I read an an insightful weblog entry over at Wil Wheaton’s web site. It had to do with good neighbors. And I couldn’t help but wonder — am I a good neighbor?
Points against us being good neighbors:
- We had a used tire in our yard for over three years.
- The paint is peeling around our front door.
- We don’t have a deck. Our sliding glass window leads off into the vastness of space.
- We have a dead apple tree in the back yard.
- We let our yard die. And we only mowed it twice last year since it was dead. And we only trimmed the weeds twice.
- We have a big hole in the ground that’s also three years old next to the front door where I planned to punch through my basement wall to finish our sprinkler system. It’s still there, and the sprinkler system is still hooked up every year by plugging it into a hose.
- Our then four-year-old daughter repainted one of our rooms without our consent four years ago. The pink blotches are still very visible on the screen on the front of the house.
- Our garage has always been so full of stuff we could never park our car in it.
- We have a nonfunctional lawnmower and rusting bike sitting next to our driveway.
- I record music late into the night (usually, with headphones, but my singing is still loud)
- I grill outdoors in the middle of the winter.
- We have an oil leak in our van that’s permanently stained our driveway.
- Weeds have overgrown our gardens.
- Our stereo system attached to our DVD player can get pretty loud, and we usually watch movies late at night (9-11:30 PM)
Points in favor of us being good neighbors:
- We invite friends over all the time to quietly play cards and chat — including our next-door neighbors, who have three old non-working trucks parked in their front yard.
- We tend to keep to ourselves, and keep quiet.
- Our kids play outdoors, but only within strictly prescribed boundaries, and they tend to get bullied, rather than be bullies.
- Our cars don’t belch smoke, and aren’t really loud.
- We never have knock-down, drag-out fights in the middle of the nights with our windows open like one of our neighbors. Oh, wait, they don’t fight anymore since she left him…
- Once you’re inside our house, it’s cluttered but comfortable and welcoming.
- We take cookies & homemade goodies to our neighbors regularly.
- We know all our neighbors within three houses by their first names.
- We avoid appearing in the front yard in nightclothes.
- We bathe regularly.
- We have barbeques each summer and invite all our neighbors.
- We make it a point to have all our immediate neighbors over for dinner at least once a year.
I think, on balance, we are reasonably good neighbors with lots of room for improvement. What about you?
being a good neighbor
Hey there, I think you are a good round neighbor. You have done the pro’s and con’s and they seem to balance out. I only wished I had good neighbors like you. A good friend with just a thought on the manner
Living next door to thieves…
Yeah, we picked up some Absolute Worst Neighbors From Hell a year ago. They live behind us. You can read all about them in this story about watching them rob our other neighbors. Oy, veh. How can people live that way? Stealing stuff, getting in shouting matches at all hours of the night… I don’t get it.
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Matthew P. Barnson
Oh, by the way…
Oh, BTW, Jake, you should register on the site so I can put up a picture of you when you post 😉
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Matthew P. Barnson
good neighbors
My pro’s for being a good neighbor is that they feel comfortable enough to come and ask if they can borrow a cup of ice or whatever and vice versa. We all are late night owls, so we are constantly in and out of each other’s homes, since there really isn’t nothing else to do around here. I guess the con would be that you could here me at all hours hollerin for the occasionally my dog Sparky to get his butt back in the house. Oh and I too know what it is like to have a bad neighbor. Mine were insensitve enough to put a puppy pit out in a shed to whine all day until I called animal control. The poor thing. Teresa
I like to think i am pretty good…
Hmm… Am i a good neighbor? I would like to think so. I can try to break it down…
Points against us:
Grass sometimes gets a little out of control.
The 10×10′ garden in the back yard this year stayed no where near weeded. The weeds had complete free movement in the garden.
Our garage is 1/2 full of stuff. I think the only reason it is half full is because of my hate of scraping the windshield during the fall / winter, so I leave enought room to get my Probe into the garage.
Points in favor of us being good neighbors: .
I grill outdoors in the middle of the winter as well. There is nothing like a cookout in February. I don’t think there is anything wrong with this, In fact i think the neighbors we have over rather enjoy it.
We have our surround sound hooked up for a great movie experience. We invite neighbors over for movie night every now and then. .
We invite friends over and we go over to there houses all the time to play cards, board games, and chat. .
Our cars don’t belch smoke, and aren’t really loud. but then again, i don’t think any of the cars on the street are like this. The only one that comes close is a Trans Am at the end of the street that i swear sounds like night rider. It is one of the newer models, but still has a cool sound. .
Once you’re inside our house, it’s cluttered but comfortable and welcoming. .
We know all our neighbors on our street by their first names..
I go out of my way to try and help them with projects around the house, and they tend to do the same for me (Thanks guys for all the help with building my deck this summer !)
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All in All I think i am a pretty good neighbor. We all have our not so nice moments, but i think that is human nature. Hope everyone has come into the new year with little hassle. Talk to you all soon.
~Jon~