However traumatic it is for the neighbours, they bought the house with a pool and the children enjoy swimming. Every parent's (and aunties) nightmare is losing a child and I feel sorry for the neighbours but they can't expect the new owners to get rid of the pool. The neighbours need therapy and healing. That's not up to the new owners tho.

Why is everyone overlooking the fact that the previous owners had the pool removed, with financial assistance from all the neighbours who are now sticking their noses in? Oh that’s right. Because it never happened.

gonna sound like and AH but don't care. The pool is not responsible for the death of the child. Negligent parents that should have been taking care of a child in the pool are.

I can understand the grieving family's trauma and upset but I cannot understand why they continue to live where they do. They saw the house go up for sale and they saw that the pool was included in the sale. The previous owners did not remove the pool nor did they make removal of the pool a condition of sale. The house was discounted but -- c'mon -- probably not that much to pay for the work needed and the hassle involved. It was completely predictable that the new owners would buy the house and use the pool. Who would buy a house and have a big empty pit sit in their backyard? It would be a safety concern in and of itself; it would be an eyesore; it would render a good chunk of the property unusable. The grieving family is placing an unreasonable burden upon their neighbors. Either accept reasonable use of the property or move away.

So....if they lived on a lake and the neighbor's kid drowned in it, then are they supposed to drain the lake and close it off ?

I'm probably going to be the AH here. The child died at a pool party. Who was supervising the child? The pool is not responsible for the death, the lack of supervision is. To expect a homeowner to devalue their property and take away the reason they bought the house is ridiculous. If it is so traumatizing for the family that Lost the child who I'm guessing wasn't supervising the child properly, then they should move. Looks to me like a transference of guilt from personal guilt to an inanimate object.. a pool. It is neither the new homeowner nor the pool's fault.

As a pool designer, I can tell you that depending upon the pool construction, where the pool is located, and local codes, it can cost upwards of 30K (US) to remove and fill in a pool. There is no reason a new homeowner should be saddled with that cost to assuage a neighbor's feelings.

This family deserves to enjoy themselves in their own home. The family who has suffered the loss needs to go to therapy. Something to allow them some tools to help with PTSD.

No matter the situation, I can't imagine being such a busy body that I'd feel entitled to tell someone in the neighborhood what they can and can't have on their property. If the direct neighbors are *that* triggered, they should move. What if the accident had been inside the house? Should they have torn the house down after they bought it?

Every pool that I swim at has a sign on the wall telling parents to stay within arm's reach of their non-swimming small children at all times. Drownings at private pool parties are pretty much always due to a lack of adequate supervision.

I lost both of my brothers and I don't think the neighbor should get rid of their pool. It's their pool, they are being appropriate with the pool and if the neighbors don't like the sounds of children playing they can move. Something anywhere at any time can remind them of the lost child. They need to suck it up buttercup. Just because something bad happened to them doesn't mean they have the right to harass others for having a normal life. I mean I wasn't going to harass people because my brother was killed in the army. You either heal and move on or you wallow in self-pity for the rest of your life. Pick up the pieces and move on. Not the a-hole.

I can understand both viewpoints. My parents lost my younger sister to cancer when she was 8m old, and they never really got over it. TBH, I don't know that it's possible TO get over something so horribly unnatural. But the neighbors are being irrational in expecting complete strangers to (1) shoulder the cost of filling in the pool, (2) suck up the reduced home value of the house they just bought, and (3) disappoint their own kids. The neighbors have my empathy, but they're asking too much here.

Not your accident, not your responsibility. NTA 3000. And they say it was at a party? Blame the parents.

NTA. Sorry you lost your kid, but why should I pay to have the pool removed because of your feelings?

That's a bummer. Nobody wins here. I think the best answer (if this is going to be a truly ongoing problem) is that the parents of the deceased child must seriously consider moving. That way they get to actively choose not to live near to a pool at all and wipe that trigger from their lives. They are fairly lucky the new owners are relatively understanding but if they then decide to move and the next people move in etc, etc, whose to say that they may end up having extremely insensitive people move there at some point that go all out and have major pool parties and kids being unsupervised? They should move house I think to just have some peace and clarity on this pool issue that seems like it's going to affect their lives permanently.

Well, I would let my kids to use the pool (with as much security meassures as I could immagine and afford, of course). But, I understand the neighbour's feeling. The best I could offer would be planting a line of brushes in order to allow them to skip the image (and part of the noise) of kids happily playing in that pool.

I feel like I would be a little wary of letting my kids swim in a pool a kid had just died in regards of the circumstances. Logically could have nothing connected but still just would be weird

As tragic as a child's drowning is, the neighbors have no right to even ask the new owners to fill in their pool and not use it. If the sound of splashing and child laughter is too traumatizing, then they can move. We have become a nation of entitled snowflakes.

Neighbors need to move period! Life should be enjoyed as it is entirely too d@mn short! Let these poor people be happy in THEIR pool! Jebus! I'm so sorry a child lost their life, but why ruin it for these innocent kids that just want to live in THEIR home? Ugh... People suck sometimes. Life sucks sometimes. Healing starts with laughter - esp the laughter of children.

I'm wondering if the original owners moved because of the trauma or if they were bullied out by the neighbours. Maybe it was a case of 'you fill the pool in or you leave' and they didn't have the cash to do the former. I feel for the neighbours and maybe it would have been kind to leave the pool empty for this first year, but OP is NTA for wanting to make use of the property they bought.

My question is how on earth do you just stay next to where your kid died because you weren't watching it properly? I don't care whose pool it is. Your kid, your responsibility. That's probably how the kid died. They felt entitled to leave the responsibility to the original pool owner and now feel entitled to saddle the new ones with their sorrow? They should move. Hopefully across the street from a really good trauma therapist.

I was reading this and of course aligning with the new owners, but more than anything l was thinking l wish l could find an apartment where something terrible happened so l could afford it *cries in broken housing market*

Agreed, the neighbors need to work on their healing. I really appreciated the one compromise that they offer to text when they are playing in the pool. Also, if I had the opportunity (meaning finances mainly), I'd try to make the pool my own and change the esthetics of the yard to Maybe lessen the difficulty. Buts that's more of a 'if I was going to get some work done to suite my family anyway' thing.

The property next door is going to be a source of trauma to the parents of the dead child whether the pool is filled in or not. So the best solution is for them to move. If this seems like punishing the innocent, that is exactly what they're trying to do to their new neighbors, isn't it? (Unfortunately, I suspect the previous owner never mentioned this tragic circumstance to prospective buyers. If anyone had a moral obligation to fill in the pool, it was him. Perhaps that's why he moved away.)

Amazing how most of the posts these days are just stealing from AITA

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This reminds me that one time I almost drowned but my mom (a good mom) went in the pool and saved me