My neigbors broke their own window, called the police and told them my son did it. We suspect they want a new window and will submit “vandalism” to their insurance company. The police only told my son to “be careful”.

Boris Knott replies-Please be careful making allegations. Make sure you have verifiable documentation.

Since biblical times, people have been trying to get along with their neighbors – and failing. If you are sick of your neighbor playing dirty, we want to hear from you.

Do you want to finally catch your neighbor in action?

Seasoned mediation experts bring warring neighbors together and force them to face their issues so they can reach common ground and mend their broken fences.

Whether you live in an apartment, trailer park, or even cul-de-sac… if you have an issue with your neighbor we want to hear from you!

Please email the city you live in along with the issues you and your neighbor have with each other to Jesslauren514@aol.com

**Remember BOTH neighbors need to participate

Your statement that “Kindness Kills Rudeness” is so untrue anymore. I am finding that people in general are caring less and less about what they do and how if effects people around them from neighbors to the work place; and don’t get me started on the rudeness of this younger generation. I have a young couple that moved in across from me who are completely clueless. They have some type of improvements company which they work from their home which means they are constantly coming and going with their trucks, some diesel, even to the extent of turning their trucks on and letting them idle sometimes up too an hour. Not to mention the smell in the air but is there some rule that diesel trucks have to run for extended periods of time? They also have a car that they race which has awakened me on several weekend mornings, before I wanted to get up, by rattling the windows but that doesn’t bother me as much as the trucks running and running and running everyday. Today for examp
le, I watched them this morning with a truck with an attached utility trailer that was clearly blocking the street and the trash collector had to blow his horn to get them to move which they drove around the block waiting for the trash collector to finish and they proceeded to park in same spot and once again they were in the way when the trash collector came back by the other way. They have so many trucks over there that people who come to visit have no place to park which means they are parking in front of everyone elses house. I know I don’t own the street but please, common courtsey tells me not to park directly in front of my neighbors house knowing very well that their family member who lives there always parks in front; I would never dream of parking directly in front of their house. And trust me, they know this parking issue along with the noise of the running trucks annoys me and it seems they do it just too piss me off. I have called the police on one ocassion
which I don’t like doing but they had a generator running one day for hours and I came home from work with a headache and wanted to rest, come on now, your in a residential neighborhood where houses are close together and not everyone is on THEIR schedule. I try to remember that I was that age at one time but I did try to respect others and THESE neighbors are plucking my last nerve.

Boris Knott replies-If this is a residential neighborhood, they may be in code violation. All sorts of options are open to you. Petitions, zoning board, also perhaps small claims court. Start taking video-build a file on their activities.

I live in a nice neighborhood and I am friendly with all my neighbors except for one. One day my boyfriend and my son were waiting for me in the car outside my house. My boyfriend honked the horn for me to hurry up and my son wanted to honk the horn too because little kids do that. It was 5pm and not late at all. He comes running out yelling about how rude honking the horn is. We live on a busy main road so there is honking anyway! At first I stood up for the neighbor and said dont honk loud outside. Then a month later my boyfriend honks lightly to let me know he was outside. The neighbor races over saying can I talk to the owner of the house. I thought he was a yard worker looking for work because he was so dirty, so I said now is not a good time we dont need any work done. Thats when he got really pissed and said Im calling the police if anyone honks outside again. I said Im sorry but that’s my boyfriend and he told me he felt bad about the honking. I said look he honked lightly to let me know he was outside since were in a hurry to get party supplies for my child’s birthday. What would you do if your neighbor blamed you every time anyone honked the horn

Boris Knott replies- Have you tried cell phones instead of honking?

Our neighbors are more than rude, they are ridiculous! We have lived in our home for 17 years. Our rude neighbors had two young children that we said could come in our yard any time to play with our daughter or to just use the fort/swing set. I gave the younger child toys that my daughter had out grown and when they time came over to play I would give them cookies, juice boxes, and popsicles. They were good kids. Four years ago my husband came home and found about 10 kids playing in the fort that we did not know and we have a dog. Our dog is a Labrador retriever and friendly, but just the same you don’t go into a fenced in yard if you don’t know the people. Plus our dog had never seen these kids before and you never know how a scared kid or dog could react. Come to find out our rude neighbors where having a picnic and their guests let there kids climb over the fence to play in the hard. Not knowing who these kids were at the time my husband yelled at them to leave the yard. We did not realize they were having a picnic and the children were guests at their home. When my husband saw it was our neighbors he said he did mind, but they should have called or asked first. Since that day they don’t talk to us any longer. The husband and kids would talk to me, but not his wife. They also have many parties in the summer that are going on until late in the evening and loud. My point here is we never ONCE complained about the vulgar language or loud parties because it wasn’t that often. Complaining and calling the police about every little thing is not very neighborly and we don’t believe in handing conflict by calling the police. If it bothered us that much we would have done the right thing and called them, not the police. So after the kids in the yard incident 4 years ago things have been quiet meaning we don’t talk to each other. Three years ago our dog passed away and we now have two 2 ½ year old Laborator’s and they are good dogs and we are good dog owners. When we are at work or not at home the dogs are in the house. If they start barking we bring them in the house. They are mainly house dogs and only go outside to play and do there business. When you play with dogs they bark a little bit because they are having fun. We never let out dogs bark excessively. The rude neighbors have two dogs as well and we have never had any problems with their dogs. They got a third dog last summer and that dog isn’t like the other two. He barks a lot and especially when our dogs are outside. Still we have never complained to them about anything. Now the wife and mother in-law when she is visiting yell over to us that we should not kick the ball and have our dogs in our yard because it makes their dog bark and it annoys them. So they ended up putting up a large solid wood fence figuring that if there dog could not see ours it would behave better. Hello..dogs don’t need to hear other dogs they can smell them.

We have such a rude neighbor. The man is obsessed about his property lines. When he first moved in he left the surveyors flags to mark the property lines. When my son accidently knocked one down, he switched to large rocks. He did this because I accidently mowed on his property. This has gone on for years and years. His latest move was to take out the rocks and put in a split rail fence so now our yard looks like a rerun of Bonanza.

My neighbor is completely clueless and just does not get it. Personally, he is too judgemental and feels he knows everything there is to know about someone.

My wife and I bought our house about 2 years ago and love the area. Her sister is right around the corner and family is really close by (that can be a bad thing at times). In the beginning we were talking with our neighbor and everything seemed fine. A few months passed then one day I was working on a project in the garage for our bathroom when I noticed that my neighbor was out in the street taking pictures of the property line. I asked him if I could help him with something and he asked if the fence was the line. I replied very nicely that I was not sure but I have the original survey if he wanted to take a look. He quickly snapped at me and told me that we should stay off his property. Mind you we have really never stepped foot on his property at all. His argument was that my father-in-law cut the grass one time on their property.

A couple months past and my wife and I were expecting our first baby. We ended up losing our son full term. The day of our service, my father was being nice and was going around to the neighbor’s houses to let people know that there were going to be lots of cars coming and going because of our loss. My neighbor immediately snapped at my father and swore he would call the cops and that my father needed to get off his property (he is a renter mind you, and yes, I know they have rights). Luckily my father walked away being the better person.That was another incident.

Finally, and this is just recently, I have been trying to be nice. I have smiled and waved, said hello and everything. I strive to be that likeable person. Well, he confronted me about it asking why I say hello knowing that he would never respond. I told him because it makes me feel good to say hello and be neighborly.

At this point, I hate working in the front yard, seeing this guys ugly mug and I despise getting the mail and trash cans. I have given him a chance to get to know me and I be neighborly but he threw it out since he has already cast judgement. I just find it hard to be nice to someone and I really find it hard to ignore someone who thinks I am some skin-head, tattooed racist when just because I am bald and have tattoos means nothing. I am one of the most easy going neighbors and would love to have everyone over for dinner in the neighborhood if I could or have those block parties like some neighborhoods have. For someone who thinks I am otherwise scum, it bothers me to no extent and he is pretty much justified in his rudeness because it gets to me. I am nothing of what he thinks I am. So killing him with kindness…it does nothing for those that are a lost cause and completely clueless.

I have lived in this apartment for about 3 years before my neighbors downstairs moved in. This is a four section apartment. There are two on the top and two on the bottom. There are several other apartments that are like this in the small neighborhood. They are young I would like to say 21-23 they just had a newborn baby girl. fight almost every day! They are on my last nerves. He curses at her and calls her names. The walls and floors are extremely thin so you can hear everything. I have contacted the landlord or people who are in charge of the apartment complex. They don’t do anything! I told them everything I know. The landlord said that “they are not able to get into people’s personal affairs. Something has to happen in order for us to pursue any action Sometimes they are so loud it wakes us up out of our sleep. My oldest comes in my room and says, “Mommy you hear that?” “It’s fighting” I cannot afford to move right now. My oldest daughter is very advanced, she knows a lot for her age. She speaks great for a 3 year old. It’s really bothering me because I don’t want my daughter to hear this type of behavior. My husband is constantly at work because he works 12 hour shifts. So of course I’m the only one that hears this, which is so aggravating! I have called the police multiple times. Either they don’t answer the door and just sit inside and don’t make any noise (as if they aren’t there) or the boy slips out the back and goes to one of the neighbor’s house down the street. I have even told the police to go the back way (we have two entrances to the small neighborhood) because the people won’t see the police coming and to have one police officer in the back while one is in the front.. My last resort is to call social services because they have a small baby in the house.

I live in a surburb where the houses are all on blocks next to each other walled off by fences. Now, my sister has just moved back in with me and she brought her dog along. The dog loves barking at strangers and people that approach the house as it used to be a guard dog. I guess it’s doing what it was trained to do.

Sometimes my dog barks at the neighbours because their front door faces our front door and they get up at 6am in the morning and EVERY TIME they slam the door loudly. Lately the dog’s gotten better. It doesn’t bark at the neighbours anymore. This isn’t the real issue…

The real issue is the neighbour’s guests. The neighbour has guests (relatives, sons or daughters?) over regularly, sometimes until 1 or 2AM in the morning. They are elderly – I suppose any visits are a welcome occurrence. Sometimes when the guests are entering or leaving, or sitting in their courtyard (which is right next to our fence) the dog barks. Instead of ignoring the first bark, STRAIGHT AWAY, the guests shout out “SHUT UP” very loudly and rudely, and sometimes “Shut that bloody dog up [insert other profanity].”

Today I had to go out to my back yard and say “Well, it’s hard when you’re right next to the f**king fence.” And then I didn’t hear a word.

The funny thing is whenever I see these elderly neighbours they are nothing but pleasant and courteous. But they have rude guests – how do I broach the issue of their guests’ behaviour with them without alienating them?