'AITA for asking my neighbor to move her Halloween decoration away from the curb?'
"AITA for asking my neighbor to move her Halloween decoration away from the curb?"
About 2 weeks ago I (33F) asked my neighbor, who I’ll call Maria, to move her animatronic axe wielding zombie a little further from the sidewalk.
She has it RIGHT on her property line, to the point where when I walk my dogs I have to walk into the middle of the road or just cross in order to stop it from triggering; you can be as far to the curb as possible and even on the side of the road where cars park and the thing still goes off.
There are two problems with this:
My bigger dog is pretty anxious, so between the axe chopping motion, the thing jolting forward, and the sudden cackle it’s really triggering for him and makes him hard to handle.
While I fully recognize my dog is my own problem, we live on a busy 4 lane road and it’s pretty impossible to safely walk in the middle of it unless it’s really late. Crossing obviously comes with the same problem.
2. No one else can avoid it either. We live on a long block between a park and a big K-12 school, so with legions of children marching past during their staggered dismissal times from ~2:30-4, the thing is going off CONSTANTLY.
You can even see the kids walking at the far edge the parking lane close to fast-moving traffic to avoid it themselves, but that’s not far enough for this particular demon.
SO, a couple of weeks ago Maria was outside while I was walking the dogs and we were waiting for a break in traffic to make our sprint across, and she said something along the lines of “it’s so hard to cross the street in the mornings,” and I took my opening.
Calmly, as we’ve always had a nice relationship, I said “yeah it’s a pain. I had actually been wondering if there’s any chance you could move your animatronic guy a little further back from the curb because I can’t walk by it without triggering it and it makes it really hard to handle [my bigger dogs name].”
Obviously somewhat paraphrasing since this was weeks ago but again, Ive always liked Maria and I’m pretty conflict avoidant so I’m confident I was both nice and all I asked was for her to move it back. She just stared at me like i was an alien for a minute and then laughed and turned her back and walked back into her house.
Well, last weekend she added two new ones to the curb: a grim reaper thing that jumps forward and a skeleton that makes noise and moves its arms. They don’t really make a difference since we’re already in the habit of making the death run across, but this morning I was chatting with another one of our neighbors, Angela, and mentioned I think Maria put the new decorations up in retaliation.
Angela confirmed that she did, that Maria had told her I was being a b-word and a K-name-for-uppity-white-women, and I guess she thought it would be funny to make my dog react even worse?
So yeah I know Maria is an AH for handling it this way. But I’m anxious I really did cross a line? Im genuinely not sure if asking her was an asshole move and if I should be the bigger person and go apologize.
So, AITA?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
fairytypefay wrote:
These animatronics can be terrifying to a child even when they're meant to be friendly, I can't imagine how they might react to the ones the neighbor has, and right by a busy road too. (I got scared so bad by an animatronic santa when I was 7 or 8 that even almost 20 years later I still go around those things as widely as possible to not trigger them.)
Wise-matter9248 wrote:
That was a pretty AH move on her part. If you asked nicely, I don't see why she needed to retaliate about it. Though, there isn't much point in buying something with a motion trigger if you don't put it where people will trigger it.
Honestly, I'm more worried about the kids. If they are scared of these things then maybe you need to let the school know and they can get parents to complain to her. But for you, is there not a sidewalk the other direction that you could walk your dog?
OP responded:
I appreciate that there’s no point in the motion trigger if it doesn’t go off! Honestly I love Halloween and Halloween decorations and wouldn’t want to totally kill the vibe.
I obviously didn’t get the chance to get into a detailed conversation with her about it, but the goal was to move it back a few feet to where it was still triggered if you were on the sidewalk, but not if you were walking on the median or in the parking lane. The problem is that it’s literally at/partially over the sidewalk line, so the distance away you have to be is well into the street.
Thank you though! I agree the kids are more worrying than me and my dog, I may try to get a sense of whether anyone else has already complained. I REALLY don’t want to start the complaint train though, I actually genuinely try not to be a problem for my neighbors when at all possible. And yes, there is another direction to be fair.
Her way leads into the burbs, the other way quickly becomes more main roads and unfortunately my beautiful furry little angel asshole also reacts to busses and motorcycles, so I try to limit how often we go that way while we’re working through his reactivity issues. That being said, I can’t overstate how much I understand that my dog is my own problem so definitely fair enough.
tequilamockingbird80 wrote:
Use the fact it’s making kids walk close to traffic and report it - honestly my senior dog has bad anxiety from mistreatment and I would be letting him maul the crap out of that thing if it made him feel better.
OP responded:
I am not above admitting that I have considered letting him eat it. On several occasions, at that.
Normal-Height8577 wrote:
NTA. You weren't deserving of those misogynistic insults. You asked politely if it would be possible to move something scaring your dog - not remove it totally, but just move it a little - and explained why. Presumably if she'd said no equally politely, you wouldn't have insisted. Asking a question politely is not rude and does not fulfil any definition I know, for either of the stereotypes she evoked.
She on the other hand...yeah, it's absolutely an AHmove to react to a simple enquiry by putting up two more jump-scare decorations and making them even more obnoxious. Especially when you know someone's asking for good reason, and not just because they have an irrational dislike. My sympathies to your dog. Give him a pet from a well-wishing stranger!
Ordinary_Map_5000 wrote:
NTA but I wonder if they’re considered a sidewalk obstruction since it sounds like the animatronics move into the space of the sidewalk. If that’s the case, perhaps call the non-emergency number for your town and explain it’s causing children and pedestrians to venture unnecessarily into a busy road and that you’re concerned.