Sometimes a little privacy between neighbors is probably a good thing.

One homeowner says she and her family recently removed some old fence panels that sat on top of a stone wall.

Once they saw the wall underneath, they liked it enough to leave the panels off instead of replacing them.

Not long after, though, their neighbors put up a large black cloth on their side to give themselves more privacy.

Now she wants to cover the ugly view with flowers or something nicer, but she worries that doing so could cause problems with the neighbors.

Read on to see what you think she should do.

WIBTA if I tried to make my garden pretty again after my neighbours made it ugly?

We have lived in our semi-detached house for 5 years now. When we moved, the former owners told us that the next-door neighbours are weird. They have two kids, who are around 15 and 17 now. I have never seen anyone (except her parents) visit their house.

They have roller shutters around the whole house, which are partly shut during the day and completely shut around 5 PM (until the next morning). They are very private people.

They don’t interact much with other neighbors. Which is fine. I’m not judging. I am wondering what they are hiding or what goes on inside, but I will never know.

They hardly bother us (there have been a few incidents where the neighbour was unkind to my MIL and about parking cars, nothing major).

She doesn’t like what they’ve done and wants to change it.

Now, onto the issue. A few weeks ago, we were working in our yard and decided to detach the fence picket (is that the right word? – not English) from the stone wall because they were rotting. The original plan was to replace them, but after taking them down, we liked the stone wall itself and decided not to.

Last night, we saw the neighbour place a black cloth against his side of the picket so as to allow them more privacy. We laughed, knowing they are kinda weird about their privacy, and let them be.

But it’s ugly. I got a huge black cloth which I see looking out the window.

I would like to put a flower box or something there. But I don’t want any more trouble with the neighbours.

WIBTA?

Yikes! It sounds like they’re very private people.

Let’s check out what the readers over at Reddit think about this whole thing.

The Adams Family, LOL.

Well, it’s their yard.

According to this comment, she’s overthinking it.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who is annoyed that her brother is making their mom’s international trip all about how broke he is.

That’s a good point.

She should make the yard look however she wants.

If the neighbors have a big black curtain up for privacy, they probably won’t even see what she puts in front of it anyway.

And even if they do, it’s still her side of the yard.

As long as she isn’t touching their curtain or crossing onto their property, there really shouldn’t be a problem.