Wouldn’t it be nice if you could meet the neighbors before deciding to buy a house? Often, homeowners don’t realize how weird and creepy their neighbors are until after they’ve move in, and at that point, they have to figure out how to live with the craziness in the neighborhood.

In this story, one female homeowner thinks her next door neighbors are creepy, and she also doesn’t like their dogs. They’re a big reason that she wants to put a privacy fence around her backyard.

However, she’s not sure if it’s okay to put up the fence without talking to the neighbors about it first. Keep reading to see why she’s so hesitant to talk to the neighbors.

AITAH for wanting a privacy fence installed and not talking to my neighbors about it

I’m a single female homeowner. I bought a house about a year and a half ago.

There’s a chain link fence and I’ve always felt a little uncomfortable in my backyard with my neighbors being able to see me constantly, never really having full privacy unless I am in my house so about a year ago I decided I wanted to get a 6 foot wooden privacy fence put up.

They reached an agreement.

When this all started I spoke with one of my neighbors and they said “we do not want the chain link removed because we’re worried about the quality of the wood”

Ok whatever, explained that I’m more than happy to keep the chainlink up and build my fence on my side.

And they said yup, works for us. So they’ll be looking at a chainlink fence, whatever grows in between, and then my fence.

They agreed to this.

The other neighbors have some annoying dogs.

My other neighbors I have had multiple issues with and to be honest I try to my best to avoid talking with them.

They have 4 dogs, all which bark constantly anytime they can see me or hear me.

Things got so bad at one point they would stand at the edge of the chainlink fence and bark if they could see me sitting on my couch inside my house.

When I spoke with the neighbors about this I got brushed off with a “oh, that’s just them saying hi!”

This neighbor sounds creepy.

When I first moved into my house the wife next door said “yeah, my dad was going to build us a privacy fence but I told him not to because I like seeing what my neighbors are doing” which was a red flag to me.

There were times I would be in my backyard grilling for the evening and her and her kids would just walk over and sit down because they saw me outside, and I’m sorry but sometimes I just want to grill and eat I don’t want to talk to people.

I installed a privacy wall along my deck so I could be in my backyard without the dogs barking at me and not always have people watching me and within days I got a text asking what I was doing on my deck.

Even with the privacy wall, it’s still creepy.

It’s gotten to a point where I don’t feel comfortable going into my backyard, with my cats also I should add which the dogs have tried to hop the fence and attack, unless it’s during the weekday and I know them and their dogs won’t be outside.

I don’t feel comfortable working in my yard on the weekend because those dogs line up along the fence and bark at me non stop.

And to add to this the husband will randomly text me trying to start a conversation and want to know what house projects I’m doing and see what’s going on, which also creeps me out.

I’ve also dealt with them saying things like “hope the dogs aren’t waking you up at 6 am when we let them outside because they bark like crazy!”

She doesn’t want to talk to the neighbors.

To be completely honest, I don’t plan on speaking to them about the privacy fence before I put it up.

It’s going on my side of the yard, I’m not paying $1,000 for removal when the reason why I’m having to get this in the first place is because they can’t control their dogs.

AITAH for 1) wanting to put up a privacy fence to feel more comfortable in a house that I bought and 2) for not talking to them about this since I feel so uncomfortable around them and the fact they’re nosey neighbors.

There’s no HOA, nothing against the city guidelines stating I have to take down the chainlink fence, and nothing stating I have to talk to them. I am also, obviously, paying this entire thing and not asking for anything.

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Yikes! Those neighbors do sound creepy!

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about neighbors who can’t get along because of a totally legal gate.

Let’s see if Reddit thinks it’s okay to put up the fence without talking to them about it first.

This is good advice.

Here’s some encouragement to build the fence.

Here’s some advice about her cats.

Another person knows how much a fence can improve a backyard.

The only problem she could have is if she doesn’t know 100% without a doubt where the property line is. She definitely needs to have a survey done before having the fence installed. Then, there’s no problem. If she’s lucky, she’ll even find out that her property is bigger than she thinks and that part of her neighbor’s yard is actually hers.

But maybe that would be a situation she wouldn’t want to deal with anyway since she doesn’t want to have to talk to the creepy neighbors, and they definitely do sound creepy! The wife saying that she likes to watch the neighbors is just so weird! Doesn’t she understand how creepy that sounds?

Her yard it going to feel so much nicer after she has her privacy fence installed.