Sometimes, standing up for safety can make you look like the bad guy.

What would you do if a neighbor started sanding old painted wood without protection, sending clouds of dust toward children playing just a few feet away?

Would you ignore what he was doing? Or would you insist he stop long enough to put safety first?

In the following story, one woman finds herself dealing with this exact situation.

Here’s what she did.

AITA for stopping a garage project when someone began sanding old trim without lead-safe containment while kids were playing a few feet away?

I live in a townhouse row with a shared driveway. This weekend, one of my neighbors was rehabbing salvaged baseboards in his open garage.

I walked by with snacks for the kids’ sidewalk chalk session and saw him dry-sanding layers of cracked paint with a palm sander.

The dust was blooming into the air like talc while three little kids, including my niece, were crouched right outside the threshold.

He had no plastic sheeting, no tape, didn’t use the wet method, and had no vacuum attached. There was just gray dust riding the breeze toward strollers and scooters.

I told him I was not okay with that happening inches from children and asked him to pause so we could set up containment or move the work inside with a HEPA vac.

When he refused to listen, she threatened him with management.

He got mad at me and continued what he’s doing.

I said that if he wouldn’t pause, I would stop the project by getting management involved and clearing the area because I wouldn’t let kids breathe whatever was coming off old trim.

Five minutes of convenience for an adult is not worth days of cleanup or unknown exposure for children who had zero say in it.

If choosing to halt an unsafe method until containment is in place protects multiple families, that’s not power-tripping, it’s baseline responsibility in shared space.

AITA?

Wow! It’s easy to see both sides of this, but he probably should’ve thought this through a little more.

Let’s see what the readers over at Reddit think about this situation.

This reader doesn’t think she did anything wrong.

According to this comment, she should’ve moved the kids.

Here’s someone who thinks he was mostly hurting himself.

As this person explains, the neighbor was in his own space.

This one is tough.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.