Generally speaking, society is not a hospitable place for children. People give you dirty looks when children exhibit normal childlike behavior. It’s like the general population hits puberty and forgets there was ever a time that they were children too. And then there are other times when it’s the adult in charge of the child who is the problem.
The owner of a koi pond recently encountered the latter when a precocious 8-year-old crept into his backyard and did major damage. It was his mother’s reaction that made a bad situation worse.
A man wondered if he overreacted to his young neighbor.
The 22-year-old owner of a koi pond wrote into Reddit’s Am I The A–hole forum to ask if he was overreacting in this situation that concerns property damage. He explained that his koi pond in his backyard is a full-blown, professionally designed Japanese garden with a bridge, waterfalls, and of course, the fish, which he said cost $1,000 per fish. He said maintaining the pond has been his pride and joy for years. To protect it, his yard is fenced in with “No Trespassing signs” around it.
Timmy, a young neighbor, climbed over his fence to feed the fish.
Those barriers to entry weren’t enough to keep out his 8-year-old neighbor, “Timmy. The boy is “notorious for wandering in people’s yards uninvited,” the OP wrote. The OP has spoken to Timmy’s mother, “Karen” about this but she just brushed it off saying, “kids will be kids.”
Last week, things came to a head when Karen called the OP in a tizzy. She told him that Timmy had climbed over OP’s fence to “feed the fish.”
The boy caused thousands of dollars worth of damage.
“In doing so, he slipped, fell into the pond, and destroyed part of my carefully maintained ecosystem,” the OP wrote. “Several of my prized koi died due to stress, and the filtration system was damaged because of the debris Timmy kicked in.”
Thankfully, Timmy wasn’t seriously hurt; he just had a couple of scrapes. But in an unexpected twist, Karen is demanding that the OP pay his medical bills. She argued that the pond is an “attractive nuisance” and that he should have had a cover to prevent kids from falling in.
“I argued that (1) it’s a private, fenced property, and (2) her son had no business being there in the first place,” the OP shared.
Karen started talking trash about the OP.
When the OP refused to pay, Karen started talking trash about him to their neighbors, calling him a “heartless,” “terrible person.” The OP filed a lawsuit against her for the damage to the fish and his pond, totaling $5,000.
Some of his friends think he’s taken things too far. Others believe Karen should have been watching her son. He wanted to know what the people of Reddit thought.
Reddit users agreed the OP wasn’t at fault.
They did not hold back. “She is right. He is just a kid, but she is not,” one person wrote. “OP sue her, maybe she will become a better parent not to have to pay others futures messes. If anyone says anything to you again, tell them you are doing it for the kid because his mom needs to change and to try and to prevent more pointless deaths.”
Another offered a spin on Karen’s adage: “If ‘kids will be kids,’ then parents need to parent.”
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
