What makes someone a good neighbor?
Americans, how friendly are you with your neighbours?
And where are you? It seems from movies that most Americans are friendly, especially those in the South. What is your best experience with good neighbors? Anyone had an issue with noisy AND rude neighbors here? how did you solve it?
Yup, my upstairs neighbors are a combination of both.
I really need help here before I use the last resort, filing a complaint to the police for "tapage nocturne".
They moved in after I did so I got a couple days of peace and quiet.
However, they started making a lot of noises: talking out loud, arguing, screaming at each other, moving furniture, stomping around, when ? every SINGLE night, until and even after midnight.
One night I could not take it anymore so I got out of bed and knocked on their door.
All I heard was a "who is it?" I tried to show a bit of respect and asked to talk to them in private so I can ask them to make less noise instead of talking out loud in the hall while other neighbors are listening.
Well, they ignored me. I knock again. Another "Who is it?" Well this time I asked them to stop the noise. No one answered. As if they were waiting for me to shut up and go the hell back to where I came from.
Ok. I did. I took my laptop and wrote an email to the building counsil with no detail left behind.
And wrote them a lovely note and hung it on their door.
Next day, the counsil answered me that they warned the neighbors about their continuous noise and that I have the full right to call the police on them. The neighbor ( lady in this case ) replied with an apology and promised this would never happen again and that she would pay me a visit to apologize for the misunderstanding.
That's what I thought.
That evening, nothing.
The next evening, her husband comes to talk to me and starts giving me lectures about how he was "upset" with the letter I wrote!! and how he was married to a woman with a different religion where he as a muslim is the man so he is Superior to her yet she doesn't accept that, which explains the fights...final straw is when he actually came down to talk to me he brought his 1 year old kid who wouldn't stop getting into my appartment!! it was so distracting because my appartment was not baby-prood so he could've easily hurt himself there. Yet the parent was too busy showing me my place to pay attention to his son!!
Anyways, the conversation with this man didn't lead anywhere .
It was a lecture/ an attempt to intimidate me not an apology! from the husband not the wife who's the sole renter of the place above mine.
By the way, the noise continues, they were a bit calmer the days after but it was just a phase apparently.
If you were me what would you do? How friendly are you with your neighbors?
I’ve lived in NY all my life but grew up in the suburbs and moved to the city a couple of years ago. One of my fondest childhood memories was playing with neighborhood kids or having neighborhood BBQs. I don’t talk to any of my neighbors now though, my building neighbors don’t even say hello to me. There are frequent block parties where I live but it always seems very cliquey between the families here. Plus, I’m not of the same ethnicity/culture of many of the people here (though I speak the language) and I don’t want to just barge in on their parties. Is this normal? Or do most people talk to their neighbors?
Edit: Thank you for the lovely people who replied to my post.
In their first email to the neighbor, the counsil warned her that if the noise continues especially after 10pm I have the right to call the cops on them and file an official complaint which will leave no choice to the council but to demand their lanlord to end their lease immediately. But I don't think that's possible especially if they pay their rent regularly and during the winter it's impossible to kick someone out of a house or to end their lease.
I also wrote again to the counsil stating the details of the encounter with the renter's husband and that the noise continues no matter what but I did not get a response yet. It's been a couple days since then... Are you friends with your neighbors?
My parents told me not be friends with my neighbors. My wife's aunt and uncle feel the same way. My wife and I are friendly so we don't see the problem. Was wondering what everyone's opinion is? Yes, it's ok or no that is a bad idea. How well do you know your neighbors? I don’t want to get to know my neighbors.
I don’t want to be friends with my neighbors or know anything about them. When I’m home, I want to be left alone. I don’t want anyone to feel comfortable knocking at my door. “Oh, but what if there’s an emergency or you fall and pass out?” That’s a risk I’m willing to take. I’m happy being cordial if I see you on the elevator or the lobby, but I don’t want to converse with you or eat your cookies. Thanks for the offer. Respect my boundaries. If I’m home, it means I planned on having me-time. Otherwise, I would’ve made plans to socialize. Thank you. What is the dumbest/most annoying thing your neighbors have ever done?
in your neighborhood, not in their whole lives.. What is it about your neighbours that really annoys you? Simply put my life is getting miserable, talking to the neighbour and sending emails to landlord (it´s a company) about the noise does not change, hard stomps and moving furniture at 2 am, throwing parties on Monday late night, etc. I have the bad luck of living under unconsiderate, full of themselves, loud neighbours and they seem to don't give a shit about it.
I thought about starting a noise war in order to annoy these dorks when they are sleeping but restrained to do so because there are other neighbours who are innocent and they don't have to deal with the noise. I also avoided calling the police or ordnungsamt because I am an overly sensitive person and stuff like bneing able to hear they laugh at 2am or stomping drives me insane while some people tolerate it. I feel like police or ordnungsamt are always involved when people are literally making an illegal rave at their places and not for small things like these.
I just refuse to use noise cancelling headsets or ear plugs to deal with it because this means these assholes just can live they way they want and don't be bothered by it.
What is your relationship like with your neighbors?
I am in a nice neighborhood and I've lived in my current home for about 2 and a half years and recently started thinking how strange it is that I really don't know my neighbors at all. I have superficial conversations with them, wave, etc.. but we've never been inside each others homes, borrowed anything from each other, or asked for any type of favor from one another. nor would I feel comfortable doing any of the above. Is my situation the norm? Does it differ by country?
After so much time looking for a place to live in this damn city having to deal with morons like this is demorilizing. How often do you talk to your next door neighbors? How well do you get on with your neighbours?
On one side a passing hello if meet on the street, the other side wouldn’t speak, pretty much the same with the rest of the neighbours. Gone are the childhood days of having long conversations over the fence. No one know anyone anymore. How much can you rely on your neighbors?
By neighbors I mean household neighbors. I live in a blockhouse made in deep communism, and while it is not very big (three floors, two flats on each floor, two separate corridors, meaning 12 flats in building) I barely know my neighbors. I recognize some of them by some features. Like neighbor on first floor on the left often smokes on balcony and has siamese cat, or the family on second floor on the left has a red fluffy dog, and so forth. But if I was about to borrow some minor thing like sugar or pepper cuz I forgot to buy it, it's a no go. And makes me wonder if it's just my village or is it more common elsewhere. I was very lucky at my last couple places, had neighbors who liked the music at one place and no neighbors who could hear it at another. Recently moved into a place recently where the downstairs neighbor reacted to the first chord of my organ by angrily shouting and slamming doors for an hour. She has apparently already been an issue and the landlord is in the process of trying to evict her, but needless to say I’m trying to adjust my expectations of what I’ll be able to do in this apartment music-wise. I had planned to do some basic acoustic treatment and use the room for recording and mixing. I do a lot of in the box stuff that can be done with headphones, but was also hoping to record vocals and electric & acoustic guitars, as well as the aforementioned organ. I am now thinking I will also get a rug in the hopes that will cut down on some sound level going downstairs. Of course I’m aware of the local noise ordinance and nowhere near in breach of that, but I’m not interested in causing anger or disrespecting the neighbors. At the same time, I don’t want to feel like I can’t live my life in a place where I pay rent. I did bring up the fact that I was a musician to the property manager and landlord before signing the lease and they said it should be ok as long as it doesn’t bother the neighbors. I just didn’t realize how easily bothered they would be. It’s worth pointing out they also have a tendency to speak/yell rather loudly sometimes and blast their tv at decent volumes. How have you dealt with making music at home? I think most can agree on some basic respectful policies like not making loud noise late at night or early in the morning. But in a broader sense do you feel that you have a right to sing or play electric guitar at a moderate volume in your apartment? What is the worst and most mean-spirited thing a neighbor has done to you? So I moved into my first house a little over 2 years ago and wasnt sure what to expect with the neighbors. The neighborhood is relatively close together with 5 or 6 houses close by. The day I moved in I said hi and small talked here and there but nothing too much. Since then, I have not had a single conversation with any neighbor and i kinda like it. Guess it means we are all respecting each others privacy and not intruding on one another, which is good. We are all relative strangers but I have no inclanatation to go out and get to know them. Is that weird? My family (me, husband and son) moved to a new state away from any family about 6 months ago for my husbands job. We live in an apartment complex where all units are privately owned and if they are rented, it is through the owner (or a property management company nonspecific to this complex). We knew that the neighbor upstairs had his unit on the market when we moved in and hoped we would get good people moving in when it sold. The people who bought it did some renovations and put it up for rent. The couple who rented it moved in about 3 months ago and they could not be nicer… and that’s where our problem lays. It is a retired couple from Thailand with no family in the state. They are TOO nice! When the wife cooks, she always cooks extra and gives it to us. She also buys extra things at the store for us (like chips, candy, fruit…). She loves our son and has more than once sent an envelope with money in it for us “take him to the mall” or “buy him toys”. They gave us a rice cooker even though we already have one.
It’s really too much but we don’t want to seem ungrateful. We really appreciate everything and the sweet notes she sends in the bags she drops off. She always says she wants nothing in return, she just enjoys cooking and “loves us like family”. I don’t particularly care for Thai food and my husband can only eat so much. My son has numerous allergies so I don’t feed him anything I don’t know all of the ingredients to.
We donate or give away any snacks or uncooked food that we won’t use or eat but we feel really bad when the cooked food goes to waste.
We have said thank you so many times and I had my son make a cute card and color on it and dropped It over to them.
Do we tell them to stop showering us with affection? If so how? Do we wait to see if it dies down after they’ve been here a little longer and are more settle in? Is it a cultural thing that we (white Americans) just don’t understand? Do we just continue on and accept all the love they want to give us? How or what should we do to reciprocate? We don’t have very much disposable income but even if we did I don’t know what we would give to them.
Any help or insight would be appreciated my fellow grownups!
And where are you? It seems from movies that most Americans are friendly, especially those in the South. What is your best experience with good neighbors? Anyone had an issue with noisy AND rude neighbors here? how did you solve it?
Yup, my upstairs neighbors are a combination of both.
I really need help here before I use the last resort, filing a complaint to the police for "tapage nocturne".
They moved in after I did so I got a couple days of peace and quiet.
However, they started making a lot of noises: talking out loud, arguing, screaming at each other, moving furniture, stomping around, when ? every SINGLE night, until and even after midnight.
One night I could not take it anymore so I got out of bed and knocked on their door.
All I heard was a "who is it?" I tried to show a bit of respect and asked to talk to them in private so I can ask them to make less noise instead of talking out loud in the hall while other neighbors are listening.
Well, they ignored me. I knock again. Another "Who is it?" Well this time I asked them to stop the noise. No one answered. As if they were waiting for me to shut up and go the hell back to where I came from.
Ok. I did. I took my laptop and wrote an email to the building counsil with no detail left behind.
And wrote them a lovely note and hung it on their door.
Next day, the counsil answered me that they warned the neighbors about their continuous noise and that I have the full right to call the police on them. The neighbor ( lady in this case ) replied with an apology and promised this would never happen again and that she would pay me a visit to apologize for the misunderstanding.
That's what I thought.
That evening, nothing.
The next evening, her husband comes to talk to me and starts giving me lectures about how he was "upset" with the letter I wrote!! and how he was married to a woman with a different religion where he as a muslim is the man so he is Superior to her yet she doesn't accept that, which explains the fights...final straw is when he actually came down to talk to me he brought his 1 year old kid who wouldn't stop getting into my appartment!! it was so distracting because my appartment was not baby-prood so he could've easily hurt himself there. Yet the parent was too busy showing me my place to pay attention to his son!!
Anyways, the conversation with this man didn't lead anywhere .
It was a lecture/ an attempt to intimidate me not an apology! from the husband not the wife who's the sole renter of the place above mine.
By the way, the noise continues, they were a bit calmer the days after but it was just a phase apparently.
If you were me what would you do? How friendly are you with your neighbors?
I’ve lived in NY all my life but grew up in the suburbs and moved to the city a couple of years ago. One of my fondest childhood memories was playing with neighborhood kids or having neighborhood BBQs. I don’t talk to any of my neighbors now though, my building neighbors don’t even say hello to me. There are frequent block parties where I live but it always seems very cliquey between the families here. Plus, I’m not of the same ethnicity/culture of many of the people here (though I speak the language) and I don’t want to just barge in on their parties. Is this normal? Or do most people talk to their neighbors?
Edit: Thank you for the lovely people who replied to my post.
In their first email to the neighbor, the counsil warned her that if the noise continues especially after 10pm I have the right to call the cops on them and file an official complaint which will leave no choice to the council but to demand their lanlord to end their lease immediately. But I don't think that's possible especially if they pay their rent regularly and during the winter it's impossible to kick someone out of a house or to end their lease.
I also wrote again to the counsil stating the details of the encounter with the renter's husband and that the noise continues no matter what but I did not get a response yet. It's been a couple days since then... Are you friends with your neighbors?
My parents told me not be friends with my neighbors. My wife's aunt and uncle feel the same way. My wife and I are friendly so we don't see the problem. Was wondering what everyone's opinion is? Yes, it's ok or no that is a bad idea. How well do you know your neighbors? I don’t want to get to know my neighbors.
I don’t want to be friends with my neighbors or know anything about them. When I’m home, I want to be left alone. I don’t want anyone to feel comfortable knocking at my door. “Oh, but what if there’s an emergency or you fall and pass out?” That’s a risk I’m willing to take. I’m happy being cordial if I see you on the elevator or the lobby, but I don’t want to converse with you or eat your cookies. Thanks for the offer. Respect my boundaries. If I’m home, it means I planned on having me-time. Otherwise, I would’ve made plans to socialize. Thank you. What is the dumbest/most annoying thing your neighbors have ever done?
in your neighborhood, not in their whole lives.. What is it about your neighbours that really annoys you? Simply put my life is getting miserable, talking to the neighbour and sending emails to landlord (it´s a company) about the noise does not change, hard stomps and moving furniture at 2 am, throwing parties on Monday late night, etc. I have the bad luck of living under unconsiderate, full of themselves, loud neighbours and they seem to don't give a shit about it.
I thought about starting a noise war in order to annoy these dorks when they are sleeping but restrained to do so because there are other neighbours who are innocent and they don't have to deal with the noise. I also avoided calling the police or ordnungsamt because I am an overly sensitive person and stuff like bneing able to hear they laugh at 2am or stomping drives me insane while some people tolerate it. I feel like police or ordnungsamt are always involved when people are literally making an illegal rave at their places and not for small things like these.
I just refuse to use noise cancelling headsets or ear plugs to deal with it because this means these assholes just can live they way they want and don't be bothered by it.
What is your relationship like with your neighbors?
I am in a nice neighborhood and I've lived in my current home for about 2 and a half years and recently started thinking how strange it is that I really don't know my neighbors at all. I have superficial conversations with them, wave, etc.. but we've never been inside each others homes, borrowed anything from each other, or asked for any type of favor from one another. nor would I feel comfortable doing any of the above. Is my situation the norm? Does it differ by country?
After so much time looking for a place to live in this damn city having to deal with morons like this is demorilizing. How often do you talk to your next door neighbors? How well do you get on with your neighbours?
On one side a passing hello if meet on the street, the other side wouldn’t speak, pretty much the same with the rest of the neighbours. Gone are the childhood days of having long conversations over the fence. No one know anyone anymore. How much can you rely on your neighbors?
By neighbors I mean household neighbors. I live in a blockhouse made in deep communism, and while it is not very big (three floors, two flats on each floor, two separate corridors, meaning 12 flats in building) I barely know my neighbors. I recognize some of them by some features. Like neighbor on first floor on the left often smokes on balcony and has siamese cat, or the family on second floor on the left has a red fluffy dog, and so forth. But if I was about to borrow some minor thing like sugar or pepper cuz I forgot to buy it, it's a no go. And makes me wonder if it's just my village or is it more common elsewhere. I was very lucky at my last couple places, had neighbors who liked the music at one place and no neighbors who could hear it at another. Recently moved into a place recently where the downstairs neighbor reacted to the first chord of my organ by angrily shouting and slamming doors for an hour. She has apparently already been an issue and the landlord is in the process of trying to evict her, but needless to say I’m trying to adjust my expectations of what I’ll be able to do in this apartment music-wise. I had planned to do some basic acoustic treatment and use the room for recording and mixing. I do a lot of in the box stuff that can be done with headphones, but was also hoping to record vocals and electric & acoustic guitars, as well as the aforementioned organ. I am now thinking I will also get a rug in the hopes that will cut down on some sound level going downstairs. Of course I’m aware of the local noise ordinance and nowhere near in breach of that, but I’m not interested in causing anger or disrespecting the neighbors. At the same time, I don’t want to feel like I can’t live my life in a place where I pay rent. I did bring up the fact that I was a musician to the property manager and landlord before signing the lease and they said it should be ok as long as it doesn’t bother the neighbors. I just didn’t realize how easily bothered they would be. It’s worth pointing out they also have a tendency to speak/yell rather loudly sometimes and blast their tv at decent volumes. How have you dealt with making music at home? I think most can agree on some basic respectful policies like not making loud noise late at night or early in the morning. But in a broader sense do you feel that you have a right to sing or play electric guitar at a moderate volume in your apartment? What is the worst and most mean-spirited thing a neighbor has done to you? So I moved into my first house a little over 2 years ago and wasnt sure what to expect with the neighbors. The neighborhood is relatively close together with 5 or 6 houses close by. The day I moved in I said hi and small talked here and there but nothing too much. Since then, I have not had a single conversation with any neighbor and i kinda like it. Guess it means we are all respecting each others privacy and not intruding on one another, which is good. We are all relative strangers but I have no inclanatation to go out and get to know them. Is that weird? My family (me, husband and son) moved to a new state away from any family about 6 months ago for my husbands job. We live in an apartment complex where all units are privately owned and if they are rented, it is through the owner (or a property management company nonspecific to this complex). We knew that the neighbor upstairs had his unit on the market when we moved in and hoped we would get good people moving in when it sold. The people who bought it did some renovations and put it up for rent. The couple who rented it moved in about 3 months ago and they could not be nicer… and that’s where our problem lays. It is a retired couple from Thailand with no family in the state. They are TOO nice! When the wife cooks, she always cooks extra and gives it to us. She also buys extra things at the store for us (like chips, candy, fruit…). She loves our son and has more than once sent an envelope with money in it for us “take him to the mall” or “buy him toys”. They gave us a rice cooker even though we already have one.
It’s really too much but we don’t want to seem ungrateful. We really appreciate everything and the sweet notes she sends in the bags she drops off. She always says she wants nothing in return, she just enjoys cooking and “loves us like family”. I don’t particularly care for Thai food and my husband can only eat so much. My son has numerous allergies so I don’t feed him anything I don’t know all of the ingredients to.
We donate or give away any snacks or uncooked food that we won’t use or eat but we feel really bad when the cooked food goes to waste.
We have said thank you so many times and I had my son make a cute card and color on it and dropped It over to them.
Do we tell them to stop showering us with affection? If so how? Do we wait to see if it dies down after they’ve been here a little longer and are more settle in? Is it a cultural thing that we (white Americans) just don’t understand? Do we just continue on and accept all the love they want to give us? How or what should we do to reciprocate? We don’t have very much disposable income but even if we did I don’t know what we would give to them.
Any help or insight would be appreciated my fellow grownups!
