Looking at a home you once owned can feel nostalgic (Picture: Getty Images)
A woman, Angie*, has been left wondering if she’s in the wrong for not letting the ex-owners of her home take a look inside her property, 30 years on.
Angie’s parents had bought the house in 1993 from the previous owner, who had three daughters. The three, now grown women, then showed up in her garden, hoping for a guided tour.
‘Today my neighbour just showed up in the yard and she brought three daughters from the ex-owner…’ Angie said.
‘She told me: “Hi… they lived here and they want to see how everything looks right now.”
‘I stood there confused but said okay, then there was complete silence for two minutes. I thought they were going to just look from outside and that was it.’
Three women wanted to be let in to view the house they lived in 30 years ago (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
Her neighbour then clarified: ‘Can they go inside the house to see how it looks right now?’
But Angie replied: ‘Everything has changed, but no, sorry. I don’t feel comfortable with that, I don’t know you.’
Her neighbour then became ‘really mad’ and called Angie ‘mean’ because she wouldn’t let them in.
‘I was quite shocked… if I had a house that I sold I would look at it from the road,’ Angie added.
The three daughters who wanted to look inside their old childhood home were also ‘visibly angry’.
An ‘unbreakable’ connection
Feeling bonded to your home is a pretty universal experience. In fact, it turns out the ‘unbreakable’ emotional connection to our homesteads is felt by 65% of property owners, according to research.
For 56%, where they live represents ‘irreplaceable’ memories, from where they enjoyed happy moments with their partner (37%) or watched their children grow up (36%).
BACP registered psychotherapist Susie Masterson previously told Metro.co.uk: ‘Homeownership has a general significance in psychological terms, because it provides us with a safe haven. Unlike renting – and even though we might have a mortgage – owning our own home has a permanence.’
She added: ‘In Freudian psychology, the house is a metaphor for the self. So much dream work is about front doors, climbing endless staircases, being locked or trapped in a room.
’The importance of owning our home, therefore, can be compared to owning ourselves, and of feeling sure of our identity.’
When Angie’s mum got home, she said that the same three women had asked this a decade earlier and that they had been allowed in to see the home – so they already knew what the house looked like inside.
The post on the AmItheA**hole subreddit got a lot of attention with everyone firmly in Angie’s camp.
‘Maybe the three daughters were feeling nostalgic but if you say no, it’s a no. It’s not been their home for 30 years,’ wrote one.
Another said: ‘There are a million reasons why you would not want to let a stranger into your house. You’ve not tidied? Dishes in the sink? Pile of washing? Not swept …read more
Source:: Metro
