Readers Spill On What We Think Is An Ultimate List Of Annoying Neighbor Traits: Block Talk

ACROSS AMERICA — We opened a can of worms.

We asked Patch readers what annoys them about the neighbors for this installment of Block Talk, our exclusive neighborhood etiquette column, and got dozens of responses about irascible, curmudgeonly neighbors and others who can’t seem to mind their own business, which in some readers’ minds should include more careful attention to the upkeep of their property.

We’ll start with the gawkers, though. You know who readers are talking about — the Gladys Kravitzes of the world.

Patch reader Pam took a pie to the neighbors who — let’s not mince words — seem to have her family under surveillance.

“They sit in their window across the street and watch us every time they are outside,” Pam wrote. “It does not matter what time it is. If it’s 2 a.m. and they hear my car pull in the driveway, they are coming to stare out the window.”

The only time they’ve spoken to Pam in six years was not when she delivered the pie, but when they “yelled at us for parking on the street in front of our own house.”

Across America Patch reader Moe’s neighbors are all that and more.

“They have a video camera on our back yard, flood our back yard, beep their car alarm when you walk outside, stare out their windows at us, are part of the one-up era and the grand finale: dum, dum, dum — besides always making noise with power tools, they mow the lawn two times a day!” Moe said.

It’s “jealous, one-upper neighbors who think somehow we are all in competition” bug a Long Island Patch reader, too. “Not everyone does things to their homes for the ‘look at me’ reactions. Some of us just have hobbies like gardening, or tweaking things we felt weren’t aesthetically pleasing.”

And The Band Played On

Readers spoke loudly and clearly about their neighbors’ music.

Rosa, who reads Levittown Patch and Yardley Patch in Pennsylvania, gave up and found new neighbors when neither the property manager nor the police would do anything to quiet neighbors who held band practice all night long with their amps at full volume.

Across America Patch reader Terri has lived in apartments most of her life, so small annoyances don’t faze her. This, though:

“One of the worst neighbors I had in a three-family tenement decided to start a rock band in the apartment above me with guitars, drums, etc., and her singing — very, very badly,” Terri wrote.

A college student at the time, she told the neighbor she needed quiet so she could study, and also took the opportunity to ask her — nicely, Terri said — to pick up her German shepherd’s poop in the common yard. It worked for a while, but when the old behavior started again, the conversations became more agitated. At one point, the woman accused Terri of stealing her marijuana. Bring it, she decided at that point.

“After that, when the band played, my stereo got cranked up to the maximum. When the dog poop wasn’t picked up, it was shoveled under her car tires and there were multiple calls to the landlord,” Terri wrote.

Eventually, the neighbor skipped out on her rent and broke the lease, but the ordeal lasted six months, Terri said.

William, who reads Media (Pennsylvania) Patch, lives next to a guy who plays panpipes, or pan flutes, a folk instrument. He plays “every time we are outside on our deck. For an hour straight,” William said. “We go inside until he’s done.”

It Is All About The Bass

Sara, who reads Greenfield Patch and Oak Creek Patch in Wisconsin, lives on a small lot, and the next-door neighbors play music until 1 a.m. on weekends. Meanwhile, their kids are outside crying. She talked to them, and things seem to be better.

“I love that my neighbors are out and enjoying the day, but the whole neighborhood doesn't need to hear your music; please keep it down,” wrote another person named Sara, who reads Tinley Patch, New Lenox Patch, Mokena Patch and Manhattan Patch, all in Illinois.

Sara struggled with how to handle it. She didn’t want to be a mean neighbor, so she “choose to suck it up.”

It truly is all about the bass for Oak Lawn (Illinois) Patch reader Cindy. Her neighbors blast the car stereo at full bass while working on the vehicle, or just use it as a radio. “You’re stuck with it because the police do nothing until after 10 p.m., even though a lot of towns have noise ordinances,” she said.

Yes, agreed Shelton-Derby (Connecticut) Patch reader M.M., whose solution is to text the offenders and ask them to turn it down. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t,” M.M. said.

Bel Air (Maryland) Patch reader Nicole said the music in her neighborhood is “so loud the police get called constantly, then they turn it back up after the cops leave.”

“So ignorant,” said Nicole, whose family’s defense is to cloister themselves in a room “with fans, air conditioning and TV to help block out the noise.”

Temecula (California) Patch reader John adds loud outdoor TVs to the list of things that pierce the neighborhood's serenity. He sucks it up, too.

“They're clueless dolts, and I don't want to get into it,” he said.

Broken Sewer Pipe And Other Filth

Woodbridge (Virginia) Patch reader Chris tried to be helpful when neighbors fell behind on property maintenance, but they took advantage of the situation.

“They keep their property filthy, never mow and have no trash pickup, so it goes in their yard,” Chris said. “They’re constantly asking us to help around their house. They had a broken pipe from their house, and raw sewage was coming from their house down the street.”

Gloucester Township (New Jersey) Patch reader Elizabeth is trying to let it go, but what bugs her are “clutter or hoarding on the front lawn and houses that need to be power washed,” along with neighbors who stare when she has company.

Erin, a Woodstock-Towne Lake (Georgia) Patch reader, said her neighbors fill their back yard with junk, “as if we can’t see their eyesore of a yard from our windows.”

We heard gripes about neighbors who don’t cut their grass — No Mow May, perhaps? — but also about the timing of yard work.

“The neighbor who lives behind us does all of his yard work on Friday evenings,” said Laura, a West Chester (Pennsylvania) Patch reader. “We just built a beautiful new back porch where we love to sit and entertain. But the background noise on Friday evenings is the lawn mower and leaf blower. It even goes until after dark sometimes.”

Laura is plenty piqued about it but has kept it to herself. “It annoys me so much, though, and I would love to have an answer for how to make it stop!”

If You Got ’Em, Don’t Smoke ’Em

Patch reader Mallory likes to open the windows and let in fresh air, but often can’t because her neighbor’s cigarette smoke wafts in when they’re puffing away in the front yard.

“I wish they would smoke in their back yard, as I think that would help stop some of the smoke from wafting toward us,” she said.

Linda gets those smells, too, along with smoke from weed and cigars. Plus, Linda said, they have “noisy pool equipment, kids screaming at the top of their lungs and excessively barking dogs.” And on top of that “their security cameras point into my windows.”

“I spoke with them that it’s an issue, and they just ignore me, so now I’m looking to move,” Linda said. She has company with Debbie, a Murrieta (California) Patch reader who said screaming kids drove her to a new neighborhood.

Sensory assaults include dryer sheets, according to Wauwatosa (Wisconsin) Patch reader Lisa. The smell from her neighbor’s dryer blows directly into her house, causing migraines and asthma attacks. “I lock myself indoors until their laundry is done,” Lisa said, adding that is “not fun on nice days.”

Across New Hampshire Patch reader Luce could live happily without the neighbors’ stinky gas leaf blowers — and the electric ones, too.

“Instead of getting a good workout by raking — it’s much faster, by the way, which is not what the ads say,” Luce said. “It takes forever to blow that leaf across your lawn into the woods, the wind will blow it right back. They do it for hours wearing an earmuff.

“Really, I wonder why,” Luce continued, arguing they’re OK for quick 10- or 15-minute jobs in hard-to-clean places, but “that’s it.”

Luce said this goes on from sunrise to sunset. Luce leaves for the day when the racket starts up, but has this to say: “Please think about it before you go out there to blow your freaking leaves! You live in the woods, so deal and use your rake!”

It’s unsolicited light that ticks off Concord (New Hampshire) Patch reader Rocko.

“They have put up a huge moon of a light that stays on all night. It lights up the front of my house, too,” Rocko said. “Then for half the year, it’s Christmas over there.”

A Chicken Conundrum

We heard from readers all over the country about problems with cats and dogs. But this from Jazz, a Dale City (Virginia) Patch reader is a doozy. Jazz lives on a cul-de-sac and has a neighbor whose chickens and roosters trespass. They’re tearing Jazz’s garden apart.

“Then they bought a dog thinking it would help keep the chickens on the property, but it doesn’t,” Jazz said. “They don’t keep the dog on a leash, so now we have chickens and a dog running loose daily. They don’t do anything about their animals roaming freely throughout the neighborhood. It is a huge annoyance.”

Cheryl’s good deed didn’t completely solve her problem.

When her neighbor started feeding feral cats, the population exploded in the Port Jefferson (New York) Patch reader’s neighborhood. She surreptitiously trapped them for sterilization and then released them. That stabilized the population of that particular clowder of cats, “but now the cats crap in our yard, which our dogs go after and get sick,” Cheryl said, adding, “So frustrating.”

We got the usual complaints about neighbors who don’t leash or pick up after their dogs, but Across America Patch reader Kate offered an interesting twist on her neighbors’ free-range dogs:

“The dogs would even come up on our deck and pee on the dining room window, right in front of our dogs, who were in the dining room,” Kate said. “Then the neighbor had the nerve to complain about our dogs barking at their dogs when they did that.”

Drunken Fights And Crackheads

Jim, a Rumson-Fair Haven (New Jersey) Patch reader, has talked to his neighbors about her underage kids’ parties, but it hasn’t done much good. He’s still putting up with loud music at night and beer cans in front of his house the next morning.

A Manchester (Connecticut) Patch reader lives next door to a crackhead who is “loud, stupid and high all the time.” The reader tries to ignore the neighbor but sometimes has to call the police. S.P., a Ledyard (Connecticut) Patch also called police to break up drunken fights by neighbors.

“My neighbors have verbal altercations constantly. They fight for hours and disrupt all the nearby neighbors,” wrote Nelly, who reads Doylestown Patch and Montgomerville-Lansdale Patch in Pennsylvania.

“I don’t want to call the cops or talk to them directly, so it probably will continue to happen,” Nelly continued. “I have played music a few times out the window, so they can get the idea that we can hear them, but I don’t think they care.”

Parking Peeves

Temecula Patch reader Tom said he gets agitated enough when his neighbors’ guests park in a way that makes it hard for him to back out of his gated driveway that he makes “loud remarks about the dumb asses who can’t walk 20 extra feet.”

Warminster (Pennsylvania) Patch reader Christine says she has seen enough “Fear Thy Neighbor” episodes to know it’s not worth stressing out over, but still, it’s galling that her neighbors’ guests park in her driveway.

“I don’t know why, because we aren’t side by side, and it’s pretty clear it’s not public parking,” she said, noting the same neighbor parks his tractor-trailer cab on the street and leave it idling for 30 or 40 minutes at a time, “just because.”

Elizabeth has talked to both her neighbor and township police, but the situation continues, “so in order to keep my sanity, I just close my front door and mind my own business.”

Oak Lawn Patch reader Christine wishes her neighbors would park their food truck — “the ‘roach coach’ kind,” she said ‚ somewhere else.

“They constantly block our driveway and park in front of our house, so we can’t put our garbage cans out on garbage day,” Christine said. “Mind you, they have plenty of parking in their own driveway, as well as just a few steps farther away from their own house, but they don’t want to walk the extra 10 steps. In addition, they’ll even park partially on our lawn.

“We’ve tried talking to them plenty of times, even called the police after they left a car there for two weeks, and they’ll stop doing it for a few days, then go back to their old ways,” Christine said. “I try to just ignore it, but one day my tolerance level will be low, and they’ll find a few flat tires.”

‘The Rev-rend’

Tori, who reads Plainfield Patch and Joliet Patch in Illinois, says her neighbor is nice, but tinkers on vehicles to the extent it’s a nuisance.

“By tinkering, I mean he sits in his truck constantly revving it. I mean, several times a week for hours at a time,” Tori said. “I have no idea why, but it’s clearly not fixing whatever issue is wrong. It’s loud, annoying and obnoxious. It rumbles our house.”

Tori and her family have complained only to themselves, she said, adding, “We have given him the nickname of ‘The Rev-rend.’ ”

Across America Patch reader Jay says his immediate neighbors are quiet and respectful.

“However, farther back in the subdivision, there are residents who drive really loud trucks and think our street, with one way in and out, is a racetrack,” Jay wrote. “It is very disruptive in an otherwise quiet community, and also dangerous, as there are children and wildlife crossing the street.”

Jay keeps this to himself, too.

“I live alone and fear the repercussions of complaining,” Jay said.

About Block Talk

Block Talk is a regular Patch feature offering real-world advice from readers on how to resolve everyday neighborhood problems. If you have a neighborhood etiquette question or problem you'd like for us to consider, email beth.dalbey@patch.com, with Block Talk as the subject line.

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