I live in a building that’s been around for decades, and a lot of the residents have been here far longer than I have. There are a few informal traditions that aren’t written anywhere but are apparently just how things are done.
One of those traditions involves a shared bulletin board in the lobby. For years, people have pinned up handwritten notes announcements, lost keys, thank you messages, even small drawings from kids in the building. It’s cluttered but kind of charming.
A few months ago, the board became unusable. Old notices covered newer ones, papers were falling off, and people started taping things to the wall next to it. I assumed it had just been neglected. One afternoon, I carefully cleared the board, recycled anything obviously outdated (events from years ago, disconnected phone numbers), and neatly re-pinned current notices. I didn’t remove personal messages that were recent, and I didn’t touch anything that looked sentimental.
I didn’t leave a note or announce it ,I just thought I was doing basic upkeep.
Later that week, a long time resident confronted me. Apparently, part of the tradition was that nothing ever gets removed unless the original person takes it down themselves. Some of the papers I recycled had been there for years on purpose. They said I erased history and disrespected the community.
I apologized for not knowing and said that wasn’t my intention. They then asked me to help recreate the board by writing replacement notes and even tracking down people who used to live here. I declined and said I was sorry, but I didn’t feel comfortable doing that, especially since I never agreed to manage the board in the first place.
Since then, I’ve been labeled as the person who ruined the board, even though others have admitted it was overdue for cleaning and more functional now. A few neighbors say I should’ve just gone along with fixing what I broke, even if it meant investing time and effort I didn’t sign up for.
I genuinely thought I was helping, and once I realized the mistake, I apologized but I don’t think I should be responsible for maintaining a tradition I wasn’t aware of.
NTA. Bulletin boards are meant to be useful for the community. If it’s no longer usable because of old messages, it should be cleaned. Expecting you to recreate the notes and look for people who left is ridiculous. They should have archived the old notes and kept the board useful.
I needed this the place was unclean I only felt I needed to make it at least clean never expected things to turn out the way it did
You saw a cluttered bulletin board and decluttered it and kept the recent notes up. That’s what most people would do if their community bulletin board was becoming useless due to clutter. Did the people saying y t even read the part where new notes were being stuck to the wall adjacent to the bulletin board?
NTA
It’s kind of hoarder mentality to expect you to contact old residents for years old random notes. Bulletin boards are always a bit cluttered but if there’s “rules” they should be clearly displayed. You didn’t do anything wrong and you should treat anyone that thinks it’s reasonable to seek out old residents and recreate put of date notes as an unwell person and stay away from them.
I was on team Y. T. A. Until I read that many times the people don’t live there anymore. No ownership rights to a place where you don’t live. NTA
NTA. You put back everything sentimental so nothing meaningful was lost. If it was such an important tradition somebody could have explained it to you. The board is for communal benefit and if nothing is ever removed you’re being deprived of that benefit. Your neighbors are weird.
NTA, they made the board unusable and therefore irrelevant.
NTA, the tradition makes no sense. They’re going to keep taping up the whole wall or what.
Imagine being moved out of the building and having someone contact you to rewrite an event from years ago. Just weird! The head hoarder should make a scrap book or something going forward
esh. on your part, mostly due to this line: “I never agreed to manage the board in the first place.” If you didn’t, then… why did you?
I’m going with ESH
The board looks like a tradition of the community, but if it is unusable, then it loses its intended purposes.
But it is also a living “monument” I guess of all the different people that lived there.
You didn’t know what sentimental value all those notes had, even if they were years old and the people who wrote them left.
But the people living there should have done some basic upkeep, or at least created another board for all the important/sentimental pieces of paper from residents who died, left, or had a big impact on the community.
You still shouldn’t have cleaned it up because it belongs to the community, not just you. But the community should have done something about it to make it usable for the whole building. You don’t get to unilaterally decide what stays and what goes.
I suggest maybe hosting a meeting or something where you can all discuss this moving forward, if the damage isn’t already too great to repair.
NTA.
How could you have *possibly* known that?
If they want to enforce traditions like that, there needs to be a sign warning residents not to remove items they didn’t put up.
ESH
I mean, ask before you do things my guy
NTA
This isn’t a tradition. Someone with issue throwing away a years old piece of paper that couldn’t even be seen under layers if additional trash, and calling that tradition, is a hoarder.
NTA, I guarantee most of the old notes are from people who have moved and were forgotten. Once those things are buried under new notes and messages they’re effectively gone. I mean you don’t memorialize something by hiding it. You apologized but re-writing notes and tracking people down is unrealistic. The fact that they wanted you to find out what the notes said shows they don’t even know what’s there.
Also, how big is this building? Because at least from my experience, it’s usually a small amount of people dictating what the “tradition” or rules are when most everyone else really doesn’t care. It’s also up to those people to have put up a permanent sign explaining their weird rules for note removal. It’s wrong of them to assume people will just know something so idiosyncratic.