Relaxing outside on a beautiful evening is a lot of fun and a great way to spend time with friends.

What would you do if, while you were outside in the evening, your neighbor shouted over to you, telling you to keep it down because they were trying to sleep?

That is what happened to the woman in this story, and she feels like her neighbor was being passive-aggressive and attacking them for no reason. Fortunately, they just went inside, and the situation wasn’t escalated, but who knows what will happen in the future.

Personally, I think she is being too sensitive. Sure, the neighbor could have handled it differently, but she did nothing wrong. Read through the full story below and see what you think about it.

Noisy neighbors

Okay…so apparently I am the noisy neighbor. Here is the story:

This seems like a great place to live.

I have a pretty big yard back in a wooded area and it has a nice big gravel pad that I like to sit out on sometimes on warm summer nights.

My older landlord also lives in the property. He’s great! He typically goes to bed around 8pm but has never mentioned me or my friends being too loud. I have people over at night every now and again. It’s not a regular thing.

Ok, no big deal.

Me (36F) and my two besties (30F, 36F) wanted to spend some time together after a long day. I invited them over to smoke a lil joint.

For context, I live in a legal state where weed is widely accepted. I have smoked with 3 out of 4 of my surrounding neighbors. It’s more accepted than having a glass of wine in the evening where I live.

They are just having a nice evening together.

So on a Wednesday night me and my friends sat out on the gravel pad, smoked a J, stared up at the stars, and debriefed about our week so far. The three of us were definitely having a good time.

There was certainly some cackling, but nothing over the top. No one was shouting, or being super raucous, or running around. We were sitting in a little circle with some blankets.

Maybe they were being louder than they thought.

We recently had some renters move into the house uphill of us after being vacant for at least 3 years. I have never had any interactions with them.

At 9:39pm this woman stomps out onto their porch and yells “Girls! It’s 9:40. We are going to sleep now!” I was stunned into silence.

There is no reason to get offended here.

My friend said “Oh we are so sorry for keeping you up!” We gathered our things and went inside. The more I think about it, the saltier I feel.

First of all, I’m a grown woman having a laugh with some other grown women, not a girl. I do understand being protective of sleep. It was a little bit later in the night, and I too value my sleep, but there was actually no request for us to be quiet.

It honestly doesn’t seem like the neighbor did anything wrong.

The whole thing felt deeply passive aggressive and patronizing. Later I looked up my city’s sound ordinance and official city quiet hours are 10pm to 7am, so we were still within the city quiet hours.

I don’t actually want to get any kind of petty revenge, I’m just so ANNOYED! I wanted to write this out for catharsis and imagine (but not actually) engaging my neighbor with some of the sillier comments. What do y’all think?

Nothing the neighbor said was rude or passive-aggressive from what I can tell. I definitely would not escalate the situation at all. Just let it go and try to keep it down in the future.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a professor who missed a major funding deadline after they told their graduate student to leave them alone.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

I think this is a great way to handle the situation. Hopefully it works for them.

People are often louder than they realize.

Keep quiet. Keep the peace. It isn’t a big deal.

This is likely the exact problem.

It is easy to get loud when you are with your friends.

Nobody likes to be yelled at, even when it is well-deserved. I’m guessing that these ladies were being louder than they thought they were, especially since noise can travel so well in the evening.

I think they should just let it go and move on with their lives. If they are going to hang out again, try to keep the volume even lower if possible. There is no reason to escalate things with the neighbor.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a waitress who refused to return a tip after a party returned to the restaurant with a complaint.