Inconsiderate neighbors - where's my fence?

Post Reply New Topic

Frost wrote "Good fences make good neighbors" facetiously, suggesting instead that the removal of walls and barriers will unite people and cultivate friendliness. I support this theory and try to live by it. However, when a neighbor is so inconsiderate of others, even in a community that has sensible rules that are easy to follow and put in place to enforce basic consideration, I rethink the value of a good fence!

My new neighbors are rather inconsiderate. They're youngish but that's hardly an excuse. They have a pit bull, which is a blatant violation of the breed restrictions in the lease. I have nothing against pit bulls. The sweetest dog I ever encountered was a stray and starving pit bull. If a dog can be loving and affectionate towards a stranger at his weakest, wildest and hungriest, clearly the nature of the breed is loving. It's the people who exploit the strength and muscle of the pit bull to be violent, or who don't curb energetic behavior in a dog that large and strong so the dog doesn't inadvertently hurt someone, who are to blame for the bad reputation that pit bulls receive. With that being said, pit bulls are still a restricted breed on the lease. If you love your pittie, you won't live here. I have a golden retriever. My golden retriever violates all the dog weight restrictions of other apartments and part of the reason we didn't move to the nicer apartment community was because my dog is not under 60 lbs. I did not lie about his weight to get what I wanted.

Next, our apartment buildings surround a large pond. We and the new neighbors have apartments that face the pond. This means that we walk around the building to reach the parking lot, where all residents are instructed to park their cars. The new neighbors consistently park their car on the sidewalk and grass in front of their door and my bedroom window. Sometimes my upstairs neighbors do this; however, she is disabled and a walk around the building could use up all her spoons depending on what kind of day it is. They also do not park the car there, it is only there to give her a shorter walk inside or to the car. New neighbors seem to feel entitled to park on this side of the building, despite receiving a warning tag from the local police department and a special mention in the monthly community newsletter. I should also mention that our apartment community has over 200 children and some of them are quite little. The last thing that should happen here is a small child getting run over because a driver didn't see him running on the sidewalk, which is exactly where he's supposed to be running.

Today, they were outside talking to a visitor. The visitor seemed to have a hearing impairment that required that he talk at 10 x the volume of a normal person. I would complain about that but I think he also had Tourette Syndrome based on the things my children and I could hear clearly into our livingroom from their front door area. His cute medium sized dog was leashed and was keeping itself occupied by vigorously digging a gigantic hole in the grass next to the sidewalk. Three adults, two of them the new neighbors, stood by and none of them reprimanded the dog. They left the hole as it was. I called the office to report the incident.

Maintenance came by to repair it, the maintenance guys complaining the entire time. I don't blame them. They have enough to fix when things honestly break and have busy days keeping all these buildings maintained. This kind of thing really should not happen at all.

It's only a matter of time before they're gone and, when they go, I'm sure they will have the indignation and arrogance to believe they were wronged.

Ugh. I feel for you. This takes me back to my apartment living days and reminds me just how much I disliked people back then.

In my opinion, people will act this way as long as they can get away with it. Certain folks do not believe the rules will ever apply to them because they have lived an entire life without ever having the rules enforced. They can't really be blamed for arriving at this conclusion as society has bred them like some kind of strange fungus in the crawlspace of humanity. I have never found a way to win with these people, and have made it a rule to do my best to avoid personal interaction with them.

That's terrible. Some people were just raised wrong and have no consideration for others. We live in a great house in a cute neighborhood, but our neighbors to one side are 1) lazy and leave standing water in their yard so we have a huge mosquito problem 2) rude by screaming loudly at their poor dog about 5 feet from our bedroom window 3) gross keeping trash piles & old furniture on their porch. The neighbors on the other side have 4 large dogs that constantly bark AND 12 loud chickens!

You'll have people like that anywhere. One recommendation I have is to call your apt. complex's towing company next time they park on the sidewalk. If your neighbors get towed they might at least stop parking there.

Just... For the sake of my own clarity on this: do you assume Tourette's because he cursed a lot?

Because if so, then the combination of a loud voice and a lot of swearing do not give me the impression that this man was having a normal conversation with your new neighbours. He may have been upset with them for some reason and considering what he let his dog do without reprimanding it, perhaps they did say something about it, but did not dare do something about the dog because it's owner was so upset.

I'm also inclined to think that perhaps they park in that place because they have seen your upstairs neighbour putting her car there and they do not realize why she does it. So they think it's okay to park there and when they were told not to, the may have been upset that your upstairs neighbour was allowed, but they were not.

I do not want to say you are wrong about these people, because I do not know either way, but let's not forget that to believe that people are being rude because they do not conform to the social practices one is used to is exactly the kind of thing NTs do to us.

I was being cute with the armchair diagnosis. It was a loud, crude friendly discussion. Mind you, if it was just the loud, crude guy, I'd roll my eyes and file it under "inconsiderate things that don't hurt anybody". The real issue was the damage his dog was doing with none of them stopping it or bothering to even fix it. The loudness and crudeness just adds to the picture of a well-rounded inconsideration.



Nope. They just don't believe the rules apply to them and want to thumb their nose at the office for trying to tell them how to live.

There's additional selfish behavior that both of them exhibit in public that doesn't necessarily break any rules or directly affect anyone so I haven't bothered to bring it up. Suffice it to say that there is no excuse for their actions.

They'll be evicted soon enough.



I have no sympathy for these people. I'm an aspie and have greater consideration for my fellow man. I have four kids, all under 15. Two of them play drums in their school bands and have to practice. Another is learning recorder as part of her music class. My Kindergartener tends to be... a Kindergartener. Yet, I do not disturb my neighbors. A childless couple should be able to be more courteous and unobtrusive than a family of six. They have no excuse for their behavior.

(edited to fix a quote tag)
(edited a second time to add a little more clarification about the loud guy)

Last edited by wefunction on 03 Feb 2011, 12:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

I've never been to an apartment complex where people park their cars on sidewalks and grassy surfaces, especially close to ponds. I used to live in an apartment complex with ponds. I never noticed anyone parking near them.
Every apartment complex I have lived in or visited friends or family in only allow parking in the parking lots without any exceptions.

Exactly, Ana.

sounds like they will be leaving soon enough.

That's how things were in my old neighborhood.

And don't even get me started on roommates. I would rather have wild neighbors than wild roommates.

Experiences like these make you appreciate good neighbors. When good neighbors move out, it really worries me because of the unknown. Sometimes, I wish everything would stay like it is fore all eternity.

Frost set to oppose the linde - I embrace it.

I want dense hedges, tall strong fences, some good brick walls.

Or, like the Romans, put the yard outside living / grilling space in the center ofthe buliding.

Admitted less efficient in colder climes.

I think his statement was literally correct. Back in the 70s the city councils would commonly do a deal with the mortgage providers saying they'd only lend you the money for a house if you agreed not to have any walls or fences over x inches high. I was furious. They probably thought they were being really clever to force people to open up to strangers like that, but all it does for me is to make me feel more antisocial, because I see it as an insensitive invasion of my privacy.

It rather reminds me of the pejorative term "NIMBY" (not in my back yard)........I have no problem with nimbyism, and I resent the idea that we shouldn't value the right control what goes on in our own backyard. Who are these people who want to force us to co-mingle?

I applaud your trust in random people, but for me they're just potential varmints. By default I don't want anything to do with them. I'm quite capable of making friends with them if they meet my criteria, but I'm very picky so most of them don't. And if a friendship with somebody living so close turns sour, it must be harder to get rid of them than it would be if they lived a bit further away.

Anyway, I hope you get your neighbours to give you a bit more respect. If they continue to be a nuisance, their vulnerability to the dog laws might be a useful bargaining chip for you - "nice dog you've got there, it'd be a shame if the authorities found out. By the way, do you think you could keep your noise down a bit?" But I hope it doesn't have to come to that. Just that in my experience with neighbours, they don't usually care how much they annoy you as long as they're enjoying what they're doing.