AITA for bringing my garden with me when I moved?

A Redditor shared a story about moving out of a rental property where they had spent years turning a barren backyard into a beautiful, thriving garden. When it came time to move, they dismantled the garden and took everything with them—plants, garden beds, and structures.

While legally in the clear, the landlords were upset and claimed that the backyard’s appearance hurt the property’s marketability. The Redditor wonders if they were wrong to take the garden or if their landlords were overreacting. Read the full story below to see how things unfolded.

‘ AITA for bringing my garden with me when I moved?’

I F(25) have been renting a house since I was 18 (7 years). When I moved in, the backyard was a large piece of dirt, no lawn or anything, just a decently big backyard with a fence all around. It was a cheap but not great house, but I signed because I wanted the backyard space.

Over the past few years I erected a small garden shed, greenhouse and pizza oven (transportables), planted lots of veggie gardens in big transportable garden beds, and put down some nice pavers, an aquaponics set up, and generally made the backyard a really green and beautiful place to be. It became the green oasis all my friends gathered at.

A few months ago, my landlords let me know they were planning to sell, and my final move out day was a week ago. When I left, I brought my garden with me to my new place – nothing in my last backyard was directly planed into the ground, and nothing permanent. I dismantled the sheds and greenhouse, loaded up all the pots and garden beds onto a truck and cleared the backyard in three days with lots of help.

My former landlords are furious over this, and demand that I return the backyard to the former state – apparently they’d listed the house for sale with pictures of the backyard and potential buyers were walking away from the house when they saw the barren backyard. They’re accusing me of stealing their plants, and wrecking the backyard.

Legally I’m fine – my contract said I could garden, and I have photos from the first real estate walkthrough before I moved in that show that the backyard was in the same state as I first found it (although with more fertile soil now probably). The same real estate agent signed off my final inspection, and I got my deposit back.

I’ve received mixed responses though, because I saw the landlords taking pictures of my backyard before I left but didn’t make the connection because imho when pictures of a house has furniture in it, you don’t expect to also get free furniture.

Some of my coworkers suggested that IATA because the house valuation certainly has fallen dramatically because I didn’t tell them I was taking my garden with me, so they couldn’t plan to landscape before lockdown hit.

Tl;dr AITA for moving my garden that I build from my former rental house into my new house, upsetting my former landlords who didn’t expect me to take it with me?

See what others had to share with OP:

Mandarinette −  NTA. This is a very classic story of landlord trying to benefit of home improvements paid for by the tenant. If your landlord was honest, he would have asked you how much you wanted to leave the garden as it was. You owe him nothing.

CulturedPhilistine −  NTA. Not at all. If the owners want the garden looking nice they pay up and put in the effort themselves. Their house value is not your responsibility and any decent landlord/owner will put money into a property after a longterm tenant has been there.

sygaila −  “how dare you take away plants and outdoor furniture that you paid for! Now we won’t get extra money for something we didn’t buy and set up in the first place!”. NTA.

Afoolsjourney −  NTA. They used your property as a selling point. That’s not your fault. They can easily hire someone to do some planting.

grahamemm −  NTA. You invested your time, money, and energy into creating your space. I assume your landlord did not compensate you for your gardening activities. Therefore they have no claim to your garden.

They should’ve asked you whether you’d be leaving your garden behind if they wanted to advertise their property properly. If I was in your position, I would also take the garden when I moved.

Eternaljudgment −  NTA. It’s all temporary structures you paid for and can take with you. The landlord is just salty because he tried to pull a fast one and it didn’t work. It reminds me of that story of the company that was asked to leave their premises and the landlord listed the building as ‘ready to move in,

just rebrand’ and the company ripped out everything they’d installed and sold the goods to help pay wages during the current situation. Tbh I’d love to see this written in a revenge subreddit

AussieSummerHell −  I can kinda see how they have have presumed that the garden was staying – I think people see gardens as being quite permanent, instead of being transient and changing.

And, because it’s looked so green for so long, they might have forgotten the state of the backyard beforehand, so the shock might have been a jolt. That said, NTA, because you literally own everything you took with you.

[Reddit User] −  NTA. F**k i was hoping you literally took the backyard with you tho

bists −  NTA I’ve rented for years, and like you have always ensured that any additions to the garden are temporary so that they could move with me. Your crappy landlord could have easily asked/and paid you to leave your stuff behind (if you had been agreeable)

Blobbyf1sh −  NTA. Your landlord and coworkers are assholes. It’s your property, they have no right to it. Trying to sell the property with the additions you made is so pathetic.

Do you think the Redditor was justified in taking their garden with them, or should they have left it for the landlords? How would you have handled the situation? Share your thoughts below!