If you live in any kind of town or city, or even a village – anywhere but a remote shack or chateau in the middle of nowhere, really – you’ll have neighbours. And whether that’s one or two neighbours, or a much larger number, you’ll know that neighbours are absolutely not created equally. They might just be bit part characters in your life, or conversely they might get themselves heavily involved in the lives of those who live around them.

This could be a good or a bad thing, depending on the neighbours themselves. After all, it pays to have good neighbours who you know you can trust, who will water your garden while you’re on vacation, or who will keep an eye out for your kid in an emergency. But if you’ve got neighbours who are pests, they can make your life quite difficult, to a point where you could find yourself dreading going outside into your yard or even getting into your car, lest you get hounded by complaints or demands from the folk who live nearby.

So when you are choosing where to live, getting the vibe of the neighbourhood is a must – without an understanding of what nearby folk are like, you could be in for quite the shock down the line.

That was certainly the case for the family in this story, who thought they lived in a neighbourhood where the kids could happily play on their bikes in the street. But an altercation with a neighbour proved that this was very much not the case.

Read on to find out what happened.

AITA when crazy driveway man is upset about kids crossing his driveway?

A few days ago a man came to talk to me about what my kid had been doing.

When he approached he was clearly upset and shaking a bit as he talked.

He informed me that he had just caught my son turning around in his driveway.

I assumed he meant my fifteen year old who drives, but quickly learned it was actually my ten year old. On his bike.

Yikes! Let’s see how this parent responded to that.

Since a kid riding across a driveway is literally the most benign thing I can think of, I expressed some shock that he was taking an issue with this.

I refused to acknowledge it was a problem, at which point he called me an *******.

I gave him my name and asked his, but he refused.

He also refused to tell me where he lives, asserting that all driveways are off limits and it didn’t matter where he lived.

And his stance literally stopped the parent from being able to take action.

I left it with telling him that it was absurd to complain about a kid riding a bike, but offered to tell my son to stay out of his driveway if he would tell me which driveway was his.

Am I the jerk here? Is a driveway sacred ground that no bike tire should ever touch?

To me it is absurd, but I thought maybe Reddit will know if kids on driveways is forbidden.

AITA?

Sure, a kid on a bike turning around on a driveway seems like an innocent thing.

It’s not like the kid was yelling or cursing, or throwing trash everywhere. He was literally just turning his bike around.

But perhaps the neighbour has his reasons for being angry about this, that weren’t mitigated by the parent basically laughing in his face.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about someone who asked their neighbor to move their fence off their property, then learned the neighbor was trying to claim their land as theirs instead.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

This person thought that she was wrong to not listen to his concerns.

While others understood why he might not have given his address.

Meanwhile, this Redditor explained some of many reasons that he could have been angry about the trespassing.

The truth is, most people would not be bothered by this at all. Many would think a kid playing on his bike was quite a wholesome thing, and see the bike on their driveway as a nonissue – or at the very most, a mild inconvenience. But not all people are the same, and this guy clearly feels differently.

Maybe he’d had previous bad experiences with kids, that had been aggressive or destroyed his property. Maybe he is very precious about a front yard he’s worked very hard on. Maybe he’s got highly strung pets that react negatively to strangers being on the property. Maybe he suffers from some kind of trauma or anxiety. And if any of those factors come into play, then the way the parent responded was quite unfair.

On the other hand, perhaps he was genuinely unhinged. From the way he approached the parent, it’s clear that he was already very angry before he even spoke to them – and a child turning their bike around on his driveway would to most people seem like a disproportionate thing to be shaking with anger about. However, it’s still not respectful to tell him this – and if the parent is disrespectful to neighbours, the kids might end up being that way too.

The best thing the parent could have done would be to apologise profusely, then advise their kid to stay off all neighbours’ driveways, to turn their bike around in the street. It could save them a headache down the line, if the kid did accidentally damage a neighbour’s property, after all.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a tenant who decided to stop returning his neighbor’s misplaced laundry after two years.