Imagine living on a private road that is shared with five other houses. If one of your neighbors hired someone to do some work on the road that ended up damaging the road, would you be willing to chip in to help pay for the repairs, or would you think the neighbor who was responsible for the problem should pay for the repairs themselves?

That’s the question one person is pondering in this story. They don’t want to be a jerk, but they also don’t want to pay.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITAH for refusing to help pay for neighborhood roadwork?

Backstory: I live on a “private roadway” that serves 6 houses (each with 5-10 acres per lot). It is a gravel road and my house is the first of the 6.

The road and houses are about 6-7 years old.

In the past, we would occasionally get potholes and one of my neighbors would get out his tractor and smooth it out.

But things have changed.

About 3 months ago, the 5th house down the road took it upon themselves to open a “bread stand” in the county ROW at the front of our main road.

I guess business is good so a month ago, they decided to purchase some type of exterior shed building that they have put on their property to replace the shed and expand the business.

Last week, I came home and our whole road had the gravel scraped off down to the dirt. I texted my neighbor who normally does the repairs and asked him if he needed help.

Long story short, the neighbor with the business had been communicating with all but the front two houses about fixing the road so her customers had a better experience. She hired a friend who scraped the whole road and said there was not much gravel. Now they needed gravel to repair it.

OP doesn’t want to pay to fix the road.

I was added to a text (along with my immediate neighbor) at the end of the week by the thriving business and asked to chip in 220ish bucks to help pay for the first load of gravel.

Although they haven’t said it, it’s now going to take several more loads to repair what her guy did.

My immediate neighbor said he was paying but I personally don’t want to pay a dime when she made choices for me without including me in the discussion. The other neighbors did chip in but are supposedly unhappy with the situation.

So my question is, am I a jerk as I am about to respond and advise I’m not chipping in for something I had no feedback in?

The bread stand neighbor messed up and should pay to fix the problem themselves.

Let’s see if Reddit agrees.

This person is on OP’s side.

Another person shares an issue they had with a private road.

It might be a good idea to talk to a lawyer.

Nobody thinks OP should have to pay.

When you destroy something, you shouldn’t expect your neighbors to help fix it.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.