Woman lets neighbor’s kids use her pool, then comes home to 15 kids at a party she never agreed to: “Are you having a party at my house?”

Permitting your neighbor’s two children to swim in your pool is one thing. Opening your security camera feed at work and discovering approximately 15 children, balloons on the fence, and strangers lounging on your patio furniture is an entirely different interpretation of neighborly hospitality.

That’s what one Reddit user claimed happened after an arrangement with her next-door neighbor took a spectacular detour from two children taking an occasional swim to an unauthorized ninth birthday party in her backyard. The homeowner said she had never agreed to host the gathering and didn’t even know the children were splashing around in her pool.

According to a post shared to the r/AITApod subreddit, the deal had reportedly worked without issue since June, with the children swimming about twice a week and their mother usually texting before they came over. Permission to use the pool was about to undergo a rather ambitious expansion, though. Looks like that birthday party went swimmingly. 

Two kids somehow became an entire birthday party

The homeowner said she normally worked Saturdays until after 6 p.m., but her backyard security camera began sending repeated alerts at around 2 p.m. When she checked the footage, she found roughly 15 children in the pool, balloons attached to her fence, and adults she didn’t recognize using her patio furniture.

Lucky for her neighbor, her response was relatively calm for someone whose home turned into a rent-free event venue: “Are you having a party at my house??”

The neighbor allegedly confirmed that she was celebrating her daughter’s ninth birthday but assured the homeowner, “Don’t worry, we’ll be gone way before you’re home!” Unfortunately for that plan, the homeowner decided being absent wasn’t the same thing as giving someone permission to convert her backyard into a communal space. 

She isn’t the only homeowner to discover how creatively someone can interpret permission to enter. Another woman learned that the hard way after giving her sister a keypad code for two very specific chores, only to discover that secretly spending weekends there with her boyfriend had somehow become task number three.

The homeowner left work early and returned to find cars parked down the street. After telling her neighbor that the party was over, she also rejected a request to let everyone stay long enough to finish the birthday cake.

The generous pool-sharing neighbor said she didn’t know “a SINGLE one” of the children or whether they could swim. Guests packed up over the next 20 minutes while the birthday girl cried, and one parent reportedly apologized on his way out after saying he had assumed the homeowner had approved the gathering.

Weirdly, she was the one who “ruined the birthday”

The dispute wasn’t finished when the last guest left. The homeowner said her neighbor returned the following morning to collect a folding table and told her that the birthday girl had “cried herself to sleep.” Perhaps the owner should also be crying over the sheer invasion of privacy.

Then came the blame. According to the Reddit poster, her neighbor asked what kind of person “ruins a little girl’s birthday over a pool they weren’t even using,” arguing that she had previously been told the children could use it “whenever.”

People in the r/AITApod subreddit weren’t particularly persuaded by that interpretation of the invitation, and were nearly unanimous in their opinions on who the actual as*h**e was in this situation. One commenter pointed to the homeowner’s potential liability if one of the unfamiliar children had been injured, asking, “She filled your pool with kids you’ve never met and didn’t even think to ask?”

Others noticed another inconvenient detail for the neighbor’s argument: she normally texted before bringing her own children over. “Oh, she didn’t ask on purpose in case he said no!” one commenter argued, while another put the logistics rather neatly: “Of course she planned it, guests and cake dont magically appear.”

The bewilderment at the situation could practically be felt through the screen. Several users urged the Reddit poster to revoke the family’s pool access, change the gate lock, and document that permission had been withdrawn. Pool access has caused its share of disputes elsewhere, including an apartment pool trespassing dispute that ended with a visitor being detained and cited.

While most of the comments offered either advice or understandable side-eye, someone commented the one thing that possibly crossed everyone’s minds: “This is your home not a fricken water park!”

On second thought, perhaps “water park” is an inaccurate description, given that guests pay entrance fees at water parks. This neighbor seems to have used the pool for free and charged the owner in the currency of annoyance. In any case, just keep swimming. Just not in your neighbor’s pool anymore.

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