When you live in a single-family home that has been split into two apartments, you sometimes have to be flexible when it comes to certain activities.

What would you do if you shared a hot water supply, so your neighbor wanted to text each other anytime someone wanted to take a shower? They said that this way, the other party can avoid things like flushing the toilet or doing laundry, which can cause the shower to spike hot or cold.

That is what happened to the person in this story, but she is refusing to text about this because she thinks it crosses a line. Instead, she suggested complaining to the landlord to try to get the situation addressed.

Personally, I can totally see why she doesn’t want to do this. That being said, the landlord isn’t likely to fix this issue anytime soon. Read through the full story below and see how you think it should be handled.

AITA for declining my neighbor’s request to start alerting each other any time we want to take showers?

My partner (28M) and I (28F) have been living in the 2nd floor apartment of a 2-family home for about year and a half.

You have to be flexible in a living situation like this.

We have a downstairs neighbor (30’sF) who had been living in her 1st floor apartment for at least a year when we moved in.

The house we live in was not built as a 2-family home, but was converted from a single-family home a few years back, so this sometimes lends to some functional issues.

Clearly, these people want to be good neighbors.

We know that having upstairs neighbors can be a pain, and we generally do try our best to respond to our neighbor’s requests within reason (e.g. shortly after we moved in, she requested that we get rugs to help with noise, so we bought large rugs for every room and for the hallway).

Today, our neighbor texted us that she has been getting sprayed with very hot or cold water in the shower any time my partner or I use the shower, toilet, dishwasher or washing machine at the same time.

This is a lot to ask, honestly.

She asked if we could set up a system where we text each other whenever one of us wants to take a shower.

I responded by apologizing that this was happening and by encouraging her to let our landlord and a plumber know about the issue.

Yeah, this is really something the landlord should have to address.

I said that texting with every shower was an impractical solution. She responded that the only way this issue could be fixed would be if we were to have 2 separate boilers, instead of the one that we share, which is not going to happen.

We would like to have a good relationship with our neighbor, but this just feels like too big of an ask.

AITA?

While it is good that the neighbor wants to find a solution to the problem, what they are asking for does seem to be a bit much.

Read on to see what the people in the comments recommend.

She should complain to the landlord to get this fixed.

Here is someone who says it is a problem for the landlord to solve.

This commenter is almost certainly correct.

Having to text every time you shower is unreasonable.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a neighbor who steps in to stop illegal driveway construction for friends down the road.

This would solve the problem entirely.

It is one thing to be flexible with your neighbors. Texting every time you want to take a shower, however, is something else entirely.

Fortunately, the people in the comments offered some very practical solutions.