I Broke Into My Neighbors Apartment To Stop A Fire And Girlfriend Is FURIOUS About It

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You can get 50% off your entry and use the code SPRING26. Go all in for Cancer Research UK's Race for Life. Sign up now and get 50% off entry to your local 3K, 5K, 10K or Pretty Muddy event. Visit raceforlife.org forward slash stomp for details. Discount ends 19th April 2026. Tease & Seize apply. Hey Waffle Gang, I do hope you're well. My name is Mark and today we're checking out some more Reddit stories. And if you do love a Reddit story, why not consider hitting the like subscribe? Maybe that notification bell too. Let's crack on with today's first story. Much love guys. Now today's first story comes from Good Samaritan and says, I 31 male let myself into the apartment next to my girlfriend's 34. To prevent a fire. She is mad. I filed a police report about it. This weekend I was staying over at my girlfriend's apartment. It is a single house split into two apartments. Around 8am I smelled bacon and went downstairs to see if she was cooking some. She had just bought a quarter of a pig from a local farmer. So I was really hoping this was some of the bacon. Sadly it wasn't and I was just wondering if I could get a little bit of bacon. Sadly it wasn't and must have been the adjoining apartment next door. About 11 we hear an alarm going off next door and don't think much of it. The neighbor 20s male is always around odd hours and staying up late. So my girlfriend and I just thought it was him just sleeping through his alarm clock. Shortly after this I got up to do some laundry and smelled smoke. I realized the alarm is not an alarm clock but the smoke detector going off. It was the last 5-10 minutes. I immediately ran around the house to the side door leading to the other apartment to see if I could get in. Through the window I could see smoke and also someone in the other room passed out on the couch. I tried banging on the door to wake the neighbor but he didn't budge. I'm a locksmith and had my picks on me so I tried picking the door but could not get in quick so I ran to the front door and thankfully it was unlocked. I walked inside, ignored the neighbor on the couch and followed the smoke. Turns out the bacon I had smelled at 8am along with a giant omelette were both on the stove. 3 hours later, burning. I turned off both burners, took care of the burnt food and then went to check on the neighbor. The neighbor was out. It was clear this was either alcohol or drug related but he was otherwise okay. I let him be and went back to my girlfriend's apartment. The neighbor woke up 15 minutes later and we could hear him moving around just fine. He never came over to say thank you. The part where this gets messy since I'm a locksmith, I know what I just did could be considered breaking and entering slash trespassing. I'm pretty sure this would be covered by good Samaritan laws but I wanted to avoid having it become a problem. It'd be very hard to keep my job as a locksmith if I had either of those charges on my record. Later that day I left my girlfriend's and filed a police report to cover my arse just in case. Last night I was at the brewery with my girlfriend and she had planned to drive us back to her place where my vehicle was. I'd been drinking enough where I was not going to drive. I told her about filing the police report and she immediately got visibly upset and left the brewery without me shortly after. I ended up having to take a cab home and went to my vehicle at her place this morning. My girlfriend is now telling me that we need to have a talk tonight and is otherwise giving me the cold shoulder. I can only assume she is upset that I filed the police report and the neighbour or landlord might get upset. My question is how can I talk to her to help her understand what I did was to protect myself and my livelihood. Also if anyone can help me understand why she's so upset about this, I'd really appreciate it. Now, I don't even know why she would be mad at you in this situation unless there's something dodgy where she is or they both know about that they don't want the law enforcement involved in. But quite frankly, it sounds like you potentially could have saved lives in this situation if this did catch fire and burnt the whole house down. Who knows how that would have went if you didn't step in when you did. One of the things that I was questioning as it was going through, you know, you said the guy didn't say thank you. Did he even realise that you was in the apartment at all? It sounds like you went in, sorted everything out and he was passed out the whole time. So he just woke up and he's like, what the fuck happened? In the comments, Population Tire says to the OP, I can't even begin to imagine what she thinks you did wrong. OP says, that is where I'm stuck too. The only thing I can think of is she didn't want to cause a scene or get anyone in trouble and thinks by me finding a police report, I'm not taking her feelings into account. Disturbed Paterb says, what are relations like with you guys in her neighbour or her and neighbour generally like? Neighbourly, friendly, awkward? OP says, the neighbour I don't know and from what she has told me she barely knows. Isn't around much but when he is, you know it. Slams doors, plays loud music and it's generally that annoying neighbour you shy away from. Comanter says, at least tell us this sort of behaviour is uncommon and unusual for her. OP replies saying, that is a good question. Normally she is steady as a rock. Lately though she has been less so. Two weekends ago she stormed out in the middle of our weekly friends game slash cooking night. She came back later and apologised but still. OP had an update saying wow, so we just broke up. We talked for about 15 minutes on the phone and she accused me of not taking her feelings into account. Since someone asked, we started dating often on last summer and finally became a couple at Thanksgiving. Here is the bombshell. I mentioned might be coming in the comments. We are scheduled to leave on an already paid vacation to the Caribbean for a week together in just over two weeks. We briefly talk about it on the phone and decide it would be best if we gave each other some time and didn't talk about it just yet. This is where I would love some help and feedback. The relationship may not be repairable at this point but I think she is an amazing girl and I want to see how much damage control I can do. To prevent this from being worse for either of us than it needs to be. Joke away on the back of that said, she didn't want to be with you anymore and this was the excuse. OP says considering the conversation I just had with her, I am inclined to agree with you. OP said about the conversation and he said the conversation went like this. She said, you don't respect my feelings and I'm done. At which point I talked to her for the remaining 14 and a half minutes about why she would get that impression and trying to explain that my actions were not meant to be selfish. There was a bit of back and forth during that time but her argument felt to me like I had too many holes in it to be everything. And like many other people said, I think she was just looking for a way out. An OP came in with a morning after update and said after some social lubricant and talking to a lot of random people on here and at the brewery last night, I've come to a conclusion. Even if there was more going on like many people have surmised, the relationship is over. There is no point in me holding on to it and letting it get me down. Today is a new day. I'm going to make it a good one and not look back. I know there are going to be issues with the vacation but we'll handle those as they come. I'll make sure to update you all and ask for advice when I need some. Today I needed some clarity and to be away from the subject so don't expect a lot of updates today. I'll try to stop him from time to time. I also have to say thank you all for everything you have said. There are so many of you that helped me find a peace of mind that I otherwise would have had so much trouble with. A special thanks to the people at the brewery last night who without knowing it or not really helped me through this. A bit later update. I'm sitting here with a close friend and he tells me since Thanksgiving, he could tell things weren't the same. This is the same person who told me she makes me a better person and was a big part of why I dated her. I really do feel like I was blind to what was really going on. Not truly believe this other as an excuse or the start that broke the camel's back kind of situation. Since we broke up, we haven't talked much but agreed to talk about how we're going to handle the Caribbean vacation tomorrow. That won't be happening it looks like. Tonight I get an email that she cancelled my flight. I started doing some digging and was able to find out that she is now going on vacation with her ex-fiancé. You guys called it. There was more going on. I'm cutting all contact with her so I can have a clean break and move on to the next part of my life. By the way, anyone know of a fun place to travel with my flight voucher from the cancelled ticket? Lol. I'm in the US. And I think the majority of the comments on the back of this one was just absolute bullet dodged. But the cheeky so-and-so cancelling your flight like that. People were wondering if there was some kind of legal repercussions that could go her way. But it just sounds like OP is going to move on and just do their own thing. But what do you guys make of this situation? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below. Let's move on to another story. Our next story comes from lacklusterlive who says I the asshole for not throwing away pictures of my ex-wife. I 36 male and my girlfriend 30 female just got 100% custody of my 5 female daughter as my ex-wife is moving out of state at the end of the week. Prior to this new custody arrangement, we've had primary physical custody of my daughter because my ex works Monday to Friday 9 to 5 in a single. I work from home which makes transportation for school easy for me and allows for us, myself and ex-wife to avoid paying for after-school care. My home is my daughter's home of record and we have cared for her throughout the weekdays and have had all weekends kid-free until now. My girlfriend was always opposed to this custody agreement because to her it felt as though we are doing your ex-wife a favour and she needs to do her part and take her daughter 50-50. Adding that she should pay for her own daycare for the days she would have had her if we split custody evenly. And that I shouldn't help her by taking extra custody days or by splitting the cost of daycare. I personally loved the arrangement. I loved my daughter. Having her 5 days a week was great. I submitted my point that we get the easy days with my daughter and have all weekends to be free adults. I was met with the idea that she wasn't having an issue with caring for my daughter more than my ex but that she felt like we were being walked on or that I was doing favours for my ex-wife by taking my daughter during the weekdays instead of forcing her to figure out how to afford daycare for the days she would be in my ex-wife's care. In couples counselling she stated that it would be better if my ex just left and we were to have 100% custody. Lo and behold, two months later my ex-wife drops the news on us that she is leaving for a few years to pursue a career. About two weeks ago my ex asked if she could fly in and pick up my daughter for a wedding, a three day trip in February. The wedding just so happened to be on my girlfriend's birthday weekend. However, we would have to drive my daughter to the airport to drop her off at the end of the weekend. It's an hour drive one way and happens to land on my girlfriend's birthday. Still, delighted by the possibility of spending my girlfriend's birthday weekend together as free, no kid adults. I immediately said yes and began making plans to surprise my girlfriend with. As up until today, she didn't know about my daughter leaving for the weekend. Over the past two weeks I've been making arrangements to stay at the Stanley Hotel, the one from The Shining. She's fascinated by it but neither of us have seen it and she's always asked for me to take her there someday. Plus it's closer to the airport as we could easily swing by to swoop up my daughter on our way home that Sunday. Today my daughter started asking about her trip for the wedding in front of my girlfriend. Although it's still over a month away, I figured I could tell my girlfriend about it now. Besides, she would have to ensure she had the weekend off work to make my surprise possible. At first my girlfriend seemed delighted to hear that my daughter was leaving for a weekend and got even more excited when she heard it was her birthday weekend. I haven't even told her what I was planning yet. Just then, her face went sour. Wait, when did she come back? She asked. On your birthday I replied. She then demanded that my ex rent a car and deliver my daughter to us, as it was in fact on her birthday. I told her that our airport was at a layover and that my ex had to fly back to the state she had moved to and that was probably not reasonable or financially viable option. She argued that it was her birthday and that she wouldn't be burdened with driving an hour each way to pick my daughter on her actual birthday. I tried to reason with her that this was probably the last overnight weekend we would have kids free for a long time and that it's a good deal for us. I offered to drive myself so she wouldn't have to enjoy the two hour hardship on her birthday. She was also upset that I've known about the trip for two weeks and haven't mentioned it. I revealed that I was trying to use it as an opportunity to surprise her, without revealing the surprise. But that still had no effect. She is pissed. She thinks I'm doing my ex a favor on her birthday and declared that she would just rather work that weekend because her birthday obviously doesn't matter. I just don't understand. I feel like we were offered a gift and that I used it perfectly in a way that would make her feel happy and special. However, I'm being made to feel like I'm an asshole for ruining her birthday. I feel as though she is unreasonably jealous of my ex-wife and that her jealousy is bleeding into our relationship with my daughter as well. Should I have talked to my girlfriend about the trip and my plans immediately and ruined my chance to surprise her? Am I the asshole? Saving Money. Sainsbury's. Good food for all of us. Selected products. LD Price Match not in Ni. Nectar prices require Nectar account. Terms at Sainsbury's.co.uk slash LD Price Match and Nectar.com slash Price's Terms. When was the last time you stopped and listened to your body? Here's a Holland and Barrett ad break to do just that. Go on. Have a listen to your gut. Is that a gurgle? A rumble? Is it straining after lunch? Or is it saying? You've got to show me love. We know what your body's asking for. Instore online on the app. Back your body, Holland and Barrett. So it was then that OP came in with the actual title post which was an I the asshole for not throwing away pictures of my ex-wife and said, I tried to make this simple. My girlfriend, 30 female and I, 36 male, had a 100% custody of my 5 year old daughter. My daughter's biological mother moved out of state to pursue a career opportunity. A little background. Max's wife left me over two years ago for someone else and hasn't been much of a mother since. My current girlfriend has effectively raised my daughter with me for a little over a year and has done a tremendous job as a stepmother. Max's wife moved just a couple of weeks ago and now my girlfriend and I have 100% custody. As a parting gift, my ex made a scrapbook for my daughter with pictures of my daughter, my daughter and her mother and lastly my daughter, my ex and myself. There were two pictures total that included the three of us. I noticed my girlfriend tearing something apart and my daughter telling her to stop, she worked so hard on that. Not knowing what was going on, I stepped over to see what the commotion was all about. This was the first time I had seen or heard of the scrapbook. I was unaware of its contents until I witnessed my girlfriend removing all the pictures that displayed my ex-wife. She was even throwing away pictures that didn't include me and were of my daughter and her mother only. I abruptly put an end to the destruction and I've been on non-speak in terms with my girlfriend since the event, eight hours ago. I've tried to explain that I don't want the pictures for myself and have even stored them in the garage in a box that I keep with all of my daughter's report cards and neat school projects and art. However, my girlfriend thinks we should destroy all evidence of my ex, even though her current leave of absence is not guaranteed to be permanent. She was raised similarly and I asked her how she would feel if her stepmother threw away all the pictures of her biological mother just because she moved. She agreed that she would be upset but argued that it doesn't matter now that she is the one raising my daughter. I'm so lost as to why she thinks this is okay. It's like jealousy and ego have gotten the best of her and her true self has disappeared. I'm so dumbfounded by it that I'm not certain that I'm not seeing this clearly. Am I missing something? Am I? The arsehole. Whip it shuffle says you're 100% not the arsehole. Your girlfriend is the arsehole but destroying a child keeps a scrapbook of their mother, regardless of how in or out of the picture she is. Your daughter clearly didn't want this to happen. Vic says imagine if she died instead of moved. It's about the same situation. Imagine how fucking livid you would be that someone slash anyone, let alone your current girlfriend or wife, destroyed anything that might have or had sentimental value. If there wasn't a child involved then I could lean towards her thinking but even then the logical thing to do would be to talk about it. Hey, you know those photos of your ex, why'd you still keep them? And tell me if I'm not thinking about this right but I don't feel like you should have them any longer as you are with me. I guess fuck trying to communicate like adults. OP says I brought up that thought. About what if Biomum dies tomorrow? I think what I did was that Biomum's family would have pictures for her daughter visits in California and that we shouldn't have any pictures of her in our home. Also to be completely fair I didn't even know about the scrapbook until I saw her tearing it up. My ex dropped off a ton of stuff at my house when she moved last week. I wasn't holding pictures of my ex. Regardless I didn't think girlfriend should be threatened by my daughter having pictures of her mother. Fly Guy says not the asshole from what you posted. Doesn't point to you being the bad guy at all. I do wonder what abruptly ending the destruction entails. OP says yeah that is a bit vague on second glance. I was in the middle of building a plexiglass lid for a hamster cage when I heard my daughter ask my girlfriend to stop. It was the first time I had seen the book. Ex-wife dropped off a ton of things when she moved. I told her it wasn't hers to destroy and that I didn't think it was wrong for my daughter to have pictures. At this point I realized she had dumped a bunch of the pictures in the outside trash can. So I went outside to get them. That's when I realized it wasn't just pics of me and my ex but also pics of just my daughter and her mother. At that point I got upset and certainly raised my voice. I was never demeaning or insulting but very firm that would be keeping the pictures safe for her. She asked if I would keep any with myself and my ex and I said absolutely not for myself, my daughter. Since then she won't even occupy the same room as me. The commenter says hey I just read your other Am I the Earth soul and I already commented elsewhere but I don't know if you'll see it. As a former single parent I know this is hard but you have to break up with your girlfriend. She seriously sucks and she's gonna fuck up your daughter if she stays in her life. You got this, there will be someone better. Just don't bring her around your daughter right away. OP says I've been reading through every comment. I'm so blown away and lost in this. I mean I think it's way more obvious after reading everyone's thoughts that it isn't wrong that my daughter has pictures of my ex. I tried to see her side but never given any indication that I missed my ex or want her back or anything because I 100% don't. I removed her from my life but my current girlfriend has repeatedly asked if I miss her or would take her back etc. All questions I've never even thought about. Erm no. It took quite some time to post my first Am I the Earth soul. This isn't the second offence. The commenter says not the Earth soul and she sounds like a psychopath. Wow are you sure you want someone like that influencing your daughter? Your ex might have shit the bed but she's still your daughter's mother and your current love interest trying to destroy that is a serious sign that she's not mentally healthy. And another commenter says not the Earth soul. Step parent here. Your girlfriend seems to have very strong feelings that indicate that she sees herself as the replacement mother. Regardless of the situation with your ex she is still your child's biological mother and your child still loves her. Your girlfriend needs to understand that and keep her jealousy at bay. Sure being a step parent is tough sometimes but there's no excuse for that type of behaviour. So that's when OP comes in with their update. It says it's been a bit over a week since my post here made front page and it's taken about that much time to finish reading through the responses. Your answers were overwhelmingly positive. Say for a few and today I finally solidified my position and pulled the trigger. First the good. When I returned home I searched the box that had hid the pictures and scrapbooks to find that they were gone. Upon inquiring of their whereabouts I was directed under a bathroom sink. There I found the remains of the scrapbook. Mostly put back together however I realised that at least two pages were missing. I also noticed that a few pictures in question weren't present. Upon questioning I was directed to a trash can where I found a couple of torn pictures. Still to my dismay I found that the contents of the ravaged scrapbook were still incomplete. Further investigation revealed another stash of torn pictures. Finally I have attained all of the pictures. Shout out to the private messages offering to reconstruct them. A massive thanks to you. Two more days passed and I demanded that she apologise to my daughter for destroying the scrapbook which now resides in my daughter's room. Apology accepted. Now comes the hard part. I wouldn't bother lying to you all. The fear you would see through me. I considered trying to work through it. I thought perhaps her efforts to repair the scrapbook are worthy of forgiveness. Nay. Seriously guys I can't thank you enough. If it weren't for your guidance I would probably continue to expose my daughter to this woman. Our relationship has ended. I am now focused solely on raising my beautiful baby girl and my career. Commodore says after this I'm glad to hear it. I kept checking back to see if there had been any update because your story really got to me. How is your daughter doing? Has your ex gone? Like all moved out and everything. Opie says daughter is doing well. She was super excited that Esso was moving out. She has to move back to Texas so logistics are in the works. But so far it's been very tame and amicable. I think it was mutual and expected. Commodore says good for you. The fact that this very insecure childish woman can't handle that you have a past and your daughter has a mother is a huge red flag. It's not like you have family photos up all around your house. Your child has a scrapbook of memories of a beloved mother that I'm sure she keeps to herself. The fact that she is that insecure, jealous, immature and destructive towards anything your daughter owns from a mother is scary actually. What's to say that in one of her tantrums she doesn't decide to destroy gifts from her birthday or Christmas? How would you do some serious damage to your daughter? I know from experience. You have made the right move. Find someone who will act like a grown woman and not be jealous of the fact that you have a past just like they do. And Opie responded saying good point. And actually we had a recent argument as Esso wanted to sell a few Christmas gifts that were dropped off with the scrapbook. Roller skates and clothes. Commodore comes in and says, so I'm just wondering about this part from the old post. In quotes, this was the first time I'd seen or heard of the scrapbook and was unaware of its contents until I witnessed my girl from removing all of the pictures that displayed my ex-wife. And then says, compared to this part from this update, quoting again, however, I realized that at least two pages were missing. I also noticed a few pictures in question weren't present. It said, if you didn't know the existence of the book until it was being destroyed, how did you know what was and wasn't missing? Opie says, when I stopped there from destroying it, I took all the pages and pictures that have been removed and put them in a box to keep safe. In doing so, I made a basic mental inventory of what was there. They were all pictures I'd seen before from my previous marriage, so it's easy to realize what was missing. And the majority of the comments on this one were saying, yeah, it doesn't set up for a good future if, you know, she's trying to erase their past like that. And I totally agree. You know, some of it I was questioning about the mother dipping in and out of this daughter's life. But for the current situation that we're reading here, it did feel very much like, I'm your mother now. You don't need, you don't need biome, etc. And just trying to erase the past. But what do you guys make of this situation? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below. Now, just a huge thank you for being here today, getting involved in the stories, your love, your support, your time. It always means the absolute world to me. So thank you so, so much. And hopefully I'll see you in the next one. Take care and much love. And I'll see you in the next one. To continue to spread across the world, it's crucial we connect fast. As an MSF doctor, I may need to stop life threatening bleeding, treat gunshot wounds, or care for blast victims, all in a matter of seconds. That's why at MedSense en Frontier, we don't waste any time. We're working in more conflict zones than you may be aware of, giving everything to give people a chance. Just 30 pounds will keep our life saving work going. Please help us save more lives. Because with trauma care, every second counts. You can buy us vital time. Please give just 30 pounds. Search MSF doctor or call 0800 0557979. That's 0800 0557979. Thank you. When was the last time you stopped and listened to your body? Here's a Holland and Barrett ad break to do just that. Go on, have a listen to your gut. Is that a gurgle? A rumble? Is it straining after lunch? Or is it saying? You've got to show me love. We know what your body's asking for. Instore online on the app. Back your body, Holland and Barrett. Save and splurge at Accardo, the online supermarket.