Some people will find just about to anything to complain about if they’re the type of folks who like to nitpick.

And when it comes to neighbors, you can find yourself in a back-and-forth if you happen to live by someone who just likes to make things difficult.

Check out this story and see if you think this couple is doing anything wrong.

AITA for leaving my porch light on at night?

“For the past two months we’ve been dog watching some elderly dogs for my in-laws while they’re traveling.

I keep the back porch light on so they can see when they go outside at night to use the bathroom since they’re both a bit blind. For context we live in a rural midwest town of ~1k people, with mostly older folks and a few middle aged families.

Last night my neighbor (a quarter acre behind us) flashed a very bright strobe light into our windows around 9 pm.

My husband went out to talk to them and my neighbor justified flashing the light because he wanted to get our attention and “never sees us”, when I’m home all day (working from home) and am outside with the dogs often.

This wasn’t going well…

He then went on that he “moved out here to get away from lights” and “couldn’t see the stars anymore”.

The dude was clearly intoxicated and frustrated.

My husband sympathized with him and turned the light off for the night, but he was clearly annoyed about the strobe light.

There’s street lamps down both of our streets on the front side of the house, so while I understand that our light is annoying, it’s not like it’s pitch black outside.

However to our neighbors credit, a different neighbor’s (located to the side of us) daughter also came over asking us to keep them off a few weeks ago, because she was visiting her mom and she had mentioned that she didn’t like seeing the lights on.

This is still ongoing…

We’ve made an effort to turn it off around 8 pm each night, but sometimes we let the dogs out right before bed and will forget to turn it off. My husband and I are considering changing the fixture to be recessed so it doesn’t shine as much, but we’re both dumbfounded that we’ve had two neighbors bring it up.

Some additional context- a few weeks ago the cops were at our house due to a neighbor thinking we were using a heat lamp in the garage to grow weed (it’s for one of the dogs that insists on being outside a lot).

The light is tilted down and covered by a shelter. It leaves a slight red tint that isn’t visible unless you’re halfway up the driveway, or by the garage windows. We showed the officer the garage and he was pretty understanding/said it isn’t bright and shouldn’t be an issue.

We’re one of the only young couples in town who own a home (mid-20’s, no children) and we are quiet people.

Now what?

We go to bed around 9 pm and tend to stay inside unless we’re working on the yard. I thought about trying to talk to both neighbors and offering to buy them blackout curtains to help with the light or to at least go over and explain the situation, but my husband (who is from the area) thinks it’ll only make things more tense.

We feel bad and want to help make our neighbors comfortable, but we also need the light sometimes for the dogs and for ourselves (I’m very uncoordinated) if we’re out with them at night.

AITA for leaving the porch lights on?”

Check out what readers had to say about this.

This person weighed in.

Another individual said they’re NTA.

This individual shared their thoughts.

Another person spoke up.

And this reader also said they’re NTA.

Getting along with neighbors can be pretty tough sometimes…

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.