

So me and my wife purchased a tree fruit net for the side of the tree that was closer to the neighbor’s yard.

Since then, I don’t think any fruit fell into their yard, which is good.

What led me here today is that last week while my wife was out on the lawn, the neighbor’s kid approached her and asked what happened to the fruits.

My wife explained that we keep the fruits in a net so that we can have more.

Apparently the kid ran off and came back with their dad who asked my wife the same thing.

She explained again and, from what she said, the father looked like he took it personally.

They tried explaining their decision multiple times.

Asked if we thought he was stealing and my wife explained no, we didn’t think that, we just want to maximize the fruit that falls from our tree since we do use it for some profit.

Today, the same neighbor knocked on the door and I answered. He asked if we could talk about the fruit tree situation.

He said that he thinks it’s selfish how my father would freely let the fruits fall wherever, but now that I’m here, I’m hoarding the fruit.

I explained that the tree is my property so whatever comes from the tree is also my property.

But nothing worked…

I said he could buy guava off us if he wanted but he looked more upset that I would even recommend that.

I’m glad his kid liked the fruit but now that I’m making money off this, I can’t just let that happen freely.

He called me selfish again and that I could at least **spare a few. I said again he could buy some off me if he wanted. I offered a box for $5.

Now every time we see him around he doesn’t smile at us, which I guess is expected, but now they let the dog poop on our lawn and keep telling his kid loudly that the “neighbors killed the fruit fairy”.

Some of the neighbors are still cool with us, but it’s like we made an enemy from him and I’m feeling slightly guilty for the kid.

AITA?

When he said he offered a box for $5, I lost it.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Fruit for thought.

This person has a different take.

Something to consider.

Another commenter suggests keeping the peace.

Another reader chimes in.

This commenter sums it up.

I think both of them have a point.

But I’d say gifting his neighbors a box once in a while is the higher road.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.