I (22f) live in a small apartment near my university. There are a few trees along the side of my building that some crows like to nest in. Occasionally, I leave food out for them and they just recently started bringing me items! Around the same time, someone moved into the vacant apartment next to mine. The first night, he kept me up until 4AM on a Sunday yelling stuff while playing a game. Not a great start. He hasn’t done that since, likely because one of the other braver neighbors said something.
He’s now started to bang on his window and flash a light at the crows while yelling at them to go away. Not a huge fan of confrontation, and worry that I may be overreacting to the situation. He never actually makes them all leave, and if they do, they come back a little while later and all perch outside my window instead. But I worry they may eventually stop coming right when we started to bond, and it’s also just weird of him to do in my opinion. My friend said it could be due to superstitious beliefs, which also makes me worry I would come off as an asshole for saying something. Mainly, I don’t want to overreact and cause an issue with someone who lives next door in a space with very thin walls as well. So WIBTA for confronting this guy? If not, can someone please give me some ideas on how to approach this without coming across as weird or rude. Thanks
NTA. Are the birds harming anyone? Are they actually hurting him? It sounds like the guy has an anger problem.
Fun story: my old coworker used to feed crows. They would bring him items. He had a jar of money that he kept on his counter. When he moved, he said he had about $40 of loose bills and change.
My parents fed some crows for a while but they never brought anything. And then they started nesting in the neighbors chimney so my parents stopped feeding them.
So cool! They’re such interesting creatures. Love stories like that
NTA.
If you confronted him in a nice and reasonable way and explained why, then you’ve done the right thing. You can’t control his reaction to this information and you’re gonna have to accept that he might blow his top and keep doing it in which case you could make a noise complaint, find other neighbours to peer pressure him, just don’t do anything to get revenge. That’ll only make it worse.
Anyways, you wouldn’t be an asshole for asking him to stop, no.
NTA I wouldn’t go out of my way to talk to him (the crows will be fine, after all) but if you bump into him it might be worth just saying you heard him shouting and were curious what he was shouting at. Treat it more as a conversation than a confrontation.
Sounds like the guy has some issues. Might be better not to confront him because he might be unstable.
This also scares me a bit 100%.
Absolutely YTA for wanting to “confront” the dude rather than have a grownups CONVERSATION about it. sheesh
I can see how it might have come across that way, but I have no intention of getting into a screaming match or something with this guy. It would absolutely be a civil conversation lmao.
NTA, and your neighbour seems to be a total horror story. I wonder though if confronting this “person” would be a good idea since it might not be all that safe for you. But crows do tend to remember people who are nasty towards them and hopefully they will thus also remember your neighbour and confront him themselves sometimes (and as a group). But yes, if you see your neighbour actually being physically abusive to the crows, do not confront him, but record this, make note of this and contact the authorities.
Big birds…big, messy poop. Stop feeding them .
ESH
First: don’t feed wildlife. They start attributing people with food, come around people more often — which often ends badly for them when they get hit by cars or eat trash and get sick. Also, bird scat is caustic and will start to damage a lot of materials, so if you’re training birds to gather in one place you could be damaging whatever is under there: sidewalks, pavement, cars, whatever it is. The droppings also attract more pests, and — just don’t feed wildlife.
Second: yeah, the guy sounds a bit unhinged for yelling at birds.
Third: [can we please stop referring to every non-positive interaction between people as a ‘confrontation’?](https://www.reddit.com/r/PetPeeves/s/ycFq71AOLe)
NTA. But honestly? You don’t even need to confront him. Crows are incredibly intelligent and they remember faces. If he keeps harassing them, they’ll eventually see him as a predator and start dive-bombing him or gifting him things much worse than what they bring you.
Let the birds handle the diplomacy. Keep feeding them and they’ll choose your window everytime.