5 things you can use to inconvenience your neighbors
I have had many neighbors my entire life. Many were good, many were bad, many were interesting, and many were weird. There were many bad experiences, many good experiences, and many interesting and many weird experiences. Some times, you can try to let things roll and fix them yourself. At other times, you can take action and talk to other people involved to arrive at a solution. In this article, I would like to point out 5 things that you can annoy neighbors with.
Each of these things in the list below is a personal observation and personal experience, both from long time ago and from the last few weeks. The first point below also describes an example explicitly to show how sometimes we can mistakenly be inconsiderate to others, or how we can be inconsiderate while considering someone else to be inconsiderate to us for the same thing. When I say neighbors in this article, I am referring to roommates, house mates, building mates, complex mates, street mates, etc, basically anyone who lives near or around you even periodically.
For this list, I would like to focus mainly on the things, and very lightly on some direct and indirect solutions. The best solution for such situations is to solve any inconvenience yourself, talk to your neighbor to discuss the issue politely or to bring it to their attention politely while fostering your neighborly relationship, or a mixture of all of those.
5 things you can use to inconvenience your neighbors
- Laundry
If you share any laundry machine with any of your neighbors, you can easily annoy them. Leave your clothes in the washer or the dryer, and do not take them out for hours. The next person who wants to do laundry will probably check repeatedly, every half hour or so, to see if you picked up your clothes.
I currently have many laundry options, including shared laundry with a few neighbors. I decided to do laundry while talking to a friend in Europe. After washing my clothes, I noticed someone else’s clothes in the dryer. I waited for that neighbor to come and pick up the clothes. After almost 4 hours of waiting, I knocked at my neighbor’s door and asked politely if she could help. She had just woken up from sleep, sincerely apologized and took out the clothes from the dryer. That was fine and really nice of her. I told my friend all of this, and he said I should blog about it. This very post is because of that friend and that situation.
I put my clothes in the dryer for 70 minutes and told my friend I was going to take a nap. I woke up very late, about 2 hours after the dryer had finished drying. I went to the laundry room and noticed the same neighbor waiting for me to take out my clothes from the dryer so she could put her newly washed clothes in it. In my friend’s view, I became the very inconvenience for a person that I may have felt only a few hours ago from that very person. That was a good example of how sometimes a random thing, like sleeping a bit longer than usual, can result in others being inconvenienced even though we did not intend to. When I talked to my friend again and told him what had happened, he could not stop laughing. I wonder if he is going to make fun of me using that example forever.
- Car
If you and your neighbors have a car, you can annoy them by parking in weird ways to make sure they have a hard time entering or leaving the parking area. Park in the middle of the driveway, or park very close to their car so that they cannot get in it easily.
Someone has to go to work? Big deal. Let them learn new driving skills, or let them come to your door to make you move the car. Someone has an emergency? Well, if they have an emergency, they will come looking for me and then I can move the car. I had an emergency 4 nights ago and had to leave instantly. A car was blocking my way, and I had never seen that car before. After trying different neighbors, one of them finally came out and moved the car. In an emergency situation where you have to be somewhere immediately around midnight to help someone, arriving 25 minutes late can sometimes be bad. This brings us to the next point, which is…
- Your friends
If your friends come over, make sure you let them do whatever they please. Do not keep an eye on their activities, and if you do notice them inconveniencing your neighbors in any manner, do not tell them anything unless the neighbor comes and asks you about it.
Friends are making a mess? Who cares. Friends are supposedly forever, neighbors can move anytime. Friends are using other people’s laundries or blocking driveways? Who cares. Friends should have fun, and neighbors should stay away. Friends are being loud? Who cares. Friends can be loud in your place so you can be loud in their’s. That brings us to the next point, which is….
- Neighbor’s privacy spots
One of the best ways to annoy your neighbors is to be invade their privacy. The entire area is someone’s property, and not your neighbor’s. Even if your neighbor owns it all, they do not own the right to your body, which you can position and direct to do many things.
Hover around your neighbor’s car while they are in it. Have loud barbeque right by their window. Use flashlights and scream to points things in every direction in the middle of the night and make sure they notice it by their window.
- Favors
Ask your neighbors for favors, and then make them regret that they decided to help you. Whatever they do for you, directly or indirectly, abuse such a thing to not directly hurt them but to abuse the actual favor.
I recently start giving free wifi access to some of my new neighbors who asked for it. They are not paying anything for a $60+ package. One of the neighbors knows how downloading and bandwidth works, and he downloads thousands of gigabytes of movies and other things every few days. He leaves his laptop on and simply goes out to party, leaving me to have an internet connection that suffers at random times during the day. Long live the “Click here to disconnect this wireless user” button.
So, there you have it. If you want to annoy your neighbors, try one of the 5 above techniques, and your neighbors will surely love you in ways you probably never want them to.
Have you or do you know someone who has experienced similar things?
What do you think? Have you run into anything similar or know someone who has? I found Stacee’s housing and neighbors related posts to be very good examples of how some neighbors and roommates can be continuously annoying. You may find them interesting too. Sorry you had to go through that Stacee!
Thank you for reading. I really appreciate it. I have to stop writing now, as I notice that wifi guy to be hogging the entire bandwidth again. Time to find the “Click here to disconnect this wireless user” button.
[update: August 29th, 1:34 pm PST] My friend told me, while he was laughing, that he was laughing at the situation and would never laugh at me. 
Therefore, for the 3rd paragraph under the list subheading “Laundry“, I have changed the sentence “When I talked to my friend again and told him what had happened, he could not stop laughing at me” to “When I talked to my friend again and told him what had happened, he could not stop laughing“, removing the “at me” part. Thanks Robin. 
[end of update]
Loading ...
( August 29th, 2007 at 9:59 am )
and… let your moron friends park on a drive that’s not even connected to your house then let them cross your neighbor’s property (mine) and freak them out as your friends use their property to reach your house when it’s not even required.
Okay so that totally wasn’t coherent…
( September 1st, 2007 at 2:02 pm )
Thanks for the good point Valerie.
That is indeed weird, specially if they know you do not like it. Is their driveway or property too small? Is the sidewalk too far from your main property, far enough that they prefer walking on your property without wondering if you like it or not?
You should take some pictures.
Maybe the driving point itself needs a separate article.
( September 1st, 2007 at 3:24 pm )
No her guests were just apparently stupid.
There’s no sidewalk here, we are on the highway. She has her own drive way then we have one that’s technically a city street and connects to my house and the other neighbor’s then two others who have their garages off of it, but not that one particular neighbor. Her property does not touch the road.
I did take a pic of the car that day because it freaked me out and I wanted their license plate number especially because as I saw them crossing my property when I took the dog out I was getting ready to take E to a doctor’s appointment. My dog could have tripped any of them with his long leash as he ran out into our yard and I could have been sued if they got hurt. Stupid laws. Even if I don’t allow them here or am not home, I could be held liable if they get hurt. That’s one thing that freaked me out the most. I think one woman had a cane.
I think I blogged about this before? I dunno how I’d find it though lol
( September 2nd, 2007 at 12:15 pm )
Thanks for clarifying a bit more Valerie. The url you sent me via Gtalk, “Life in Suburbia“, tells a bit more about your neighbor. That link also talks about how your neighbor brought her friends into your garden and private property without asking you, specially since your neighbor isn’t that close to you.
That is indeed weird, specially because they are going over your property and not considering you at all. How old is she, do you know? One of the things she could be is that she thinks neighbors shouldn’t have strict divisions among each other, and thus she does not mind going into your property at all. What are her reactions these days to putting up a fence? A fence will indeed solve the issue if that is what you want. A simple note to the neighbor can usually work, but apparently and from the link you gave me above, it seems she is not acting on it, or at least not respecting your wishes that you have for your own property. You are not obligated to have your property open or intruded by her or her friends, and you are not wanting to either. This goes a bit along with my other post that talks about whether or not it is obligatory to help others in non-critical situations.
You should create a list of things you want in a neighbor and what you do not get.
( September 2nd, 2007 at 4:47 pm )
I don’t know how old she is, 70’s I guess. Maybe.
She may not be well or maybe it’s just the heat, haven’t seen her lately… Have not further discussed a fence. Not sure when we’ll get one.
Earlier this year she caught me outside and said it was a nice day, I should bring E out to play and I said that I would see how the day goes (I had a lot to do). She then had the nerve to ask me, “well, what do you do all day then?” Wth? I work, and I prefer to take E to the park rather than our backyard because there’s so much more for him to do there, etc. Sheesh.
( September 3rd, 2007 at 3:04 pm )
Thanks for explaining even more Valerie. It may probably be the heat that you are not seeing her outside these days: it’s around 99.2 °F / 37.3 °C at this very moment over there, right? 0_0
That is interesting. Your backyard does not have a fence so far, right? So I am guessing it is like a mini-park, where neighbors can walk through or go in to show the flowers to their friends. :p
Do you know if she interacts with other neighbors, or only you? Did you tell her what you do, and how busy you are in the online world alone? I am surprised that you even find the time sometimes to take E to the park, considering your numerous sites, your business, etc etc, and of course, your obligation to read and comment on my site daily.
( September 6th, 2007 at 7:13 am )
ummm Monday it wasn’t so bad, it was high of 97 but didn’t seem that bad. Must not have had high humidity.
Now we are finally getting some rain, high of 81. 
Part of the reason I don’t see her a lot is that I don’t hang around here outside. Again if I want to play out with E we go to the park.
She does interact with others. I didn’t know her first name for a few years, until another neighbor used it to us in reference to her. She doesn’t know what I do, probably doesn’t even know about the candles. I didn’t think it was her business to spell out my day to her and a truck was going by so I just brushed it off best I could then took the dog inside…
( September 6th, 2007 at 1:28 pm )
Rain is good, Valerie. It hasn’t rained in this part for a while, so I am looking forward to a lot of water pouring down from the skies. My car will appreciate it too.
That’s interesting. Maybe next time you can tell her a bit of what you do, since it could be that she is assuming things because of not asking you specifically and directly what you do? Do you know what she does? Oh and also, I just thought of it, having a fence could be safe for her too, since then she will not have to worry about neighbor’s dog running around [if she thinks like that].
At least you may have someone to talk or listen to if you ever get bored: you can simply walk outside and find her there.
( October 1st, 2007 at 4:01 am )
[...] 5 things you can use to inconvenience your neighbors [...]
( January 11th, 2008 at 8:03 pm )
i like to rearrange their porch furniture / yard goodies. also, put gross feeling things on their doorknobs and car door handles. hahaha. oh man, neighbors are fun.
( February 15th, 2008 at 4:39 pm )
Hi Stevenmingus, thanks for sharing. Heh, those are very interesting and good points!
Have you ever tried any of such things or experienced them?
( August 15th, 2008 at 12:53 am )
good list, love it, thanks man