Imagine having someone telling you what you can and cannot do on your own property… And I’m not even talking about an HOA.

What would you do? Would you oblige to keep the peace with your neighbors? Or do your thing and ignore them?

This woman is on the fence, quite literally.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for putting up a fence when my neighbors went away for the weekend?

I used to put up fences for a living. My wife and I (both women) recently bought my aunt and uncle’s old home.

The house has a large back garden with narrow paths along the sides of the house and this leads to a front garden that’s about 1/3 of the size of the back, and is half grass and half paving stones.

They have neighbors on both sides with the same setup.

The house is number 85. There is no fence between 85 and 83. 83 has 3 kids under 10 y/o.  My back garden has a lot of space to run around.

As there is no fence and my cousins are similar ages to 83’s kids, my aunt and uncle often let 83’s kids come over and play with my cousins, and 83’s kids have continued to use the garden after my aunt and uncle left.

I have nothing against kids, nor does my wife, but we have plans for the back garden.

They will need the space.

These include putting up a shed, maybe a few flowers, and we’re starting the adoption process soon, so we want our kid to have space to play outside.

I went out and measured the property lines a couple of weeks ago, and the husband of 83 came out and asked what I was doing.

I explained about the fence, said I would pay for it and put it up myself, told him about my former job doing exactly this, and asked when would be best for me to do it.

He said not to do it at all.

I asked why, and he said they have a baby and I can’t be bashing about with hammers and the like.

Her neighbor basically bossed her around.

I said I would try to keep it down, but I would like to do this.

He then asked why I needed to, because things were fine as is.

I said it’s nothing personal, but I’m putting up a shed, and I just don’t want his kids coming onto my property and getting hurt.

He then said I can’t put up the shed for the same reason as the fence, and I could see we weren’t getting anywhere and went back inside.

Then Thursday night I’m coming home from work and I see the dad loading bags into their car. Saturday morning and the car is still gone, and has not been seen since Thursday.

I figure they’ve gone away for the weekend and as the issue with me putting up the fence was the noise for the baby, now would be the time to do it.

She did everything right…

I bought the fence materials that day. I used wooden posts/panels and gravel to hold it in place. Whole thing was done by Sunday lunch.

The fence posts are 1.8m and half of that is underground.

These things aren’t moving until the end of time. It’s on my property and less than a meter tall so I didn’t need permission from council or 83.

They got back Monday night and this morning I’ve woken up to knocking.

The husband wants me to get rid of the fence.

Says it’s an eyesore and he’s worried his kids will get injured on it. I tell him it’s on my property and it’s staying.

He says he should have been consulted because it’s surrounding his property and his wife hates it and thinks it’s really ugly.

Legally I’m in the clear. Morally, AITA?

Why does her neighbor think he can tell her what to do?

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this.

Exactly.

It is pretty clear.

Food for thought.

My thoughts exactly.

Another reader chimes in.

It’s her property!

Her neighbor stepped over the line in more than one way.

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