It wouldn’t be out of the norm for a tight-knit community to have neighbors helping one another out in a time of need.
Out of sugar? No problem. Just go knock on the Sherwoods’ door. They’re super sweet.
A Redditor however was slammed for not being so neighborly when he was made a specific request that made him feel apprehensive.
So they visited the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA) subReddit to seek judgment from strangers online.
There, Redditor Sure-Exit-3600 asked:
“AITA for refusing to let my neighbor use my Wi-Fi after they “accidentally” disconnected their service?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“I (30 M[ale]) had a neighbor (40 M[ale]) knock on my door, asking if they could connect to my Wi-Fi because they ‘forgot’ to pay their bill, and their internet got cut off.”
“I politely declined, explaining that I pay for my service and don’t want to risk security issues.”
“They got upset and left, but I thought that was the end of it.”
The OP continued:
“Turns out, they’ve been bad-mouthing me to other neighbors, saying I’m selfish and not community-minded.”
“A friendly neighbor told me they’re calling me ‘cheap’ and claiming it wouldn’t cost me anything to help out. Now I’m wondering if I was too harsh. AITA?”
Anonymous strangers weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
Many Redditors thought the OP was not the a**hole (NTA) here.
“In the time it took to rally the flying monkeys they could have PAID their internet bill and had their service restored. Curious, why didn’t any of the FMs give the neighbor access to their wifi????????” – celticmusebooks
“My ex gave our router pwd to a friend of his once while we were having a party. Said ‘friend’ then proceeded to sit on his laptop and torrent sh*t for three hours, including a Roussey fight happening that night, and didn’t even bother using any proxies. I found out when I checked the logs.”
“Just wide open. So I reported him to LEA myself and told all our mutuals what he’d done so they’d know to not trust him, not because I gaf about copyright infringement, but because a stupid **shole who abuses my goodwill without the barest of precautions to protect us both absolutely deserves whatever sh*t he gets.” – KatHasBeenKnighted
“The guy didn’t make the call to restore his internet immediately because he doesn’t have the money. He is telling OP and his neighbors a BS story because he is ashamed to tell the truth. He is trying to shame the OP, so no one focuses any deeper on why he is even asking to use the OP’s internet.”
“Plus he is an entitled a**hole, genuinely expected you to just say yes, thinks he has the moral superiority over you, doing the fake moral outrage thing which means he doesn’t have to show you any decency or respect, you are subhuman in his eyes.”
“Or he is genuinely trying to hack you and steal from you.”
“Either is plenty of reason to tell him to F’K OFF!!” – Dirty_Confusion
The OP chimed back in.
“Exactly! If they’d put half as much effort into solving their problem as they did into complaining about me, they’d have their internet back by now. And it’s funny how none of the people backing them up offered their own Wi-Fi either—guess they didn’t want to deal with the risks and hassle, but it’s easier to point fingers at me. Hypocrisy at its finest!”
“Honestly, you’re probably right. I doubt any of the other neighbors offered their Wi-Fi either, especially if he’s pulled stunts like this before. Kindness doesn’t mean being a doormat, and offering free Wi-Fi isn’t some moral obligation. If they feel so strongly, they’re welcome to help him out themselves.”
Reddit continued.
“I feel certain none of the other neighbors offered him their wifi, either. My guess is, they are secretly laughing at him. He has to have pulled something on one of them before. If any one does say something to you about being harsh or selfish, tell them ‘ yep, sure am…I learned long ago to not be taken advantage of…but you are more than welcome to help him out.’”
“While we all owe others kindness in our shared humanity, we don’t owe anyone free wifi. NTA.” – Realistic-Animator-3
“NTA (<– Edited to add)”
“Hey, coming from a cyber security professional:”
“NEVER allow someone you don’t really know or trust onto your personal network!
That is very bad practice for many reasons! But particularly, if that neighbor looks up something; your ISP will flag YOU as having that traffic, and frankly, that’s not something you ever want to deal with if you can help it…”
“NOTE: I used that as an example, but there are other things ISPs are supposed to alert authorities if traffic is found to/from particular online sites.” – Hero0vKvatch
“NTA.”
“If they download something illegal while connected to your Wi-Fi, the authorities will come knocking on your door.” – BlueGreen_1956
“NTA – Facts. We had to tell a homeless family member no for the same reason. They have knowledge of networks and stuff that’s beyond us. Besides the issue of illegal downloads, we were worried about them installing Spyware etc through our network too. They’re more knowledgeable than we are, and we know just enough to know to watch ourselves.” – Brickthedummydog
“NTA. ‘Can I have a key to your house so I can use your bathroom? My water is off temporarily, and water is almost free. Don’t be a d*ck.’ “ – repairmanjack2023
“NTA!”
“I’ve actually done this for my neighbor. It was at the beginning of covid & she said her daughter just needed to submit her assignment bc they were doing all that virtual classroom stuff. Idk if she said hers had gotten cut off or was down but we’d had a pretty friendly report up until this point, so I didn’t think too much of it.”
“Fast forward about 2 months later. My already spotty wifi service is now UNBEARABLE! I finally decide to log into my router & do some connectivity testing. One other feature it has is showing you ALL devices connected! 😐”
“This heffa had connected 4 different phones, 2 laptops, 1 tablet, and a damn Xbox! I couldn’t believe her! And to make matters worse, my router was located at the front of my house, furthest away from my bedroom, so my router was actually giving her connections priority due to proximity and signal strength!”
“Never again!” – Insomnsdreme0905
“NTA.”
“Unless you create a separate network on your router just for guests, their devices are going to share the same local network as yours. Today a lot of devices connect to Wi-Fi, like TVs, and cameras. A lot of these are low security, so he might take over casting to your TVs with a little effort.”
“This is not a security risk you want exposure to. Also, there’s no telling whether he’s gonna keep the password to himself. He could be sharing it to everybody he knows, especially because it’s ‘free’ (for him).”
“Secondly, you don’t know the kind of volume that he does. He could be running game servers in his basement and constantly streaming multiple 4K movies, which may slow you down.”
“Asking for free Wi-Fi from a neighbor is cringy, complaining when not getting it is pathetic.”
“Any neighbor who thinks he deserves free Wi-Fi should share their password with him.” – Redcarborundum
“NTA. You are not required to share the Wi-Fi that you paid for. You also politely declined explaining to them reasons why you do not want to share it. Instead of understanding your situation and bad-mouthing to other neighbors, they could have called their internet service provider and pay the bill which they ‘forgot’ to solve the whole problem.” – Busy_Purpose_9705
“If your neighbors feel so strongly, they are free to share their WiFi. I’m sure they’d love to give access and their password to people who ‘forget to pay their bills.’ Clearly if that’s all it was, they would pay it and have it back? I’ve never been through it myself, but I find it hard to believe that they weren’t notified that service would be cut if they didn’t pay their overdue bill.”
“I also find it hard to believe that anyone is taking their side. I also find it hard to believe that you and your neighbors are that into each other’s business. I live in a pretty friendly neighborhood, but I still don’t understand these stories about neighbors running to each other’s houses to bad mouth each other.” – legallychallenged123
Overall, Redditors sided with the OP, and if he was still on the fence about the situation, they strongly advised him against sharing the password.
The OP’s instincts about security concerns were accurate. Who knows what this person would do once he gains access to the internet through another user’s connection?