It’s not always easy to love thy neighbor, and it might be hard for them to love you, too. But neighbors who look out for each other make communities safer and life generally better. There are a few things you might do, however, that drive your neighbors crazy.
Talking loudly in your yard
Talking loudly on your phone in the yard, or out on your porch or balcony, can be annoying to those around you. You went there for privacy, but trust us: Your neighbor can hear every word. And it gets on their nerves.
Smoke from your grill
What also annoys them? The smoke from your barbecue that wafts into their open windows. Sure, you can’t control the wind, but you can place your grill in a location that isn’t upwind. Same goes for your compost, which is sending the smell of rot — not to mention flies — into the windows next door.
Letting your dog bark
Dogs bark! It’s not their fault. But leaving them outside to bark for hours on end is rude behavior, and they can’t stand it next door.
Filling all shared trash cans
Apartments, condos, and densely built townhomes and communities often share trash cans. Are you always filling them with your trash? Find ways to decrease volume, break down your boxes, recycle more, and consider how much waste you generate. Your neighbors need trash pickup service, too.
Feeding stray cats
Stray cats are a problem, and you can’t fix it by feeding them. In fact, you might make the problem worse. And you’re definitely making the neighbors mad by attracting stray cats and their buddies to the neighborhood. Same goes for feeding birds stale bread. It creates a mess.
Throwing loud parties
Frequent loud parties are the bane of neighborhoods and apartment complexes everywhere. Guests take up all the street parking, you play loud music, someone fires up the karaoke machine, and you don’t stop until dawn. This is not making you neighbor of the year, which is likely not your goal. But you are intruding on others’ right to peace and sleep (and safety as your drunk guests stumble home).
Your kids in their yard
Your kids are awesome, polite, funny, smart. But none of that matters to your neighbor if they’re running across her lawn to get to their friend’s house. There’s something about property lines that make homeowners get extra feisty. So, do your neighbors — and your kids — a favor and tell them to use the sidewalks or go around, whatever it takes to not walk across the neighbor’s front yard.
Your dog in their yard
Same goes for the dog. Whether your guy gets to roam freely off leash or you’re out for a walk, stay off the neighbor’s lawn. If your dog does end up going on the neighbor’s grass (or the sidewalk in front), make sure you pick up afterward. If your neighbor accuses you of leaving something behind, clean that up, too, even if it wasn’t your dog. You don’t want to be in a fight over dog poop.
Mowing early
Who doesn’t like knocking out chores first thing Saturday morning? Well, your neighbors don’t like you doing it if it involves the lawnmower. Be kind to weekend sleepers and keep the lawnmowers, leaf blowers, hammer, and table saws put away until late morning. Same with your child’s piano or trumpet practice if the windows are open.
Insults on neighborhood Facebook group
Neighborhood social media groups can be great. You get recommendations for shopping locally or finding babysitters, and you hear about pop-up barbecue stands and what’s happening on the police scanners. But don’t be the one who takes everything too seriously and starts fights about the school or the local homeless guy. Don’t write anything you couldn’t otherwise say if you were talking to a neighborhood group face-to-face.
Asking to use their Wi-Fi
Maybe you just moved in and won’t have Wi-Fi for a couple of days. Unless your neighbor offers to share her Wi-Fi password, find another way to go online. Same goes for HBO Max and Netflix logins. Don’t count on everyone else paying for services you want to use. Get them yourself.
Your loud shoes upstairs
If you live upstairs from others, make it a habit to take off your shoes at the front door, even if you’re just running in to get something. What sounds like little taps to you can echo from your downstairs neighbor’s ceiling. It’s a pain to remember, but it makes all the difference for people living downstairs.
Taking their parking spot
Sure, it’s open street parking. But neighbors develop habits, and maybe there’s an unspoken rule in the ‘hood about getting to park in front of your house. Try to honor it. It increases the chance they’ll honor your space. Also, they’ll be more inclined to get your back on street-sweeping days, instead of watching you get ticketed and just laughing and laughing.
You have bad yard art
The pink flamingos, gnomes, overgrown cactus, and toilet-turned-planters are so ugly they’re awesome. But only for you. The neighbors, on the other hand, hate walking by that stuff. Come on, one ironic yard piece is enough.
Your ugly house paint
A painted house is better than a splotchy one with chips flaking off to expose wood rot, for sure. But if you’re going to paint, pick the right color. If that’s not your thing, ask people at the paint store for help. What looks good on a 3-inch chip can be hideous on the front wall of a house.
You overload your trash cans
Consider asking the city for a second trash can — or purchasing one if your city doesn’t provide them — rather than allow the one you have to overflow every week with bags and other things. If you’re regularly filling up more than one trash can, you might want to consider your lifestyle. Perhaps you need to recycle more, donate to Goodwill, start a compost or, in general, cut back on accumulating things.
You ask, 'What's in the package?'
Sure, thanks for accepting packages on behalf of your neighbor who wasn’t home. Porch theft is rampant in this age of Amazon Prime and meal-kit deliveries. But just hand the box over and accept their thanks. Don’t ask what’s inside. Also, don’t comment on how much they shop online.
Letting the kids be loud upstairs
Like wearing shoes in upstairs apartments, letting kids run loose in your upstairs apartment, even if it’s their home, is something that definitely irritates downstairs neighbors. Jumping off furniture and floor banging in general will be better tolerated downstairs if done within certain waking hours. Good downstairs neighbors will understand that kids are kids, of course. But showing you have their comfort in mind goes a long way, too.
Too many yard sales
A yard sale a couple of times a year isn’t a big deal. But if weekly yard sales are your side hustle, your neighbors definitely hate you. The slow drive-bys, the foot traffic, the parking issues, and the way yard sales make the neighborhood look cluttered and a little trashy are all things that can be tolerated for only so long.
You never say hello
You don’t have to be best friends with your neighbors. Or even know their names — though, why not? But refusing to say hello when you see each other breaks the norms of neighborliness. No need to get personal, but a friendly hello now and again is great for community relations.
