Block Talk: Readers Talk About What Really Grinds Their Gears In The Neighborhood

ACROSS AMERICA — It’s not so much “Get off my lawn!” as it is “Get that hideous thing off your lawn!” for several Patch readers who answered the question for this installment of Block Talk.

They didn’t hold back at all, not one little bit, when we asked on Facebook, “What’s the one thing that drives you crazy when you see it at your neighbor’s house?”

This advice from a Tinley Park, Illinois, Patch reader strikes at the heart of neighborliness, the key word being heart:

“Being kind and a good neighbor is very important,” she wrote. “Sometimes seeing overgrown grass or whatever at your neighbor's house means they might need help. I wish more people would go check up and offer to help those neighbors out rather than judging, letting those issues drive you crazy, or gossiping about them.”

Tinley Park sounds like a good place to live.

Another reader said she’s willing to cut her neighbors some slack, explaining, “I can handle overdue yard work because some people aren’t physically capable and can’t financially swing it, so they let it go a little longer than they should.”

Hear! Hear!

“I don’t care, honestly. Things are so expensive, and people are working a million hours to keep their homes,” an East Haven, Connecticut, Patch resident wrote, noting he still can’t afford to reassemble the sun porch he tore apart two years ago.

“If my neighbor hasn’t cut his lawn, I’ll do it,” he continued, adding that he’d appreciate it if neighbors would return the favor.

“What matters to me is that my neighbors are decent human beings,” a Bel Air, Maryland, Patch reader wrote. “It’s their house, their property; it’s none of my business how they keep it.”

“Neighbors that cannot mind their own business,” a Joliet, Illinois, Patch reader wrote of the thing that drives him bananas. “If your house is so nice, it shouldn’t matter how my lawn looks.”

“I mind my own [business],” a Concord, New Hampshire, Patch reader wrote. “They can live the way they want to. I want to live the way I want to.”

The ‘Actual Dirty’

But still. Our query unearthed multiple examples of what one reader called the “actual dirty”:

“The only thing that bothers me is actual dirty,” another Joliet Patch reader said. “Broken windows, garbage all over. Seriously, it’s cheap for water and bleach. Clean your place. Respect yourself, which in turn helps you respect others.”

A Concord Patch reader took issue with “garbage everywhere around the outside of the house.” Mold and dirt on her neighbor’s siding chaps a Doylestown, Pennsylvania, Patch reader. And readers from Livermore, California, to Brick, New Jersey, talked trash about neighbors who leave their garbage cans at the curb long after pickup and whose “garbage flies all over the neighborhood.”

The actual junk grinds people’s gears, too.

It’s not just an eyesore, according to a Parsippany, New Jersey, Patch reader who implored her neighbors to clean and clear the curb of clutter that can get in the way of the proper operation of storm drains, adding the cautionary note, “streets flood.”

A Toms River, New Jersey, Patch reader says a neighbor’s lawn is filled with “an abundance of cars” — not by accommodating relatives and friends who can’t find on-street parking on a holiday weekend, but “a normal everyday graveyard of junked cars.”

“Yuck,” the reader added.

And speaking of things that make your neighbors say “yuck”:

“Not cleaning up after party,” another Toms River Patch reader wrote. “Chicken bones on front lawn by sidewalk.”

For a couple of Algonquin, Illinois, Patch readers, it’s No. 1 — a trampoline in the front yard; and No. 2, old, rotting mailboxes. Crooked mailbox posts don’t sit right with a Limerick, Pennsylvania, Patch reader.

And what exactly is up with pink flamingos? an Enfield, Connecticut, Patch reader wants to know. Also, orange mulch is a pet peeve of a Hatboro, Pennsylvania, Patch reader. And, “ain't that America” (h/t to John Mellencamp), what is up with pink houses, the generic rather than musical kind? A Murrieta, California, Patch reader doesn’t like pink houses at all.

And for a Salem, Massachusetts, Patch reader, it’s “bad paint” of any color — perhaps especially so for a New Lenox, Illinois, Patch reader blinded by “excessive lighting.”

Stay Classy

An Oak Lawn, Illinois, Patch reader wants his neighbor to just finish the construction project, already. “Tyvek house wrap was not meant to be permanent siding,” he practically snarled.

A Concord Patch reader can relate. Her neighbor’s roof has been covered with a blue tarp for more than four years now. “Just finish it already,” she wrote.

And, people, as much as you enjoy living in your yard, “indoor furniture used as patio furniture” hurts your neighbor’s eyes, another Limerick Patch reader implored. Someone in Tinley Park wanted to know what’s up with “large furniture and mattresses left out in the front lawns of condos?” Yeah, a Joliet Patch reader agreed, “the discarded mattresses and broken pools in the yard next door to me drive me crazy.”

And ahoy there, captain — if you’re that person with boats parked all around your house, a Bel Air Patch reader would like you to put them somewhere else.

“Christmas lights up after January AND still up in April!” a Toms River Patch reader wrote, punctuating her post with angry- and throw-up-face emojis

What their neighbors do inside their houses isn’t off limits if it assaults the eyes, according to some readers. Another Oak Lawn Patch reader thinks using “sheets for shades in the windows” is tacky.

Darned straight, a Limerick Patch reader agreed.

“I live in an apartment complex,” she wrote. “I see broken window blinds, torn and dirty curtains or towels hung on the windows instead of curtains. You’re paying a fairly high rent, but can [you] go get some curtains on your windows?”

Neighbors who hoist their political beliefs on a flagpole seem to be spoiling for a fight, according to some readers.

“Real classy,” a Concord, New Hampshire, Patch reader wrote of a neighbor’s flags, a Confederate flag and a second pennant that drops the F-bomb on the president. “Intense, huge political statements” for sure need to go, a Joliet Patch reader agreed.

Flying the U.S. flag doesn’t draw partisan lines, but “the only thing that ‘drives me crazy’ is a neighbor or business that flies the American flag all tattered and torn,” a Tinley Park Patch reader wrote.

“If you fly our flag,” the reader wrote, “then respect it and its condition.”

Respect My Lawn!

Americans spend about $115 billion annually on landscaping, according to an industry estimate. Does that give them veto power over what people do in their own yards?

Some readers think so.

“Our neighbor's lawn is a field of wild violets,” a Waukesha, Wisconsin, Patch reader wrote.

“Our neighbor just lets the weeds grow,” a Concord Patch reader wrote. “Says she’s feeding the bees. She also puts empty bottles on sticks around the edges.”

The litany of complaints over a neighbor’s yard work included “overgrown sea grass all over the place,” a Barnegat, New Jersey, Patch reader lamented; sidewalks that aren’t edged, a Hatboro Patch reader beefed; and “overgrown trees that block the sidewalk,” a Toms River Patch reader pointed out.

Yard warriors also have advice about mowing techniques that will keep everyone in the neighborhood happy. A Tinley Park Patch reader wants neighbors to stop “blowing their grass all over the street” because it “looks terrible.”

Besides, “all you have to do is turn the mower the other way.”

Dogs don’t have veto power over neighborhood landscaping practices, but if they did, they might raise a hind leg to toxic lawn care pesticides that end up on the sidewalk.

“Many of these are carcinogens that get in the threads of our shoes and in our dogs’ paws,” a Newtown, Pennsylvania, Patch reader wrote.

And, in a comment that doesn’t come right out and say “are you kidding?” but implies it, a Point Pleasant, New Jersey, Patch reader calls out “sprinklers running in the winter.”

It’s all a bit much for a Lansdale, Pennsylvania, Patch reader, who may never have a lawn-of-the-month sign staked in his yard — unless it’s from an environmental group.

“Bland, meticulously manicured lawns instead of a biodiverse culture of differing native plants and groundcover that provide food and homes for our natural pollinators and birds, along with a lack of gardens with the intention of curbing our reliance and dependency on harmful mass agriculture practices.”

About Block Talk

Block Talk is an every-other-week feature on Patch offering real-world advice from readers on how to resolve everyday neighborhood problems. In our first installment, you told us what to do about barking dogs. 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.

Catch up on Block Talk.

Find Your Patch

Patch is in more than 1,000 communities across America. Find your community and see what's happening outside your front door.