Neighbor Wars·
THE WATER DEAL
A new homeowner faces a bizarre neighbor who demands payment to connect to public water so he can keep drawing from a private well, sparking a tense boundary dispute.
Would you pay, or shut it down?
Be one of the first to vote.
The new homeowner was still settling in when the neighbor dropped a demand that made no sense: pay to connect to the public water supply so he could keep using the well on the homeowner's property.
"Yeah, you read this right."
That is how the story begins, with a setup that sounds impossible until the details start to click. The poster had just bought a house, and with it came a strange leftover arrangement from the previous owners. The neighbor had once made a deal with them to dig his own well on their land and draw water from it.
Then the neighbor went and connected to the public water system anyway.
But he did not stop using the well.
After the sale, the neighbor apparently worried that once the new owner started using the property's own well, there would not be enough water left for him. His solution was not to make his own arrangements. It was to tell the new owner to hook up to municipal water instead, so he could continue getting free water from the well without paying for the public supply he already had access to.
The problem for the homeowner was distance and cost. Their house sits about 150 meters uphill from the public water supply, which would make connecting expensive. That did not seem to change the neighbor's position. He wanted the homeowner to bear the cost so he could keep using water from the well on their property.
"How fucked up is that?"
The poster, who said they wanted to have a good relationship with neighbors, felt the request crossed a line. They said the neighbor seemed to be taking advantage of them, especially since he already had access to public water.
And this was not the only odd request.
The poster added that the neighbor had "similar strange ideas" before: he wanted them to buy fish and put them into the homeowner's pond so he could feed them, because his own pond, which also gets water from the homeowner's property, runs low in the summer.
In other words, the neighbor wanted the house next door to solve multiple water-related problems for him: the well, the pond, and the fish.
The homeowner refused to hook up to municipal water. After that, the neighbor stopped all communication.
"after I told him I would not hook up to municipal water he stopped all the communication with me."
That is where the story ends: no compromise, no payoff, just a new homeowner left with a well, a pond, and a neighbor who vanished the moment the answer was no.