Teen Finds A Free Dresser For Her Bedroom And Spends Two Hours Moving It, But A Neighbor Demands She Hand It Over Because She Wanted It First
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They say one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. But apparently, some people think spotting that treasure first means they can claim it whenever they feel like it.
One 19-year-old is questioning whether she was selfish after refusing to surrender a free dresser to an angry neighbor.
When a military family moved out of the neighborhood, they left behind an impressive collection of furniture for anyone interested in taking it.
The woman’s 15-year-old sister spotted a dresser and matching nightstands that seemed perfect for replacing her outdated bedroom furniture.
So the siblings got to work.
For nearly two hours, they carefully carried the heavy pieces home, navigating glass details and assembling the furniture as they went.
But just as they were finishing, another neighbor appeared and demanded they stop.
Apparently, she’d been waiting for the family to move specifically because she wanted that furniture.
And she wasn’t particularly interested in hearing that someone else had already claimed it.
AITA for refusing to give my neighbor a dresser I had already found and almost finished moving?
a military family recently moved out of a house in our neighborhood and left a bunch of their furniture outside for people to take. It was really nice furniture as the couple had two kids and a fairly big house, so there was very expensive looking furniture, and there was a lot of it, multiple chairs,tables, dressers, 2 TV’s, a full bedroom set.
My sister (15) has been asking our father for a new dresser for a few months now because she thinks hers looks like something for a very young kid.
today, she went outside to take the trash out and noticed all the furniture. she came running inside begging me (19) to help her bring in a dresser and matching nightstands she had spotted.
Seems like a fair request.
prefacing this by saying I had just woken up so I already had very low energy, we went outside and started moving everything.
the dresser was taken apart, extremely heavy, and had glass mirrors on some of the drawers, as so did the nightstands. so we had to be careful. we spent around 2 hours carrying everything inside and putting it together as we went. by the time we were almost done, we already had most of the dresser inside.
then another neighbor came outside yelling at us to stop. I thought something was wrong, so I asked her if everything was okay but she started demanding that we give her the nightstands and dresser because she had been waiting for that family to move out specifically because she wanted their furniture.
Oh, wow.
I forgot to put this earlier so I’m typing it now, this family had a yard sale last week and told majority of people in my neighborhood they planned on leaving all their furniture out for people to take once they moved.
I told her it was sitting outside for anyone to take, for hours at that. she said she had wanted it first and that we should’ve waited to see if anyone else was going to come out because maybe other people could’ve wanted it.
she kept telling me after this to give her the remaining pieces we were bringing in and give her the dresser because she has wanted it since she visited the family’s house.
Well, that’s just too gosh darn bad.
I told her we weren’t giving her the dresser after spending all that time bringing it inside. She started calling us selfish and saying my sister didn’t even need it that badly because she could always get another one.
My sister was initially happy about getting the dresser but she came to me and told me she feels bad and thinks we should’ve just given her the rest to avoid drama, but I don’t think we did anything wrong.
The furniture was free, nobody had “owned” it, and we were the ones who actually went out and got it and spent time bringing it inside.
The siblings don’t appear to have done anything wrong by taking furniture that had been explicitly left outside for anyone to claim.
The departing family had reportedly announced their plans in advance, giving interested neighbors an opportunity to collect whatever they wanted.
While the other woman may have admired the dresser for some time, wanting something doesn’t establish ownership, especially when she hadn’t arranged to reserve it.
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Her expectation that everyone else should wait around in case another neighbor might want the furniture is also unreasonable.
The siblings had already invested considerable time and effort into moving the heavy pieces, making her demand particularly unfair.
It’s understandable that the younger sister felt uncomfortable with the confrontation, but avoiding an argument doesn’t mean she was obligated to surrender something she’d legitimately collected.
The neighbor’s disappointment is understandable. Her accusations of selfishness, however, seem misplaced.
Ultimately, free furniture left out for the neighborhood generally operates on a first-come, first-served basis, not a first-person-to-admire-it basis.
This perso agrees to the first-come, first-served notion.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a person who changed their minds about donated items, only to return to the shop to find them all sold.
So does this person.
And this person has a good idea on what to say to the neighbor.
The neighbor had her eye on the dresser for weeks, but apparently forgot that calling dibs in your head doesn’t count.
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