A Reddit user who goes by u/Recent_Chemical_3231 turned to r/AmITheAsshole for advice after a disagreement with a neighbor over their shared internet connection. After upgrading the internet at her apartment, she and her fiancé agreed to let their neighbor use the connection and split the cost. But when the neighbor repeatedly failed to pay his share on time, the arrangement began to fall apart. The post received 6,200 upvotes and 560 comments.
For the first two months, the neighbor paid his portion of the bill on time. After that, however, his payments became increasingly late, and sometimes did not arrive at all. The Redditor said she and her fiancé initially tolerated the situation, especially because they were dealing with a poor internet connection themselves.
When they decided to switch to a better internet service, they also changed the network name and password. This meant the neighbor and his family were suddenly disconnected from the internet. However, the Redditor did not tell him that they had changed the password.
She later received a message from the neighbor’s 20-year-old daughter asking if something was wrong with the internet. The Redditor explained that they had not been receiving their payments on time and had changed the network information when they upgraded their service.
The situation became more awkward when the neighbor came to her door with his wallet and offered to pay the money he owed. He explained that they were having trouble without internet access and asked about getting it back.
Rather than telling him that the password had been changed because of his missed payments, the Redditor said she did not know why the internet was not working. Days later, she still had not told him the truth and turned to Reddit to ask whether she was in the wrong.
People Had Mixed Opinions Over the Internet Problem
Commenters largely agreed that the Redditor was within her rights to stop sharing an internet connection with someone who was not consistently paying his share. However, many took issue with the way she handled the situation and believed she should have been upfront with her neighbor.
“NTA for that, but YTA for how you handled it. I'd at least have had a conversation when they missed the first payment, and then after that, then you could have just said ‘Hey, sorry, it's not working out. If you want internet, you'll have to pay for it yourself.’ Then changed the network,” one person wrote.
Others felt the situation was straightforward: If someone stops paying for a service, they should not expect continued access to it.
“This is literally how it works for everything with a bill. You stop paying the power bill, power company stops providing you with power. You stop paying your car note, they come take the car back,” another commenter wrote.
The commenter went on to share a similar experience involving a coworker’s Jellyfin server, saying they stopped paying for access and had their login revoked after telling the coworker they would no longer pay.
Ultimately, commenters were divided over the situation. Many believed the Redditor was justified in ending the arrangement but felt that lying to her neighbor about why the internet had stopped working made her partly responsible for the conflict.
The Daily Dot was unable to independently verify the details of the situation, which are based solely on u/Recent_Chemical_3231’s account shared on Reddit. While commenters largely agreed that she did not have to continue sharing her internet with a neighbor who was not paying, many criticized her for lying about why the service stopped working.
