Woman's Whole Neighborhood Attacked Her For Her Early Morning Jogs

It's becoming increasingly clear that the Nextdoor app does more harm than good. Weirdos and bullies use it to complain about people they have no right to complain about. And that has never been clearer than in this story, which was posted on Reddit's "Am I the A-hole?"

Reddit user broilt explains that she is a 26-year-old woman who likes to go for a run in the morning before she goes to work. She usually starts her run around 5:00 a.m. so she can "make sure to get at least five miles in at a time before having to get ready for work." Depending on the time of year, she is running as the sun rises or even finishes before the sun comes up. 

Other than committing the heinous crime of making me feel bad about my own (irregular...nonexistent...) workout regimen, I see nothing wrong with this. But her neighbors have started to complain.

Because she's running before the sun comes up, her outside motions sometimes trigger people's security lights to pop on, which make their dogs bark. Many of her neighbors have doorbell cameras and have identified her as she runs past their homes in the morning, setting off the lights and their dogs. 

The angry mob took to the Nextdoor app to air their annoyance. "I chimed in," she wrote, "to say, 'Hey, sorry about that!' and got dogpiled by people telling me to change up my route or have more respect. Some people told me to go to a gym, why don't I run in the afternoon or evening, etc. etc." 

This is insane! As she explains, not everyone can just "go to the gym." Gym memberships are prohibitively expensive for many people, and it doesn't fit in her budget. Plus, why go to the gym when there's a perfectly free world she can run in? 

And she can't just decide to run at a different time. Aside from the fact running in the morning makes her "feel good through the day," she has to be at work at a certain time, and 5:00 a.m. is what works with her schedule. Period. 

She points out in her post that she doesn't complain about the errant sprinklers that aren't calibrated right and splash her while she's running. This is just as much her neighborhood as it is theirs. She has no way of remembering every single house that has those security lights or a dog who will bark when she passes.

And she shouldn't have to! Part of living in a neighborhood is living with other people's routines and habits. If you want total silence in the early morning, go live in the woods! But actually don't, because there are woodpeckers there and they can't read Nextdoor, so they'll never know you're complaining about them.

Luckily, even if her neighborhood was against the runner, almost everyone on AITA was on her side. One commenter brought up a really good point: "Who the hell has motion lights that are set to be triggered by people on the road? At that point you're just asking to be annoyed." 

This is such a good point! Presumably, she's running out on a sidewalk or on the side of the road, not right up in their yards. If their lights sense people that far away, that's their problem and they should probably invest in less sensitive lights or adjust the existing ones' sensitivity.

This commenter summed it up nicely: "They bought the motion sensor lights, didn't calibrate them correctly. They bought the dog, let him bark when he hears anything. And then they get mad at you for existing at 5:00 a.m.?" 

It's really like her neighbors are trying to blame her for their poor decisions. I for one hope she continues to run to her heart's content and triggers every security light in the neighborhood while doing so.