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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think this woman has a brass neck

68 replies

fortifiedwithtea · 22/08/2016 10:51

I'm bemused by this cheeky woman. We have blackberries growing in front garden. We also have them in the back to the point that we have far more than we can eat.

Our car is parked outside our front gate and my DC and I were getting in the car. I was just getting in the passenger side when a woman in her sixties stopped, picked a blackberry front our front garden, ate it and walked on. I smiled at her but she refused to make eye contact.

AIBU to think she should have asked first, seeing as I was there? I'm not precious about the blackberries but she wasn't to know that. For all she knows I could be a member of the WI and intent on making jam I'm not

If she had asked or had made eye contact so I could speak to her I'd have said bring a bowl and pick more she'd be doing me a favour.

OP posts:

hotdiggedy · 22/08/2016 13:33

A brass neck for taking one blackberry???

Zaphodsotherhead · 22/08/2016 13:34

Can I recommend a small, barky and very pointy-toothed terrier? Am prepared to lend mine out to anyone with a persistent neighbour problem. Or, indeed, just anyone (she is very barky at the moment....)

bunnyfuller · 22/08/2016 13:34

One. Blackberry. This is an actual thread?

mineofuselessinformation · 22/08/2016 13:36

This thread reminds me of a story I already told a while back.
My sister has cherry trees in her back garden. She doesn't have a gate - you can walk straight in.
She came home one day to find an old lady with a step ladder and a bucket....
That's a brass neck.

Sara107 · 22/08/2016 13:49

Bit rude, at the very least if you are snacking on somebody else's harvest you could smile and acknowledge it when smiled at!

oldlaundbooth · 22/08/2016 14:51

I agree OP.

It's not as if they are on a public footpath, plus, she saw you (the homeowner) coming out of the house!

She could have smiled and said 'Do you mind' or something.

LaContessaDiPlump · 22/08/2016 15:45

I too have the fear shove, but am also very greedy the DC were systematically stripping the bushes last time I turned my back for a second

Maybe I should go alone in future!!

2kids2dogsnosense · 22/08/2016 15:52

pourmeanother

If I were your parents I would spray something on all of the bushes- nothing poisonous, obviously (off, off) but something that wouldn't wash off very easily and taste bliddy vile.

(Actually if someone did that in my garden I would give them a gobful. And if it happened again I would ring the police - that's THEFT! (And obviously the coppers would be delighted to come out over a bunch of garlic because they have nothing else to do except sit about the station playing Pokemon).

Seriously - your DM is FAR to nice.

GoblinLittleOwl · 22/08/2016 16:50

ONE blackberry?

DixieNormas · 22/08/2016 17:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

OTheHugeManatee · 22/08/2016 18:38

Earlier I walked out of the front door of our house and as I passed the driveway to the rear I noticed a woman holding a dog lead that disappeared onto our property. I walked up to her and she was just patiently standing there while her dog took a shit on our driveway

I said 'Excuse me, that's our property, you shouldn't be letting your dog crap on it' and she just sort of smiled vaguely, said 'oh, sorry' picked the shit up and wandered off.

WTF is it with some people

YourNewspaperIsShit · 22/08/2016 20:17

When I was younger we had a front garden the size of a back one, it had a wall around it to about chest height maximum and metal gates with normal latches on either side (corner house). Was a lovely little cottage so had a big Apple tree in the garden and a bench underneath (just out of apple head-bashing range).

I can literally not believe the cheek of people who would visibly climb the tree for apples and have to be chased off! Drunk people would even sleep on the bench as if it were a random park At the age of 15 walking for the school bus and being greeted by a confused, still drunk male with his pants round his ankles from peeing on my apple tree was beyond ridiculous. This happened all the time not just once or twice.

I'm mortified that people can be so damn cheeky. I remember letting kids take apples that could be knocked off in like a beach bucket coz they asked so nicely but darent give them permission to climb incase of an accident.

Nowadays someone could pinch your apples, fall off and then sue you for damages

AncestralRhubarb · 23/08/2016 21:41

The summer my Mum died, I was popping in to visit my Dad. He was out when I arrived, and as I was letting myself into the house I saw a red-faced neighbour scuttle round from the back garden with a bowlful of raspberries. She muttered something about it being a shame to waste them. I stood there open mouthed, but managed to comment on it being a bumper crop this year and that my Dad was enjoying them, so that she knew they weren't rotting on the canes. I thought that was a brass neck - my Mum had been fairly friendly with her over the years but she wasn't a close friend. She'd have been pretty cross about her nicking her raspberries!

troubleinstore · 23/08/2016 21:49

I've come home to find people lopping off big branches off my holly bush in the front garden at Christmas time. When I asked them to go find some elsewhere in the wild they replied 'oh but yours have berries on' . I think my reply was 'err... I don't think so!' Cheely buggers!

Lulooo · 23/08/2016 21:50

It was one blackberry. YABU.
It'd be another matter if it was a bowlful.

TealLove · 23/08/2016 21:53

Omg one blackberry Jesus

MissSeventies · 23/08/2016 23:55

YANBU in my opinion. Ok so it was only one, but I still think she has some cheek. I speak from some experience too, we have apple trees in the front garden and in the back. The house is in a long cul-de-sac at the very bottom. The two front trees do not overhang the footpath, although IMO this makes no difference, but you do have to cross on to the garden to get to them. The back ones overhang a bit to the front, but they overhang onto our garden. Anyway every autumn the family enjoy making tarts and various other things out of the apples - we are avid bakers.

For many years there were plenty until horses appeared in an adjacent field. That year both front trees (and a good bit of the back) were picked clean by the neighbour's grandchildren to feed the horses often long before the apples were ripe despite being told off by myself on a few occasions - all the while I was BUYING cheap apples for my DC to feed the horses to allow our apples to ripen.

The next year we had a car load of relatives of neighbours up the street drive down, pass children over into our back garden to pick the apples and when my husband asked them to stop they kept on doing it. One evening we were out for a walk and were behind two girls who must have walked half a mile to come down to our house to pick the apples. Then one evening my DH DC and I were out in the garden and a grown man (50 plus if anyone cares) leaving from a visit to a house across the street stops his car, strolls over, leans into our back garden to pick an apple and when my DH asks him what he is doing he says "just getting one to feed to the horses" casual as you like.

So yes people have some cheek. In our case one year we had to go to a local apple picking festival to get enough apples to make all the things we had done in years past.

MissSeventies · 24/08/2016 00:01

OTheHugeManatee I also have that problem neighbour across the street regularly lets his dog poop and pee on our lawn, never bothers to pick it up just lets the dog out the front door and allows it to run over. I have two young DC, no dogs, my front lawn is littered with patches caused by dog pee (theirs is immaculate). Worse than that though my DD (3) was out playing on the lawn with my husband one evening, slipped and got covered in dog s**t! Not only disgusting, but dangerous. One time I caught it happening, just happened to be looking out the window, baby in arms, he ran over and grabbed the dog, but would not even pass a hello with me now. Sometimes I wonder, there seem to be an awful lot of people who expect you to let them walk all over you.

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