My neighbour keeps dropping her kids off at my place and expects me to babysit

“She doesn’t even know us. Why would she trust strangers to look after her child?”

It’s a busy life for Mark* and his wife, Julianne*; the couple works in the restaurant industry, Mark is the head chef, and Julianne works in front of house.

On average, the couple work on the same days during the week, giving them only a little bit of time to relax every week. 

Then, in March, they were forced to kiss their free time goodbye. 

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Paula keeps trying to palm her kid off to the neighbour. Picture: iStock

Neighbour tries to palm kid off to strangers

Mark and Julianne welcomed their new neighbour, Paula* and her child to the area a few months ago. 

The couple had never really spoken to the mum, but one day, they heard a knock at their front door. 

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Lo and behold, there was Paula with her child, asking Mark and Pauline for a small favour while she was away. 

“She is a constant pain because she keeps asking me and [my] wife to babysit while she goes out,” Mark wrote on Reddit. 

The couple were taken aback. 

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The neighbour “doesn’t even know” Mark and Julianne, yet she expected them to drop everything and watch her kid while she was out of the house. 

“Why would she trust strangers to look after her child?” he asked, perplexed. 

The first time was bad enough, he explained, but the neighbour kept persisting. And every time she asked the couple to watch her child, Mark refused. 

“We usually work the same days, so we get the same days off as each other, and we want to relax when we get home,” he said. “But yet the neighbour is knocking on the door asking for us to look after her child.” 

She has even resorted to asking them to babysit while the couple enjoy their days off, which is getting “so annoying now”. While he appreciates that the mum “has no one to look after her child”, he can’t help but feel like it’s pushing the boundaries of their neighbourly relationship. 

“How is that our problem?” the frustrated man asked. 

Recently, the woman approached Mark and Jualinne’s door once again, making her usual request. 

Mark was fed up with her incessant requests, so he finally caved. “I actually said yes this time and told her I’ll do it this very once if you stop asking us,” Mark said. 

Thankful, she agreed to the deal, but when he asked what time she’d like to have her child returned to the house, she made a shocking revelation. “She said she isn't going out; she just wants to sit on the couch and relax,” Mark said. 

That’s right, she’s not even going to work! She simply wanted an afternoon to herself. 

“Are you actually kidding me right now?” Mark asked. “I'm not looking after someone's child so they can relax on the couch!”

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“Stop being nice”

Online, people couldn’t fathom the idea of dropping a child off to complete strangers, let alone doing it incessantly. 

“Not your kid, not your problem,” someone wrote. “So, she doesn’t have a babysitter? Sucks to be her.”

“As a SAHM, I get it, needing that little bit of time to yourself. It’s tough and wears on you,” another agreed. “That being said, screw that neighbour. It’s her responsibility. The only time I would ever ask a neighbour to watch my kid is if it was a dire emergency.”

Some flat-out told Mark to “stop being nice” and deny her endless requests. 

“Being nice is always a positive trait to have, but it gives people like your neighbour an opportunity to abuse it,” a comment read. 

“Seriously, why even answer the door? She can hire a babysitter,” said another. 

*Names have been changed

Originally published as My neighbour keeps dropping her kids off at my place and expects me to babysit