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When you have fruit trees in your yard, it is nice to share them with neighbors who are interested, especially if you can’t eat it all yourself.

What would you do if you had one neighbor who never talked to you about anything other than your fig trees, which made you feel used and pressured to share them with him?

That is the situation that the woman in this story is in, so after years of this, she was fed up and yelled at the guy when he picked a couple of figs from her tree. Now, however, she feels a little bad and wonders if she handled the situation poorly.

Personally, I think she was way out of line. If she had a problem with him taking the fruit, she should have just told him calmly rather than yelling. Read through the full story below and see if you agree.

AITA for yelling at a neighbor for picking two figs from our tree without permission? He feels entitled because previous owners didn’t like figs or persimmons and they let him have them for many years? He steals our figs constantly, and only speaks to us for the figs. It is his ONLY topic w/us.

I blew up at a neighbor “Bob” while he was picking figs off our tree.

Is it a big deal that he picks some fruit?

I told him that the ONLY reason he has spoken to us for the 3 years that we’ve lived here is because he wants our figs and persimmons.

He had only gotten two figs at that point, so my reaction might seem petty. But my reaction was absolutely visceral, the result of feeling used and pressured for 3 years.

Maybe the figs are the only thing you have in common, other than being neighbors.

I’ve had the same feeling when I have been sexually harassed at work (OFTEN). My husband and I have never had a single interaction with Bob that he didn’t mention our figs.

Every single time he sees us he says, “How are MY fig trees? Take care of MY fig trees.” He drives by our house and later comments when something inside our home has been moved.

What is the big deal? How many figs does this guy take?

He comes to our door ONLY in September when the figs are ripe. He wants only one thing, and I don’t want to feel bullied/pressured into giving him something.

Again, it really feels like a relentless effort to wear me down so he can get the only thing he wants. When we do give him figs, we do not do so willingly, but to stop his badgering, and we refer to those figs as our “troll tax”.

Ok, so he is taking too many, it seems.

The one time I told him he could have the figs it was in exchange for watering my newly planted landscaping EVERY day while we were on vacation, starting Sunday.

That Friday night (2 days before we left) we saw him at our fig trees with a basket and limb puller harvesting all our figs, so we were unable to take any to the family that we were visiting.

If they are unwilling to talk to him about their issues, they can’t expect him to know they are upset.

We were so shocked that we couldn’t bring ourselves to say anything. We felt used and violated. Further, upon our return, the hose hadn’t moved but he had harvested more figs (according to the security camera). His comment was that “it rained a couple times.”

Over Halloween, we had house guests. We were all at our front windows looking at Halloween decorations, and we see a car drive by very slowly, pass the house, back up, park, and then he came to our door.

The neighbor is really awkward; that’s for sure.

My husband answered the door, and Bob said, “Your persimmons are ripe.” They were not, and my husband told him that. His argument in response was, “Well, they LOOK ripe and I hate to see the birds get them. We love persimmons.”

Our guests were bowled over at his audacity, and we shared examples of the fruit-tree-only interactions with them and telling them that he only talks to us because he wants the fruit.

To him, it must have felt like it came out of nowhere.

To this day they refer to him as “that nutjob who stalks your house and is obsessed with your fruit trees.” I told a close friend that I had yelled at someone picking figs. She said, “Oh, let me guess. Was it Fig Tree Bob?”

I am absolutely positive that he is going to tell everyone who will listen, “Oh, don’t ever touch her fig trees or she’ll go crazy.”

This lady is assuming she knows how he will respond.

He will emphasize that he only had two measly figs and that we are stingy. He will disparage us with his version of the story in which he was a total innocent victim of my rage.

Poor Bob was tempted by delicious figs and he took two and I yelled at him. We share our figs with many FRIENDS.

While there is no doubt that Bob was socially awkward and weird, her yelling at him seems to have been the first clue he would have had that there was a problem. If you’re not willing to talk to someone about things you don’t like, you shouldn’t be willing to yell at them. She was out of line.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about this unfortunate story.

This is exactly right.

Did she even ask him to stop? No.

This is an important question.

Yeah, she could have stopped this by simply telling him no like an adult.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an artist who made sure to leave the walls of her home blank and boring before moving out, even though they were covered with gorgeous murals before then.

Wow, this is extreme.

His first clue that there was a problem was that he was being yelled at. Why wouldn’t she try having a normal conversation about it first?