Mischevious neighbor terrifies 6 and 4-year-old siblings with garden gnome they believe is alive, their mom snaps and throws it away after weeks of relentless pranking: "I finally have peace"

Author image for Ely Bulnes
Ely Bulnes • Writer and Editor
Jul 14, 2025 6:00 PM EDT

Kids are totally new to this world; their actions and reactios are completely intuitive, unaffected by social norms. As such, the things that they find frightening tend to seem a nonsensical; conversely, many children seem completely unfazed by conventionally scary things. My favorite movie at 4 years old was The Mummy (2001); you can rag on my parents all you want for letting me watch it, but it surprisingly never gave me nightmares. However, I was totally incapable of watching Disney's Alice in Wonderland until middle school — especially that bit where the pencil creature erases her path home. 
In our story today, two small kids develop an irrational fear of their neighbor's lawn gnome. Even though her garden is covered in them, they fear a particular statue with a purple hat. When she catches wind of the kids' fear, she begins to play some mean-spirited pranks that have pretty adverse effects on the poor kiddos.

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    Aita for taking my neighbor's garden gnome?

    Cheezburger Image 10529640704
    via Syldavia from Getty Images Signature

    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 02
    So my neighbor has a huge collection of garden gnomes. No problem. The thing is, six months ago she bought a gnome with a
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    purple hat, and my children (F6, M4) are afraid of it. It's no different from the previous ones, not scary or even halloween thematic.
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    Cheezburger Image 10529640192
    via BGStock72

    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 05
    It's literally a gnome with a purple hat. And yet, it caused a surprising amount of problems in our house. It took me three months to convince my daughter that she
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    could sleep in her room (hers has a window overlooking the neighbor's garden) and that it was just decoration. My son still isn't convinced.
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  • 07
    I know it sounds funny, but at one point I even started to worry that my children might have some kind of problem. But no... they
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    just convinced themselves that the gnome with the purple hat was evil and alive. And nothing can convince them otherwise. Neither I nor other adults, not their dad.
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  • 09
    As for my neighbor, she's younger than me, but we had a good relationship. It was sort of like, "You lend me your ladder, I'll give you a ride to another city." So in May, I gave in.
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  • 10
    After a lot of crying, my son occupying my bedroom, and him didn't want to go outside, I decided to talk to my neighbor and ask if she could move the gnome somewhere.
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    I expected her to be understanding, especially since I wasn't asking her to get rid of the gnome entirely, but to move it to a part of the garden out of my children's sight.
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    But what happened... well, she started placing the gnome in a different spot every day. Which led my children to believe the
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    gnome was alive. Again. My daughter became afraid even more then before and she came back to sleep in my room. My son refuses to go to the garden.
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    Cheezburger Image 10529640448
    via princessdlaf from Getty Images Signature

    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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    My husband finds all of this incredibly amusing, but that's mainly because he's not home most of the time. Meanwhile, I'm sitting here, losing my mind over a gnome.
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    Which finally leads to: a week ago, my neighbor left this gnome on the stone fence (sorry, I don't know if this is the correct translation) that separates our gardens.
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    Later she moved him so he was still sitting on the fence, but now on my side of the garden. This ended up causing another argument in our house and for half a day my children refused to leave the
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    bathroom, saying that "the gnome had come for them". During the night something finally snapped in me. I got out of bed and the gnome was still sitting on the fence, so I picked it up and threw it in the trash can.
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    It took a few more days, but the children came to the conclusion that "the evil gnome was gone.". But as you can probably guess, my neighbor is not happy. The very next
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    day, she showed up at my house. My husband answered the door while I was at the store. He had no idea what was going on and began to wonder if the gnome had been stolen by some drink people or someone's
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    children. The neighbor let it go, but later, when she saw me, she brought it up again. I lied, saying I had no idea what she meant and that I would never touch her property. I don't know if she believed me, but she didn;t said anything more.
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    On the one hand, I finally have peace, on the other, I feel like I've failed. My friend, who knows the whole story, thinks I'm an a hole and that I should buy my neighbor a different gnome.
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  • I can't lie; I cackled as I read through this story. It is objectively hilarious, although it is incredibly cruel given the real negative effects that it is having on the children. Mom was absolutely justified in getting rid of the source of her kids' terror. 

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    Cheezburger Image 10529639936
    via marvinbla from pixabay

    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 24
    NextAffect8373 - Plot twist the purple hat gnome is evil and alive and is coming for you now. Watch your back
    via u/NextAffect8373

  • This could totally be the plot of a Goosebumps book from the 80s. Seriously, what if the gnome really is evil, and the neighbor has no idea?

  • 25
    Square_Band9870 second plot twist. this story was planted by Sony Pictures bc they're releasing a movie about it. Spoiler alert: gnome gets them all and stays there until new families move in.
    via u/Square_Band9870
  • 26
    sofiaundercover he/she didn't throw him away, you just... relocated him to his villain origin story.
    via u/sofiaundercover
  • 27
    mettarific If this is real, I might consider taking my kids to see a therapist. That is a lot of anxiety over a garden gnome.
    via u/mettarific
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    However, it sounds like your neighbor was trolling your kids (no pun intended) so I kind of wonder if she did something to start it in the first place, and also continued it.
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    Zealousideal-Coat729 Gnome good will come from this.
    via u/Zealousideal-Coat729
  • 30
    WontRemember ThisID NTA. Once she put the gnome on your side of the wall all bets are off. She deserves it for about not moving it around to being a scare your kids.
    via u/WontRememberThisID

Tags

family drama neighbors entitled parents gnome married with children neighborhood siblings motherhood parenting family Bad Neighbor raising kids Parenting Fail parents
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