Their Elderly Neighbor Keeps Asking For Small Loans. The Wife Is Fed Up That Her Husband Keeps Saying Yes.
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Imagine having a lonely older neighbor in your apartment building who likes to chat with you a lot. Would you be happy to have a conversation with him so he doesn’t feel so lonely? What if the conversations turned to the man asking for a loan?
In this story, one couple is in this situation. The wife is sick of the older man asking them for loans, and she’s even more concerned about giving him alcohol after she learned how much medicine he’s taking. But her husband thinks she’s making a big deal out of nothing.
Who’s right, and who’s wrong? Let’s read the whole story to decide.
AITA – neighbour always making excuses to borrow money
live in an apartment complex with an upstairs neighbour (50-60) and lives alone with his cat
It started normally enough – except he would always make excuses to knock and have big long chats where it’s nearly impossible to get a word in and/or end the conversation.
Sometimes he’d knock and ask me something general, and then knock later for my partner, and repeat the Q as if he hadn’t already asked – basically looking for excuses to have a chat which is fair.
Some days he would knock 3-4 times a day (rare), but usually it would just be a few times a week
I’m pretty sure he’s lying.
Now he has started to ask my partner for loans, sometimes twice a week (adding to what he owes). I would say he has borrowed from my partner around 20 times by now.
I feel he makes excuses or sob stories – about his friend owing him money and not paying him back, or his cat being at the vet etc.
I do believe him sometimes, but he does really over explain these things to the point they feel almost fabricated – and I have noticed many loopholes.
He takes advantage of OP’s partner in other ways too.
He receives a pension every week, and his rent is mostly paid for by a government scheme.
He drinks beer regularly and smokes weed.
He has asked me directly for beer a few times, and has hinted to my partner for it – texting things like “I can’t wait for this football – all that’s missing is beer and joints”.
I feel he uses my partners genorosity as permanent credit, allowing him to spend more on beer during the week with a “I can always borrow later” mentality
This guy sounds really annoying.
In fairness, he does always pay it back, and never really borrows more than 30 euro.
He texts and calls my partner regularly, mostly about money or football – and my partner is so kind so he doesn’t mind, but he gets slightly irritated by all the calls/texts/knocks.
He embellishes his apologies a lot – “I’m so sorry I’m so annoying I’m such an idiot I’m soooo sorry I’m a gobshite” (while doing a begging/praying gesture) etc.
He promised before that one loan would be the last one, but of course, it wasn’t
The drama continues…
I got impatient and now my partner answers anytime he knocks.
He noticed, and now tells my partner he doesn’t want to ask me for money – making it seem secretive – saying it’s a “man thing”.
This week, he turned up at our door and had a psychiatric episode or a seizure.
We called the ambulance, who asked me if he drank or abused drugs.
It turns out he’s on a lot of medication.
I don’t believe he abuses drugs except prescription meds & weed, but he drinks regularly.
I later found that he is on 8/9 different meds – antidepressants, anti anxiety, sleeping meds etc
I told my partner it may be a bad idea to be always loaning him as it’s enabling him to drink more, which prob isn’t great to mix with all the pills.
My partner disagreed, and insists that he’s happy to bring him joy as he’s an old lonely man.
The man never stops asking for money.
Immediately After this, he asked to add to his loan, as he wanted to beer cause he was bored
Am I overreacting?
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He’s pretty harmless overall, just irritating. I do have some sympathy as he’s lonely
Gosh, that neighbor is annoying! The real problem here though is OP’s partner who is letting the neighbor take advantage of him. He’s a doormat, and he needs to stop giving the guy loans and beer. Conversation is okay. He can talk to the lonely old man, but he shouldn’t enable him.
Let’s see how Reddit responded.
If only her partner were on board with this.
This person calls the neighbor a leach.
Another person agrees that they need to stop enabling him.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a condo owner who replaced a whole a/c unit just to stop the complaints.
Here’s a way to find out if he’s really lonely or just wants their money.
The saying goes that to have a friend you have to be a friend, and this neighbor is not a friend. All he does is take, giving nothing in return, and with his health and medications, they really need to stop enabling his bad behavior.
I hope she can get her partner to understand that.
Perhaps taking the last comment’s suggestion would be eye opening. If they asked the neighbor for a loan, how would he react?
This neighbor needs help, but they’re not helping. They’re only enabling.
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