Two Teenage Boys Were Staring at Her House for a Suspicious Amount of Time — She Decided to Warn Her Neighbors
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Imagine looking outside and seeing a couple of teenagers looking at your house. Would that concern you at all?
In this story, one woman was in this situation, and she got a bad feeling about it. It wasn’t just that they were looking at her house. It was how long they spent looking at her house that worried her.
So, she decided to warn her neighbors via the NextDoor app. Now, she’s wondering if she overreacted.
Personally, I don’t think she did anything wrong. Keep reading to see if you agree.
AITA for reporting sus activity in my neighborhood on NextDoor?
This evening, my husband and I (mid 20s) noticed two younger boys (15-18?) standing in front of our house, walking very slowly. We kind of watched them, and they walked VERY slowly pointing at our house and staring at our house and into our windows for a while.
It took them about 8-10 minutes to pass out of view of our windows. (We don’t have a big house)
They were pointing at our house and staring at it for a long time, and then doing the same to the surrounding houses. They literally stood in front of our house staring at it for at least 5 minutes.
It put us both on edge and made us both extremely uncomfortable. I just got a really bad vibe from the whole thing.
She wanted to warn her neighbors.
I posted on the NextDoor app describing what I said above. Just the things they did that made us uncomfortable with a brief description of the boys. And advised my neighbors just to keep an eye out because it seems suspicious to me, and I wanted everyone to be safe.
This guy on the app starts chewing me out for making assumptions and having a bad attitude and letting my insecurities cloud my judgement.
It was really confusing to me because I figured best case scenario was I’m overreacting and everyone is just aware of it, or worst case they were up to something and my neighbors can just be extra sure to lock their doors because we live in such a quiet and peaceful neighborhood. It’s the kind of neighborhood where you can generally leave your house and car unlocked, and nothing happens.
It’s not like she’s suspicious of everyone.
I want to note that we see kids walking around the neighborhood all of the time, and they never bother me until these ones today.
And because being judgmental in these contexts is so common, I want to say that both myself and the boys were white.
I frequently gut check myself to make sure that if someone of a different race was doing the same thing, would I still be comfortable? And NextDoor has racial bias questions built in that you have to answer before you post which I like a lot.
So AITA for posting that on NextDoor?
Ignore the one guy. She just wanted to warn her neighbors to be cautious. I don’t see a problem with that. It can be good to trust your gut.
Let’s see if Reddit agrees.
This person thinks she did the right thing.
Another person says to ignore the one guy who commented.
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Here’s another person who is on her side.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about neighbors who were sick of their hedge getting demolished, so they put a surprise inside.
But this person doesn’t understand why she was concerned.
I don’t think it’s that the kids were just looking at her house. If they were standing there for quite awhile, pointing at her house and clearly talking about her house, it would make you wonder what they’re up to.
All she did was explain the situation and warn her neighbors. It’s not like she called the police or something.
It’s better to be safe than sorry.
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