Members of a popular internet forum banded together in defense of one homeowner who explained why he no longer lets the children in his neighborhood use his swimming pool.
Sometimes you want to do something good for other people just out of the kindness of your heart, and at first, they might be really grateful for the random generosity, but after a while, they might get too used to it and start expecting free favors from you or even demand them from you.
The man on Reddit and his fiancée moved into their current neighborhood just last year, the original poster said the couple learned they would soon be welcoming their first child, and decided to install an above-ground pool.
Their child will have a lot of older friends as their neighborhood is full of kids at around 9 or 10 years old.
Noting that the “neighborhood kids were very happy,” the couple implemented one steadfast rule: no dogs in the pool.
The man explained that the lining in the pool was fragile so he thought there was a bigger chance of it breaking with dogs around. But nothing happened last year so when the warm days came this spring, the man opened the pool again.
It seems that the kids used it as both of the homeowners were away and when they got back, wanting to refill the water, he noticed a big tear which he had to fix.
“This year, I opened the pool, and the kids used it while we were away.” He said in his post, “When we got back, I noticed the water level was low and tried to refill it.”
Seeing that the kids weren’t careful enough with someone else’s property, the man decided that he will no longer allow them to use his pool, especially because the following day after fixing the tear, the kids came with a dog, which he forbade them to bring.
Naturally, the kids told their parents, who, for some reason, got really angry and felt that it was unfair of the man to close the pool. When he came home the next day, he saw his fiancée arguing with a few of the parents, accusing the pool owners of hurting their children’s feelings.
The neighbors demanded he open up his pool again so the children could swim. However, the homeowner no longer trusted the kids because they had defied his rules and brought a dog in for a swim.
The homeowner has absolutely had the right to do so despite how many children’s hearts would be broken over it.
People in the comment section were completely baffled by the entitlement of those neighbors. As far as we can understand from this short story, the homeowner bought the pool himself, put it on his property, and was just kind enough to let the neighborhood kids play in it as it was a small community and that usually means people have friendly relationships.
Source: AWM
