'AITA for refusing to let my neighbor use my vintage bathtub for his 'therapy' sessions???' + UPDATE
"AITA for refusing to let my neighbor use my vintage bathtub for his 'therapy' sessions???"
So, this whole situation is actually absurd, but I need outside opinions because I feel like I’m actually losing my mind. I (28F) live in an old Victorian house I inherited from my grandfather.
Most people don’t believe me when I tell them the house is mine, but my parents are not in my life (my mom died from heart health complications and my dad was never really in the picture after elementary school).
I had a really close relationship with my Grandad growing up and loved visiting him in his home so he left me the place in his will. One of the features of the house is the original clawfoot bathtub from the 1920s in the upstairs bathroom.
I was originally going to look at having it removed but kept putting it off due to the logistics of getting it out of the house and hiring people to help me. I used it out of necessity and it may sound weird but I eventually fell in love with it.
It’s spacious and it feels luxurious like I’m some sort of old royal or something lol. Over the past few years, I have researched how to care for it and only use special cleaners, and basically treat it like an antique.
Enter my next-door neighbor Dennis (~50M). Dennis is…eccentric. He’s into all these weird health trends, like grounding his feet in buckets of dirt for “electrical balance” or drinking filtered water taken from our local pond because it has “earth nutrients.” I don’t think he’s a heavy drug user and doesn't have an actual mental disability but he definitely has some mental issues.
Lately, he's gotten into hydrotherapy, which apparently requires him to soak in cold water for extended periods to “reset his nervous system”.I don’t really talk with him much but will regretibly run into him every so often since he always sits out on his front porch or meanders around his lawn.
Two weeks ago, Dennis came over and, completely out of the blue, asked if he could use my bathtub for his hydrotherapy sessions. I thought he was joking, but no—he earnestly explained that my tub was “the perfect energy conduit” because it was “pre-industrial revolution and untainted by modern manufacturing process.” (???)
I told him no, obviously. I don’t even let guests use that tub let alone a random wrinkly old dude who wants to fill it with ice water and do whatever unnerving nonsense he’s into.
Dennis did not take this well. He said I was being “selfish with community resources” and that because I inherited the house rather than buying it, I had a “duty to share” since I “didn’t work for it.” He started bringing it up EVERY time he saw me—passive-aggressively saying things like, “Must be nice to hoard that all to yourself.”
Then, somehow, this got out to the neighborhood Facebook group this week (who LOVES drama), and now half the street thinks I’m the villain for “gatekeeping” my own bathtub. This is just as absurd as it sounds.
The cherry on top is Dennis conveniently claims that his shower stopped working too so he doesn’t even have a place to clean himself (not like this was a favorite pastime of his to begin with).
I was trying to just avoid Dennis as much as I could and ignore the few comments from my neighbors until I ran into one of my neighbors while I was going for a walk Saturday (yesterday) evening.
I don’t really know her but we chatted briefly and somehow the topic of Dennis and the bathtub came up. I was expecting some sympathy for the absurdity of this all but this woman proceeds to TEAR INTO ME.
Like literal verbal assault by the end of it asking me why I was being so stupid and selfish—that I have multiple bathrooms in the house and couldn’t even spare it to help this old man’s health.
This morning I found a LITERAL GIFT WRAPPED BAR OF SOAP in my mailbox. There was no note or anything but I assume this was her insanely petty passive aggressive way of telling me to shove it.
I DO NOT want this man soaking in my tub. I DO NOT care about his “nervous system reset.” But now I feel like I’m losing my mind because everyone around me is acting like I’m some kind of selfish monster.
I get that some of the people in the neighborhood aren’t keen on me living here but I live by myself and work and go to school all day and I’m genuinely starting to worry that I’m gonna come home some day to find Dennis reclining in my tub. AITA??
Also, for anyone wondering how Dennis knew about the tub, he’s lived here for forever and helped my grandad do repairs back in the day so he’s seen the house. That said, he hasn’t been in it (the house, not the bathtub) to my knowledge in at least 15 years.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
Obviously NTA. It’s not a community resource, it’s your home.
Insanity. This is so weird - get some security cameras in, ASAP. Are the police, where you live, approachable? To keep their number at hand, in case you need to escalate if anyone sets foot inside your house without your permission...This story is so crazy, you might need to be prepared...
NTA. Tell your neighbors that you will not allow a mentally ill man into your house to get naked in your bathtub. Your final answer is Hell no, and the next step will be a restraining order.
Make sure they make the connection that there’s a mentally ill man demanding to get NAKED in the house of a young woman who lives alone, and do strange things in your favorite bathtub. Make sure they understand how aggressively weird this makes THEM look.
When he posts on FB, rely on FB, so it’s on record, “I have told you no, repeatedly, that I will not allow you into my home to get naked. You are not entitled to get inside my home and take your clothes off. No means no. Stop harassing me. I do not want a strange man in my home.” Set up cameras, because his next escalation will be breaking in.
The next day, the OP returned with an update.
To clarify the neighborhood situation, it’s a very small, older community that is fairly isolated from the surrounding area. Everyone has all lived here forever and everyone is very toxic and set in their ways.
They are very politically hostile to outsiders and though I am not a strong politics person, it became very clear when I moved in that I was not “one of them”. This combined with the jealousy of my inheriting the house at a relatively young age has painted me as an outsider in their minds.
This is the first actual issue I’ve had, but there have been mild microagressions towards me in the past (nothing serious, just little things to irk me that I have largely ignored).
To the people saying I use em-dashes too much—deal with it lol. (I get a lot of flack for this from friends. I even use them when texting :)) Also, comments about the age of the tub sound accurate—I’m not a history buff but this makes sense lol.
And to anyone who was offended by me calling Dennis old, I’m sorry. He’s probably late fifties and while that is not super old, it is old enough compared to me to make me feel weird about inviting him into my home as practically a stranger.
To anyone asking why I didn’t take action earlier, I work 20+ hours per week and am a non-traditional full-time student commuting over an hour to class several days a week so I have not had the time or energy to look into a lot of the things you suggested.
As for moving forward:
I don’t have the mental and physical capacity to care for a dog in my life right now (especially a big one) and I don’t feel comfortable inviting a housemate into my home to live with me.
That said, the cameras seem like a really great idea that I really should have considered when I moved in—I just didn’t see the need before. I don’t have loads of money to spend on a full security system but will be at least purchasing a camera for my front door.
I am worried about confronting Dennis or escalating things in the FB group because I do not want things to get worse or encourage someone to do something stupid. For the time being, I will be actively avoiding him and my neighbors and seeing if anything else happens.
I haven't dealt with the police in my town but have heard that they are not super helpful, so I hesitate to bring this to their attention. (I feel like telling them that someone asked to use my bathtub and someone else gave me a bar of soap is not going to be grounds for them to take me seriously.)
Something that has really worried me is the comments on the original post about Dennis’ possible predatory behavior. While it was clear that he has been gently harassing me about it, I never even considered the fact that being naked in my home or sharing the intimacy of my bathtub may be some sort of weird fetish or kink.
This may be overreacting, but now that I think about it, all the signs check out (the constant pressure, and like seriously, why wouldn’t he just buy his own tub??). I feel naive and a major ick and am genuinely scared about what he might do if he actually has ill intentions. Any further input is welcome (I am still reading through all your lovely comments on the original post) and I will try to update you all if this escalates further.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s update:
Post on the FB group that Dennis's harassment of you is reaching extremely unsafe levels and that you do not want to involve the police in his inappropriate demands to be naked in your home. Explicitly say that his behaviour is predatory and you are horrified at the neighbourhood siding with what appears to be sexual harassment. Until you make a stand, they will continue to attack you.
And the next time Dennis approaches you, loudly state, 'Get away from me! You will never be naked in my home and I will call the police if you keep harassing me!' Be loud. So many predators get away with this because their victims stay quiet. Scream it from the rooftops. Whether his intent is sexual or not does not matter. It's wildly inappropriate.
Personally, I would go on the FB group and ask if it's considered normal in this community for older men to pressure young women to allow the men into their homes alone and undress. Ask how many of them are already allowing this man to use their homes or their granddaughters' homes as he wishes.
No mention of him having used it before and she says he likely hasn’t set foot in the house in 15 years. So Dennis only becomes interested in the bathtub once a young woman moves in there?? Definitely predatory behaviour.
Unfortunately, I don’t think FB shaming these people is gonna do what the internet thinks. I’ve also moved to a small community with an elderly demographic. They’ve all known each other forever and have nothing to do but to talk through their FB accounts all day, and they LOVE to gang up on anyone viewed as a community upstart.
They’ll all make fun of her for “overreacting” because these youths and outsiders are too sensitive, they’ll close ranks and she’ll have new unpleasantries to deal with. Idk what she needs to do about the creepy bathtub guy, but her instinct not to engage with those people is probably spot on.
Sometimes acting like something is just... completely natural and a complete given can throw these sorts of folks off their game. By basing an opinion in old-fashioned notions of propriety, you can also sort of sidestep the "young people are too sensitive these days" response-- because the opinion is based in an older authority.
So something like, "Oh, haha, you know he can't come take a bath in my house because he's not my husband!" just said as if it's the most natural conclusion in the world, and EVERYONE knows that, and obviously the person she's talking to knows and agrees and there's actually no argument here at all.