Neighbor demands 19-year-old pay her for damage to her vehicle after backing onto her lawn and over her garden stakes—when the local authority makes her remove them, she plants a shrubbery instead

There’s something uncanny about our ability to blame the person who placed an obstacle, rather than ourselves, for hitting it.

This is easily seen in the instance of a garden decoration or other object that someone has quite literally driven her vehicle into. But I think it works well for other aspects of life where we get so psychologically focused on an obstacle in our path that we run right into it. Metaphorically speaking. We can’t get it out of our mind, and it dominates our active thought processes. So rather than simply clearing our mind and finding a way to navigate around it, we steer directly at it.

Don’t get me wrong, some problems can be solved by driving right at them. But, well, this isn’t always the case.

This 19-year-old, who lives by herself in her home. Found herself with a problem in the form of the growing mud pit that was developing in her front garden. Neighbors weren’t respecting the grass at the verge in front of her home and were driving over it frequently while parking their vehicles.

In order to keep people from backing up and onto the grass of the verge near her home, she has placed large stakes on her yard where the grass begins. She did this with the approval of the local government authority, seeking to make sure that she had her bases covered for liability.

This planning, however, has not spared her from the wrath of a neighbor who is upset at the damage the stakes have caused to her vehicle.

Obviously, this has had the desired effect in protecting the grass. As her neighbor is now upset at the fact that when she backed up over the curb with her presumably massive SUV, she hit the stake that the woman had placed.

AITAH if I told my neighbor she won’t get a penny from me?

I (19f) live on an cul de sac estate where no one gets along, it’s very cliquey. 

Where my house is positioned I have my drive in front of my gates in which I can park on, and there’s a long grass verge. 

To stop people from constantly digging up the verge and making it a pool of mud I have put up wooden stakes with white tips on to preserve the grass and also make the stakes known enough.

As I came back home today one of my neighbours has stormed up to me and demanded money because, she herself has reversed into one of the stakes and it has caused “significant” damage to her back bumper. I in which told her that if she has reversed into it, it’s her fault.

A bit of backstory but my entire street has wooden stakes as also to protect the grass verges, I simply obtained permission from the local council which I was then able to put them up.

She then didn’t like that answer and said “if you don’t pay up, there will be significant damage, I can guarantee that!” She threatened to call the police for criminal damage and also told me to watch my back but I stood my ground.

WIBTA if I just ignored her and went on with my life?

There might be some room for argument on the neighbor's part here if:

1. The stake wasn’t approved or authorized.
2. Wasn’t expected or easily seen

But she had gotten approval from the local authority to place her stakes. And given that these stakes are placed by the local authority throughout the neighborhood, it’s hard to say that this stake was also unexpected or improperly placed.

The neighbor simply had gotten used to her behavior of driving over the grass. And wasn’t observant enough of her surroundings to adjust to new permanently placed objects

So it’s really all on her here.

However, this is hasn’t stopped this from becoming a major neighborhood issue. Which lead to the woman taking to this online community to appeal to readers for their advice.

Have a look at some key responses to the orignal thread below, followed by the update she shared and some more comments from that post.

The Update

The woman who posted the original thread shared this update a few days later, detailing what had happened since her original post

UPDATE: AITAH if I told my neighbour she won’t get a penny?
 

So neighbour called the council, thinking that she could get them to remove my posts/stakes. I had a knock on the door a few days ago from someone from my local council but I didn’t answer as he knocked quite aggressively. 

I rang up and spoke to someone within the council which told me she had created a complaint against my posts and that I would have to remove them BUT I could apply for a shrubbery license and put bushes in. Best part is that now everyone on my street also have to remove their stakes.

The neighbour who complained is known to be quite aggressive (walks like she’s 10 men) and it’s a very cliquey street with my neighbours across the road from me being the “influential and popular” well-known neighbours. A few days after this happened, neighbour 1 (aggressor) spoke to neighbour 2 (popular) and had a long 45-minute conversation facing my house and pointing to my stakes. 

What I believe happened was neighbour 2 told neighbour 1 that if she rang up and made a complaint that everyone would have to take them out and she told neighbour 1 that if that happened then there would be backlash to her as everyone including neighbour 2 has stakes and doesn’t want them to be removed. 

Well as you know we’re all now receiving a letter to say they need removing and I also found out neighbour 1 had tried to retract her complaint but the lady at the council told her tough luck, FAFO. LOL. A win-win for me in this case as I can now plant lovely flowered shrubs and she looks like TA.