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A Guide to Alienating Your Neighbors During Home Construction
Here’s a handy guide for how to really irritate and alienate your neighbors during any home
construction, whether a remodel or new home building. Having had a monster home built next to
me for over a year, I have lots of ideas. You may have some to add! (Obviously, these ideas
work only if people are living next door, so ignore if you’re building next to a vacant home, lot,
or commercial space.)

When you decide to bulldoze the sweet older home previously occupying the space of
your new monster house, make sure to not tell the neighbors or allow them to take any of
the light fixtures, windows, plants or anything that would fit in with the style of their
home. In fact, if you’re new to the neighborhood, don’t even bother to introduce yourself
to the people you will be inconveniencing for from several months to years while
building your dream home. After all, they should introduce themselves to you, since
you’re the newcomer. No matter that your dream home will be a nightmare for them
during construction.

Ensure your home design is so out of place with the neighborhood that it stands out as a
sore thumb. If all the homes on the block are an eclectic mix, and have charming oldstyle architectural design, make sure yours looks like a tract house. If all the garages are
neatly tucked in the back, make sure your three-car garage is prominently in the front for
all your neighbors to see, even though there is plenty of room in the back. Make sure the
color is drab or an ugly combination. This is your home, you’ve paid a lot of money for
it, so you can do whatever you please.

Make sure to either take out mature trees or build your home tall enough to block views
of mature trees that made the neighbors feel like they lived in open space. This is your
space now, and you want your house the way you want it.

Even though you moved from your last home because someone built a monster home
next to you, make sure to build one that blocks all the light and sunrises, and steals the
neighbors’ privacy, with no room between their driveway and your fence to plant a hedge
that would give them back some privacy.

Just because your old neighborhood threw a party after you’d moved to celebrate your
leaving, no need to try to cozy up to the people on your new block. Make sure to not
smile, wave, or say hello whenever you see a neighbor outside. After all, you are bringing
up their property values, so they should be appreciative and make the first move. If they
try to be friendly, make sure to ignore or rebuff them.

Allow the construction workers and heavy equipment to begin before 7 a.m. and go until
after 7 p.m. When your late-night-working neighbors ask if the workers can wait til 7
a.m. to begin, firmly remind them that there is no law requiring them to stay within any
set hours, so they can do whatever they please, 7 days a week, and they will. No matter
that your spouse promised the neighbors only 5-day work weeks. When reminded of this,
snap and get defensive. Try to get the neighbor(s) to be appreciative that they get to start
their day earlier than anticipated by having the convenient “beep beep beep” of backing
up heavy equipment, the compressor screaming outside their window, the “blat blat blat”
from the nail gun, and the boom box playing “music” loudly for the whole neighborhood
to enjoy.

Speaking of noises, make sure the crew doesn’t understand – or care – that your
neighborhood has a lot of home-based businesses, so people are home during the hours
they work. So when they yell at each other from across the site, everyone who is trying to
field client calls, write reports, or work on marketing materials can hear every word,
including the cursing. The complainers can get ear plugs! And because of the noise and
dirt, your neighbors need to keep their homes hermetically sealed even during the
sweltering summer months. So what that the neighbors will never hire this contractor to
do work at their home because of the crew’s insensitivity– it’s not your problem.

Make sure the job site and street gutters in front of the neighbors’ houses are littered with
empty bottles, cans, and trash. Because the crew boss makes sure the site is cleaned twice
a month, you feel that you have ensured the site has been kept tidy. Of course, since you
don’t have to look at it for hours every day, it doesn’t bother you.

Allow the subcontractors to use your neighbors’ accessible property as if it were yours.
Walking down driveways, putting their tools in the neighbors’ driveways so the neighbor
has to maneuver around them, parking across the driveway, leaving nails in the driveway
to puncture tires, and dripping paint down the driveway without cleaning it up are OK
because no one sees them do it, so you can deny it when told about it.

And make sure the contractors not only take up all the parking places on the street, but
park their big trucks so close to your neighbors’ driveways that they have to play chicken
hoping no car is coming as they carefully back into the street. These things are all the
contractor’s responsibility, not yours, so don’t make any effort to try to mitigate these
issues from becoming problems.

When asked about anything that a neighbor feels is onerous or out-of-code, make sure to
be defensive, confrontational, and change the subject to all you’ve done to be sensitive to
the neighbors and all the money you’ve put into this home. Make sure to include lots of
things that aren’t a part of the topic at hand, hoping your neighbor is too meek or stupid
to get back to the complaint. Make sure to not know your neighbors’ names, and to keep
reminding them of what you do for a living, even though your neighbor is more
educated/successful than you are. Never, ever, act compassionate and empathize with all
the chaos, dirt, noise and inconvenience your neighbor has endured with no benefit to
them.

While you’re having a confrontational conversation, make sure to throw in things like “If
you have a problem with something, bring it up to us, not the contractor,” even though
the neighbor brought it up to the contractor and your spouse in the same conversation.
Also, make up things like “you’ve talked to the contractor before” even though the
neighbor never did.

If there is a dispute that you know you are wrong about, give the neighbor some options,
not including the option they want. They are then forced to pick a choice that is not
optimal, but you won’t allow the one they want. Show them that if they demand the one
they want, it will be worse for them.
There you have it – a guide to how to really annoy, irritate and alienate your neighbors – and you
haven’t even moved in! Don’t worry that you have used up any grace normally allowed new
neighbors, so that every time your dogs bark at night the police will be rapping at your door.
Don’t be concerned that no one will call the police when noticing suspicious lurkers around your
house, and no one will agree to pick up your papers or bring in your mail while you’re on
vacation. You’ve got your dream house, and, as Frank Sinatra sang, you’ve done it your way!