AITA for refusing neighbor’s gifts?
A retired woman is at her wit’s end with a well-meaning but overly generous neighbor who constantly brings food, magazines, and knickknacks, despite being repeatedly asked to stop. The food often goes uneaten due to dietary restrictions and limited storage, and the neighbor has even resorted to leaving items on the windowsill when she can’t access the door.
After years of polite refusals, the woman recently returned a package with a note saying “NO Thank you.” Her son suggests quietly discarding the items instead, but she is frustrated and unsure how to proceed. read the original story below…
‘ AITA for refusing neighbor’s gifts?’
I’m a retired woman with an adult son roommate. My neighbor (also retired) keeps bringing me food, even though I have told her both my son and I are on ‘special diets’, we don’t eat pork, I have no room in my fridge/freezer, etc.
I have told her I do appreciate an occasional donation if she happens to have too many avocadoes, sure, I’ll take a couple. Big mistake. I used to feel obligated to return some food item I’d made when I returned her plastic containers, but those days are over.
Over the years we have been neighborly but not exactly friends. This has been going on for 2 or 3 YEARS. I assumed she means well, but I have asked her NOT to bring food here many times, as diplomatically as I could for at least 2 years.
Last week, I told her that a lot of times it’s unidentifiable in my fridge, I don’t recognize it and I regretfully end up throwing it away. reiterating we are both on restrictive diets.
Lately she’s been leaving food items (and unwanted magazines and knickknacks) outside my dining room window, since I started posting a sign on my door which reads ‘Naptime- Do Not Disturb’ which she usually respects (but not always). Sometimes she peeks in the window to see if I’m there.
I am starting to resent all these donations at this point, which makes me feel like an ungrateful AH. My son thinks I should just accept her largesse and throw it away without telling her (which I have been doing).
Yesterday, she left a ‘package’ on my windowsill. I brought it inside (still warm/freshly-made something) and bagged it, wrote a note reading NO Thank you and dumped it back on her front stoop, along with last week’s empty containers.
Let me mention that she isn’t lonely- she has a husband and two adult female roommates, 3 dogs, numerous cats and family in the area. So- who’s the AH? Will this ever STOP????
See what others had to share with OP:
rockology_adam − NTA. This neighbhour is not well-meaning. They are intrusive and probably more than a little judgemental. You need to stop being polite here. Tell your neighbour in very direct terms that you cannot eat her food and do not want her garbage.
If she persists, there’s a midway step here, where you bring anything she drops to you back to her door. Not a window, and not a lawn. You put it in front of her door with a note saying “I have told you repeatedly that I cannot accept these things. You must stop.”
And EVERYTHING she brings goes back unopened and unchanged except for your note on top of it. Make sure you mention it to the husband and the roommates, that you hate doing it, but she won’t stop bringing you things you have told her repeatedly to stop bringing you,
and you have no option but to return them to their door. I have a lot of questions about this whole situation, but in the end, if she won’t listen to you, then you have to ask her other housemates, and if they can’t do anything, you call an authority and have the authority,
bylaw or police or landlord or SOMEONE, and have them tell her to stop. She’s going to be offended, but you need to ignore that because she’s already being a pest.
RoyallyOakie − NTA…It’s annoying when someone can’t take the hint when you try be polite. It’s time to be direct. Perhaps she’ll get message when her donations end up back at her door.
GrumpyGirl426 − NTA. I’d be flipping out at the window peeking! Return the items untouched with a note that simply says ‘Please stop’ the next time and then one that simply says ‘stop’ thereafter.
If she doesn’t get it by the third note tell her her window peeking is illegal and, given that you do not want the things she leaves at your door she is also littering. You’ve done it politely, you now need to be more direct, increasingly more direct. She has no right to steal your peace.
MikeTalonNYC − NTA. You’ve politely (and kindly) let her know that you aren’t able to use these gifts, so they’re just going to waste. Suggest she work with a local food bank or shelter, that way these gifts would not only do a lot more overall, but she’d have something to do with her time beyond making you food you won’t/can’t eat.
VinylHighway − NTA – she’s ignoring you or just mentally ill. Just start not taking it inside and dumping right in outside garbage
Horror_Proof_ish − NTA she’s not listening so continue with the returns and never accept anything again. She may clock on to your no thank you, she may not but accepting is encouragement
TemptingPenguin369 − NTA. There’s no reason to feel ungrateful when you don’t want neighbors to leave random items on your stoop. She’s inconveniencing you. After two or three years (how have you not gone mad from this???) I think your current approach is the only one with a chance of success.
ecmcgee1997 − NTA, honestly sounds like she is board. But she’s not going to change. That said save yourself the headache and just pitch things or send them to the donation centre. You have tried for years to get her to stop and she has not. Its not going to change
Tdluxon − NTA Sounds like you’ve told her multiple times and she is just not listening to what you keep telling her, so you don’t really have much of a choice but to try to tell her in a different way. She probably means well but some people just don’t listen.
Should the neighbor respect her clear boundaries, or should the woman try a softer approach to maintain peace? Is it ever okay to firmly reject a “kind gesture”? Share your perspective in the comments!