New neighbour AIBU?

She was very cheeky.

@Foxyloxymoxy don't give her any help at all, either of you. You're going yo need rock solid boundaries with this one.

Wow @Foxyloxymoxy It sounds like you're going to actually have to be a bit rude. Next time just say (whilst half laughing,) 'look love he's not going to put your shed up for you. Ask someone else, my husband is not a servant for the neighbourhood. He hates DIY - even doing it for his own property, he won't be doing it for anyone else!'

Definitely not. As many posters on here are clarifying, the cheeky fuckery from some people is off the scale. I'm canny enough to know he was not joking.

Like many posters on here, I have done favours for people in the past - and so has my DH - and they take advantage, take the piss, and use you for their own convenience.

It's often tight fisted fuckers who don't want to fork out money for someone to do it.

You let yourself be used once, and you're toast. You will be their patsy. Been bitten too many times, and won't do fuck-all for anyone now. If that makes us hard so be it. Better that than being a gullible mug treated like shit by people who use you when they need you to do something for them, and never, I mean NEVER give anything back, or do anything for you.

We will help in an emergency of course, but if it's any normal everyday routine repairs and maintenance, and house and garden jobs, pay someone to do it or do it yourself. Like we do, and always have done. Don't take the piss out of people.

YANBU and you were right to refuse! Who in their right mind thinks a shed can be assembled in a short space of time? Nip this in the bud now otherwise your DH will forever be summoned to ‘fix this’, ‘assemble that’, ‘move stuff’…….and his time won’t be his own. I’ve had neighbours like this……..opened the door to frantic knocking only to find my neighbour holding a bag of dirty washing that she demanded I wash AND dry immediately as she wanted to wear the clothes later and was rushing off to the hairdresser! I wasn’t very polite in my response!

I had same with one of my neighbours, she found out used to be a photographer. She offered me her 6 grandchildren for portraits, literally like she was doing me a fav. So I told her my daily rate, plus print costs and she went off scowling. People have no clue!

Blimey. If she asks again be blunt - DH doesn’t do DIY at home or elsewhere. Recommend she pops onto the local FB page for your town and put a post asking for a DIY man.

There are loads on mine who will assemble your IKEA stuff or anything really for an hourly rate.

OP you need to get a handle on this situation. It has all the CF hallmarks and I would be keeping my distance in future. The neighbour clearly has boundary issues and I think after you’d declined to help and given your reasons, it’s incredibly rude of her to then repeat the request to your DH - hoping for a different response ?

YANBU.

i find it odd that she asked. Was she elderly?

How intrusive! Blimey!

What gets me is she expected you to do it within her time frame.
I used to run a group totally free of charge, it took a lot of my time and energy.
Most people were respectful but this one woman wanted to join but she'd found out I was a podiatrist specialising in childrens biomechanics and wanted me to assess her daughter (no children allowed in this group) and make her some orthotics prior to the .meeting that night. For free of course.
I said sure that will be my usual fee of £150 payable up front.
She had an absolute epi, a friend and I were in stitches trying not to laugh on the phone. I was selfish and inconsiderate apparently and not worth shit. Needless to say she flounced and I never heard from her again. I'd not even met the woman.

Listen, just because you're a mug there's no need to project onto others who know how to use boundaries.

Was it possible he was joking?

If she asks again I’d say ‘Ha ha, you’ll be lucky, my husband doesn’t even do the jobs I ask him to. There’s about 25 things on my to-do list I need him to tackle before he starts helping people he’s never met. Best bet is to phone one of the local handymen that advertise. You should join the Facebook group ‘What’s going on in West Featheringham’ and there will be tons of people on there willing to help for a couple of hundred quid’.

Honestly the fucking cheek of it. How many blokes are just sat around on a weekend ready and willing to assemble a whole fucking shed for someone they don’t even know.

yes they would! We had someone who lived on our street, we didn’t know them, the street was big, even my very social speaks to everyone Dad didn’t recognise them. Anyway we had a knock one night, they apparently heard my Dad was handy at painting and decorating, he’d helped out a couple of old ladies locally that he knew when they were struggling, this person asked my dad a man they never met to decorate almost their entire 3 up 3 down terrace for a free pint! My Dad who wasn’t one for declining a free pint declined 😂

Drip??? No, he is kind, sometimes too kind, but one of the reasons I like him.

We have new neighbours & have been only to happy to help them but it’s us offering not an expectation. I wouldn’t even mind if they asked me for a favour as long as they didn’t mind if we decline.
So far for us it’s been offers of advice (local / house knowledge) from us and apologies for noise (workmen in) from them

LOL what a cheeky cah! 😆

Reminds me of when a young couple moved into a house near us/opposite us several years ago, (in their mid-late 20s, both work full time,) and their garden was never looked after much. They mowed the lawn twice in 4 months and it was like a jungle.

His dad came around to visit (and his mum too - they live 300 miles away.) The dad shouted over to me 'hello' and I said hello back, (I was weeding the flower beds.) He started going on about the nice weather, then said 'feel free to come and do some weeding for Ellie and Liam, and run the mower over the lawn, they're no gardeners! haha...'

I was like 😐

Then he carried on chatting about something or other. I went into the house soon after and brought out a leaflet with 'Jim's Gardening Services' on it, and said 'he's meant to be quite good, and not too expensive..' (Coz like fuck was I doing their gardening!)

He said 'ooh, no, they're not paying anyone. They've got their own mower, and gardening tools...' I thought 'oh, so they won't pay. They want someone to do it for them for free. Cheeky twats.'

I'm 30 years older than them, (and so is DH) and we're even older than their parents, and the dad has the fucking cheek to say I can do their weeding and lawn mowing for them. Fucking jog on mate. I love my garden and enjoy doing gardening. But only MY garden - well, mine and DH's . It's a big garden - corner plot - and is fairly high maintenance. I love it but it's quite high maintenance,

Doing anyone else's would be a chore.

Some people are unbelievable! I don't know if the couple asked the dad to ask us, or if he just asked. But neither me OR DH has ever touched their garden, and they've never mentioned it since. Them or the parents.

When we moved into our house we had a swingset delivered. We thought we’d manage on our own but there was one bit we just couldn’t get so we asked our neighbour for 5 minutes of his time at any time that suited him and were super, super grateful. We’ve since become friends and go round each other’s for bbqs and such so it did turn into a nice thing. Building a shed is a whole different ask and super cheeky!

When we moved once we realised we couldn't find our can opener which was delaying us making some dinner after a too long day. I knocked next door and they were happy to lend me theirs.

But that's a world away from helping to build a shed!! Can your husband take 2 mintues to reach a highlight that needs the bulb replaced? Ok that's fine as a one off. But taking a couple of hours to help with DIY? No way!!

Wow that is proper cheeky! You were right to say no, if you'd said yes just this once, who knows what else she'd be asking for help with!

Exactly. What makes me mad when I think about is she didn't have much so we tried to get her nice things if we had anything spare and we bought her a nice chrome kitchen bin and I realised afterwards I'd spent more on someone who was a cheeky cow than I did on us.
I really regret helping her and I don't like feeling that I won't want to help anyone else.