Woman left 'kind' note for upstairs neighbors who just had a baby — but everyone flagged a glaring 'red flag'
What was meant as a thoughtful gesture ended up being read in a completely different way.
A recent post by a woman highlighted how a well-intentioned note to her downstairs neighbors took an unexpected turn. The woman, who goes by u/Littlek1dluvr on Reddit, explained in her October 27 post that all she wanted was to leave a friendly message welcoming their neighbor and offering help when she noticed the couple had returned home with their newborn. But soon after, she started wondering if her note had come across the wrong way. The post, which gained 53,000 upvotes, had people debating whether the message was sweet or unintentionally passive-aggressive.
The note read, "Hi there! My husband and I noticed you recently came home with your new little one and wanted to extend a congratulations to you both! :) As your upstairs neighbors, we know sound can travel more than we’d like. While we’ll do our best to keep things quiet for you, we can’t promise the same of our cats (sorry for their zoomies!). If there’s anything you find yourselves needing, whether it’s an extra egg or just an extra hand, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re happy to help!"
After dropping off the note, the woman said she hadn’t heard back. "It’s made me feel like this could’ve been received poorly. Does this letter come off as weird or creepy?" she wrote.
Many readers weighed in on the post, with some pointing to the mention of noise as a possible red flag, while others felt the couple might have simply been overwhelmed with their newborn.
u/SimonsMustache wrote, "They could take it the way you intend it to be or they could take it as, 'we'll keep our cats quiet, you keep that baby quiet, capisce?'" u/paperplane030 added, "If you want to be nice just say congrats and offer your help. The noise thing comes across a bit weird. At first, I thought you wanted to complain in advance." u/Norah_D commented, "Maybe it would’ve been better received if you had properly introduced yourselves. I don’t think it’s necessarily weird… it’s just that they have no idea who you guys are."
u/Temporary-Garbage643 took a gentler approach, "Honestly, leaving a note is a nice gesture! They might just be overwhelmed with the new baby and not know how to respond." u/Full_Maintenance_411 said, "I wish my neighbors were like you. I have the person who watches TV full blast and thinks 2 AM is an appropriate time for rap music beneath me and a family of 4 who swear have full on WWE wrestling matches above me." u/winslowhomersimpson chimed in, "Halfway through I was expecting you to ask them to keep it down, lol. This is extremely considerate. It doesn’t require any sort of gift or trinket either. Very neighborly." Clearly, her intention was purely optimistic, and research supports that even small gestures of neighborly support like that matter.
In a 2022 study, Li Yaya et al. found that supportive interactions with neighbors were related to a better mental-health status. The authors wrote that only neighbor social support showed consistently beneficial associations with mental health and urged that accessibility of neighborhood social support should be considered in community-based mental health promotion interventions. The woman later clarified, "There are a lot of comments suggesting my note could’ve been perceived as passive-aggressive, and I see that now. That was not my intent whatsoever." She added that she had noisy upstairs neighbors herself and only wanted to reassure the family she’d try to be mindful. "It came from a good place!"
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