Without data, it is impossible to know how common this might be but one family in San Diego was recently chastised for living in a two bedroom condo:

Mike and Kelly Brüning, from San Diego, CA, are feeling shell-shocked after receiving an anonymous letter from a neighbor shaming them for the size of their house. According to San Diego’s KSWB, the couple, who have a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old, have been living in their two-bedroom condo, not far from the beach, for almost nine years.

In the scathing letter, the neighbor called the parents out for being too “selfish” to get a big enough home with a yard for their kids. (We are not making this up.) “Because you like the beach, your boys are trapped in a tiny, one bedroom upstairs apartment,” the message read. The rude neighbor then closed out the nasty letter by saying “SHAME ON YOU.”

This sort of article brings out the worst in the Internet: (1) a single incident that may be representative of nothing (2) paired with a bad headline and text suggesting the owners live in a tiny house (no – tiny houses tend to be something different than two bedroom condos) (3) plus discussions of shaming when this is really just ridiculous passive aggressive behavior on the part of a neighbor.

On the other hand, if tiny house dwellers suddenly ran into such a backlash – neighbors and others thought that such small spaces limited the upbringing of children – this could be interesting. There are a number of reasons people might be opposed to tiny houses, particularly zoning and property values issues. If this occurred, it could be akin to those who have claimed that McMansions – the opposites of tiny houses – are bad for children.