Are you a Bad Neighbor?

by Fatima Calderon

Practically everyone that has moved or has had neighbors move can relate to the experience of having a bad neighbor, or even worse –“a neighbor from hell”.

If you haven’t had such experience yet, is it because, maybe – perhaps, you have been the bad neighbor?

Here is a list of what makes a bad neighbor. If you recognize these signs in your own household, for goodness’ sake try to change. If you recognize them in your neighbor/s, we will cover in a future article how to deal with them.

What makes a bad neighbor?

-          Noise

Noise is the number one neighbor complaint across the world. Many cities, including New York and Los Angeles have dedicated hotlines to deal with noise complaints. There are formalized noise complaint forms, and access to a tenant’s noise complaint record. London’s Institute of Environmental Health collects data of noise complaints and police’s responses.

Are you playing loud music every night, sometimes into the morning? Are you having loud arguments? Are you practicing your drums at night or for hours on end? Is your TV always on too loud? Are your dogs always barking? If you live on a top floor, are you always jumping, dragging furniture? Are your kids out of control?

Noise is inevitable and is fine within reason. What makes you a bad neighbor is the frequency and the time of the noise making. Don’t cross the line.

      - Are you a parking hog?

Especially in New York where a lot of neighborhoods are dense and crowded, do you hog parking space? In other words, do you park your car, your spouse's car and your teenagers' cars all in the same block in front of your residence? Do you "save" a parking space for your spouse/roommate/friend (by taking two or one and half parking spaces instead of one and thus making it impossible for others to park in the tiny space you have left). Newsflash: you will be hated by your neighbors and don't expect any favors from them.

     - Ruining the view

In expensive neighborhoods, the view is like commodity and adds value to the entire neighborhood. Have you planted trees that will eventually grow too big and will block your neighbors' view? Are you building a second story that will look like an eye sore? Do you have piles and piles of junk (even if you think they are valuable possessions, to everyone else they are junk), broken patio furniture, dozens of boxes in your front yard?

Ah, so your wife doesn't let you smoke inside the house so you go outside and guess what? The wind is blowing the smoke right into your neighbor's living room every.time. It does becoming annoying, doesn't it? 

The idea is to use common sense and go by the Golden Rule: Treat others like you would like to be treated, or, don't do to others what you wouldn't like being done to you.