Imagine living in a wealthy neighborhood where there have been multiple robberies. How would you protect your home?

In this story, different neighbors have different answers to this question, but one man’s solution ends up being quite effective…for his neighbor.

Now, there’s neighborhood drama.

Keep reading for all the details.

WIBTA If I don’t give my neighbor money for a portion of his private security company bill?

I live in a semi nice area in a major city in the US. Lots of my neighbors are pretty well off.

Because of this, we have had issues the last year or so with vehicle prowling and break ins. Several homes on my street have had their garage broken into.

Much of the neighborhood have invested in security systems, including myself.

But one neighbor went further than a security system.

One of my neighbors, Dan, has gone a little further and has hired a private security company. The company drives a marked car, and does regular drive by’s and perimeter checks of his property.

I see them fairly often since Dan only lives 2 houses down from me. They are friendly and wave at us when they are in the neighborhood.

Three weeks ago, someone attempted to break into my garage while I wasn’t home. My security system alerted me, and the siren from the alarm system was going off very loudly.

This happened to be about the same time that the guard was doing his patrol. He heard my alarm, stopped his vehicle and got out as the robber was coming out of my garage and started running.

I love how helpful the security guard was.

The security guard and chased the guy, but the robber got away.

The guard called the police (my alarm system already had as well), and he waited for them to show up and gave his statement about what he saw.

I turned over my security footage and everything to the police and got a report number.

The issue- Yesterday, right after I got home from work, I hear a knock on my door. I see on my camera that its Dan.

Dan wasn’t just stopping by to be neighborly.

Side note- I don’t know Dan super well, we haven’t had any extended interaction other than friendly waves or brief chats when walking the dogs.

Right away he brings up the break in incident.

We share some ‘yeah its scary, thank god we have alarms’ chit chat, then he tells me that he feels I should pay a portion of his security costs for the month.

I’m a little shocked by this and ask why.

Dan thinks it’s “fair.”

He explains that the security guard that prevented the robbery from going any further was only in the neighborhood because he had paid them to be. He says the guard spent over an hour at my house waiting for the cops and giving a statement for the report etc.

I told him that I didn’t ask the guard to stop, he just happened to hear my siren going off and saw all my floodlights come on. I told him that the guard did call the cops, but it was after my security system had anyway.

He asked me for $300 to ‘make things fair’ since I benefited from the random security patrol that he had paid to be there.

Basically I don’t feel I owe him anything, and he’s just trying to get a few bucks out of me.

He disagrees with his girlfriend about what to do.

He was obviously irritated and left right after.

He never said how much the guard service is in total for the month, so for all I know he’s trying to pawn off a month of service on me.

My girlfriend thinks I should just pay him to keep the peace, but I feel like I don’t owe anything and I think I’m gonna be stubborn about it.

So, WIBTA if I just ignore Dan and not pay?

I don’t think he needs to pay Dan anything, but perhaps the neighbors closest to Dan could chip in together to pay for the security guard to patrol more than just Dan’s house.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person wouldn’t pay.

How much does that security guard get paid?

It’s simple, really.

The neighbor might be better off talking to the security company.

I hope the security guard doesn’t get in trouble.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.