Dealing With Feuding Neighbors

One thing that can make any good residence or neighborhood seem like a nightmare are terrible neighbors. You know the ones who play their music too loud all hours of the night, the ones who throw their trash in your garbage cans, let their dogs mess in your yard, or are just altogether rude. Neighbor warfare can cause many problems between those involved but it's not always easy to make peace with certain neighbors. The truth of the matter is, nasty neighbors can wreak havoc on your life and make coming home an unpleasant experience for you rather than a relaxing and welcoming one.

The most common complaint among disputing neighbors is noise. Imagine music blaring at 5:00 a.m. from a downstairs apartment when you have to be up for work at 7:00 a.m. Knocking on your neighbors door or banging on the wall is likely to make matters worse. Maybe it's not noise, but a neighbor who fails to respect your property, talking bad about your family, or tossing trash in your yard. While it may not seem like it in the midst of your problems, there are ways to call a truce.

For some people, a simple visit to their neighbor to voice what the problem is can get immediate results. Note that I said "voice" and not "yell or complain" to them. When you go to your neighbor yelling about whatever it is they're doing that is upsetting you, more than likely they're going to start yelling back and you will get nowhere. This kind of approach can lead them to continue their disturbing behavior even more so just to get on your nerves and the animosity between you and your neighbors will only escalate. When you're willing to talk to someone in a calm and respectful manner, you have a much better chance of getting positive results. Sometimes a person may not realize that their music playing or walking on uncarpeted floors is disturbing their neighbors. If brought to their attention in a respectful manner, they may be more than willing to accommodate you and may even apologize.

In such instances when your neighbor completely ignores you even though you've brought the problem to their attention, it may be time to contact your landlord if you live in an apartment. Many apartments have noise ordinances where loud music can't be played after a certain time. Usually the landlord will contact the person and attempt to settle the problem for you. If you're a homeowner, you can contact your homeowners association. If contacting your landlord or homeowners association isn't an option, or if neither of these options work for you, you can see if your city has mediation services to help solve problems between feuding neighbors. Oftentimes these services are provided at little or no charge to either party. Mediation works best when all parties involved in the dispute are willing to sit down and talk.

As a last resort for some, and a first resort for others, the police may be called regarding the disturbance. Some neighbors may not take time to reason and other neighbors might be too difficult to reason with, in which case the police have to come out to deal with obnoxious neighbors. Police may act only as a deterrent or you will be able to file written complaints. The officers have to use their own discretion to decide whether or not to issue a citation to either party involved.

Some people decide to take matters into their own hands when the situation at hand isn't being handled in a way that they think is getting any results. When management or authorities have failed to fix the neighbor problem, people may seek their own justice which usually is a resort to violence. There have even been reports of vandalism against personal property. Of course this never solves anything and someone may end up hurt or in jail.

When all else fails and you've tried everything you could to solve your bad neighbor problem, some people just give up and move. Hopefully they'll have decent neighbors at their new residence. If you're breaking your lease to move, you can call the Center for Renters' Rights to help you get out of lease. The key to getting out of your lease is finding breaches in your city's Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance, which covers most buildings. Learn your rights as a renter and also as a homeowner. You're not guaranteed to have good neighbors but you're not stuck in a place if you can't deal with the ones you have.