Friday Question #188 / Gone for a Run Clock Sign Giveaway WINNER
What are your best and worst neighbor stories?
This sign I saw yesterday during my run inspired me to ask this question.
Ha! I don’t experience that problem (sure, the grass in our yard is all discolored from dog crap, but whatever), but the sign still made me laugh.
Warmer temps in Chicagoland are reminding me about our biggest gripe with our neighbors – noise level. We live in a townhome, and we are very close to our neighbors and they get loud. I love having the windows open to hear the birds and wildlife, but I cannot stand hearing people screaming and yelling. Yep. I am an old lady. That’s probably our “worst.” That I will talk about here anyway.
Our best neighbor story is our neighbors that we were close with for a few years before they moved to New Mexico.We would share meals, run errands for each other, they would watch Data. We miss them!
The winner of the Gone for a Run Clock Sign is Susan! Susan, please send me your mailiing address (to kilax@ilaxstudio.com) and I will send it your way.
I have another giveaway for next week. You can probably guess what it is if you read any other Chicagoland based bloggers…
Themocracy
So far I don’t have any bad neighbor stories but I’ve only been in my house for about a year. The only noteable thing was when my friend was house/dog sitting for us last spring and one of the neighbors questioned her parking in front of her house (we don’t have assigned parking so she had every right to park there) because she said that her college-aged daughter gets home late and if she has to park farther away she makes her call her so her mom can walk her in… seriously? My neighborhood is not scary by any means… and my friend watching my house isn’t much older than this lady’s daughter. Now my friend always parks on the street up from my house instead of in the spaces.
I agree, the noise level gets to be a bit much. I use fans to help drown out the screaming/dog barking.
We had someone have no dog poop signs in their yard the other week too. My worst is the crazy lady who thought I stared at her at 5 AM every morning out my windows/door when they drove by (it was before we had a dog door and I was waiting for to let the dogs back in each morning). I have never been confronted like she did in my life and it infuriated me. If you’d see the massive number of trees we’ve planted in our backyard, it would make even her claim seem even more outrageous. We’ve had some other run ins with people who let their dogs run loose as well.
That’s the worst when the noise level gets to the point where you can hear every word of every conversation that they are having. UGH!
In terms of my own neighbor stories, I lived in a condo building where my neighbor’s toilet started leaking… and his bathroom shared a wall with my bedroom. It started at around 10:00 PM on a weeknight, too, so there weren’t a lot of resources available to assist. Enough said.
We had a neighbor who got mad at my brothers for playing basketball at 8 at night (saying it was too loud). They told her they would go in at a certain time (like 8:30 or something I don’t remember anymore), but that wasn’t good enough for her and she called the cops. The best part about it that she was trying to sleep on the couch with the windows open and the tv on…but apparently my brothers were the problem and were too loud. Hmm… I wonder what your giveaway is 😉
I have a few stories but the worst was a few years back, we loved above some guys who shared the apartment, they worked at bars and clubs so would come home late and start playing house music at like 3 am. The also left some keys in the door that were stolen by a homeless man wh would come into the building and sleep and get mean. We moved to our condo shortly afterwards.
Our best are our current neighbors especially in the summer when everyone is on their porches just hanging out.
I currently only know the neighbors who have dogs. When I lived with my parents, they have some crazy and careless neighbors. One has let their dogs bark all day long for the last decade or so. They work, and my parents don’t, so they get to hear a chorus of barking all day, every day.
You’ve been a witness to my neighbors running up and down the stairs like a pack of wild elephants, their drum practice, and their parties. Le sigh.
When i was a poverty stricken grad student, i lived above a drug house in humboldt park. They were eventually evicted and the whole floor had to be gutted because of slum-like conditions, and when they were gutting it, all the cockroaches that had been infesting the second floor started coming up to my apartment. it was a nightmare. I would punch those neighbors if they weren’t in jail.
We’ve been pretty lucky in the neighbor department. The first house Jason and I lived in together was next to a family that had a billion kids and the kids would ride their bikes up and down the sidewalk and crash into our flower beds (and occasionally pick our flowers) but that was about it. I had worse neighbors when I lived in the dorms in college!
Our neighbor got drunk one night and came over to our house and smashed our side bedroom window while we were in the bedroom. Scared the shit out of us. He then called the cops on himself and 20 mins later, they hauled him off. His mom (who he lives with next door) paid to have the windows replaced.
That story at least has a good ending 🙂 I bet he felt pretty bad!
My upstairs neighbor that just moved in a few months ago is the WORST. I mean, we’ve had our fair share of bad neighbors (loud parties, talking outside AS LOUD AS CAN BE at 2:00 in the morning on a WEEKNIGHT — yes, I am 80.) But she keeps her two little yappy dogs (note that I also have a yappy dog…) outside on her balcony and they bark and bark and bark anytime anyone walks by. They are high-pitched and annoying as hell and she NEVER does anything about it! Sometimes, it’ll be midnight and they’ll still be out there yapping! The rest of my neighbors are awesome and quiet so when she moved in, we were all annoyed! I think I’m going to have to call our apartment management about it because it’s really ridiculous.
Sighhhh. Neighbor problems. No fun! It must have been so nice to have awesome neighbors who would watch your cat when you went away! Too bad they moved.
Ugh, sounds like moving is not going to solve all my neighbor problems! We have a lot of noisy dogs in our building…it wasn’t like this when I moved in but it’s gotten really bad. And someone let their dog take a giant crap on my back steps last week (which is weird, I’m on the third floor) (Also, it ruined my brand new pink Sauconys which makes me sad).
Lately I’ve been woken up at 4am every single night by loud drunk people. I can’t figure out where they are coming from…the bar at the end of the street closed but now I am wondering if the new place has a late closing time too.
Blagh. Sometimes I want to live out in the middle of the country, but then my parents say you get tractors and lawn car machines all the time! :p
Had somebody making the damnest racket at the river very early one morning. Oddest hammering on metal noise you’d want to hear, do it for a while then quit then start over again. Finally got tired of it and got up to look who the idiot was. Woodpecker on my metal mailbox.
I love your dad’s response! (I’ve been reading the responses because this is so interesting to me!)
Reading some of these reminded me that my old roomie, who also just bought a house, has a neighbor right next door that puts their two dogs out on their back deck all the time. She said they just leave them out there and they bark all the time and even poop on the deck! So gross and annoying!
I have had SO many bad neighbors over the years. The worst was this kid (okay, he was like 20, whatever) who lived downstairs from me. He’d blast his music in his bedroom – which was obviously right below my bedroom – at 2am on weeknights. I kept trying to knock on his door or get a hold of him to ask him to turn out down, and finally had to call the cops. So yeah, I’ve been that old lady.
On the other hand, not long after I met my fiance, I spent like an entire week at his place (he had a/c and lived closer to the Metra, so it was just easier). As I was leaving my apartment, I set a bag of garbage out in the hall, meaning to drop it in the dumpster on my way out. Totally forgot it, and apparently it attracted rats! So having been a bad neighbor, I try to cut the bad ones a little slack.
We live in a quiet neighborhood so we get nervous when new people move in. What if they’re loud? I also hate when people walk their dogs but don’t pick up! We always take a plastic grocery bag when we walk the dogs.