The best way to mind your own business is to keep your nose out of someone else’s – advice that a nosy neighbor took to heart after accusing a woman of running a brothel from her home.
In a post on Reddit, the 41-year-old woman, believed to be from the US, explained that she has been married to her husband for 20 years and is “still madly in love.”
“Due to mental illness, my husband cannot work, so I am the breadwinner in our family,” she explained in a message to the Am I A**hole’s subreddit.
“This works well, I have a well-paying job, no overtime and work from home most of the time,” she continued. “My husband is our homemaker and seriously, he’s great at it.”
The woman and her husband moved to a new house, which came with the bonus of a nosy neighbor (stock image)
Last year, the woman was able to buy a new house with a large garden, noting that it has a high fence, which makes it not easy to see into their house.
“You have to stand on your toes to see over the fence,” she noted.
Although the family is happy in their new home, they have had an annoying new neighbor who, the woman notes, is “incredibly nosy.”
“When we moved here, she was the first one to show up, not to help, but to gossip about other neighbors and warn us not to trust them too much and stuff like that,” the woman explained in the post .
Two months ago, the woman’s husband’s best friend lost his job, and soon after, his wife left him.
“The poor man was struggling extremely with bills, divorce and impending depression,” she said. “So my husband and I decided to get him out of this situation.”
The couple decided to let their friend live in their guest room for free until he got back on his feet.
“The divorce is bad enough, the poor guy doesn’t need any more stress,” she noted. “He’s a really nice guy, doesn’t demand things from us, he’s just happy to have a safe place to heal and get back on his feet.”
The neighbor spread rumors about the woman after snooping around her house and noticed two men living with her (stock image)
The majority of users assured the woman that she was not wrong, many even suggested that she was too nice to the nosy neighbor
The arrangement had worked well for all of them, but the woman noticed that she was getting strange looks from her neighbors while grocery shopping one day and decided to confront them.
“It turned out that (the neighbor) had been snooping around our house and spreading nasty rumors in the neighborhood,” she wrote indignantly.
The neighbor had reportedly openly told the neighborhood that the woman lives in a ‘wh**e house’ because she lives with two men.
“It spread around the neighborhood that I have to earn my money at my expense, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to afford such a nice house,” she raged.
‘I was furious and told my neighbors on the spot what was really going on, before leaving too excited to concentrate on the shopping.’
However, as she left the supermarket, the woman saw the nosy neighbor in the parking lot – and saw red.
“In my anger and rage, I rushed at her and started yelling at her,” she admitted.
“I told her, whoever I invite into MY house, it’s none of her business and to stay the hell away from us, my family isn’t her concern and if she ever badmouths me again, it won’t go well. ‘
The woman defiantly stated that she did not feel like she was exaggerating, noting that she protected her family and friends because “gossip can also hurt a lot.”
“Some of my friends now think I greatly overreacted,” she said. “So I’m here for the final verdict.”
But the majority of users on the discussion forum assured the woman she was not wrong, with many even suggesting she was too nice to the neighbor.
“NTA – there’s always the risk that the rumors didn’t start with her, but if she was the one gossiping, you’re not AH for telling her,” one user commented.
‘NTA. She needs a hobby that doesn’t involve spreading lies or gossiping. You weren’t too harsh. She deserved to be scolded like that in public,” another commented.
“No, you didn’t overreact,” someone else assured. ‘She overstepped her bounds and had to suffer the consequences. It might teach her to keep her nose out of other people’s business in the future.’