Sometimes all a person wants in life is enough land to not be bothered by neighbors. This is especially true when you have enough acres that you don’t even use all of it.

So, what happens when a neighbor offers you money and expects to be given access to that unused property?

Do you say yes because you don’t use the land anyway? Or do you say no because you bought the land to be left alone?

The following is a story about a person who bought a large parcel of land for peace and quiet and was faced with this very decision.

Let’s find out how they reacted.

AITA for not letting my neighbor use my yard so her family can park their cars?

I own a house on several acres of land. My property was originally two separate lots that I purchased, but I made into one large piece of land.

I built my house on my right-most seven acres, leaving my left-most ten acres essentially empty. I specifically bought this much land so I could have privacy and noise reduction, and that’s exactly what I got and love about my land.

Because my land was originally two different pieces my other side has a driveway entrance that I never use.

Here’s where the problem lies.

Across the street from my property are several houses built close together that don’t have much by way of a yard and have driveways that only fit 2 cars bumper-to-fender. So, I’ve noticed if they have more cars than can fit they usually park on the curb along the front of the yard.

But even then you can only fit a couple cars there.

Right before Thanksgiving my neighbor across the street closer to the unused side of my property came to my house and made a request: they had a bunch of family coming to their house for Thanksgiving and Christmas and parking was going to be an issue.

The neighbors quickly learned that some people just don’t want to be bothered.

They were hoping I’d let them park their excess guests on my property, they offered to pay me a couple hundred bucks and also said if their family’s cars damaged my yard they’d come over and fix it.

I don’t know these people and I bought my land so that I could be all alone on it, so I said no. I could tell they were disappointed and they left without complaint.

Come Thanksgiving I saw they had somehow managed to squeeze about six cars on their property: 2 in the driveway, four parked across the front yard and another 2 on the curb along the front yard on the other side of the ditch.

Because it’s been raining lately their grass got destroyed and their yard is now covered with mud-tracks and looks very bad.

He stood his ground.

The wife returned yesterday and asked me if I could reconsider my answer for Christmas Eve and Day. I remained firm on my answer.

That’s when the wife got upset and said that in the seven months that I’ve lived here I’ve never done anything with that side of my land other than maintain the grass and ditches. She couldn’t understand why I was being so difficult.

She said that because I’d said no at Thanksgiving she’d had to call several relatives and tell them to make other plans which ruined a lot of plans for a lot of people.

Playing the victim is never cool.

She asked me to have a heart and told me that this holiday season was the first time she’d be seeing most of her relatives since the Pandemic started. She also offered me more money to use my land.

At this point I’m saying no more because she keeps pressing the issue rather than any legitimate reason. I don’t celebrate the holidays and I don’t know these people, so I really don’t see how any of this is my problem or why I should care.

AITA?

Interesting! It’s easy to see both sides of this issue. However, for some people, all the money in the world isn’t worth giving up their privacy or building neighborly relationships.

Let’s check out what the readers on Reddit had to say about this situation.

This person not only agrees that they’re NTA, but offers a solution.

The next person let the OP have it.

This commenter completely agrees and would’ve done the same thing.

The next person had strong feelings about the neighbors.

The OP really could have helped the neighbor out without sacrificing anything, but it’s obvious the neighbors would’ve wanted this for every holiday moving forward.

It’s better to say no from the start than feel obligated to do something that you don’t want to do.

The OP made the right choice.

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.