Nosy neighbors might make for funny stock characters on sitcoms, but they’re anything but fun in real life.
A woman on Reddit was so fed up with her neighbor staring into her house that she took things into her own hands: by installing mirrors over her windows.
She wasn’t sure if she’d handled things appropriately, though, so she went to the AITA (Am I The A**hole) subReddit for help.
The Original Poster (OP), who goes by winmdoze on the site, asked:
“AITA for putting ‘ugly’ one way mirrors on the windows facing one of my neighbors because I saw the husband looking in my windows?”
She explained:
“I live in an apartment on the ground floor of a house that was converted to apartments. My neighbors (one street over but the back of their house faces the back of the house I live in) can see my whole backyard and vice versa.”
“My apartment has a whole wall of windows that are on the back of the house. It’s gorgeous and is a big reason I picked the place, I love keeping plants and it let in a lot of light.”
“Looking out, there is the neighbor’s backyard which is large and comes up close to my place, the property line is maybe 10 or 15 feet from my windows.”
“Once it has gotten to be warm out I’ve noticed the husband of the family who owns that house looking into my apartment a lot. Even sometimes I’ll look up and see him, look away then look back minutes later and he’s still looking.”
“So I started shutting the shades during the day but that was kind of annoying, my place is a dark cramped shoebox without the windows open. And I can’t do that for too long because the plants were struggling without light”
“So I bought these window coverings that make windows into one way mirrors. During the day when it is light out, my windows look just like mirrors now.”
“From the inside it looks pretty much the same, the windows look tinted slightly darker but that’s it. From the outside you can’t see in at all, it looks exactly like mirrors. The section of windows it’s applied to is about 8 feet high and 20 feet wide.”
“After a week of the window coverings being up, both of the parents from the neighbor’s house came to my door and wanted to talk to me. The wife was complaining about the windows for a lot of reasons…”
“They were ugly.”
“It was uncomfortable, especially for the teens and their friends, to have a huge mirror adjacent to the swimming pool. It’s at a time that they feel insecure about looks and they have lost interest in hanging out by the pool.”
“In the afternoon and evening, it was reflecting a lot of extra sunlight into their backyard, they couldn’t enjoy eating dinner on the back porch with the sun in their eyes.”
“I said sorry about the inconvenience but I wanted it for privacy.”
“They both pushed back on that some and I said that I needed privacy because of the husband’s staring.”
“He started denying it in front of his wife and so I took out my phone where I’d taken pictures and sent it to my group of friends, and showed her a couple pictures of him gaping at my apartment and the texts from that time.”
“He got mad and said he incidentally looked over, and the 8 foot by 20 foot mirror was a crazy overreaction.”
“I said that I’d like to keep it, and that I was sorry but frankly this was avoidable.”
“I think they’re both mad because they called my landlord, who brushed them off.”
“AITA for putting the mirrored film on my windows?”
OP’s fellow Redditors were then asked to judge who was in the wrong using the following acronyms:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
And they were not in any way here for the nosy neighbor’s nonsense.
“NTA. You proved that you needed the privacy because her husband is a creep and they’re upset for being called out.”
“You don’t owe them anything and if your landlord hasn’t contact you about it then you don’t need to do anything that you don’t want to.” —Thr0w4w4y_96
“Yeah, they’re your neighbors. In a different house.”
“Their opinion of your yard and windows and what you do or put in your home is frankly none of their business and f’k them for complaining about it.”
“It’s like saying the color of your car is ugly so could you please repaint it or get a new one?” —Judoosauce
“HAHAHAHahaha gasp wheeze snort”
“That conversation sure didn’t go the way they thought it was gonna go, did it?”
“They got all self-righteous and indignant about their poor, poor teens with their low self-esteem and insecurity about their looks and oh no now they can’t swim anymore and it’s all your fault.”
“Honestly, what a load of steaming bullsh*t.”
“I would have loved to hear the conversation between the wife and her husband when they got home.”
“NTA.” —NoxWild
“NTA.”
“You only put it up because he was staring into your window. Whatever his reason, that’s pretty creepy, especially since it seems to be happening a lot.”
“Tell them you’ll only consider taking it down if they put up covers on their property which stop the husband from being able to see in your window. If they don’t like it then too bad.”
“Any complaints from any other party who doesn’t like it should also be directed to the peeping husband.” —Hazeru1001
“NTA. Husband being a potential peeping Tom was your problem and you solved it.”
“Thanks to the receipts (pics) you had proof so now he has a problem with his wife that is 😂” —WinEquivalent4069
“You had a privacy issue, you have proof, you took steps to protect your privacy in a temporary, non damaging way to the apartment youre renting (in my experience privacy film on windows literally just peels off, please correct me if this is not the case)”
“The above makes you NTA. I would have done the same.” —gemskiy
Hopefully these folks will learn a lesson about being good neighbors from this whole thing.