A Black couple from Maryland have shared footage of the moment their white neighbor brazenly walked into their new home without an invitation.
In a video originally posted to TikTok by @jay.and.neo on July 31, a man, whose face is obscured, can be seen walking straight through Jay and Neo's open front door. There's no audible knock nor shout of "hello" to introduce himself.
Neo told Newsweek: "I shared the interaction because this concept of just walking into a stranger's home was so shocking to me, and I initially posted purely to share this experience and start a small discussion on situations like this in general."
Neighborly disputes are not uncommon. A 2017 survey of 2,000 Americans conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Homes.com found 36 percent of respondents had had issues with neighbors that escalated into full-blown arguments. Twenty-five percent were engaged in long-running feuds with the people next door.
Jay and Neo's experience was unique, though, in that it came a matter of weeks after they arrived in the neighborhood. It left both the couple and those watching the footage a little uneasy.
The incident in question occurred while Jay and Neo were receiving furniture and other items from the movers they hired.
"I've met other neighbors within the weeks I was here, prior to this incident, and didn't have any issues whatsoever," Neo said. "They'd catch me outside or respectfully ring the doorbell. Even when invited into my home, they didn't walk beyond the foyer, whereas he made it to the living room before we even realized he was there."
At the time of writing, Jay and Neo's TikTok video has been watched nearly 70,000 times. It has also been shared by other users on Twitter, with many shocked at the man's actions.
"I would've started screaming," one wrote, with another simply commenting: "the audacity." A third posted: "Restraining order, immediately!" A fourth added: "Walking in without knocking is insane."
Speaking in a follow-up video detailing the situation, Neo said they had "no idea" he was in their house until he reached their stairs. She added that, although they engaged in small talk, throughout the conversation she was left thinking, "did this dude really just walk into my home?"
"I've never experienced something like this before," Neo added. "Me being a Black person, I couldn't even imagine feeling that comfortable to just walk into someone's home.
"Folks is getting shot for that. Folks is getting shot for ringing the wrong doorbell," Neo said in an apparent reference to the case of Ralph Yarl. He was the Black Missouri teen who was shot after mistakenly turning up to the wrong address back in April.
Neo said she was initially in shock at what unfolded. However, she only realized the extent of their new neighbor's intrusion when she checked the footage from the security cameras they had set up around the property to protect their two children. Watching the video back, she saw the neighbor first entering their garage before heading through the front door without so much as an audible hello.
"When reviewing the footage, I was shocked," Neo said. "It would have made a difference to me if he did make an effort to gain permission prior to entering our home and maybe we missed it. But to see him in our garage then entering through the front door without hesitation was unsettling, regardless of intent."
Even then, Neo wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. She told her followers that he must have had a "momentary lapse in judgment," so she decided to go over to his home and establish some boundaries.
Though Neo initially thanked him for welcoming them to the neighborhood, the discussion soon turned to his unannounced entrance. Neo said he immediately took offense at her explaining that they would rather he not enter their home without permission.
Even so, Neo was surprised at his apparent sense of entitlement. She said, in reference to her and her wife, that "people that look like us" would not dare do the same.
Despite the incident, Neo was keen to stress that they had not been put off living there. "So far I'm loving this area, and the neighbors really are great, so my feelings about that one interaction hasn't affected my view of everyone else," she said.
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