A homeowner with a thriving blueberry bush was happy to offer some of their harvest to their neighbor — but evidently, the neighbor never learned to share.
The blueberry owner wrote about the situation in the subreddit r/mildlyinfuriating.
"My neighbor asked if they could pick some of my blueberries, I said sure, let's get together, and they proceeded to come over without letting me know and pick almost every berry off the bush, even green ones," they vented.
The photos they included showed the bush laden with berries before the decidedly un-neighborly raid. The after photos showed a much more bare, thoroughly stripped-down plant.
Commenters empathized with the frustrating situation — and many had encountered something similar themselves.
"My neighbor did this one time with my lemon bush," one person said. "She asked to pick some for a recipe and cleaned the whole bush out."
Another shared an even worse story: "My parents had neighbors that requested to pick some cherries. My dad went out and kicked them off when he noticed they were cutting 6 foot long branches from the tree to have an easier time picking them on the ground. Cherry trees haven't been the same since then."
Based on how damaged OP's blueberry bush looked after the neighbor's visit, many hypothesized that this person had simply scraped entire branches in order to collect the berries. Unfortunately, this kind of thoughtless behavior can do irreversible damage to a plant like that.
"I'd be livid," one person empathized.
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"It's genuinely insane behavior," another agreed. "And that looks like a wooded area; I'll bet so many creatures were going to enjoy them, too."
Selfish neighbors have been a source of strife for eons. Gardens and yards are often the arena, with countless instances of a neighbor spraying toxic pesticides, "accidentally" cutting down a tree, or filing a complaint about a non-grass yard (which, incidentally, is both cheaper to own and better for the environment).
But fortunately, for every prickly HOA who destroys a garden or neighbor who ravages a blueberry bush, there are plenty of people who are community-minded and want to respect nature, not take advantage of it. And it's much easier and more mutually beneficial to live next to a person with whom you share a vegetable garden or a community solar farm than a person who steals your blueberries.
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