A man has sparked outrage after flinging snow into his neighbour’s garden as a way to quickly clear his driveway.
He needed to access his car and opted to throw the snow over the fence instead of keeping it on his side, inciting anger from the neighbours who criticised him for what they saw as ‘entitled’ behaviour.
Nonetheless, both he and his wife fail to understand the commotion, with his wife arguing on Reddit that loading some extra snow onto the neighbours’ grass isn’t an issue as it doesn’t obstruct their driveway. She detailed their approach, saying: They have a 6ft fence that runs most of the length of our narrow driveway. For the first 15ft of driveway, there’s no fence and the snow gets shovelled into both yards. For the back portion where we both share driveways, the snow goes exclusively into our tiny yard.”
Further justifying their method, she continued: “However, for the mid portion of the driveway, about 20ft, we are surrounded entirely by our house on the right and their fence/yard on the left. There, we put the snow over the fence instead of walking 15ft to deposit a single shovel. We live in NY and our first snowfall of the year was over 15in.”
She then pointed out: “With 40ft of driveway, that’s a lot of snow to contend with. We’ve lived here since 2017 and each winter have done this with no issues with previous tenants.”
The conflict intensified when the neighbours attempted to confront the husband as he removed the snow – but he missed their complaints due to wearing headphones.
Upon opening his postbox the next morning, he found a note from his neighbour’s landlord that cited complaints from their younger tenants. This read: “We were told by our young tenants that yesterday, you were shovelling and throwing snow from your property on our side. They politely asked you to stop but you ignored them and just continue. That’s not cool and not neighbourly! If you engage in such rude and disrespectful behaviour you will force us to call the police in the future. If you have a problem, you may call us.”
In an attempt to clarify matters, the man sent back a reply that read: “Hey T, it’s A. I received this today and just wanted to set the record straight. My husband (K) is not rude and disrespectful and I resent the implication. He was listening to music and was being yelled at through a window. Your tenant was claiming that he was putting snow on the driveway and that they would have to shovel it later. However, he was putting snow onto the lawn.
“Unless they were intending to shovel the lawn, I do not think this is an issue. I’m sorry that they misrepresented what occurred to you, but I do not consider what happened to be polite. I also do not think you have a case for the police. Please encourage your tenants to speak to us in a more direct manner rather than through windows. Best, A.”
Turning to the wisdom of social media, a couple sought advice on whether they were in the wrong. One user responded: “You’re in the wrong. Yeah it’s into a yard and not a driveway but you are still shovelling snow from your property into someone else’s.”
Another joined in, commenting: “If you want a massive driveway you have to take responsibility for it. Shovelling snow over a fence is absurd and not at all acceptable. I would be annoyed if somebody that to my yard. Along the fence to our yard that you can’t see is a bench my kids like to sit on in the winter, a compost bin that we use regularly, and lots of the kids toys I don’t want buried and would have to shovel out. Stop being lazy and do the job right.”
A third added: “I’m sorry for saying it, but yeah, you can’t shovel anything from your property onto someone else’s, that just feels inherently wrong on the politeness scale.”