blackacre-seeker_IHB
New member
I thought I'd start this thread to collect all the tips that you might have on how to deal with bad neighbors.
Speaking from a personal experience, I think I have a bad karma that concentrates in the neighbors department. Everywhere I lived, I always had the most unruly, loud, at a minimum nosy neighbors. Knowing that, I'd always investigate first before moving in, and even the places that had the sweetest neighbors, the moment I move in, they move out for various reasons within a year.
1. Barking dogs
For instance, I had a neighbor in the attached townhome that had a dog (and I do love dogs by the way, so don't be hatin') that was barking nonstop from 7 a.m. till 8 p.m., every single day. Most dogs bark when they see someone or if there is some noise. That dumb creature was barking just for the sake of it, it would come out of its hole in the garage and 7 a.m. and start making circles in the yard, barking and barking and barking at the corners. The barking was unbearable, I could hear it from any point in my house, including behind the closed bathroom door in the farthest end of my townhome.
So, my tip is don't try to be nice like I was, since I was hoping that the neighbor would do something about it, so I waited for a year to complain about this, and he just told me to bug off, then I would call the animal control and they would come, but that creature was not that dumb, so it was superquiet when they would come and the neighbor would say that I was making that up, and couldn't call the police because the dog did not bark after hours.
After I moved out, I learned that the best way to deal with this is to buy a dog silencer that is used to train dogs not to bark, and hang it in your backyard in a discreet place, when the dog barks, it emits the ultrasound that is bothersome to dogs, and it stops barking.
2. Loud kids
That was when I lived in a low-income housing and trying to study for school. They would come and congregate around my house since it was in a cul-de-sac and scream their lungs away day after day after day. Since they all had parents that had no idea what supervision is, kids as young as 3 years old and as old as 11 were all hanging together without any adults watching them except for me I guess.
That situation was resolved by me after suffering for a year: every time they would come, I would come out and in a very calm voice would tell them that the noise is bothering me and they should go and play in front of their house, not mine, and if they have an issue with this, they need to ask their parents to come to talk to me in person. I'm not saying it worked the first time (and one kid that looked like a preschool age told me to chill out and shove it), but after a while, I guess I earned a reputation of a wacko, which worked to my advantage, so they would come less and less.
I just recently heard that there is some device that emits a high pitch noise that only kids can hear, and not the adults, but I don't know if it is being sold. I would not use it on the kids though, it would too much even for me.
3. Then I had neighbors who were producing so much trash that they felt it necessary to put in my garbage cans when I'd put them out for collection, and their garbage had that really terrible smell.
One day, I waited until they dumped it late night, then I put on the gloves, got all of their garbage out and brought back to their house, banged on their door and dumped it in front of them and said that this had to stop. They were like: what makes you think it is our garbage? My response: "your mailing address was on the packaging wrap that is in the garbage." That low life got foreclosed on in no time by the way, talk about pattern of behavior.
Sometimes, all it takes is just to come out of your house and stand in front of it and stare at them until they become uncomfortable and go away. Some people are never uncomfortable so you gotta use the HOA, animal control, the police, whatever it takes. There is a nuisance cause of action (that covers anything that interferes with enjoyment of your property, including noise or smell) that you can bring against the bad neighbors: word of caution though, if you are planning to sell your place eventually, you would have a public record showing that you had this problem, so you will have to make a disclosure about neighborhood noise, potentially scaring your buyers away.
If you have loud college kids living next door, I'd just wait if talking to them does not work, they have to graduate eventually.
If your neighbors are doing something that bugs you, please do post here for us all how you dealt with this.
Speaking from a personal experience, I think I have a bad karma that concentrates in the neighbors department. Everywhere I lived, I always had the most unruly, loud, at a minimum nosy neighbors. Knowing that, I'd always investigate first before moving in, and even the places that had the sweetest neighbors, the moment I move in, they move out for various reasons within a year.
1. Barking dogs
For instance, I had a neighbor in the attached townhome that had a dog (and I do love dogs by the way, so don't be hatin') that was barking nonstop from 7 a.m. till 8 p.m., every single day. Most dogs bark when they see someone or if there is some noise. That dumb creature was barking just for the sake of it, it would come out of its hole in the garage and 7 a.m. and start making circles in the yard, barking and barking and barking at the corners. The barking was unbearable, I could hear it from any point in my house, including behind the closed bathroom door in the farthest end of my townhome.
So, my tip is don't try to be nice like I was, since I was hoping that the neighbor would do something about it, so I waited for a year to complain about this, and he just told me to bug off, then I would call the animal control and they would come, but that creature was not that dumb, so it was superquiet when they would come and the neighbor would say that I was making that up, and couldn't call the police because the dog did not bark after hours.
After I moved out, I learned that the best way to deal with this is to buy a dog silencer that is used to train dogs not to bark, and hang it in your backyard in a discreet place, when the dog barks, it emits the ultrasound that is bothersome to dogs, and it stops barking.
2. Loud kids
That was when I lived in a low-income housing and trying to study for school. They would come and congregate around my house since it was in a cul-de-sac and scream their lungs away day after day after day. Since they all had parents that had no idea what supervision is, kids as young as 3 years old and as old as 11 were all hanging together without any adults watching them except for me I guess.
That situation was resolved by me after suffering for a year: every time they would come, I would come out and in a very calm voice would tell them that the noise is bothering me and they should go and play in front of their house, not mine, and if they have an issue with this, they need to ask their parents to come to talk to me in person. I'm not saying it worked the first time (and one kid that looked like a preschool age told me to chill out and shove it), but after a while, I guess I earned a reputation of a wacko, which worked to my advantage, so they would come less and less.
I just recently heard that there is some device that emits a high pitch noise that only kids can hear, and not the adults, but I don't know if it is being sold. I would not use it on the kids though, it would too much even for me.
3. Then I had neighbors who were producing so much trash that they felt it necessary to put in my garbage cans when I'd put them out for collection, and their garbage had that really terrible smell.
One day, I waited until they dumped it late night, then I put on the gloves, got all of their garbage out and brought back to their house, banged on their door and dumped it in front of them and said that this had to stop. They were like: what makes you think it is our garbage? My response: "your mailing address was on the packaging wrap that is in the garbage." That low life got foreclosed on in no time by the way, talk about pattern of behavior.
Sometimes, all it takes is just to come out of your house and stand in front of it and stare at them until they become uncomfortable and go away. Some people are never uncomfortable so you gotta use the HOA, animal control, the police, whatever it takes. There is a nuisance cause of action (that covers anything that interferes with enjoyment of your property, including noise or smell) that you can bring against the bad neighbors: word of caution though, if you are planning to sell your place eventually, you would have a public record showing that you had this problem, so you will have to make a disclosure about neighborhood noise, potentially scaring your buyers away.
If you have loud college kids living next door, I'd just wait if talking to them does not work, they have to graduate eventually.
If your neighbors are doing something that bugs you, please do post here for us all how you dealt with this.
