Private-nuisance law asks whether one landowner's use unreasonably interferes with another's use and enjoyment. When a homeowner moves next to an existing music venue and later complains of noise, defendants invoke the maxim that one who "comes to the nuisance" should not recover. The maxim has intuitive force: a buyer who knowingly paid a reduced price for noisy surroundings seems poorly positioned to demand silence and a windfall increase in value.

Treated as a complete defense, however, the maxim assigns a permanent land-use entitlement through the sequence of arrival. A factory first built at a town's edge could acquire perpetual authority to impose the same emissions after homes, schools, and hospitals surround it. That result ignores the reciprocal nature of land-use conflict. Enjoining the factory imposes costs on production; denying relief imposes costs on neighbors. Priority alone does not tell us which arrangement now uses the contested resource most reasonably.

The plaintiff's prior knowledge should matter, but in a more precise way. It may show that an ordinary level of interference was priced into the purchase, weaken a claim of surprise, and support damages rather than an injunction. It should carry less weight when the defendant has intensified its activity, when health rather than mere preference is at stake, or when bargaining was unrealistic because many dispersed residents are affected. Courts should also distinguish a plaintiff seeking to stop the established use from one seeking compensation for extraordinary harm.

This treatment preserves the maxim's valid concern with strategic behavior without freezing a neighborhood at the moment the defendant arrived. Land uses evolve, and nuisance law is valuable precisely because it can reassess reciprocal burdens as their scale and setting change. First possession of a location is evidence about reasonableness, not a deed to the surrounding atmosphere.

Public regulation does not eliminate the need for this inquiry. A permit may show that officials considered regional interests, yet compliance with a general noise or emissions limit does not establish that a particular interference is reasonable between neighboring owners. Nor should nuisance law become a device for one late purchaser to reverse a democratically selected land-use plan. Permits, zoning, and community expectations are relevant context, but none alone resolves the reciprocal private burden. Their weight, like chronological priority, depends on what issue and remedy the plaintiff actually presents.

A carefully tailored remedy can reflect that context. Limited operating hours may protect sleep without closing a venue; damages may recognize an anticipated ordinary burden while compensating an extraordinary increase. Remedy design thus supplies information about reasonableness rather than merely following from it.