Where you live is just as important as who you live with. Although your neighbors don’t sit on the same couch or pass you on the way to the kitchen, if they aren’t good ones, they can disrupt your peace. Sometimes, as Robert Frost claimed, “Good fences make good neighbors,” these are annoying things that neighbors can do to make you wish you didn’t have them at all.
Not Taking Care of Their Pets
Having pets comes with the responsibility to care for them. When neighbors don’t clean up after their animals the odors can tend to permeate to the properties around them. Things like digging up against the fence can weaken it, and barking and whining at all hours of the night can keep you up.
Unkempt Yards
When someone living next to you doesn’t maintain their home, it reflects poorly on your home. Things like allowing the landscape to grow over can devalue the entire neighborhood, especially those who live within view. Also, not maintaining landscaping can lead to potential pest problems that can be problematic for neighbors when the pests branch out.
Blocking Your Driveway or Parking Inconsiderately
Nothing is worse than trying to leave home to find that you can’t go anywhere because your neighbor is so inconsiderate that they have blocked you in. Sometimes, neighbors also have limited space in their driveway, so they think it is okay for their vehicles to spill out into the street. It isn’t. No one wants to be bombarded by inconsiderate parkers or have their curbside turn into a parking lot.
Bunking HOA Rules
Homeowner's rules and regulations were created to maintain everyone’s property values and also to have some overall rules for respecting the neighborhood. People pay a hefty charge, in some instances, to keep things uniform. When your neighbors think they are above the rules, it is not only annoying. It is unfair and rude.
Being Hostile
Your home is supposed to be your haven. When you have to drive up your own driveway to see your neighbor's rude glance and generally have them hostile and aggressive about everything from your schedule to the way that you maintain your home, there is nowhere to escape it. Neighbors who don’t respect boundaries or make people miserable just because they can are pretty miserable people.
Letting the Trash Run Over
In tune with not maintaining landscaping, neighbors who don’t properly care for their trash and recycling are a nuisance to the neighborhood. Not only does their trash usually get strewn across the street for everyone to pick it up, but they usually let it sit for long periods, leading it to smell. When you don’t cover your trash up, you invite pests to your home, and if they are invited to your neighbors, it is just a matter of time before they show up at your front door.
Leaving Holiday Decor on Long Past the Holidays
As if it isn’t enough that some people decorate with too much fervor during the holidays, some of those same people are the last to pull the decorations down. Bright lighting, animated blow-ups, and icing can be tolerated when they are supposed to be festive, but when that time passes, it is just rude to not take it down.
Letting Your House Go
There is a certain level of home maintenance that people should be required to do. Not everyone can afford a new roof or a beautifully painted porch, but neighbors who allow their porches to fall, fences to get knocked over, or general degradation of their home to the point of affecting everyone’s home values are not being fair and should be condemned, literally.
Overuse of Chemicals
Not all of us are green, and not all of us want to blast chemicals like they are water. Wanting your home to be weed-free is your prerogative, but whatever you put on your lawn will necessarily flow freely to your neighbors. There has to be some level of responsibility when others have pets and children that are negatively affected by the use of pesticides.
Not Returning What’s Borrowed
Neighbors are supposed to be someone who can help out in a pinch. If you lend them something, they usually return the favor. Those who don’t return your items, however, are not the kind of neighbors that you want to exchange goods with. It is just rude not to bring things back, especially when all they have to do is walk about 100 feet to do it.
Partiers
Most of us like to let loose every once in a while, but some make a living out of loud parties. Living in a neighborhood requires that you have respect for the noise level that comes from your house, especially on school nights and after 10 p.m.
Unruly Children
Just because your neighborhood is relatively safe or you have a fenced-in yard, that doesn’t mean that you should turn your children free in the neighborhood. When children are loud, disrespectful, or create damage to a neighbor's house, it affects the entire neighborhood and just isn’t cool.
Drones
Anyone can buy a drone and fly it wherever they want, as long as it isn’t within certain parameters. Amateur drone operators who don’t think about privacy factors related to peaking on neighbors, videoing, and taking pictures are not only a nuisance; they are probably behaving illegally.
Not Being Neighborly
Anyone who has ever tried to strike up a conversation with a neighbor and been ignored can attest to the fact that it makes things uncomfortable. Neighbors don’t have to be best friends, but there is a level of common decency that they should have to acknowledge one another and be cordial when they see each other.
Strobe or Intense Lighting
We can all respect someone who worries about safety and wants to ensure that their home and family are protected. When neighbors have strobe lights or intense track lighting, however, that shoots straight at your home or on your patio, that can keep you up at night. It can also lead to your outdoor entertaining not being very entertaining. There are much better ways to provide security for your home besides intense and obvious lights.
Being Obnoxious in Shared Spaces
Many homeowners share community space with their neighbors. Whether that is a laundry mat or pool, when someone doesn’t respect other people by maintaining a certain level of decorum, it makes it not fun for everyone. Talking loudly on the phone, inviting guests, or just taking up too much space in shared spaces is just annoying.
Going Past Boundaries
Although you live next to people, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you want them into your business. Nothing is worse than a nosey neighbor who is always crossing over boundaries and doing things that push the envelope. Just because you live closely, that doesn’t give someone the right to step over the line.
Not Participating
Not everyone is as social as others, but neighbors who don’t ever participate make people feel uncomfortable and put off. When you live in a community, there is a certain level of closeness that you necessarily have to have. When someone isn’t interested in being a part of the community, you have to wonder why they moved in, to begin with. It takes a village to be a village, and if someone doesn’t want to participate in that village, they should live elsewhere.
You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your neighbors. Unfortunately, the person who lives beside you can really make or break your day and livelihood. Communities operate best when everyone follows the rules and has a certain level of respect for one another. If you feel disrespected by your neighbor, that can make things unenjoyable.
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