Woman unknowingly plasters her block with flyers of neighbor in their tighty whities. 'OBVIOUSLY we were getting our chickens!' AITA?
"AITA for alerting my neighborhood about someone lurking on my property, only to realize I outed a neighbor’s husband in his underwear?"
This morning, I awoke to a bunch of notifications from my home’s surveillance system. Upon checking it, I see a middle-aged man in his underwear, no shirt and flip flops wandering throughout my partially fenced back and front yard, looking around everywhere, casing the place, with a slightly panicked expression. It was extremely suspicious and unnerving.
Since the notification was only 20 minutes prior, I shoot up out of bed, put on some clothes and run outside in hopes of confronting the trespasser to tell them to leave my property. But I’m unable to find any trace of anybody, it’s a quiet morning out and everything seems as usual.
I go back in the house and look at the surveillance footage more closely, watched the other camera angles, etc. and am even more unnerved to see a whole family far away in the distance on one of the backyard cameras, a mom and a young daughter, crawling underneath my wife and I’s tiny house that we have parked out behind our main house.
The mom’s holding a shovel and the daughter is holding a long stick. You can’t see what they’re doing, you can only see from their shoulders up, but they’re crawling around underneath the tiny house. The wind was too strong for the cameras to pick up audio of what they were doing. You could also see them looking over my other neighbor’s fence, too.
It’s all so suspicious and creepy. What were they doing? Where did they disappear to? I showed my wife and she thought they were trying to break the locks on the tiny house door.
I went back outside to the tiny house and looked all over where the family was crawling around and couldn’t find anything askew or missing. Not even any foot prints in the dirt. WTF? I text my immediate neighbor photos of the people and they don’t recognize them. They suggest I call the cops. Neighbors thank me for watching out for them.
However, I don’t like calling the cops—so I did the next best thing: printed out a few flyers with a photo of the suspicious underwear man saying basically, “Watch out for this person in the neighborhood, he was with a woman and a young girl”.
I distributed the flyers in the neighbors who share the easement where the family emerged. I don’t think much more of it and the day continues. Tonight, I’m in the front yard doing yard work when a woman approaches me and tells me that she’s my neighbor from 5 houses down. I’ve never seen or met her before.
She says she doesn’t appreciate that her neighbors now know what her husband in his underwear looks like, that OBVIOUSLY they were trying to retrieve some pet chickens that were attacked by a hawk, why would anyone steal with their daughter with them, why didn’t I come out and confront them? She really let me have it…
I apologized, tried to explain that I’ve never seen them before, that I was sleeping, couldn’t see what they were doing, from my point of view how suspicious it all was, etc. but she wasn’t having it, told me her morning was terrible and that I made it worse, passive aggressively told me to have a great night and stormed off.
Apparently I had dropped off a flyer in their mailbox-the family who I captured in 4K on my property! I, in somewhat of a panic now, ran back and was able to retrieve the other 3 out of 4 flyers I put in mailboxes, this family were the only ones who actually saw the flyer. 🤦♂️
She really made me feel like an AH when I was trying to just watch out for my neighbors’ properties and safety. We have a history of vagrants roaming through our easements, where they emerged from mind you, and I really thought that was what happened today.
We also don’t live out in the country, this is in a metro area of Tucson, Arizona. Seeing an underwear man on your property is something anyone else would call the cops over.
I’m honestly horrified and feel ashamed but at the same time feel like I did the right thing. It’s very conflicting. Wife thinks I shouldn’t have made the flyers. I kind of agree, but 99.9% of the rest of the time, it wouldn’t have been a false alarm. I may have started a neighbor feud. AITA?
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
This is pretty funny 🤣🤣🤣 I wouldn’t think too much into it. What happened, happened already & if my husband did that & we got one of those flyers, we’d laugh.
Apologize for the issues but they should have asked before coming on to your property in the middle of the night setting off the security system. Then exclaim how happy you are that you didn't follow your instincts and call the police. Why didn't he put some shorts on?? Don't be ashamed, it's not YOUR FAULT!! NTA.
I actually would have called the police. The footage described sounds freaky.
Why was he in his underwear? That's just odd. You did nothing wrong but they did - they should have knocked on your door and asked if they could search your yard. NTA.
As another nw tucsonian, your NTA. That man don't need to off his property in his underwear. Yes, let your neighbors know. He doesn't need to be on anyone's property other than his own , with or without pants on. And if his wife is embarrassed, get the man some mental health help.
Exactly. Seriously, neighbors like 5 houses down? You mean you don't know every neighbor in the entire mile or so? Shocking. Some dude was crawling around your property in his underwear. YOU are not the AH, he is. How exactly were you supposed to know about the chickens?
NTA. Dude was on your property in his underwear. His people were poking around your tiny home with sticks. They're lucky you didn't call the law or worse!
NTA. I mean… I would have assumed it was a family trying to retrieve a lost pet…
But it’s a hilarious situation. I’d be less quick to make a flyer - that’s a level of dedication I feel is going half a step too far this early in the piece. If there was a second instance of weirdness sure, but a one off, that looks like someone hunting a missing cat? Eh, let that go.
And if I was feeling very wigged out I’d door knock, and talk to those four neighbours, not just shove a home made flyer of a half naked man through their letter box. You aren’t the AH, but man … you’ve shown your curtain twitching anxiety! Chill out a bit man.
chicametipo (OP)
I totally get that and appreciate it. I come from a bad family background and I definitely need to chill a bit. I have this deep-rooted anger towards thieves and people messing with my property due to past experiences. It manifests like this where I go above and beyond to be a squeaky wheel.