When you buy a new home, you’ll likely fall into one of three camps. The first is the idealists: they are looking for the perfect property, the home of their dreams – or at least, the home that has the potential to be the home of their dreams. With a lick of paint and some tasteful furnishings, a couple of rose bushes and a mow of the lawn and it would be the perfect fit for your family. So when you find that house, you know it is the one. Regardless of any minor snagging issues, you put in the offer, determined that the dream home will be yours.

On the other hand, you might not be quite so optimistic. You have all the ideas, but nothing seems to fit – and any home that seems to fit the bill has all sorts of problems, and you’re not sure you want to take them on. Maybe the house is in the right area, or has all the space you dreamed of, but is the road a little too busy? Could there be a hole in the roof, woodworm in the floorboards or rising damp in the cellar? Maybe you can’t see them on first viewing, but you’re sure the issue must be there, something must be wrong with it.

If you’re lucky, those who fall into one of those two groups will be purchasing the house with someone more measured. Someone who can see the issues but makes a plan to overcome them. Someone who can see the vision, but is practical about how to achieve that – or else to compromise in a way in which everyone will still be happy. Because purchasing property is a big moment in a person’s life, and understandably emotions run high.

For the person in this story, buying a house was a big moment – especially because they were having to relocate for work. So they did a lot of research first, ultimately choosing a home that fit their budget and their requirements, with full knowledge of all restrictions that affected the property. But when they moved in and started making changes to their new home, their neighbours made their distaste immediately apparent.

Read on to find out what happened.

AITA for using my property for everything its legally zoned to be used for ?

So I moved to a new town for work and looked around for a house for a long time.

The house I choose was specifically for the lack of zoning regulations and no Home Owners’ Association.

This was because firstly, I wanted to bring my backyard chickens and secondly, the houses and cost of living were expensive.

However, I figured I could afford them if I rented out the accessory dwelling unit (ADU) which happened to be built next to the house (but wasn’t finished).

Despite copious research though, their plans didn’t go down well with the neighbours.

I spent a long time and sweat hours finishing the ADU to code and got all the proper permits with the town for everything to make the ADU legal to short term rent.

But now three of the four bordering neighbours are calling me an ******* for “ruining the neighbourhood.”

Their reasoning is they don’t want renters (especially short term renters, but they also have a distaste for the long term renters down the street) as it would apparently make the neighbourhood less family friendly.

So I went ahead and built some more privacy fencing to help alleviate some concerns.

But even this solution didn’t calm the neighbours down.

I am an introvert and don’t really want to talk with the neighbourhood except for a friendly wave.

However, I’ve also been told that’s not the way they do things here, and that I shouldn’t have moved here in the first place if I didn’t want to associate with neighbours.

I’ve been was approached multiple times and yelled at for this, yelled at for the chickens in the backyard(because “this isn’t a hickville farm” as one neighbour said, and for not asking the neighbours’ permission before doing any of these things.

They say that regardless or not of county legality, if I was a good neighbour I would not change the neighbourhood from the way it was.

Yikes! All this has left them in a really difficult position.

I know short term landlords are considered the bane of existence, but I do still live on the main property in the main house and I am not running multiple investment properties.

Ideally, I would live in a house that had no neighbours and lots of property and then this wouldn’t have been a problem, but I cannot afford that anywhere close to my job.

So am I wrong for using my property legally but against neighbours’ wishes and to their point not the way it had been used for the last fifty years? It seems three out of four of my neighbours seem to think so, so maybe mine is a selfish way of thinking.

AITA?

It seems like their neighbours are really set in their ways, and unwilling to see anything change at all.

They’d probably be happier if the previous owners had stayed in the house and never left at all, to avoid anything being different.

In the end, they’re complaining prematurely, as the chickens and the renters haven’t even caused any problems yet for them to complain about!

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.

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

This person thought this homeowner had done everything right.

While others agreed that the neighbours were too stuck in their ways.

Meanwhile, this Redditor thought of some perfect ways to troll the rude neighbours.

Sure, the neighbours might not want to be associated with short term renters or chickens, but let’s be real – this is not their home. This is the homeowner’s home, and given they are following the law – which they are doing to the letter – then they are doing nothing wrong. They were absolutely right to fully research the policies affecting the property, and the fact that they’ve done their homework has really saved them on this one. Because sure the neighbours can throw shade and even yell at the homeowner, but there is nothing more that they can do without breaking the law.

Given the concern shown by the neighbours, it’s important that the homeowner is judicious in choosing their renters, as well as ensuring that their chickens are behaving, to avoid this situation getting any worse. But really, so long as no wrongdoing is taking place – no public order offences or trespassing on the part of the renters, for example – then there is no way that the neighbours can have a problem.

In fact, the very idea that they’re being so negative with this neighbour without anything even going wrong yet just shows exactly who they are as people, and as neighbours. They’re too stuck in their ways, and they need a reality check.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a couple whose new neighbors’ construction noise is ruining the whole neighborhood vibe.